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SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL 


DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL CoMMITTEE : S. NEwcoms, Mathematics ; R. S. WoopwaArp, Mechanics ; E. C. PICKERING, As- 
tronomy; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
J. Le Conte, Geology; W. M. Davis, Physiography; O. C. MARsH, Paleontology; W. K. Brooks, 
Invertebrate Zodlogy ; C. HART MERRIAM, Vertebrate Zodlogy ; 8S. H. ScuDDER, Entomology ; 

N. L. Brirron, Botany; HENRY F. OsBoRN, General Biology ; H. P. Bowpircu, 
Physiology ; J. S. Bintines, Hygiene ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; 

DANIEL G. BRINTON, J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


NEW SERIES. VOLUME L. 
un « >) - hrs 


JANUARY TO JUNE, 1895. 


NEW YORK 
41 East Forty-NINTH STREET 
1895 


‘THE NEW ERA PRINTING HOUSE, 
41 NorTH QUEEN STREET, 
LANCASTER, PA. 


ao. | s 


CONBENTS AIND INDEX. 


N.S 


VOL. I—JANUARY TO JUNE, 1895. 


The Names of Contributors are Printed in Small Capitals. 


ABBE, CLEVELAND, The Needs of Meteorology, 181 

Abbot, W. L., Collections from Pamir, 696 

Abel, J. J., Disthyl Sulphide, 113; Trichloride of 
Acetonic Acid, 113; Cachexia Tyreopriva, 114 

Academische Revue, 446 

Academy of Science, New York, 28, 84, 220; BAsH- 
FORD DEAN, 167, 306; J. F. Kemp, 193, 279, 
391, 669, 727; W'LLIAM HALLOocK,447; Texas, 
56, 448, 728; Rochester, 83; Iowa, 111; Indi- 
ana, 221; Michigan, 250; Philadelphia, 251, 
447; National, 449, 477; St. Louis, A. W. Dova- 
LAS, 503; Wisconsin, 728. 

Adams, Frank D., The Laurentian, 63 

Adams, John Couch, Memorial to, 640 

Adler, Herman, Alternating Generations, a Biolog- 
ical Study of Oak Galls and Gall Flies, C. V. 
RILEY, 457 : 

Aeronautical Annual, 56 

Aero-therapeutics, Charles Theodore Williams, 247 

Africa, Map of, 695 

African Folk-Lore and Ethnography, 405 

Agassiz, A., on the Bahamas, 293, 332 

Agricultural Analysis, Harvey W. Wiley, CHARLES 
PLATT, 359 

Agriculture, Bulletin of Cornell University, 276; Notes 
on, Byron D. HAtstTep (I.), 376; (II.), 509; 
(III. ), 680; Civil Service Rules in the Depart- 
ment of, 640 

Alabama, The Chunnenugga Ridge and the Black 
Prairies of, 295 

Alaska, 219; Gold and Coal Resources of, 470 

Aldrich, T. B., Trichloride of Acetonic Acid, 113 

Sms J., Model Engine Construction, R. H. T., 
09 

ALLEN, HARRISON, Pithecanthropus erectus, 239, 299; 
The Classification of Skulls, 381 

Allen, Harrison, Member of Council of Philadelphia 
Academy of Science, 390; retirement of, 555 

ALLEN, J. A., Pocket Gophers, C. Hart Merriam, 
241 ; Pocket Gophers, Vernon Bailey, 689 

Allen, J. A., On the Species of the Genus Reithro- 
dontomys, C. H. M., 720. 

Alternating Generations, Herman Adler, C. V. 
RILeEy, 457 

American, Journal of Science, 112, 195, 308, 420, 
532, 700; Chemical Journal, 139, 196, 308, 420, 
532; J. Eviiorr GILPIN, 642 ; Anthropologist, 
140; Journal of Mathematics, 168, 448; Associ- 
ation, 220, 636; its Table at Wood’s Holl Labora- 
tory, 249; at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 
277; Museum of Natural History, 249; Geolo- 
gist, 252, 336, 420; Journal of Psychology, 280; 
Microscopical Society, 417; Association for the 
Advancement of Physical Education, 418; Cul- 
ture, The Origin of Native, 456; Metrological 


Society, J. K. R., 484; Academy of Medicine, 529; 
Meteorological Journal, 570; University, Gift to 
the, 615 

Amherst, Summer School, 530; State College Entomo- 
logical Department, 555 

Anatomists, The New York Meeting of the Associa- 
tion of American, 295 

Anatomy, 165; the Best Order of Topics in a Two 
Years’ Course in a Medical School, FREDERICK 
HENRY GERRISH, 312 

Andrée §. A., To the North Pole by Balloon, 642 

Animal as a Machine and Prime Mover, R. H. 
THURSTON, 365 

Animals and Plants, The Fundamental Difference 
Between, CHARLES 8. MINOT, 311 

Antelopes, The Book of, P. L. Sclater and Oldfield 
Thomas, C. H. M., 389 

Anthropo-geography, 255 

Anthropological Society, Publications of the German, 
363. 

Anthropology, 26, 27, 218, 278, 640; Current Notes 
on, D. G. BRINTON, New Series (I.), 47; (I1.), 
72; (III. ), 126; (IV.), 253; (V. ), 404; (VIL. ), 455; 
(VII. ), 488; (VIII. ), 544; (IX. ), 649; The Teach- 
ing of, 254 : 

Appalachian Mountain Club, 473 

Apple Failures, Recent, 510 

Archeological News from Switzerland, 456 

Archeology, European, 73; A Deductive Science, 127; 
of Southern Florida, D. G. BRINTON, 207; Ameri- 
can School, 556; American School at Herzeon of 
Argos 556; American Institute of, 615 

Area of Land and Water, 568 

Argon, 55, 417, 444; IRA REMSEN, 309; LoRD 
RAYLEIGH, 701; the preparation of, J. E. GILPIN, 
582 

Arizona, Memorial to Congress, 249 

Arnold, Carl, Repetitorium der Chemie, Epwarp H. 
KEISER, 526 

Art, Primitive, 544 

Aryan Cradle Land, 129 

Ashmead, W. H., Lysiognatha, 560 

Astronomical Society in Brussels, 697, and Physical 
Society of Toronto, THomAs LINDSAY, 573 

Astronomie und Geophysik, Jahrbuch der, 717 

Astronomy, 692; and -Astro-Physies, 56; Native in 
Mexico and Central America, 72; Elements of, 
GEORGE W. PARKER, C. A. Y., 415 

Astrophysical Journal, 56, 168, 224, 336, 474; S. B. 
BARRETT, 615 

Atmosphere, The Earth’s, William Coutie, EpwArD 
Hart, 360 

Attraction Spheres and Centrosomes in Vegetable 
Cells, John H. Schaffner, ALBERT SCHNEIDER, 
189 


Iv. SCIENCE. 


Auk, The, 196 

AUSTEN, PETER T., On Indiscriminate ‘Taking,’ 209 

Ayrton, W. E., and E. A. Medley, Tests of Glow- 
Lamps, T. C. M., 662 


B., D. G., Grundriss der Ethnological Jurisprudenz, 
Albert Herman Post, 25; Ethnologische Studien 
Zur Ersten Entwicklung der Strafe, S. R. Stein- 
metz, 25 

B., J. S., Municipal Government, Albert Shaw, 578 

B., N. L., Flora of Nebraska, 25; Grasses of Ten- 
nessee, Pt. II., F. Lamson Seribner, 55; Field, 
Forest and Garden Botany, Asa Gray, 527; Sys- 
tematic Botany, E. Warming, 550 

B., W. K., Can an Organism Without a Mother be 
Born from an Egg, 162 

Bach, C., Elasticitat und Festigkeit, MANSFIELD 
MERRIMAN, 688 

Bacillus, The Influence of Certain Agents in Destroy- 
ing the Vitality of the Typhoid and Colon, JoHN 
S. Brntrnes and ADELAIDE WARD PECKHAM, 
169 

Bacteriology, Outline of Diary, H. L. Russell, H. W. 
C., 189; A Course of Elementary Practical, A. 
A. Kanthack and I. H. Drysdale, 416 

Bacteriosis of Rutabaga, 509 

BaiLey, L. H., The Plant Individual in the Light of 
Evolution, 281 

Bailey, L. H., 82; Appropriation for Horticultural 
Work, 499; Horticulturalists’ Rule Book, 682 

Bailey, Vernon, Pocket Gophers of the United States, 
J. A. ALLEN, 689 

Baker, Frank, Human Lumbar Vertebree, 531 

BALDWIN, J. MARK, The Social Sense, 236 

Baldwin, J. Mark, Studies from the Princeton 
Psychological Laboratory, 643 

Ball, M. V., Streptococcus pyogenes, 447 

Ball, Valentine, Death of, 723 

Ballard, Harlan H., The World of Nature, Wyatt 
W. RANDALL, 553 

Ballistic Galvanometer and its Use in Magnetic Meas- 
urements, THOMAS GRAY, 533 

Balloon Ascent, 500 

Barber, H. G., Hypatus bachmanni, 560 

Barlow, Alfred E., Huronite, 62 

Barnard College, Site for, 695 

Barograph Record During a Tornado, 320 

BARRETT, 8S. B., Astrophysical Journal, 615 

Base Level, Meaning of the Term, 175 

Bastian, Adolph, Some of his later Writings, 73 

Bastin, Edson §., Laboratory Exercises in Botany, 8. 
E. JELLIFFE, 358 

Bateson, William, Materials for the Study of Varia- 
tion, H. W. Conn, 23 

BAUER, L. A., On the Distribution and the Secular 
Variation of Terrestrial Magnetism, 673 

Bauer, L. A., On the Secular Motion of a Free Mag- 
netic Needle, 671 

Bayley, W. S., Great Gabbro Mass, 65; Contact Phe- 
nomena, 65 : 

Bays and Fiords, Submerged Valleys, 259 

Beal, F. E. L., Food Habits of Woodpeckers, 304 

BEAL, W. J., Teaching Botany, 355 

Bean, Tarleton H., Deep Sea Fishes, 501 

Bearcamp Water, Frank Bolles; W. T. DAvis, 80 

Becker, G. F., Gold Fields, 668 

Bedell, F. and A. C. Crehore, Resonance in Trans- 
former Circuits, 671 

Beet-Leaf Spot, 378 


CONTENTS AND 
INDEX. 


Behrens, H., Anleitung zur Microchemischen An- 
alyse, E. RENOUF, 636 

Bell, Alexander Graham, Gift to Volta Bureau Li- 
brary, 725 

Bell, Robert, Honeycombed Limestones, 67 

Bélopolsky, A., Pulkowa Refractor, 616 

Benton George Willard, A Laboratory Guide for 
a Twenty Weeks’ Course in General Chemistry, 
Wik Ol GTi 

BeRGEY, Dr. D. H., Summary of Conclusions of a 
Report by Drs. D. H. Bergey, 8. Weir Mitchell 
and J. 8S. Billings upon the ‘ Composition of Ex- 
pired Air and Its Effects upon Animal Life,’ 481 

Berlese, A. N., Icones fungorum ad usum Sylloges 
Saccardianz accommodate, JOSEPH F.J AMES, 528 

Bernthsen, A., Text-book of Organic Chemistry, FE- 
LIX LENGFELD, 272 

Berthelot, M., Argon, 444; Banquet in Honor of, 500 

Berthoumieu, M. G. V., Ichneumonidz, 276 

Bertillon, Dr., Identifying Handwriting, 556 

Bertkau, P., and the Review of Entomology, 303 

Bevier Sheet, Report on, Arthur Winslow, J. D. R.,248 

Bibbins, Arthur, Fauna of Potomac Formation, 362 

Bickmore, Albert S., Address by, 695 

BILLINGS, JOHNS., and ADELAIDE WARD PECKHAM, 
The Influence of Certain Agents in Destroying the 
Vitality of the Typhoid and Colon Bacillus, 169; 
A Card Catalogue of Scientific Literature, 406; 
Degeneration, Max Nordau, 465; Summary of Con- 
clusions of a Report by Dr. D. H. Bergey, S. Weir 
Mitchell and J. S. Billings upon The Composition 
of Expired Airand Its Effects upon Animal Life, 
481 

Billings, John S., Retirement of, 583 

Billroth, Prof., Statue of, 668 

Biological, 331, 361 ; Society of Washington, 84, 168; 
F. A. Lucas, 304, 418, 502, 586, 725; M. B. 
WAITE, 334, 531, 698; Laboratory of Cold Spring 
Harbor, 166; Lectures, Delivered at the Marine 
Biological Laboratory of Wood’s Holl, CHARLES 
S. DOLLEY, 244; Wood’s Holl 1894, 418; Lec- 
tures and Addresses, Arthur Milnes Marshall, H. 
W. Conn, 413; Laboratory, The Marine, 516 

Biology, Introduction to Elementary Practical, 
Charles Wright Dodge, H. W. Conn, 78; Section 
of, New York Academy of Science, 84, 167, 306 

Birderaft, Mabel Osgood Wright, C. H. M., 635 

Birds, of Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Wit- 
mer Stone, C. HART MERRIAM, 187; Visitors’ 
Guide to the Local Collection of, inthe Museum of 
Natural History, New York City, Frank M. Chap- 
man, C. HART MERRIAM, 189; of Eastern North 
America, Frank M. Chapman,C. HART MERRIAM, 
437; Land and Game, of New England, H. D. 
Minot; C. H. M., 495; Our Native, of Song and 
Beauty, H. Nehrling, C. H. M., 577; Collection 
of W. E. D. Scott, 722 

Black Knot of Plums and Cherries, 510 

Boas, FRANZ, On Dr. William Townsend Porter’s 
Investigations of the Growth of the School Chil- 
dren of St. Louis, 225; Growth of First-born 
Children, 402 

Boedeker, K., Death of, 364 

Bolles, Frank, At the North of Beareamp Water, W. 
T. Davis, 80 

Bologna, Gold Medal of Academy of Sciences, 693 

Books for Sale, 166 

Bosanquet, R. C.. Craven Studentship, 585 

Boston Society of Natural History, 308, 532, 588 


NEw SERIFS. 
VoLuME I. 


Botanical, Books at Auction, 666; Gazette, 82, 140, 
252, 364, 503, 642; Society of America, 80; 
Society, Italian, 500; Garden Missouri, WM. 
TRELEASE, 716 

Botanists, Directory of Living, 696. 

Botany, Bibliography of American, 139; Teaching, 
W. J. BEAL, 355 ; Laboratory Exercises in, Edson 
S. Bastin, S. E. JELLIFFE, 358; Memoirs from the 
Department of Columbia College, 363; Structural, 
An Introduction to, H. D. Scott, ALBERT SCHNEI- 
DER, 443; Introduction to, Volney M. Spalding, 
W. P. Witson, 496 ; Field, Forest and Garden, 
Asa Gray, N. L. B., 527, Systematic, E. Warm- 
ing, N. L. B., 550 

Bowonircn, H. P., A Card Catalogue of Scientifie Lit- 
erature, 182 

Boyle, David, Primitive Man in Ontario, 218 

BraDBuRY Rospert H., Theoretical Chemistry, W. 
Nernst, 579 

Brauner, B., Argon, 445 

Bray, Wm. L., Amaranthacex, 504 

BRINTON, DANIEL G., The Character and Aims of 
Scientific Investigation, 3; Current Notes on An- 
thropology, New Series (I.), 47; (II. ), 72; (III. ), 
126; (IV.), 253; (V.), 404; (VI.), 455; (VII. ), 
488; (VIII. ), 544; (1X.), 649; American Folk- 
Lore Society, 101; The Archeology of Southern 
Florida, 207; The Pygmies, A de Quatrefages, 
443 

Brinton, Daniel G., A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics, 
27; FREDERICK STARR, 326; Proto-Historie Eth- 
nography of Western Asia, 696 

Brisson’s Genera of Mammals, 1762; C. HART MER- 
RIAM, 375 

British, Association for Advancement of Science, 139, 
472, 556, 637; Astronomical Association, 692; 
Medical Association, 278, 417; Museum, 694 

Britton, N. L., Undescribed Ranunculus, 306 

Brooker, A. and Slingo W., Electrical Engineering 
for Electric Light Artisans and Students, F. B. 
CROCKER, 299 

Brooks, Alfred H., Crystalline Rocks, 669 

Brooks, W. K. An Inherent Error in the Views of 
Galton and Weismann on Variation, 121; Der 
Monismus, Ernst Haeckel, 382 

Brooks, W. K., 166 Environment and Variation, 38 
Sensory Clubs of Certain Ccelenterates, 335; 
Conrad Gesner, 529 

Brorsen, Theodor, Death of, 667 

Brown, Addison, Address by, 82 

Brummer, Johannes, Death of, 473 

Buchan, Alexander, Oceanic Cireulation, 505 

Buchanan, Sir George, Death of, 640 

Buckland, William, The Life and Correspondence of, 
Mrs. Gordon, A. 8. PACKARD, 329 

Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 28, 
336, 392; of the Torrey Botanical Club, 168, 
308; 448, 530, 532; of the St. Petersburg Acad- 
emyof Sciences, 220 

Bumpus, Hermon C. Laboratory Teaching of Large 
Classes Ziology, 41, 260 

Butler, N. M., Addresses, 390, 722 

Butterflies and Moths, W. Furneaux S. H. §., 443 

Byron, John W., Death of, 585 


C., H. W., Dairy Bacteriology, H. L. Russell, 189 

C., J. T., Science in Canada, 379, 628, 653; Sir 
William Dawson, 446 

Caddis-fly in the Permian Beds of Bohemia, 220 


SCIENCE. V. 


California, Appropriation for the University of, 499 ; 
Food-products, 584 

CALKINS, GARY N.y Systematische Phylogenie der 
Protisten und Pflanzen, Ernst Haeckel, 272 

Call, Richard Ellsworth, The Life and Writings of 
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, G. Brown 
GoopeE, 384 

Calvin, 8., Geological Photographs, 390 

Cambridge, University of, 27; Scientific Instrument 
Company, 696 

Cameil, Louis Florentin, Death of, 499 

Can an Organism without a Mother be Born from an 
Egg? W. K. B., 162 

Canada, Science in, J. T. C., 379, 628, 653 

Canadian, International Exposition, 390; Royal So- 
ciety’s Annual Meeting, J. T. C., 653 

Cancer, Treatment of, 583 

Cape Canaveral, The Migration of, 606 

CARHART, Henry S., The Educational and Indus- 
trial Value of Science, 393 

Carniverous Plants, 165 

Carolina, Appropriation for the University of N, 333 

Carter, Surgeon-Major, Death of, 615 

Casey, Thomas L., Retirement of, 584 

Catalogue of Scientific Literature, A Card, H. P. 
BowpitTcu, 182; HENRY ALFRED TopD, 297; W J 
McGEE, 353; and Congress, An International Sci- 
entific, HoRATIO HALE, 324; J. S. BILLINGS, 407 

CATTELL, J. MCKEEN, The Princeton Meeting of the 
American Psychological Association, 42° 

Cattell, J. McKeen, Distribution of Exceptional 
Ability 43; Bodily and Mental Tests, 727 

Catholic University, Washington, Bequest, 556 

Caucasie Linguistic Stock, 455 

Cayley, Arthur, Death of, 166; GEorGE BRucE HAL- 
STED, 450 

Chagas, Manuel Pinheiro, Death of, 615 

‘Challenger,’ Report on, 417 

Chamberlain, Chas. J., Aster Novee-Angli, 643 

Chamberlin, T. C., Glaciation of Newfoundland, 63; 
Recent Glacial Studies in Greenland, 66 

Chambers, G. F., The Story of the Stars, DAvip P. 
Topp, 552 

Chapman, Frank M., Visitors’ Guide -to the Local 
Collection of Birds in the Museum of Natural 
History, New York City, C. HART MERRIAM, 189; 
The Mammals of Florida, F. W. T., 219; A 
Handbook of the Birds of Eastern North America, 
C. HART MERRTAN, 437 

Chapman, T. A., Classification of Butterflies, 663 

Charities and Corrections, Conference of, 530 

Chatelier, H. L., Le Grisou, CHARLES PLATT, 79. 

Chemical, Analysis, Fr. Rudorff, Epwarpd Hart, 
137, Analysis, Qualitative, of Inorganie Sub- 
stances, EpGAR F. Smitu, 415; Society (Lon- 
don), Annual Meeting of, W. W. R., 606 

Chemie, Carl Arnold, EpbwArpD H. KEISER, 526 

Chemischen Dynamik, Eine Discussion der Kriifte 
der, Ludwig Stettenheimer, H. C. JONES, 271 

Chemistry, Organic, Carl Schorlemmer, EpGAR F. 
SmirH, 163; A Laboratory Manual, W. R. Orn- 
dorff, FELIX LENGFELD, 469; A Laboratory Guide, 
George Willard Benton, W. R. O., 611; A Text- 
book of Organic, A. Bernthsen, FELIX LENG- 
FELD, 272; A Short History of, F. P. Venable, 
W. A. NoYes, 469; Theoretical, W. Nernst, Rob- 
ERT H. BRADBURY, 579 

Chester, A. H., Crystals, 700 

Chicago, University of, Degrees, 722 


vi. SCIENCE. 


Childhood, International Congress on, 220. 

Christie, W. H. M., Honorary Freedom of Spectacle 
Company, 641 

CLARK, WILLIAM B., The Geological and Natural 
History Survey of Minnesota, Vol. III., Paleon- 
tology, 658 

Clark, William B., Cretaceous Deposits, 64; Marginal 
Development of the Miocene, 66 

Classification of Skulls, HARRISON ALLEN, 381; G. 
SERGI, 658 

Cleghorn, Hugh Francis Clarke, Death of, 667 

Clouds, The Motion of, 471 

Cold and Snowfall in Arabia, 568 

Coldspring Harbor Laboratory, A. A. A. 8. Tables, 277 

College of the City of New York, Appropriation, 249 

Collet, R., The Norway Lemming, C. H. M., 690 

Color Association with Numerals, E. §. HOLDEN, 576 

Colorado College, Summer School, 722 

Colored Race in the United States, The Future of, 256 

Composition of Expired Air and its Effects upon 
Animal Life, D. H. BerGry, 8S. WEIR MITCHELL, 
J.S. BILLines, 481 

Congrés des Sociétés Sayantes, 613 

Conn, H. W., Materials for the Study of Variation, 
William Bateson, 23; Elementary Practical Biol- 
ogy, Charles Wright Dodge, 78; Biological Lec- 
tures and Addresses, Lectures on the Darwinian 
Theory, Arthur Milnes Marshall, 413 

Connecticut Sandstone Group, C. H. HircHcock, 74 

Conway, William, Karakoram Himalayas, 472 

Cook, A. H., A. E. Shipley, F. R. C. Reed, The Cam- 
bridge Natural History, III., W. H. Dawt, 610 

Coplin, W. M. L., Appointment of, 584 

Coppée, Henry, Death of, 364 

Correspondence, 182, 239, 297, 324, 353, 381, 406, 
433, 457, 490, 519, 546, 575, 608, 632, 656, 682, 
716 

Cotton States and International Exposition, 557 

CovuEs, ELLiorr, The Genus Zaglossus, 610; Ilus- 
trations in the Standard Natural History, 682 

Coues, Elliott, Zebulon Montgomery Pike, 640 

Coutie, William, The Earth’s Atmosphere, EDWARD 
HART, 360 

Coyille, Frederick V., List of Ferns and Flowering 
Plants N. E. United States, 419; A Reply, 504 

Cox, C. F., Diatom Structure, 167 

Coxe, Eckley B., Death of, 585 

Crane, Miss Agnes, Brachiopoda, 555 

Craniology, Publications on, 128; Studies in, 405 

Crawford, A. C., Cachexia Tyreopriva in Dogs, 114 

CROCKER, F. B., Electrical Engineering, W. Slingo 
and A. Brooker, 299 

Croll’s Glacial Theory, 570 

Cross, WHITMAN, Geological Society of Washington, 
558, 668 

Cross, Whitman, The Geology of Cripple Creek, 559 

Crowley’s Ridge, 605 

Cuneiform Inscriptions, 455 

Cunningham, R. H., Photo-Micrography, 167 

Curtis, J. G., Galen’s Treatise on Practical Anatomy 
and Experimental Physiology, 114 

Cushing, H. P., The Faults of Chazy Township, 58 

Cuspate Capes of the Carolina Coast, 605 


DAL, W. H., The Cambridge Natural History, III., 
A. H. Cook, A. E. Shipley, F. R. C. Reed, 610 

Dana, Charles N., Address of, 26 

Dana, James D., 333, 472, 489, 545; A Manual of 
Geology; JOSEPH LE CONTE, 548 


CONTENTS AND 
INDEX. 


Darton, N. H., Peridotite at Dewitt, 65; Sedimentary 
Geology, 66; Salina Formation at De Witt, 700 

Darwin, From the Greeks to, Henry Fairfield Os- 
born; A. S. PACKARD, 21 

Darwinian Theory, Lectures on, Arthur Milnes Mar- 
shall; H. W. Conn, 413 

Darwinism and Race Progress, John Berry Hay- 
craft; Gro. Sv. CLATR, 467 

Davis, W. M., Current Notes on Physiography (I.), 
174 (II.), 257 (III.), 292 (IV.), 318 (V.), 487 
(VI.), 505 (VII.), 568 (VIII), 605 (IX.), 651 
(X.), 678; National Geographic Monographs, 
J. W. Powell, 439; The Education of the Topog- 
rapher, 546 

Davis, W. T., Bearcamp Water, Frank Bolles, 80 

Dawson, George M., Appointment of, 139; Rocky 
Mountains, 700 

DAWSON, SIR WILLIAM, The Rivers of Eden, 575 

Dawson, Sir William, Retirement of, J. T. C., 446 

Deaf and Dumb Institution, New York, 446 

DEAN, Basurorp, The New York Academy of Sci- 
ence, 167, 306 

Deane, Walter, My Herbarium, 503 

Decerebrized, The Frog not Brainless but, Burt 
G. WILDER, 632 

Deer, The Earliest Generic 
C. HART MERRIAM, 208 

Degeneration, Max Nordau, J. 8. BrnLines, 465 

Density and Diameter of Terrestrial Planets, E. S. 
WHEELER, 424 

Desmognathus fusca, The Central Nervous System of, 
Pierre A. Fish, C. H. M., 496 

Detasseling Corn, 510 

Development, National versus Individual, 650 

Deyonian Limestone-Breccia in Southwestern Mis- 

souri. OscAR H@RSHEY, 676 

Dictionary, An Illustrated, of Medicine, Biology and 
Allied Sciences; George M. Gould, 216 

DILLER, J. 8., Scientific Societies of Washington, 586 

Diptheria, The New Serum Treatment of, 48, Milk 
in its Relation to, 164 

Discrimination of Colors, 471 

Distribution of Butterflies, 303; of Animals and 
Plants, Merriam on the, 318; of the Blow Gun, 
WALTER HouGu, 425; Sledges, Oris T. MAson, 
490; and Secular Variation of Terrestrial Mag- 
netism, L. A. BAUER, 673 

Dixon, 8. G., Actinomyces, 447 

Dodge, Charles Wright, Introduction to Elementary 
Practical Biology, H. W. Conn, 78 

Dolbear, A. E., Magnetic Waves, 165 

DOLLEY, CHARLES 8., Biological Lectures delivered 
at the Marine Biological Laboratory, 244 

d’Orleans Duke, Presentation of Collection, 390 

Dorsey, James Owen, W J M, 208 

Douetass, A. W., St. Louis Academy of Science, 503 

Douglass, A. E., Telescope and Dome, 616 

Downing, A. J., Memorial to, 696 

Drysdale, I. H. and A. A. Kanthack, A Course of 
Elementary, Practical Bacteriology, 416 

Dumste, E. T., Volcanic Dust in Texas, 657 

Dumble, E. T., The Cretaceous, 65 

Duner, N. C., Z Hereulis, 474 

Durham, Arthur E., Death of, 640 


Name of an American, 


Earthquakes, 695 

Eaton, Darwin G., death of, 364 

Echidna, The Generic Name of the Three Toed 
T. 8S. PALMER, 518 


New SERIES. 
VoLuME I, 


Eden, Where was the Garden of, D. G. Brinton, 
488; The Rivers of, Str WILLIAM Dawson, 
575 

Educational, Review, 333; National Association, 722 

Egg, Can an Organism without a Mother be Born 
from an, W. K. B., 162 

Egyptian Publications, 694 

Elasticitiit und Festigkeit, C. Bach, 
MERRIMAN, 688 — 

Electric Measure, Legal Units of, T. C. MENDEN- 
HALL, 9 

Electrical, Engineers. American Institute of, 28; 
Street Railways, The Testing of, 217; Engineer- 
ing, W. Slingo and A, Brooker, F. B. CROCKER, 
299; Apparatus, 723 

Eleetriciens, Société Internationale des, 26 

Electricity, and Magnetism, 28; Elementary Lessons 
in; Sylvanus T. Thompson, T. C. M., 187; One 
Hundred Years ago and to-day, Edwin J. Hous- 
ton, T. C. M., 216 

Electrification of Air, LoRD KELVIN, 589 

Electriques, Les Oscillations, H. Poincaré, Mer 
Pupin, 102, 131 

Elevation as. a Cause of Glaciation, 679 

Elihu Thompson Prize, 190, M., 240 

Ellis, Havelock, Normal Psychology, 418 

Elmira Reformatory, 26 

Elsass, Adolf, Death of, 667 

Emotions, 45 

Engine, Construction, Model, J. Alexander, R. H. T. 
109; The Steam and Other Heat Engines, J. A. 
Ewing, R. H. THursTon, 136; Steam and the 
Marine Steam, John Yeo, R. H. THursTON, 328; 
New Quadruple Expansion, 664 

Engineering, Magazine, 82; Education, Proceedings 
of the Society for the Promotion of, R. H. T., 580 

Engineers, American Society of Civil, 84 

Engineer’s Pocket Book, The Mechanical, William 
Kent, R. H. THurRsTON, 634 

Englishmen, the Earliest, 126 

Entomological Society, The New York, 84; of Wash- 
ington, L. O. Howarp, 560, 726 

Entomologists, Daily Post Card, 191; Losses by fire 
among, 303 

Entomology, 191, 220, 277, 303, 663 

Entwickelungsmechanik der Organismen, Archiv fiir, 
110 

Ethics, Program for the School of Applied, 557 

Ethnography of Western Asia, 406 

Ethnological Jurisprudenz, Grundriss der, Albert 
Hermann Post, D. G. B., 25 

Evolution, the Plant Individual in the Light of, 
L. H. BAILeEy, 281 

Ewing, J. A., The Steam Engine and Other Heat 
Engines, R. H. THuRsTON, 136 

Experiment Station Record, 680 


Fairchild, H. L., Glacial Lakes, 61 

Fernald, H. T., Homoplasy, 70 

Ferri, Luigi, Death of, 446 

Finger Prints, 82 

Firth, R. H. Hy giene, 216 

Fish Commissioners Report from Michigan, 361 

Fish, Pierre A., The Central Nervous System of Des- 
mognathus Fusca, C. H. M., 496; Adult Nervous 
System of the Salamander, 335 

Fiske, John, Lectures on Evolution, 499 

Fitch, Robert, death of 

Fleming, M., Stars Having Peculiar Spectra, 616 


MANSFIELD 


SCIENCE. 


Vii. 


Flora of Nebraska, N. L. B., 25; Origin of Our Vernal, 
JOHN HARSBERGER, 92; Harshberger on the 
Origin of Our Vernal, CHARLES ROBERTSON, 371 

"Fly Belt * in Africa, 568 

Feehn-like East Winds in Africa, 570 

Folk-Lore, The American, Society, D. G. Brryton, 
101; New York Branch, WM. B. Turumy, 473 

Fonr: AINE, Wm. M., Mesozoic Plants From Kosuke 
Kii, Awa and Tosa, Metajiro Yokoyoma, 525 

Forestry and Economie Botany, 275; E. F.S. 3007; For- 
estry Association, 586 

Forests and Torrents, 680 

Fossil, Vertebrates of Argentina, 497; Mammals of the 
Puerco Beds, Henry Fairfield Osborn and Charles 
Earle, W. B. Scort, 660. 

Foster’s, Prof. Michael, Abridged Physiology, 724 

Franklin, C. L., The Retina, 46; The Fovea 115 

Franklin, Fabian, Retirement of, 695 

Franklin, W. 8., Magnetic Properties of Iron, 672 

French Opinion, A, 180 

Furneaux, W., Butterflies and Moths, 8. H.S., 443 


Galton’s Method of Isogens, 257 

Galton, Francis, Organic Stability, 498; honorary 
degree, 614 

Gannett, Henry, A Manual of Topographic Methods, 
W. M. Davis, 179; MANSFIELD MERRIMAN, 464 

GANONG, W. F., The Laboratory Teaching of Large 
Classes in Botany, 41, 230 

Ganong, W. F., Cactacez, 503, 643 

Geikie, Sir Archibald, Memoir of Sir Andrew Crom- 
bie Ramsay, JOSEPH LE ConTE, 490; Member of 
Vienna Academy, 724 

Geikie, James, The Great Ice Age and its Relation to 
the Antiquity of Man, W. M. Davis, 260; C. H. 
HitcHcock, 408 

Generic Names of the Three-Toed Echnida, T. §, 
PALMER, 518 

Geographic, Distribution of Life, Laws of Tene 
ture Control of the, 53; Monographs, } National, 
258; J. W. Powell, W. M. DAVIS, 439; Society” 
307; 2 National, Ev PRETT HAYDEN, 501; Annual 
Business Meeting, 665 

Geographica, Biblioteca, 613 

Geographical, Congress, International, 110, 257; 
Prizes, 258; Journals, American, 506; Journals, 
Foreign, 507 

Geographisches Jahrbuch, Wagner’s, 507 

Geologie Atlas of the United States, W. M. DAvis, 
259; J. W. Powell, ANDREW C. LAW. SON, 717 

Geologischer Querschnitt durch die Ostalpen, A, 
Rothpletz, ANDREW C. LAwson, 522 

Geological, Society of America, the Baltimore Meeting 
of the, J. F. Kemp, 57; of Washington, WHITMAN 
Cross, 84, 251, 558, 668; Survey, Appropriations 
for the U. g., 362; of "Maine, 418; The University of 
Kansas, F. H. SNow, 576; Society, 698 

Geology, 219, 278; Manual of, James D. Dana, JOSEPH 
LE Conte, 548; Columbia Department of, 530; 
at the University of Chicago, 725 

Geomorphology of the Southern Appalachians, 176 

GERRISH, FREDERICK HENRY, The Best Order of 
Topics in a Two Years’ Course of Anatomy in a 
Medical School, 312 

Gilbert, G. K., Formation of Lake Basins by Wind, 
59, and F. P. Gulliver, The Tepee Buttes, 59; 
Cretaceous Time, 64; Gravity Measurements, 583 

Git, THEO., The Lowest of the Vertebrates and their 
Origin, 645 


viii. 


Gill, Theo., On the Torpedoes, 502; Ceratodontide, 725 

GILMAN, D. C. Seriptoribus et Lectoribus, Salutem, 2 

Gilman, D. C., Address of, 39, 390 

GILPIN, Extiorr J., The Preparation of Argon, 582; 
The American Chemical Journal, 642 

Gizycki, Georg von, death of, 364 

Glacial Origin of Lake Basins, 651 

Glasgow, Gift to the University, 697 

Glazebrook, R. T., Heat, Light, T. C. MENDENHALL, 
215 

Glogau, G., death of, 446 

Glow Lamps, Tests of, W. E. Ayrton and E. A. Med- 
ley, T. C. M., 662 

GoopE, G. Brown, America’s Relation to the Ad- 
vance of Science, 4; The Life and Writings of 
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, Richard Ells- 
worth Call, 384; The Ideal Index to Scientific 
Literature, 433 

Goode, G. Brown, Deep Sea Fishes, 501, 531; Location 
and Record of Natural Phenomena, 725 

Gophers, Pocket, C. Hart Merriam, J. A. ALLEN, 
241; Vernon Bailey, J. A. ALLEN, 659 

Gordon, Mrs., The Life and Correspondence of Wil- 
liam Buckland, A. 8. PACKARD, 329 

GOULD, B. A.,S. NEwcoms, A. HALL, National Acad- 
emy of Sciences Report of the Watson Trustees 
on the Award of the Watson Medal to Seth C. 
Chandler, 477 

Gould, George M., Illustrated Dictionary of Medi- 
cine, Biology and Allied Sciences, 216 

Graduate Courses, 724 

Graf, Arnold, Leeches, 70; The Excretory System of 
Clepsene and Nephelis, 306 

‘Gran Chaco,’ The Tribes of, 126 

Grant, U.S. and H. V. Winchell, Preliminary Re- 
port on the Rainy Lake Gold Region, 331 

Grasses of Tennessee, Pt. II., F. Lamson Scribner, 
N. L. B., 55 

Gravity Measurements, HERBERT G. OGDEN, 571; 583 

Gray, Asa, Field, Forest and Garden Botany, N. L. 
B., 527. 

Gray, THomMAS, The Ballistic Galvanometer and 
its Use in Magnetic Measurements, 533 

Greene, Andrew H., Historic and Scenic Places, 500 

Greenhill, Alfred George, A Treatise on Hydrostatics; 
R. S. WooDWARD, 269 

Gregory, Richard A., The Planet Earth, T. C. M, 
243 


Grisou Le., H. Le Chatelier, CHARLES PLATT, 79 

Griswold, L. S., Nomenclature of Siliceous Rocks, 62 

Growth, of the School Children of St. Louis, On Dr. 
William Townsend Porter’s Investigations of, 
FRANZ Boas, 225; of First-born Children, 
FRANZ Boas, 402 

Guatamalian Antiquities, 255 


Haeckel, Dr. Ernst, 28; Systematische Phylogenie 
der Protisten und Pflanzen, GARY N. CALKINs, 
272; Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion 
und Wissenschaft; Glaubens Bekenntniss eines 
Naturforschers, W. K. Brooks, 382; DAvip 
STARR JORDAN, 608 

Hageman, S. G., Egyptological Work, 613 

Hale, George E., Solar Corona, 475 

HALE, Horatio, An International Scientific Cata- 
logue and Congress, 324 

Hatt, A., S. Newcoms, B. A. Gounp, National 
Academy of Sciences; Report of the Watson Trus- 
tees on the Watson Medal to Seth C. Chandler, 477 


SCIENCE. 


CONTENTS AND 
INDEX. 


Hall, C. W., The Pre-Cambrian Floor of the North- 
western States, 63 

HALLOcK, WILLIAM, Physics, 247, 248; Physiolog- 
ical Physics, 301; New York Academy of Sciences 
447 

Hallock, William, Photographic Method of Compar- 
ing the State of Vibration of Two Tuning Forks, 
221 

HALSTED Byron D., Notes on Agriculture, (I.), 376; 
(IL.), 509; (III. ), 680 

Halsted, Byron D., English Ivy, 530 

HALSTED, GEORGE BRUCE, Tchébychey, 129; Original 
Research and Creative Authorship the Essence of 
University Teaching, 203; Russian Science Notes, 
277; Arthur Cayley, 450; The International 
Mathematical Congress, 486; James Edward 
Oliver, 544 

Hansen, Hemimerus, 191 

Hanshofer, Karl, Death of, 109 

HARKNESS, WILLIAM, On the the Magnitude of the 
Solar System, 29 

Harrington, Mark W., Rainfall Charts of the United 
States, 319; Climatology, 500 

Harrison, Charles C., Gift to the University of Penn- 
sylvania, 666 

Harrison, J. E., Degree of LL. D., 614 

HARSHBERGER, JOHN, Origin of Our Vernal Flora, 
92 

Harshberger on the Origin of Our Vernal Flora, 
CHARLES ROBERTSON, 371 

HART, EDWARD, Chemical Analysis, Fr. Rudorff, 
137; The Earth’s Atmosphere, William Coutie, 
360 

Hartoe, Marcus, On Certain Habits and Instincts 
of Social Insects, 98 

Harvard University Infirmary, 614 

Haycraft, John Berry, Darwinism and Race Pro- 
gress, GEO. ST. CLAIR, 467 

HAYDEN, EVERETT, National Geographic Society, 501 

Hayes, C. W., Geology of the Cartersville Sheet, 668 

HAZEN, H. A., Magnetism and the Weather, 234 

Heat, R. T. Glazebrook; T. C. M., 215 

Helion, 445, 582 

Helmholtz, H., 55, 333; Memorial, 499, 612, 721, 
HuGo MUNSTERBERG, 547 

Henry Morris, Death of, 641 

Herbarium of Rousseau, 614 

Herrick, C. L., Modern Algedonic Theories, 672; 
Cerebellum, 672 

HERRICK, FRANCIS H., Notes on the Biology of 
the Lobster, 72, 263, 382 

HERSHEY, OSCAR, On a Deyonian Limestone;Breccia 
in Southwestern Missouri, 676 

Hill, R. T., 249, Rica and Panama, 501 

Hirschfeld, Gustay, Death of, 555 

History, of Religions, 27; the Five Books of, J. W. 
POWELL, 157 

Hircucock, C. H., The Connecticut Sandstone Group, 
74; The Great Ice Age and Its Relation to the 
Antiquity of Man, James Geikie, 408 

Hitchcock, C. H, Highland Level Gravels in North- 
ern New England, 60 

Hobbs, W. H., Borneol and Isoborneol, 700 

Hodge, C. F., Growth of Yeast, 116; Daily Activity of 
Animals, 116 

HOLDEN, EDWARD §S., A Large Reflector for the Lick 
Observatory, 457; A General Subject-index to 
Periodical Scientific Literature, 520; Color Asso 
ciation with Numerals, 576 


NEW SERIES. 
VoLumeE I. 


Holden, Edward S., Mars, 529; Decoration, 615 

Holm, Theo., Gdema of Violet Leaves, 354 

Horticultural Congress, 697 

Horticulturalists’ Rule-Book, L. H. Bailey, 682 

Horticulture, Electro, 376 

Hospitals, The Cooling of, 192 

HovuGuH, WALTER, Distribution of Blow Gun, 425 

Houston, Edwin J., Electricity One Hundred Years 
Ago and To-day, T. C. M., 216 

Howanrp, L. O., Entomological Society of Washing- 
ton, 560, 726 

Howard, L. O., Some New Seale Parasites, 560 

Howe, Henry Marion, Bessemer Gold Medal, 586 

Howe, JAMES Lewis, The Liquefaction of Gases— 
A Controversy, 542 

Hubbard, Gardiner G., Russia, 555, 686 

Huber, G. Carl, Loss of Nerve Substance in Periphe- 
ral Nerves, 117 

Hudson River Palisades, 530 

Huggins, William, Modern Spectroscope, 615 

Hulke, J. W., Death of, 304 

Humanities, The, J. W. POWELL, 15 

Humphrey, J. E., Cell Literature, 643 

Hyatt, ALPHEvs, The Laboratory Teaching of Large 
Classes, 197 

Hydrostaties, A Treatise on, Alfred George Greenhill, 
R. 8S. Woopwarp, 269 

Hygiene, 48, I. Lane Notter and R. H. Firth, 216 


Ice Age, The Great, and its Relation to the Antiquity 
of Man, James Geikie, C. H. HircuHcock, 408 
Icones fungorum ad usum Sylloges Saccardianz Ac- 
commodate, A. N. Berlese, JOSEPH F. JAMES, 
528 

IHERING, H. von, On Marine Mollusks from the Pam- 
pean Formation, 421 

Tllustrations in the Standard Natural History, ELLI- 
orr Coves, C. HART MERRIAM, 682 

Index, Medicus, 109; Ideal, to Scientific Literature, 
G. Brown GOODE, 433 

Indiana Academy of Science, 221 : 

Indiscriminate ‘ Taking,’ PETER T. AUSTEN, 209 

Infectious Diseases, Explanation of Acquired Immu- 
nity from, GEORGE M. STERNBERG, 346 

Ingen, C. van, Cambrian Faunas, 670 

Inheritance, A Dynamical Hypothesis of, JoHN A. 
RypeER, (I.), 597; (II.), 617 

Initial Capital, Use of the, in Specific Names of 
Plants, F. H. KNowLTon, 423 

Insect Life, 584 

Insects, On Certain Habits and Instincts of Social, 
Marcus HARTOG, 98 

Instinct, Lloyd Morgan upon, H. F. O., 712 

Institution of Naval Architects, 499 

Intestinal Fluke, New Species of, 276 

Introductory Note, W. M. Davis, 174 

Invention, The Evolution of, O. T. MAson, 50; Sim- 
ilar, in Areas Wide Apart, O. T. MASON, 235 

Iowa Academy of Sciences, 111 

Tron Mountain Sheet, Arthur Winslow, J. D. R. 
330 


JAMES, JoserpH F., Descriptions des ravageurs de la 
vigne, Henri Jolicoeur, 527; Icones fungorum 
ad usum Sylloges Saccardiane Accommodate, 
A. N. Berlese, 528 

James, Joseph F., Daimonelix and Allied Fossil, 420; 

James, W., Unity of Consciousness, 44 

Janet, Ch., Myrmica rubra, 303 


SCIENCE. sd 


Japan, Journal of the University, 696 

Japanese, The Ethnic Affiliations of, 47 

JELLIFFE, S. E., Laboratory Exercises in Botany, Ed- 
son S. Bastin, 358 

Jenny, W. P., fossil plants, 137 

Jewell, Lewis E., Spectrum of Mars, 475 

John Dalton and the Rise of Modern Chemistry, Sir 
Henry E. Roscoe, EDWARD H. KEISER, 686 

Johns Hopkins University, Circular, 166; Degrees, 
695; Appointments in, 697; Prize, 723 ; Lectures 
at, 723; Giftsin Memory of Prof. George H. Wil- 
liams, 723 

John, J. P. D., Resignation of, 615 

Joint Commission of the Scientific Societies of Wash- 
ington, 333; program of the, 390 

Jolicceeur, Henri, Descriptions des ravageurs de la 
vigne, JOSEPH F. JAMES, 527 

Jones, H. C., Eine Discussion der Kriifte der Chem- 
ischen Dynamik, Ludwig Stettenheimer, 271 

JORDAN, DAvrp STARR, Haeckel’s Monism, 608 

Journal, of the American Chemical Society, 252, 280, 
392; of Geology, 252, 448; of Morphology, 335; 
of Comparative Neurology, 672 

Julius, P., Systematic Survey of the Organic Coloring 
Matters, IRA REMSEN, 186 


Kansas, Permo-Carboniferous and Permian Rocks 
of, CHARLES S. PRrosseR, 275; University Field 
Work of, 500 

Kanthack, A. A. and I. H. Drysdale, A Course of 
Elementary Practical Biology, Including Bacteri- 
ological Analyses and Chemistry, 416 

Karakoram Himalayas, 472 

KEELER, JAMES E., Spectroscopic Observations of 
Saturn at the Allegheny Observatory, 519. 

Keeler, James E., Saturn, 616 

KEISER, Epwarp H., Repetitoriam der Chemie, 
Carl Arnold, 526; John Dalton and the Rise of 
Modern Chemistry, Sir Henry E. Roscoe, 686 

Keith, Arthur, The Appalachians, 58 

KELVIN, Lorp, On the Electrification of Air; On the 
Thermal Conductivity of Rocks at Different Tem- 
peratures, 589 

Kelvin, Lord, Popular Lectures and Addresses, 
T. C. MENDENHALL, Vol. II., Geology and Gen- 
eral Physics, 50 

Kemp, G. T., Extraction of Blood Gases, 117 

Kemp, J. F., The Baltimore Meeting of the Geo- 
logical Society of America, 57; The New York 
Academy of Sciences, 193, 279, 391, 669, 727 

Kemp, J. F., Crystalline Limestones, 63; Petrography 
of Peridotite at DeWitt, 65; Iron Ore Bodies, 669 

Kent, William, The Mechanical Engineer’s Pocket 
Book, R. H. THurston, 634 

Keyes, Charles R., The Ozark Uplift, 59 

Kingsley, J. S., Bibliographical Project, 39; Pauro- 
pida, 71 

Kirkwood, Daniel, Death of, 694 

KNOWLTON, F. H., Use of the Initial Capital in Spe- 
cific Names of Plants, 423 

Konig, Arthur, Discrimination of Colors, 471 

Kriifte der Chemischen Dynamik, H. C. JONEs, 
271 

Kreider, D. A., Perchlorie Acid, 700 

Kulz, Prof., Death of, 220 

KiimMeL, Henry B., Some Meandering Rivers of 
Wisconsin, 714 

Kundt, death of, 55 

Kunz, George F., 109; Seals, 279 


bth SCIENCE. 


Laboratory Teaching of Large Classes, ALPHEUS 
Hyatt, 40, 197; In Botany, W. F. GANONG, 
230; Zoology, HERMON C. Bumpus, 260 

Ladd, G. T., Double Consciousness, 43; Ethical Semi- 

nary, 723 

Lagoa Santa, ERWIN F. Situ, 510 

Lake Superior Mining Institute Excursion, 418 

Lake Zurich, the Origin of, 651 

Land-Birds and Game Birds of New England, H. D. 
Minot, C. H. M., 495 

Landes und Volkeskunde, Forschungen zur Deutsch- 
es, 508 

Lane, ‘Alfred C., The Relation of Grain to Distance 
from Margin in Certain Rocks, 61; Crystalized 
Slags from Copper Smelting, 62 

Langley, S P., Hodgkin Fund "Prizes, 109 

Language, the ‘Origin of, 404 

Lankester, E. Ray, Lectures at Royal Institution, 614 

Latitude, ‘Variation of, J. K. Rens, 561 

Lauth, Prof., Death of, 304 

Lavoisier, Monument to, 697 

Lawrence, George N., Death of, C. Hart MER- 
RIAM, 268 

Law Schools of New York, 557 

LAwson, ANDREW C., Die Ost Alpen, A. Rothpletz, 
522; Geologic Atlas of the United States, 717 

Leaming, Edward, Micro-photographs, 167 

Lr Conte, JOSEPH, Memoir of Sir Andrew Crombie 
Ramsay, Sir Archibald Geikie, 490; A Manual of 
Geology, James D. Dana, 548 

LEE, FREDRICK §., Carl Ludwig, 630 

Lee, Frederick §., Equilibrium in Fishes, 118; Ap- 
pointment of, 585 

Leidy, Joseph, Bust of, 724 

Lemming, The Norway, R. Collett, C. H. M.,690 

LENGFELD, FELIX, Organie Chemistry, A. Bernthsen, 
272; A Laboratory Manual in Organic Chemistry, 
W. R. Orndorff, 469 

Ley’s Cloudland, 678 

Libraries of New York, 304, 555 

Library Building at Harvard University, 417 

Lick Observatory, A Large Reflector for, EDWARD S. 
HOLDEN, 457; 555 

Light, R. T., Glazebrook, T. C. M., 215 

Lillie, Frank, Embryology of the Unionidiz, 335 

Lindgren, Waldemar, Gold Quartz Veins, 68 

LinpsAy, THOMAS, The Astronomical and Physical 
Society of Toronto, 573 

Linnean Society, 83, 696 

Liquefaction of Gases—A Controversy, JAMES LEWIS 
Howe, 542 

Lister, Sir Joseph, Presentation of Albert Medal, 


Lobachéysky, Nicolai Ivanovich, A. Vasiliev, ALEX- 
ANDER ZIWET, 356 

Lobster, Notes on the Biology of, FRANCIS H. HER- 
RICK, 263, 382 

Loey, William A., Primitive Metamerism, 68; Pineal 
Sense Organ, 69 

Locusts in Cyprus, 446 

LOMBARD, WARREN P., Proceedings of the American 
Physiological Society, 113 

Lombard, Dr., Death of, 249 

Lotsy, J ohn ee Gift of Herbarium, 723 

Low, President Seth, A City University, 528; Gift to 
Columbia College, 504 

Lowest of the Vertebrates and their Origin, THEo. 
GILL, 645 

Lowell, Perciy al, Mars, 529, 616, 640 


CONTENTS AND 
INDEX. 


Lucas, F. A., Biological Society of Washington, 304, 
418, 502, 586, 725 

Lucas, F. A., Abnormal Feet of Mammals, 305 

Ludwig, Carl, Death of, 528; FREDERIC S. LER, 
630 

Lydekker, Richard, The Royal Natural History, C. 
HART MERRIAM, 387 


M., The Elihu Thompson Prize, 240 

M., C. H., The Book of Antelopes, P. L. Sclater and 
” Oldfield Thomas, 389; The Land Birds and Game 
Birds of New England, H. D. Minot, 495; Des- 
mognathus fusca, Pierre A. Fish, 496; Our Native 
Birds, H. Nehrling, 577; Birdcratt, Mabel Osgood 
Wright, 635; The - Ornithology of Hlinois, Robert 
Ridgway, 661; The Norway Lemming, R. Col- 
lett, 690; The Genus Reithrodontomys, J. A. AL- 
LEN, 720 

M., T. C., Elementary Lessons in Electricity and 
Magnetism, Sylvanus P. Thompson, 187; Elec- 
tricity, One Hundred Years Ago and To-day, 
Edwin J. Houston, 216; The Planet Earth, 
Richard A. Gregory, 243; Loss of Professor 
Milne’s Seismological Apparatus, Library and 
Collection, 431; The Physical Review, 475; Tests 
of Glow Lamps, W. E. Ayrton and 'E. A. Med- 
ley, 662 

M, W J, James Owen Dorsey, 208 

McCuintock, Emory, Past and Present of the 
American Mathematical Society, 85 

McDonald, J. Donnell, Expedition of, 139 

McDonald, W. C., Gift to McGill University, 555 

McGerx, W J, A Catalogue of Scientific Literature, 
353 

McGee, W J, Geology of Arizona, 59; Topoyraph- 
ical Development of Sonora, 568 

MeMurrick, J. Playfair, A Text-Book of Inver- 
tebrate Morphology, A. S. PACKARD, 493, 632 

Macdonald, A., Sensitiveness to Pain, 43 

MacFarlane A., on the Units of Light and Radiation, 
248; Space Analysis, 302 

Mackenzie, A. S., Attraction of Crystalline and Iso- 
tropic Masses, 475 

MACMILLAN Conway, The Scientific Method and 
Modern Intellectual Life, 537 

Magnetic Waves, 165 

Magnetism and the Weather, H. A. HAZEN, 234 

Malarial Map of Italy, 556 

Mammals, Brisson’s Genera of, C. HART MERRIAM, 
375; of Florida, F. W. T., 219 

Marine Biological Laboratory, 516 

Markham, Clemens R., Antarctic Expedition, 557. 

Marshall, Arthur Milnes, Biological Lectures and 
Addresses, Lectures on the Darwinian Theory, 
H. W. Conn, 413 

Martin T. C., Herman von Helmholtz 333 

Mason, O. T., Similar Inventions in Areas Wide 
Apart, 235; The Distribution of Sledges, 490 

Mason, O. T., Origin of Culture, 640 

Masouty, General de, death of, 390 

Mathematical, Society, Past and Present of the Ameri- 
can, Emory McCuiyTocK, 85; Annual Meeting 
of the American, 110; The International Con- 
gress, 110; GEORGE BRUCE HALSTEAD, 486; 
Papers for the, at Kazan, 664 

Mathematics, American J ournal of, 168, 448 

Matter, The’ World of, Harlan H. Ballard, Wy ArT 
W. RANDALL, 553 

Matthew, W. D., Effusive and Dike Rocks, 670 


New SERTEs. 
VoLumE I. 


Matthews, A. P., Pancreatic Cell, 71, 118; Excretory 
Nerves, 118 

Matthews, Edward B., Granites of Pike’s Peak, 62 

Mayan Hieroglyphics, Daniel G. Brinton, FREDERICK 
STARR, 326 

Mazamas, 499 

Maze, Abbe, Meteorological Observations, 501 

Mearns, Edgar A., Hares of Mexican Border, 698 

Mechanics, A Treatise on Theoretical, Alexander 
Ziwet, R. S. W., 20; An Historical Survey of the 
Science of, R. S. Woopwarp, 141 

Medical Schools, 556, 695; Journals in Russia, 584. 

Mediterranean, The Eastern, 506 

Medley, E. A., and W. E. Ayrton, Tests of Glow 
Lamps, T. C. M., 662 

Meehan, Thomas, Carniverous Plants, 165 

Meissel, E. D. F., death of, 500 

Meltzer, S. J., Cardio-cesophagogeal movements, 118 

MENDENHALL, T. C., Legal Units of Electric Meas- 
ure, 9; Popular Lectures and Addresses, Vol. IL., 
Geology and Physics, Lord Kelvin, 50; Heat, 
Light, R. T. Glazebrook, 215 

Mental Development in the Child and in the Race, 
28 


MERRIAM, C. Hart, Zodlogical Nomenclature, 18; 
Unity of Nomenclature in Zodlogy and Botany, 
161; Birds of Eastern Pennsylvania and New 
Jersey, Witmer Stone, 187; Birds in the Museum 
of Natural History, New York City, Frank M. 
Chapman, 189; The Earliest Generic Name of an 
American_Deer, 208; Brisson’s Genera of Mam- 
mals, 378; The Royal Natural History, Richard 
Lyddecker, 387; Birds of Eastern North America, 
Frank M. Chapman, 437; The Illustrations in the 
Standard Natural History, 682 

Merriam, C. Hart, Environment and Variation, 38; 
Temperature and Distribution, 53; Monographic 
Reyision of the Pocket Gophers, J. A. ALLEN, 
241; Distribution of Plants and Animals, 318; 
Mammals of the Pribilof Islands, 698; Short 
Tailed Shrews, 725 

MERRIMAN, MANSFIELD, A Manual of Topographic 
Method, Henry Gannett, 464; Elasticitat und 
Festigkeit, C. Bach, 688 

Merritt, Ernest, Absorption of Certain Crystals in the 
Infra-Red, 671 

Mesopotamian Culture, The Antiquity of, 254 

Mesozoic Flora of Portugal compared with that of the 
United States, LESTER F. WARD, 337 

Mesozoic Plants from Kosuka Kii, Awa and Tosa, 
Metajiro Yokoyama, WM. M. FONTAINE, 525 

Meteorological Reports, Argentine, 321 

Météorologique, Bureau Centrale, 678 

Meteorologische Zeitschrift, 569 

Meteorology, The Needs of, CLEVELAND ABBE, 181; 
A. L. Rotcu, 302 

Mexican Boundary, Remarking the, O., 349 

Mexican National Exhibition, 390 

Meyer, Lothar von, death of, 530 

Michigan, Academy of Sciences, 250; Bequest to the 
University, 584 

Microchemischen Analyse, Anleitung zur, H. Beh- 
rens, E. RENOUF, 636 

Microscopical Society of Washington, 641; New Jer- 
sey State, 699 

Mills, Wesley T., Psychic Development of Young 
Animals, 43; Cortex of the Brain, 118 

Mineralogical Club, New York, 474 

Minerva, 27 


SCIENCE. Xi. 


Minnesota, Academy of Sciences, 473, 588; Publica- 
tions of, 218; Fortnightly Scientific Club, Uni- 
versity of Minnesota, 251; Grant to the Medical 
Department of the University, 584 

MINoT, CHARLES §., The Fundamental Difference 
between Animals and Plants, 311 

Minot Charles S., Work of the Naturalist in the 
World, 39, 530; Olfactory Lobe, 70; The Structu- 
ral Plan of the Human Brain, 249 

Minot, H. D., Land Birds and Game Birds of New 
England, C. H. M., 70, 495 

‘Missing Link’ Found at Last, 47 

Mississippi, Origin of, 294; Local Displacement of, 487 

Missouri Botanical Garden, 638 

MITCHELL, 8. WErR, Summary of Conclusions of a 
Report by Drs. D. H. Bergey, 8. Weir Mitchell 
and J. S. Billings upon ‘The Composition of 
Expired Air and its Effeets upon Animal Life,’ 
481 

Mole, Brewer’s, The Proper Scientific Name for, 
FREDERICK W. TRUE, 101 

Mollusks, On Marine, from the Pampean Formation, 
H. VON IHERING, 421 

Monistic Creed, The Tyranny of the, W. K. Brooks, 
382 

Montague Hyman, Death of, 304 

MontTGoMERY, HENRY, Volcanic Dust in Utah and 
Colorado, 656 

More, A. G., Death of, 473 

Morgan, C. Lloyd, Lectures on Instinct, 693 

Morgan, T. H., Unsegmented Eggs of Sea Urchins, 
71 

Morphologie der Erdoberfliiche, Penck’s, 508 

Morphology, A Text-book of Invertebrate, J. Play- 
fair McMurrick, A. 8. PACKARD, 493, 632 

Mother, Can an Organism without a, be Born from an 
Egg, W. K. B., 162 

Munich, The Region about, 652 

Municipal Government in Great Britain, Albert 
Shaw, J. S. B., 578 

MUNSTERBERG, HuGO, Helmholtz Memorial, 547, 612 

Murray, John, Report on Challenger, 417; Honorary 
Degree, 697 

Muscardine, Disease of Chinch Bugs, 509 


Naples Zodlogical Station, 249; American Students at 
the, H. F. OsBorN, 238 

National Academy of Sciences, 449; Report of the 
Watson Trustees on the Award of the Watson 
Medal to Seth C. Chandler, 8. Newcoms, B. A. 
GouLp, A. HALL, 477 

National, University, A Proposed, 278, Ethnological 
Exposition, 499 

Natural History, Boston Society of, 84; The Royal, 
Richard Lydekker, C. HART MERRIAM, 387; 
667; The Cambridge, III., A. H. Cook, A. E. 
Shipley F. R. C. Reed, W. H. DAL, 610 

Natural Science, 498 

Naturalists, The Baltimore Meeting of the American 
Society of, W. A. SETCHELL, 34; Philadelphia 
place of next meeting, 499; German Society of, 
556; Directory, 695 

Naturforscher und Aerzte, Versammlung der Gesell- 
schaft deutscher, 82 

Nehrling, H., Our Native Birds of Song and Beauty, 
C. H. M., 577 

Nernst, W., Theoretical Chemistry, 
BRADBURY, 579 

Neumann, Franz, Death of, 668 


Ropert H. 


Xil. 


New Books, 28, 56, 84, 112, 140, 168, 196, 224, 252, 
280, 308, 336, 364, 392, 420, 448, 476, 504, 532, 
560, 588, 616, 644, 728 

Newark System, ISRAEL C. RUSSELL, 266 

Newbold, W. R., Associate Editor, 390 

NeEwcomp, S., To Our Readers, 1; B. A. GouLp, A. 
HALL; National Academy of Sciences, Report of 
the Watson Trustees on the Award of the Watson 
Medal to Seth C. Chandler, 477 

Newcomb, Simon, Associate of Académie des Sciences 
724. 

Newell’s Report on Agriculture by Irrigation, 258 

Newell, H. F., Argon, 616 

Newton, John, Death of, 528 

New York, Academy of Sciences, 28, 84, 220; BASH- 
FORD DEAN, 167, 306; J. F. Kemp, 193, 279, 
391, 669, 727; Annual Reception of, HENRY F. 
OsBoRN, 321; WILLIAM HALLOocK, 447; Gift to 
the University of the City of, 640 

Nichols, E. S., and Mary C. Spencer, Influence of 
Temperature on Transparency of Solutions, 476 

Nomenclature, Zodlogical, C. HART MERRIAN, 18; 
Unity of, in Zodlogy and Botany, C. HArRt 
MERRIAM, 161 

Nordau, Max, Degeneration, JOHN S. BILLINGS, 465 

North Dakota State University, 417 

Notes and News, 26, 55, 80, 109, 137, 164, 190, 217, 
249, 275, 303, 331, 361, 390, 416, 444, 470, 497, 
528, 554, 581, 612, 636, 663, 692, 721 

Notter, I. Lane, Hygiene, 216 

Noyes, W. A., A Short History of Chemistry, F. P. 
Venable, 469 


O., Remarking the Mexican Boundary, 349 

O., H. F., Joints in the Vertebrate Skeleton, 581; 
Lloyd Morgan upon Instinct, 712 

O., W. R., Laboratory Guide, General Chemistry, 
George Willard Benton, 611 

Oceanic Circulation, Buchan’s Challenger Report 505 

ODGEN, HERBERT G., Gravity Measurements, 571 

Oliver, James Edward, GEORGE BRUCE HALSTED, 544 

Onomatology, American, 72 

Organic Coloring Matters, A Systematic Survey of, 
G. Schultz and P. Julius, IRA REMSEN, 186 

Original Research and Creative Authorship the Es- 
sence of University Teaching, GEORGE BRUCE 
HALSTED, 203 

Orndorff, W. R., A Laboratory Manual Arranged to 
Accompany Remsen’s Organic Chemistry, FELIX 
LENGFELD, 469 

Ornithology of Illinois, Descriptive Catalogue, Rob- 
ert Ridgway, C. H. M., 661 

Orthoptera, The Need of a Change of Base in the 
Study of North American, SAmuEL H. Scup- 
DER, 19 

OSBORN, HENRY FAIRFIELD, American Students at 
the Naples Zodlogical Station, 238; Annual Re- 
ception of the New York Academy, 321 

Osborn, Henry Fairfield, From the Greeks to Darwin, 
A. §. PACKARD, 21; Environment and Varia- 
tion, 35, and Charles Earle, Fossil Mammals of 
Puerco Beds, W. B. Scorr, 660 

Owen, Richard, The Life of, Rey. Richard Owen, A. 
S. PACKARD, 209 

Oxford, University of, 27, 640, 697 

Oysters asa Means of Transmitting Typhoid Fever, 49 


PACKARD, A. §., From the Greeks to Darwin, Henry 
Fairfield Osborn, 21; The Life of Richard Owen, 


SCIENCE. 


CONTENTS AND 
INDEX. 


Rev. Richard Owen, 209; The Life and Corre- 
spondence of William Buckland, Mrs. Gor- 
don, 329; Invertebrate Morphology, J. Playfair 
MeMunrick, 493, 652 

Packard, A. S., Observations on Siphonaptera, 191 

Paleobotany, 137 

Paleontology, 445, The Geological and Natural His- 
tory Survey of Minnesota, Vol. III., WILLIAM 
B. CLARK, 659 

PAuMeER, T.S., The Generic Name of the Three-toed 
Echidna, 518 

Parker, George W., Elements of Astronomy, C. A. Y., 
415 

Parkman, Francis, Memorial to, 304 

Paronymy, The Progress of, BURT G. WILDER, 515 

Passaic, The Extinct Lake, 487 

Payer, Julius von, Expedition for Polar Research, 640 

Pear Blight,-M. B. WArtE, 721 

Pearson, D. K., Gift to Mt. Holyoke College, 667 

Peary Relief Expedition, 614 

Peck, Dr., Death of, 500 

PECKHAM, ADELAIDE WARD, and J. S. BILLINGs, 
The Influence of Certain Agents in Destroying 
the Vitality of the Typhoid and of the Colon 
Bacillus, 169 

Peckham, Mr. and Mrs., Spiders, 191 

Penck’s Morphologie der Erdoberfliiche, 508 

Peruvian Civilization, The Sources of, 650 

Pestalozzi, Letters of, 697 

Pfaff, Franz, Rhus toxicodendron and Rhus venenata, 
119 

Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, 251, 447 

Philips, Jr. Henry, death of, 697 

Philosophical Society of Washington, 251, 307 

Physical Education, Association, 530 

Physical Review, 28, 55, 139, 364; T. C. M., 475, 670 

Physics, 26, 55; WILLIAM HALLOCK, 247 

Physiography, Current Notes on, W. M. Davis (I.), 
174; (IL), 257; (IIL. ), 292; (IV. ), 318; (W-.), 4875 
(VI.), 505; (VIL. ), 568; (VIII. ), 605; (IX), 651; 
(X), 678 

Physiological Physics, WILLIAM HALLOCK, 301 

Physiological Society, Proceedings of the American, 
WARREN P. LOMBARD, 113 

Physiologie, Dictionaire de, 110 

Physiology, An American Textbook of, 110; Interna- 
tional Congress of, 697 

Pickering, E. C., T Andromede, 474; Eclipse of 
Jupiter’s Fourth Satellite, 475 

Pithecanthropus erectus, 193; HARRISON ALLEN, 239, 
299 

Plains, Winslow’s Explanation of the Missouri, 178 

Planet Earth, Richard A. Gregory, T. C. M., 243 

Plants, Length of Vessels in, ERWIN F. SMITH, 77 

PLATT, CHARLES, Le Grisou, H. Le Chatelier, 79; 
Agricultural Analysis, Harvey W. Wiley, 359 

Poincaré, H., Les oscillations Glectriques, M. I. 
PuPIN, 102; II., 131 

Popular Lectures and Addresses, Vol. II., Geology 
and General Physics, Lord Kelvin, T. C. MEN- 
DENHALL, 50 

Popular Science Monthly, 336, 529, 530 

Porter, W. T., Physiology of Respiration, 119 

Posepny, Franz, Death of, 530 

Positions in Toronto, Application for, 694 

Post, Albert Hermann, Grundriss der Ethnologischen 
Jurisprudenz, D. G. BRINTON, 25 

POWELL, J. W., The Humanities, 15; The Five Books 
of History, 157 


_ iil 


New SERIES 
Votume I. 


Powell, J. W., National Geographic Monographs, W. 
M. Davis, 439; History of Culture, 640; Geo- 
logic Atlas of the United States, ANDREW C. 
LAWSON, 717 

Pre-historic Tribes of the Eastern United States, 256 

Preservation of Animals and Plants, 640 

Price, James, Death of, 585 

Price, L. L., The Colleges of Oxford and Agricultural 
Depression, 697 

Prosser, Charles S., Permo- Carboniferous and Per- 
mian Rocks of Kansas, 275 

Protolenus Fauna, 452 

Psyche, 196, 448 

Psychological, Association, The Princeton Meeting of 
the American, J. MCKEEN CATTELL, 42; Re- 
view, 55, 82, 335, 643; Index, 473 

Psychology, At Chicago, 81; E. B. TITCHENER, 426 

Publications of the University of Wisconsin, 279 

Publishers’ Circular, 109 

Pupry, M. I., Les oscillations électriques, H. Poin- 

earé, 102, IT. 131 

Pupin, M. I., Automatic Vacuum Pump, 221 

Purdue University, 585 

Pygmies, A de Quatrefages, D. G. BRINTON, 443 


Quatrefages, A. de, The Pygimes, D. G. BRINTON, 443 
Quick, R. W., C. D. Child, B. S. Lamphear, Ther- 
mal Conductivity of Copper, 670 


R., J. D., Bevier Sheet, Arthur Winslow, 248; Iron 
Mountain Sheet, Arthur Winslow, 330 

R., J. K., American Metrological Society, 484 

Rk. W. W., Annual Meeting of the Chemical Society 
(London), 606 

Raffalovich, M. A., Uranism, 672 

Rafinesque, The Life and Writings of Constantine 
Samuel, Richard Ellsworth Call, G. Brown 
GOODE, 384 

Rainfall, Charts of the United States, Harrington’s, 
319; Central American, 569 

Rainy Lake Gold Region, H. V. Winchell and U. 8. 
Grant, 331 

Ramsay, Memoir of Sir Andrew Crombie, Sir Archi- 
bald Geikie, JosEPH LECONTE, 490 

RAMSAY, Pror, Helion, 582 

RANDALL, Wyatt W., The World of Matter, Harlan, 
H. Ballard, 553 

Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 304 

RAYLEIGH, Lorp, Argon, 701 

Rayleigh, Lord, Waves and Vibrations, 304; Faraday 
Medal, 418 

Readers, To Our, S. NEwcome, 1 

Redfield Memorial, 470 

Rees, J. K., Variation of Latitude, 561 

Rees, J. K., Penumbree of Sun Spots, 221; Astron- 
omy during 1894, 447; Geodetic Theodite, 727 

Reforestation, The Specious Term, 321 

Regressian and Organic Stability, 498 

Reid, Harry Fairfield, Variations of Glaciers, 60 

Reighard, Jacob, The Wall-eyed Pike, Artificial 
Fertilization, 361 

Reithrodontomys, The Genus, J, A. Allen, C. H. M., 
720 

Religious Symbolism, The Analogies of, 47 

REMSEN, IRA, Systematic Survey of the Organic 
Coloring Matters, Drs. G. Schultz and P. Julius, 
186; Argon, 309 

pen, Ira, Colorides of Orthosulphobenzoie acid, 

9 


SCIENCE. 


xiii. 


RENOUF, E., Anleitung zur Microchemischen Analyse, 
H. Behrens, 636 

Research, Degrees for, 614 

Ridgway, Robert, The Ornithology of Illinois; De- 
seriptive Catalogue, C. H. M., 661 

Ries, Heinrich, Harrison Granite, 279 

RIvey, C. V., Alternating Generations, Herman Ad- 
ler, 457 

Ritual Calendar of Central America, 649 

Rivers, Graded, 176; Some Meandering of Wisconsin, 
HENRY B. Ki'MMEL, 714 

ROBERTSON, CHARLES, Harshberger on the Origin 
of Our Vernal Flora, 371 

Robertson, Charles, Flowers and Insects, 503 

Rochester Academy of Science, 83 

Rockhill, W. W., Delegate to the International Geo- 
graphical Congress, 667 

Roscoe, Sir Henry E., John Dalton and the Rise of 
Modern Chemistry, EDWARD H. KEISER. 686 

Rotcn, A. L., Meteorology, 302 

Rothpletz, A., Die Ost Alpen, ANDREW C. LAWson, 
522 

Rowland, H. A., New Forms of Galvanometers, 120; 
Solar Spectrum Wave Length, 474, 616 

Royal Society, 362, 557, 585,- 612, 614; Meteorolog- 
ical Society, 529; Botanical Society, 586, 694; In- 
stitution, 692; Astronomical Society, 639; Geo- 
graphical Society, 665, 694; Institute of London, 
446 

Royce, Josiah, Psychology of Imitation, 44, 643 

Rudorf, Fr., An Introduction to Chemical Analysis 
for Beginners, EDWARD HART, 137 

Runic Inscriptions in Eastern America, 488 

Russell, H. L., Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, H. W. 
C., 189 

RvusSELL, ISRAEL C., The Newark System, 266 

Ruschenberger, William 8. W., Death of, 417 

Russian Science Notes, GEORGE BRUCE HALSTED, 
277 

Russian Thistle, 377 

RYDER, JoHN A., A Dynamical Hypothesis of In- 
heritance, 597, II. 617; 

Ryder, John A., Death of, 417; Unpublished MSS. of, 
500; Meeting in Memory of, 613 


S. E. F., Biltmore, 557 

S. H. S., Butterflies and Moths, W. Furneaux, 443 

Sachsse, Rob, death of 615 

St. Andrew’s University, 446 

Sr. CLATR, GEO., Darwinism and Race Progress, John 
Berry Haycraft, 467 

St. John’s River, New Brunswick, History of, 294 

St. Louis Academy of Science, A. W. DouGLAs, 503 

St. Paul Academy of Science, 473 

SALIsBuRY, ROLLIN D., The Water Supply; Geolog- 
ical Survey of New Jersey, Cornelius Clarkson, 
Vermeule, 684 

Salisbury, Rollin D., Surface Formations of Southern 
New Jersey, 67 

Sanford, E. C., Psychological Studies, 42 

Saturn, Spectroscopic Observations of, JAMEs E. 
KEELER, 519 

Savory, Sir William, Death of, 364 

Schaffner, John H., The Nature and Distribution of 
Attraction Spheres and Centrosomes in Vege- 
table Cells, ALBERT SCHNEIDER, 189 

Schermerhorn, W. C., Gift to Columbia College, 
554 

Schmidt, E. E., Member of Prussian Academy, 446 


X1y. 


Schmidt’s, Dr. Emil, Recent Works, 406 

Schmitz, F. N., Death of, 279 

SCHNEIDER, ALBERT, Attraction Spheres and Cen- 
trosomes in Vegetable Cells. John H. Schaff- 
ner, 189. An Introduction to Structural Botany, 
H. D. Scott, 443 

Schneider, Albert, Rhizobea, 306 

Schorlemmer Carl, The Rise and Development of Or- 
ganic Chemistry, EDGAR F. SMITH, 163 

Schultz, G., Systematic Survey of Organic Coloring 
Matter, IRA REMSEN, 186 

‘Science,’ 352 

Science, America’s Relation to the Advance of, G. 
Brown GoopeE, 4; (popular), Articles on, 81, 
303; The Nature of, and its Relation to Philo- 
sophy, E. W. ScRIPTURE, 350; In Canada, J. T. 
C., 379, 628, 653; The Educational and Indus- 
trial Value of, HENRY 8. CARHART, 393; 

Scientific, Investigation, The Character and Aims of, 
DANIEL G. BRINTON, 3: Literature, 20, 50, 78, 
102, 131, 162, 186, 209, 241, 269, 299, 326, 356, 
382, 408, 437, 457, 490, 522, 548, 577, 610, 634, 
658, 684, 717; Societies, of Washington, 26; Sec- 
retaries of, 499; J. S. DILLER, 586; Joint Com- 
mission, 333; Journals, 28, 82, 112, 139, 168, 195, 
224, 251, 280, 308, 335, 364, 392, 420, 448, 474, 
503, 532, 615, 642, 670, 700; Method and Modern 
Intellectual Life, CONWAY MACMILLAN, 537. 

Sclater, P. H., and Oldfield Thomas, The Book of 
Antelopes, C. H. M., 389 

Scott, D. H., An Introduction to Structural Botany, 
ALBERT SCHNEIDER, 443 

Scorr, W. B., Fossil Mammals of the Puerco Beds, 
Henry Fairfield Osborn and Charles Earle, 660 

Seribner, F. Lamson, Grasses of Tennesse, N. L. B. 
55 

Seriptoribus et Lectoribus, Salutem, D. C. GILMAN, 2 

Scripture, E. W., The Nature of Science and its 
Relation to Philosophy, 350 

Scripture, E. W., Lecture on Psychology, 722 

ScuDpDER, 8. H., The Need of a Change of Base in the 
Study of North American Orthoptera, 19 

Seebohn, Henry, Eggs of British Birds, 529 

Seeley, H. G., Skeleton of Pareiasaurus Baini, 331 

Seeley, H. J.. Reputed Mammals from Karroo For- 
mation, 445 

Seelye, J. M., Death of, 583 

Seismological, Apparatus, Library and Collection, 
Loss of Professor Milne’s, T. C. M. 431; Society 
in Rome, 697 

SERGI, G., The Classification of Skulls, 658 

SETCHELL, W. A., The Baltimore Meeting of the 
American Society of Naturalists, 34 

Shaler N. 8., Lower Silurian Limestones, 58 

Shaw, Albert, Municipal Government in Great Brit- 
ain, J. S. B., 578 

Sheldon, Samuel, H. W. Litch and A. N. Shaw, Elec- 
trolytic Condensers, 670 

Shepard, Willam A., death of, 668 

Shields, T. E., Apparatus for Plethysmographic Study 
of Odors, 120 

Simpson, Charles T., Naiad Classification, 419; Geo- 
graphical Distribution of Naiades, 587 

Skeleton, Variations in the Human, 253 

Skulls, Classification of, HARRISON ALLEN, 381, G. 
SERGI, 658 

Slingo, W., and A. Brooker, Electrical Engineering, 
for Electric Light Artisans and Students, F. B. 
CROCKER, 299 


SCIENCE. 


CONTENTS AND 
INDEX. 


SmitH, EpGAR F., Organic Chemistry, Carl Schor- 
_ lemmer, 163; The Qualitative Chemical Analysis 

of Inorganic Substances, 415 

SmitH, Erwin F., Length of Vessels in Plants, 77; 
Lagoa Santa, 510 

Smith Erwin F., Nomenclature Question, 587; Biol- 
ogy of Bacillus-tracheiphilus, 699; Associate edi- 
tor, 724 

Smith, John B., A Flat-headed Borer, 27 

Smith, Theo., Entero-hepatitis of Turkeys, 531 

Smyth, C. H., Crystalline Limestone, 63 

Smyth, E. A., Jr., Hawks and Owls, 276 

Soil treatment of Orchards, 577 

Snow, F. H, Kansas, State Geological Survey, 376 

Social Sense, J. MARK BALDWIN, 236 

Société, Internationale des Electricians, 26 

Societies and Academies, 28, 56, 83, 110, 166, 193, 
220, 250, 279, 304, 334, 391, 418, 447, 473, 501, 
531, 558, 586, 668, 698, 725 

Society of Naturalists, The Baltimore Meeting of the 
American, W. A. SETCHELL, 34 

Sociology, Am. Jour. of, 722 

Solar System, On the Magnitude of the, WILLIAM 
HARKNESS, 29 

South American Tribes and Languages, 457 

Space Analysis, 302 

Spalding, Volney M., Introduction to Botany, W. P. 
WILSON, 496 

Spectroscopic, Observations of Saturn, JAMES E. 
KEELER, 519 

Spelzeological Society, 544 

Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, Degree, 724 

Spencer, Herbert, Professional Institutions, 499 

Spencer, J. W., Geographical Evolution of Cuba, 59 

Stanford University, 585, 667 

STARR FREDERICK, A. Primer of Mayan Heiro- 
glyphics, Daniel G. Brinton, 326 

Starr, Frederick, Notes on Mexican Archeology, 219 

Stars, The Story of, G. F. Chambers, DAvip P. Topp 
552 

Steinmetz, S. R., Ethnologische Studien zur ersten 
Entwicklung der Strafe, D. G. B., 25 

Steam Power and Mill Work, Geo. W. Sutcliffe, 
R. H. T., 581 

STERNBERG, GEORGE M., Explanation of Acquired 
Immunity from Infectious Diseases, 346 

Sternberg, George M., Explanation of Natural Im- 
munity, 121; President of Association of Mili- 
tary Surgeons, 530 

Stettenheimer, Dr. Ludwig, Eine Discussion der 
Kriifte der chemischen Dynamik, H. C. JONEs, 
271 

Stevenson, J. J., Pennsylvania Anthracite, 391 

Stiles, C. W., Cestodes, 68, 334, 419 

Stone Age, Divisions of the, 254 

Stone Age, Subdivisions of, 404 

Stone, Witmer, The Birds of Eastern Pennsylvania 
and New Jersey, C. HART MERRIAM, 187 

Strate, Ethnologische Studien zur erster Entwicklung 
der, 8. R. Steinmetz, D. G. B., 25 

Strasburger, Eduard, Botany in Germany, 642 

Strong, O. §., The Use of Formalin in Golgi’s 
Method, 166; Cranial Nerves of Amphibia, 
335 : 

Stumpf, Carl, Member of Prussian Academy, 446 

Subject Index, A General, to Periodical Scientific 
Literature, EDWARD 8S. HOLDEN, 520 

Surface Currents of the Great Lakes, 505 

Survey of Michigan, 219 


New SERIES. 
VoLemeE I. 


Sutcliffe, Geo. W., Steam Power and Mill Work, 
R. H. T., 581 

Sutherland, Charles, Death of, 585 

Swinburne, Ralph, Death of, 697 

Syracuse University, Appointments in, 696; Gift to, 
722 

Systematische Phylogenie der Protisten und Pflan- 
zen, Ernst Haeckel, GARY N. CALKINS, 272 


T., F. W., The Mammals of Florida, 219 

T., R. H., Society for the Promotion of Engineering 
Education, 580; Steam Power and Mill Work, 
George W. Sutcliffe, 581 

Tarns of the English Lake District, 652 

Tartars, The Orotchi, 254 

Tchébychev, GEORGE BRUCE HALSTED, 129 

Teaching Botany, W. J. BEAL, 355 

Technologisches, Worterbuch, 363 

Telescope, for Berlin Industrial Exhibition, 333; for 
American University, 557 

Temperature. Control, Laws of, of the Geographic 
Distribution of Life, 53 

Tesla, Nikola, Laboratory destroyed by fire, 390 

Texas Academy of Science, 56, 448, 728; Volcanic 
Dust in, H. W. TURNER, 453 

The Evolution of Invention, 50 

Thermal Conductivity of Rock at Different Tempera- 
tures, LORD KELVIN, 596 

Thiersch, Carl, Death of, 584 

Thomas, Oldfield, and P. L. Sclater, The Book of 
Antelopes, C. H. M., 389 

Thompson, Sylvanus P.; Elementary Lessons in 
Electricity and Magnetism, T. C. M., 187. 

Thomson, E., Inter-communication among Wolves, 

Tuurston, R. H., Model Engine Construction, J. 
ALEXANDER, 109; The Steam Engine and Other 
Heat Engines, J. A. Ewing, 136; Steam and the 
Marine Steam Engine, John Yeo, 328; The Ani- 
mal as a Machine and Prime Mover, 365; The 
Mechanical Engineer’s Pocket Book, 634 

Thurston, R. H., Debt to Inventors, 641 

TITCHENER, E. B., Psychology, 426 

Toads on the Seashore, FREDERICK W. TRUE, 166 

Topp, DAvip P., The Story of the Stars, G. F. Cham- 
bers, 552 

Topp, HENRY ALFRED, A Card Catalogue of Scien- 
tifie Literature, 297 

Todd, J. E., South Dakota Geological Survey, 219 

Tomsa, Dr., Death of, 556 

Topographer, MANSFIELD MERRIMAN, 464; The Ed- 
ucation of, W. M. DAvis, 546 

Topographic Methods, Gannett’s Manual of, 179 

Topographical Atlas, 138 

Torrey Botanical Club, 28 

Tree and the Cone, 650 

TRELEASE, WM., Missouri Botanical Garden, 716 

Trouvelot, Léopold, Death of, 585 

TRUE, FREDERICK W., The Proper Scientific Name 
for Brewer’s Mole, 101; Toads on the Seashore, 
166 


~ Tsetsauit, 218 


Tubereular Consumption, Prize for Best Essay, 27 

Tuke, D. Hack, Death of, 304 

TURNER, H. W., Volcanic Dust in Texas, 453 

TUTHILL, WM. B., New York Branch American Folk- 
Lore Society, 473 


Uline, Edwin B., Amaranthacez, 504 
Units of Light and Radiation, A Macfarlane, 248 


SCIENCE. XV. 


University Extension, 724 

Upham, Warren, Discrimination of Glacial Accumu- 
lation and Invasion, 60; Climatic Conditions, 61; 

Uplift of the Existing Appalachians, 180 


Van Gieson, Ira, Formalin, 167 

Vannic Language, 128 

Variation, Materials for the Study of, William Bate- 
son, H. W. Conn, 23; An Inherent Error in the 
Views of Galton and Weismann on, W. K. 
Brooks, 121; in Crabs, 498; of Latitude, J. 
K. REEs, 561; Mechanical Interpretation of, 638 

Vasiliev, A., Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachéysky, ALEX— 
ANDER ZIWET, 356 

Vegetation of the Ancient World, 138 

Venable, F. P., History of Chemistry, W. A. Noyes, 
469 

Vermeule, Cornelius Clarkson, Water Supply; Geo- 
logical Survey, New Jersey, RoLLIn D. SA.ts- 
BURY, 684 e 

Vertebrate paleontology, Field exploration, 693 

Vertebrate Skeleton, H. F. O., 581 

Victoria Institute of London, 472, 667 

Vienna, Academy of Sciences, Bequest, 278; Histor- 
ical Exhibition, 303 

Vigne, Description des Ravageurs de la, Henri Joli- 
eceur, JOSEPH F. JAMES, 527 

Vogel, H. C., Spectra of the Planets, 474 

Vogt, Carl, death of, 555 

Voleanic Dust, In Texas, H. W. Turner, 453; In 
Utah and Colorado, HENRY MONTGOMERY; 656 
In Texas, E. T. DUMBLE, 657 


W., R.S., Theoretical Mechanics, Alexander Ziwet, 20 
WAITE, M. B., The Biological Society of Washington, 
334, 531, 698; Remedy for Pear Blight, 721 

Waite, M. B., Flora of Washington, 305 

Walcott, Charles D., Appalachian Type of Folding, 
58; Lower Cambrian Rocks, 64; Bigsby Medal 
Awarded, 304; U. 8. Geological Survey, 530 

Waldo, Frank, Wind Velocities, 700 

Waltenwyl, Brunner von, Monographie der Pseudo- 
phylliden, 663 

Walter, Miss Emma, Delaware Water Gap, 390 

WARD, LESTER F., The Mesozoic Flora of Portugal 
compared with that of United States, 337 

Ward, Lester F., Vegetation of the Ancient World, 
138; Marquis Saporta, 390; Red Hills and Sand 
Hills of South Carolina, 669; Gama Grass, 725 

Warming, E., A Handbook of Systematic Botany, 
N. L. B., 550 

Washburn, L. F., Laboratory Studies, 696 

Water Supply, Geological Survey of New Jersey, 
Cornelius Clarkson Vermeule, ROLLIN D. SALIs- 
BURY, 684 

Weather Service, New York State, 320 

Weed Seeds in Winter Winds, 509 

Weed, Walter H., and Louis V. Pirsson, Geology of 
the High Wood Mountains, Montana, 59; The 
Shonkin Sag, 559 

Weidman, Samuel, Quartz-keratophyre, 67 

Weierstrass, Prof., Election of, 363 

Weights and Measures, 304 

Welding of Iron, 332 ; 

Weldon, Prof., Variation, 27 

Wellington, Arthur M., Death of, 614 

WHEELER, E. S., Density and Diameter of Terrestrial 
Planets, 424 

Wheeler, Dr., Fertilization, 335 


Xvi. 


White, David, The Pottsville Series 64 

White, Gilbert, Natural History of Selbourne, 614 

Whitfield, R. P., New Forms of Marine Algae, 67 

Whiting, Harold, death of, 667 

Whitman, C. O., Utilities of Biology, 641 

WILDER, Burt G., The Progress of Paronymy, 515; 
The Frog was not Brainless, but Decerebrized, 632 

Wiley, Harvey W., Principles and Practice of Agri- 
cultural Analysis, CHARLES PLATT, 359 

Willey, Arthur, Amphioxus, 645 

Williams, Charles Theodore, Aero-therapeuties, 247; 

Williams College, bequest to, 584; 

Williams, George Huntington, Memorial to, 219, 723 

Williams, H. S., Devonian Fossils, 64 

Williams, H. W., Death of, 724 

Williston, 8S. W., North American Diptera, 362 

Wilson, E. B., Environment and Variation, 38; Cen- 
trosomes, 69; Polarity of the Egg in Toxopneus- 
tes, 69; Fertilization, 335; Atlas of Fertilization 
and Karyokinesis, 666 

WILSON, W. P., Introduction to Botany, Volney M. 
Spalding, 496 

Winchel, H. V., and U. 8. Grant, Rainy Lake Gold 
Region, 331 

Wine and Beer, Consumption of, 165 

Winslow, Arthur, the Bevier Sheet, J. D. R. 248; the 
Tron Mountain Sheet, J. D. R., 330 i 

Winter Storms in the North Sea, 679 

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, 
728 % 

Women at Oxford, 473 

Wood’s Holl, Biological Lectures Delivered at the 
Marine Biological Laboratory, CHARLES S. DoL- 
LEY, 244; Biological Laboratory, A. A. A. S. 


ERRATA :—p. 144, col. 2, line 34: for these, read three. 
p. 212, col. 1, line 11: for plan, read phase. 
p. 457, col. 2, line 23: for cinipide, read Cynipide. 


Maupertuis. 
p. 334, col. 1, line 23: for Styles, read Stiles. 


SCIENCE. 


CONTENTS AND 
INDEX. 


Tables at, 249; Biological Lectures for 1894, 
418 

Woopwarp, R. 8., An Historical Survey of the Sci- 
ence of Mechanics, 141; A Treatise on Hydro- 
statics, Alfred George Greenhill, 269 

Woodward, R. S., Condition of the Interior of the 
Earth, 193; Smithsonian Geographical Tables, 
292; Variation of Latitude, 638 

Wortman, J. L., Devil’s Corkscrews, 306 

Wright, Frederick G., Glacial Phenomena, 60 

Wright, Mable Osgood, Birderaft, A Field Book of 
Two Hundred, Song, Game and Water Birds, C. 
H. M., 635 

Wylie, Theophilus A., Death of, 723 


Y., C. A., Elements of Astronomy, George W. Parker, 
415 

Yeo, John, Steam and the Marine Steam Engine, R. 
H. THURSTON, 328 

Yokoyoma, Metajiro, Mesozoic Plants from Kosuke, 
Kai, Awa and Tosa, WM. M. FONTAINE, 525 


Zaglossus, The Genus, ELLIOTT Cours, 610 _ 

ZIWET, ALEXANDER, Nicolai Iv4novich Lobachéy-. 
sky, A. Vasiliev, 356 

Ziwet, Alexander, An Elementary Treatise on Theor- 
etical Mechanics, R. S. W. 20; Card Catalogue, 
557 

Zoological Nomenclature, C. HART MERRIAM, 18; 
Picture Puzzle, 55; Congress, International, 217, 
585; Station, American Students at the Naples, 
H. F. OsBorn, 238; Garden in New York, 446, 
530; Zodlogical Society, German, 500; London, 
586 


p. 153, col. 2, line 59: for Maupertius, read 
p. 213, col. 1, line 13: for cooking, read working. 


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CONTENTS: 
To Our Readers: S. NEWCOMB. ............---- 1 
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The Character and Aims of Scientific Investigation : 


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Zoilogical Nomenclature: C. HART MERRIAM....18 


The Need of a Change of Base in the Study of North 
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Scientific Literature :—........+4. Seo eaaie prin 20 
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— 


2 SCIENCE. 


meetings than by anything contained in the 
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At the present day one of the aspects of 
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(N.S. Vou. I. No. 1. 

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ing. There are noteworthy exceptions 
among men of the first rank. Dr. Asa 
Gray, the botanist, could say what he had 


JANUARY 4, 1895.] 


to say in a clear and interesting manner, 
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icist, could write paragraphs and verses 
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“Tf to do were as easy as to know what were good to 
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were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty 
to follow mine own teaching.’’ 


D. C. GiuMaAn. 


JOHNS HopKINS UNIVERSITY. 


THE CHARACTER AND AIMS OF SCIENTIFIC 
INVESTIGATION.* 

Tue influence of this Association is in the 
highest and best sense of the word educa- 
tional. Its discussions are aimed to present 
the correct methods of scientific investiga- 
tion and to be guided by the true spirit of 
scientific inquiry. Permit me to explain 
this statement a little, for in it lies more 
than anywhere else the right to existence 


*From the introductory address of Dr. Daniel G. 
Brinton, President of the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science, at the annual meeting in 
Brooklyn, August, 1894. 


SCIENCE. 3 


of our organization and the best effects it 
can exert upon its own members or upon a 
community where it convenes. 

The goal which we endeavor to attain is 
scientific truth, the one test of which is that 
it will bear untrammelled and unlimited 
investigation. Such truth must be not only 
verified, but always verifiable. It must 
welcome every test; it must recoil from no 
criticism, higher or lower, from no analysis 
and no skepticism. It challenges them all. 
It asks for no aid from faith; it appeals to 
no authority ; it relies on the dictum of no 
master. 

The evidence, and the only evidence, to 
which it appeals or which it admits, is that 
which is in the power of every one to judge 
—that which is furnished directly by the 
senses. It deals with the actual world 
about us, its objective realities and present 
activities, and does not relegate the inquirer 
to dusty precedents or the mouldy maxims 
of commentators. The only conditions 
which it enjoins are that the imperfections 
of the senses shall be corrected as far as 
possible, and that their observations shall 
be interpreted by the laws of logical induc- 
tion. 

Its aims are distinctly beneficent. Its 
spirit is that of charity and human kind- 
ness. From its peaceful victories it returns 
laden with richer spoils than ever did war- 
rior of old. Through its discoveries the 
hungry are fed and the naked are clothed 
by an improved agriculture and an in- 
creased food supply ; the dark hours are de- 
prived of their gloom through methods of 
ampler illumination; man is brought into 
friendly contact with man through means 
of rapid transportation ; sickness is dimin- 
ished and pain relieved by the conquests of 
chemistry and biology; the winter wind is 
shorn of its sharpness by the geologist’s 
discovery of a mineral fuel; and so on, in 
a thousand ways, the comfort of our daily 
lives and the pleasurable employment of 


ds SCIENCE. 


our faculties are increased by the adminis- 
trations of science. 

Scientific truth has likewise this trait of 
its own; it is absolutely open to the world ; 
it is as free as air, as visible as light. 
There is no such thing about it as an inner 
secret, a mysterious gnosis, shared by the 
favored few, the select illuminati, concealed 
from the vulgar horde, or masked to them 
under ambiguous terms. Wherever you 
find mystery, concealment, occultism, you 
may be sure that the spirit of science does 
not dwell and, what is more, that it would 
be an unwelcome intruder. Such preten- 
sions belong to pseudo-science, to science 
falsely so called, shutting itself out of the 
light because it is afraid of the light. 

Again, that spirit of science which we 
cultivate and represent is at once modest 
in its own claims and liberal to the claims 
of others. The first lesson which every 
sound student learns is to follow his facts 
and not to lead them. New facts teach 
him new conclusions. His opinions of to- 
day must be modified by the learning of the 
morrow. He is at all times ready and 
willing to abandon a position when further 
investigation shows that it is probably in- 
correctly taken. He is in this the reverse 
of the opinionated man, the hobby rider 
and the dogmatist. The despair of a scien- 
tific assemblage is the member with a pet 
theory, with a fixed idea, which he is bound 
to obtrude and defend in the face of facts. 
Yet even toward him we are called upon 
to exercise our toleration and our charity; 
for the history of learning has repeatedly 
shown that from just such wayward enthu- 
siasts solid knowledge has derived some of 
its richest contributions. So supreme, after 
all, is energy, that error itself, pursued 
with fervid devotion, yields a more bountiful 
harvest than truth languidly cultivated. 

But, perhaps, the picture I have thus 
drawn of the spirit of scientific inquiry 
excites in the minds of some a certain 


[N. 8S: Vou. I. No. 1. 


antipathy, or, at least, a sense of dissatisfae- 
tion and incompleteness. To such this 
description may sound narrow and material- 
istic; the results of scientific study thus 
rehearsed may appear vague, indefinite, in- 
competent to satisfy the loftier yearnings 
of the soul of man for something utterly 
true, immutably real. 

Vain, indeed, were the life work of our 
Association; bereft, indeed, were we of 
just claim on your consideration, did we 
appear before you with such a thankless 
and futile confession of the ultimate aim of 
our labor. But itis far, very far, otherwise. 

All this prying into the objective, ex- 
ternal aspect of things; this minute, pains- 
taking study of phenomena; this reiterated 
revision and rejection of results, are with 
the single aim of discovering those absolute 
laws of motion and life and mind which 
are ubiquitous and eternal; which bear 
unimpeachable witness to the unity and the 
simplicity of the plan of the universe, and 
which reveal with sun-clear distinctness 
that unchangeable order which presides 
over all natural processes. 

This is the mission of science—noble, in- 
spiring, consolatory ; lifting the mind above 
the gross contacts of life; presenting aims 
which are at once practical, humanitarian 
and spiritually elevating. 

Dantev G.Brryton. 

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


AMERICA’S RELATION TO THE ADVANCE 
OF SCIENCE.* 

“Ty art and science there is no such thing 
as nationalism: these, like all things great 
and good belong, to the entire world, and are 
promoted only by free interchange of ideas 
among contemporaries, with constant refer- 
ence to the heritage of the past.” So wrote 


*From What has been done in America for Science— 
an Address delivered before the Philosophical Society 
of Washington, November 24, 1894, by G. BRowNn 
GOODE, retiring President. 


JANUARY 4, 1895. ] 


Goethe in his Spriiche in Prosa. 
present address I have spoken, not of 
“American Science,’ but of what has been 
done in America for science. I have sum- 
marized the work accomplished in the 
study of the physical conditions and bio- 
logical statistics of two great continents. I 
have shown that our countrymen have 
made important contributions to exact 
knowledge in every one of its departments 
from astronomy to anthropology, and that, 
contrary to general belief, these have been 
chiefly in pure science rather than in the 
application of science. Most of our Ameri- 
can advances in economie science, with the 
exception of those in the field of electricity, 
have consisted in multifarious adaptation 
and bold application of principles and meth- 
ods first made known in Europe. Except 
in ingenious mechanical inventions, Ameri- 
cans have done little in connection with ap- 
plied science that is strikingly new or great. 

It is not, however, by determinate con- 
tributions to the aggregate of human knowl- 
edge that America has aided most largely 
the advance of science. It has been in a 
manner vastly more subtle and far-reaching, 
through the action of an intellectual leaven 
which has imbued the thought of all man- 
kind. 

America has always afforded to scientific 
workers a most sympathetic and apprecia- 
tive audience—even at periods in her his- 
tory when she has been producing the least 
at home. When Auguste Comte was young 
he intended, it is said, to seek a career on 
this side of the sea, but was dissuaded by a 
friend, who assured him that if Lagrange 
himself were to come to the United States 
he could only earn his livelihood by turning 
land surveyor. This was absurdly false, 
for in that very year Laplace’s Mécanique 
Céleste was being translated, for the first 
and only time into English, by Nathaniel 
Bowditch, whose service to science, which 
was more important through his commen- 


In the, 


SCIENCE. 5 


taries than his translation, was fully ap- 
preciated even during his own lifetime, and 
who has ever since been esteemed one of the 
most distinguished of our countrymen. 

European science has always been more 
warmly appreciated by our people than con- 
temporary European literature, and men 
like Lyell, Huxley Wallace and Tyndall, 
when they have come among us, have re- 
ceived the most enthusiastic welcome, and 
their books have been consumed in much 
larger editions than at home, and not with- 
out becoming royalties to their authors. 

Many others have come to us, not in pros- 
perity but through necessity, and were none 
the less heartily weleomed—Gallatin, Hass- 
ler, Priestly, Cooper, Bernard, Duponceau, 
Cupont de Nemours, Nicollet, Rau and 
others. 

Humboldt wrote in 1807 : 

‘“* During five years passed in the Spanish 
colonies of America a few French emigrants 
we found at Nueva Valencia, in Guatemala, 
were the only ones we saw. Beyond the 
Atlantic the United States of America af- 
ford the only asylum to misfortune. A 
government, strong because it is free, con- 
fiding because it is just, has nothing to fear 
from giving refuge to the proscribed.’’* 

Priestly, who had been forced to with- 
draw from the Royal Society, called Amer- 
ica ‘The Land of the future,’ and Richard 
Price, in the midst of the Revolution, one 
of the most popular men in England, in de- 
clining the invitation of Congress to remove 
to this country wrote : ‘‘ The United States 
is now the hope and likely soon to become 
the refuge of mankind.” 

There is even more to be said concerning 
the influence of our people upon the thought 
and practice of the Old World. 

The liberal policy of our State and Na- 
tional governments toward many branches 
of scientific work is well understood abroad, 
and has had an influence, especially in en- 


* Personal Narrative, Vol. ii., Chapter I. 


6 SCIENCE. 


couraging the publication of dignified and 
well illustrated reports upon the results of 
scientifie exploration and research. 

An illustration of the popular apprecia- 
tion of knowledge in this country is to 
be found in the growth of libraries, and 
in the increasing volume of the stream of 
books, new and old, which pass constantly 
to the westward across the Atlantic. 

Augustine Birrell, M. P., in an address at 
Dumfermline, Scotland, has presented some 
most astounding statistics in regard to books 
and libraries. He said that in the public 
libraries of Europe there are twenty-one 
million printed volumes; in those of Aus- 
tralia, one million more, while those of 
America contain fifty millions—more than 


twice aS many as in all the rest of the 


world.* 

The mere possession of books does not in 
itself count for much, but the eagerness to 
acquire the means of research, not books 
only, but all other instruments and appli- 
ances for intellectual progress, is very sig- 
nificant. It should be remarked also that 
this tendency, so far as the public at large 
is concerned, has not become very evident 
until within the last third of the present 
century. 

There is a relationship still more funda- 
mental between America and the advance of 
science, to which only a passing allusion is 
proper here. 

I refer to the reflex action of democratic 
institutions upon those of the Old World— 
to the influence of human freedom, practi- 
cally demonstrated upon American soil, 
upon the freedom of the people in our 
parent lands. 

It was one thing for men like Priestley to 
fly hither for personal liberty. It was quite 

* Pall Mall Gazette, September, 1891. The esti- 
mate is perhaps somewhat extreme, though the offi- 
cial return of public libraries in the United States 
(excluding the other American republics and the col- 


onies ) show nearly 32,000,000 books in public libraries 
of over one thousand volumes. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 1. 


another for Coleridge and Southey to plan 
for the founding of a pantisocracy on the 
banks of the Susquehanna, and then to re- 
main at home with Wordsworth and pro- 
mote human freedom by their writings, or 
for Price to denounce the oppression of the 
American colonies as an outrage against 
liberty, and thus to secure from the people 
of London, who presented him with the 
freedom of their city, an assurance of sym- 
pathy among their English kinsmen, which 
encouraged the colonists to declare their in- 
dependence. If, at the time of the Great 
Exodus, the men who organized the Royal 
Society of London had carried out their 
purpose of removing in a body to Connecti- 
cut, there to found an academy of sciences, 
the higher learning would have been re- 
tarded, not advanced. 

It is almost impossible for us to under- 
stand the manner in which even now free- 
dom of thought and action is burdened 
in the Old World by the weight of feudal 
traditions and by the existence of class dis- 
tinctions and privileges. Americans surely 
do not understand, but that quick-witted 
race of Orientals, the Japanese, have done 
so from the very time when they ap- 
plied themselves seriously to the task of 
making their own what is best in the 
civilization of the cireum-Atlantie peoples. 
To England they went for ideas about 
a navy and for lighthouses, to Germany 
for a system of government, for military 
instruction and for medicine, and to France 
for a code of laws. In matters of edu- 
cation, however, they’ have chosen from 
the very start to be guided by Ameri-- 
cans ;* their keen perception teaching them 
that, whatever may be its defects in de- 
tail, the American educational plan is that 
which in some form or other is certain 


*Their postal system, their telegraphic code and 
their meteorological service are also purely American 
in origin, as well as such foreign agricultural methods 
as they may have adopted. 


74 


JANUARY 4, 1895. ] 


to be adopted by every free people, and to 
work mighty changes in traditional, social 
and governmental systems. Not less sig- 
nificant, perhaps, in the same connection is 
the present attitude of Pope Leo XIII. 
and his counsellors in regard to educa- 
tional movements in the United States. 

The condition of affairs in Germany up 
to quite a recent day, as shown in Virchow’s 
address to the Congress of German Natural- 
ists in 1872, seems almost incredible. 

Describing the organization of that so- 
ciety, fifty years before, he said: 

“*Not perhaps at the dead of night, but still beneath 
the veil of secrecy, a handful of savants assembled for 
the first time at Leipsic, at the invitation of Oken. 
In fact, in 1822, no considerable body of men could 
come together in Germany in answer to a public in- 
vitation, without the permission of the civil authority. 
They could not discuss among themselves scientific 
questions, no matter how unconnected with the 
political and national questions of the day. Add to 
this the other fact that, if I am not mistaken, it was 
only in 1861, at the Congress of Naturalists at Spires, 
that the names of the Austrian members could be 
made public, and then we can appreciate the tre- 
mendous change that has been brought about in 
the Vaterland.”’ 


In England personal liberty, though not 
consciously retarded by law, is severely 
trammeled by the nature of existing social 
organizations. Distinction in science and 
letters is, even to-day, practically, subor- 
dinated to social distinction. As an illus- 
tration one need only notice the position of 
the President of the Royal Society upon any 
list in which the names of influential Britons 
are arrayed in order of social precedence. 
It is next to impossible for a man of moderate 
means, however learned, to become presi- 
dent of one of the great English scientific 
societies, and the honor most highly 
esteemed by the masses in England, as 
well as throughout Europe, that of a deco- 
ration, is rarely given, except to men who are 
prosperous in some material way. 

‘*T know in London,” writes Leland, ‘‘a very great 


man of science, nemini secundus, who has never been 
knighted, although the tradesman who makes for him 


SCIENCE. 7 


his implements and instruments has received the title 
and the accolade.’’ * 


The changes which the last four centuries 
have wrought are by no means to be all 
attributed to the influence of the inhabitants 
of the New World, but in a large degree, no 
doubt, to the social and political modifica- 
tions which the discovery of America rend- 
ered possible in the Old World. 

It is, after all, very difficult to realize the 
exact relation of this discovery to the intel- 
lectual history of mankind, and it may be 
impossible, unless we were endowed with 
the gift of omniscience. 

A few months ago, standing within the 
great red fortress of the Alhambra, looking 
down on the plain of Granada, still green 
with the orchards and vineyards planted 
by the former Moorish rulers of Spain, I 
understood, as I had never done before, 
that the final expulsion of the Orientals 
from Europe was almost simultaneous with 
the discovery of America. Six months be- 
fore he sailed westward, Columbus stood 
with Ferdinand and Isabella upon that very 
tower, and saw the last cavalcade of exiled 
Moors disappear over the mountains toward 
Africa. For many centuries the military 
strength of our European ancestors had 
been chiefly devoted to repelling the inva- 
sions of these restless men of the East. 
Feudal government held universal domain, 
and all the learning of Europe was hoarded 
up within monastic walls. 

““The discovery of the New World not only offered 
new productions to the curiosity of man. It also ex- 
tended the then existing work of knowledge respect- 
ing physical geography, the varieties of the human 
species, and the migrations of nations. It is impos- 
sible to read the narratives of the early Spanish 
travelers, especially that of Acosta, without perceiv- 
ing the influence which the aspect of a great continent, 
the study of extraordinary appearance of nature, and 
intercourse with men of different races must have 
exercised on the progress of knowledge in Europe. 
The germ of a great number of physical truths is 
found in the works of the sixteenth century ; and 


* Memoirs, 1893, p. 127. 


8 SCIENCE. 


that germ would have fructified had it not been 
crushed by ignorance and superstition.’’ : 

So wrote Humboldt at the end of the last 
century. He must have felt, although he did 
not say so then, that ignorance and super- 
stition were also to be dissipated in the new 
and expanded intellectual atmosphere. The 
passage already quoted from his writings 
shows this clearly. 

The establishment of the supremacy of 
Western civilization, and the finding of a 
New World were, after all, less important 
than the discovery which the men of both 
hemispheres made on this side of the sea— 
that they might become free and their own 
masters. It was the opening of a new 
period in human history. Men were awak- 
ing from the slumber of ages. Europe 
began to emerge from abject intellectual 
slavery. In political life the traditions of 
the age of despots were broken, and the 
development of free institutions begun. In 
religion a reformation was inaugurated, 
wider in scope than the movement led by 
Luther, which is commonly associated with 
that name. In art, soulless and awkward 
formalities were replaced by enthusiastic 
culture of the ideals of classical days, which 
in time grew broader, more spontaneous 
and more inspired. In the field of letters, 
scholastic traditions were cast aside, and 
each nation in Europe developed a new 
language and a new literature. In science, 
similar scholastic and traditional usages 
were discarded. The students who com- 
piled uncritically and generalized upon the 
worthless results of their own antiquarian 
researches, gave place to the restless, skep- 
tical, critical inquirers of modern times. 

We have just ended our celebration of 
the discovery of America, the end of the 
Dark Ages, the birth of individual freedom 
and of proper government. We celebrated 
at the same time the beginning of a new 
epoch. The Medieval Renascence was lim- 
ited to Europe; ours will embrace all the 


[N.S Von. I. No. 1. 


nations of the earth. It may be that this 
should be considered the outgrowth and 
fulfillment of that which marked the end 
of the Middle Ages, but whether we are at 
the beginning of a new movement, or at the 
culmination of an old one, the last forty 
years have undoubtedly witnessed greater 
changes in the spirit of men’s thoughts 
than the fow centuries which had gone 
before. 

The earlier Renascence gave to man the 
right and liberty to think and act as he, in 
his own judgment, saw fit. The Renas- 
cence of to-day is leading men to think, not 
only with personal freedom, but accurately 
and rightly. Far be it from me to say that 
I believe that mankind in general are very 
much nearer to accurate and just stand- 
ards of judgment than they were four hun- 
dred years ago, but the spirit of to-day 
favors untrammeled and searching investi- 
gation of every question in which man is 
concerned, a critical comparison of the re- 
sults of such investigation, and a frank in- 
tolerance of all illogical or unsound theory 
and application. 

This is the spirit of science—the spirit of 
unprejudiced search for truth—and this, 
emphatically, is the spirit of thinking men 
of to-day in America, in every department 
of activity. 

Who can say what is to be the part of 
America in the future intellectual life of the 
world? Itcannot be less important than in 
the past, and in all likelihood the influence 
of America will be more comprehensive and 
deep-seated as the years go by. Is it not 
possible that it may hereafter become the 
chief of the conservative forces in civiliza- 
tion rather than, as in the past, be exerted 
mainly in the direction of change and re- 
form ? 


Brain of the New World, what a task is thine, 

To formulate the Modern—out of the peerless gran- 
deur of the Modern, 

Out of thyself. * * * 


JANUARY 4, 1895.] 


Thou mental moral orb, thou new, indeed new, spir- 
itual world, 

The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as 
thine, 

For such unparalleled flight as thine, such brood as 
thine, 

The Future only holds thee and can hold thee.* 

G. Brown Goove. 
U.S. NATIoNAL Museum. 


LEGAL UNITS OF ELECTRIC MEASURE. 
Iv will, doubtless, be interesting to all 
physicists, as well as to many in other de- 
partments of science, to know of the legali- 
zation by Act of Congress, within the last 
six months, of units of electrical measure. 
It is not necessary in these columns to go 
into an exposition of the necessity for such 
action on the part of the Government, nor 
to refer to the enormous amount of capital 
invested in the manufacture of instruments, 
devices and machinery, the sole object of 
which is the conversion of some form of 
energy into electricity and the reconversion 
of electricity into some form of energy. 
The measurement of the enormous quanti- 
~ties of electricity that have within the last 
decade been produced and thus converted 
has, up to a recent date, in all cases de- 
pended upon the conventional acceptance 
of units of measure which have for many 
years been in use among scientific men, and 
which originated in the necessity for such 
units of measure in scientific investigations. 
Tt is always worth while to note, however, 
that the great simplicity and perfection of 
electrical measurement is due to the fact 
that the science of electricity preceded the 
art of its utilization. In this respect elec- 
trical engineering has a very decided ad- 
vantage over all other branches of engineer- 
ing, for in all others the art preceded the 
science, and the science, therefore, was 
obliged to build itself upon the crude and 
mostly unphilosophical principles that de- 
veloped in the art. 


*Whitman, Leaves of Grass. 


SCIENCE. 9 


The fundamental units of electrical meas- 
ure, namely, the ohm, the ampere and the 
volt, have been in use among scientific men, 
to the exclusion of all others, for more than 
a decade, related as they are to the funda- 
mental units—length, mass and time, which 
are admirably adapted for use as the basis 
of all electrical metrology. It has, how- 
ever, long been recognized that much incon- 


venience was caused in electrical discussion 
by the lack of a few additional units, the 
use of which would greatly facilitate mathe- 
matical calculations and numerical state- 
ments. The literature of the subject has 
abounded, during the past ten years, with 
suggestions as to these additional and de- 
sirable units of measure, and various writers 
have, from time to time, adopted such as 
seemed to be necessary for their own use, 
even giving them such values and such 
names as were best in their judgment. It 
was evident, therefore, that to prevent con- 
fusion in electrical nomenclature it was de- 
sirable to have an international agreement 
as to these units, their value, their num- 
ber and their names; the demands for 
this have grown very extensive in the last 
few years, the result having now been 
reached in the passage, by Congress, of a 
law which seems to define and settle these 
questions as far as the United States Goy- 
ernment is concerned. 

All readers of this journal are, doubtless, 
familiar with the fact that as early as 1881 an 
electrical convention, or congress, was held 
in Paris for the purpose of trying to agree 
upon definitions of the fundamental units of 
electrical measure and their material repre- 
sentations, in cases where material repre- 
sentations were possible. After much dis- 
cussion, and not without very considerable 
opposition, there was proposed at that time 
a material representation of the ohm which 
was known to be somewhat in error. The 
real ohm must always be that defined by 
the Committee of the British Association 


10 


for the Advancement of Science, and any 
material representation which may be 
adopted should only be considered as an 
approximation to this. It was first agreed 
that this theoretical ohm should be repre- 
sented by the resistance offered to an un- 
varying current of electricity by a column 
of mercury one square millimetre in cross 
section, and one hundred and six centime- 
tres in length, at a definite temperature. 
Even at the time of the acceptance of this 
ohm it was well known that the length of 
this column was nearly three millimetres 
too small to correctly represent the ohm of 
the British Association Committee. This 
result had been established by investiga- 
tions by Rowland in this country, and by 
other experimentalists in Europe. In con- 
sequence of the imaccuracy of this first 
material representation of the ohm it did 
not meet with much favor, although it was 
quickly taken up among practical men, and 
resistance coils in great numbers were wound 
im accordance with this definition, being 
generally, but incorrectly, known as the 
‘Legal Ohm.’ I do not know that this 
unit was ever adopted by any govern- 
ment, or even by any municipal corpora- 
tion. 

During the last ten years there has been 
a continual agitation of this question, re- 
sulting in the determination to go over the 
whole subject again, with a view to defining 
the fundamental units and adding such 
other units as might be desirable and neces- 
sary, at an International Congress to be 
held at Chicago in 1893, in connection with 
the World’s Fair. The inception and or- 
ganization of this Congress was largely due 
to the American Institute of Electrical En- 
gineers and to local societies in the city of 
Chicago. Its history is so well known that 
it is only necessary to refer to it very 
briefly. In order to avoid errors which are 
likely to arise in the consideration of a very 
important subject by a very large assem- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 1. 


blage, it was agreed that the question of 


“units should be referred to a body which 


was within, and formed a part of, the gen- 
eral International Congress, and which was 
known as the Chamber of Delegates. In 
this Chamber of Delegates the number of 
representatives from the different nations 
was limited; five each were allotted to the 
United States, Great Britain, France and 
Germany, three to Italy, and to the other 
nations a smaller number. Most of the 
principal delegations were full on the assem- 
bling of the Chamber, and the total number 
of persons was about thirty. Daily sessions 
were held during the week of the Interna- 
tional Congress, and many hours aside from 
these sessions were occupied by special com- 
mittees in the discussion and development 
of the various subjects which came before 
the Chamber to be acted upon. 

In reference to the personnel of this 
Chamber, it may be well to say that the 
delegates from foreign countries were ap- 
pointed by their respective governments 
and presented regular authenticated com- 
missions, and that the representatives of 
the United States received their authority 
from the Secretary of State in a commis- 
sion which he prepared after the names of 
the five persons selected had been recom- 
mended to him by a vote of about sixty or 
seventy of the leading electricians of the 
country, who had been invited to join in 
this ballot by the Chairman of the Execu- 
tive Committee for the organization of an 
International Congress. The five names 
receiving the greatest number of votes 
were recommended to the Secretary of 
State for appointment as representatives of 
the United States. A list of the delegates 
present and taking an active part in the 
deliberation of the Chamber is given here- 
with : 

Representing the United States. 


Professor H. A. Rowland, Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity, Baltimore, Md. 


JANUARY 4, 1895.] 


Dr. T. C. Mendenhall, Superintendent United States 
Coast and Geodetic Survey, and of Standard Weights 
and Measures, Washington, D. C. 

Professor H. S. Carhart, University of Michigan, 
Ann Arbor, Mich. 

Professor Elihu Thomson, Lynn, Mass. 

Dr. E. L. Nichols, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 

Representing Great Britain. 

W. H. Preece, F. R. S., Engineer in Chief and 
Electrician, Post-office, England; President of the 
Institution of Electrical Engineers, London. 

W. E. Ayrton, City and Guilds of London Central 
Institution, Exhibition Road, London. 

Professor Silvanus P. Thompson, D. Se., F. R. 8., 
Principal of the City and Guilds Technical College, 
Finsbury, London. 

Alex. Siemens, 12 Queen Anne’s Gate, Westmin- 
ster, London, 8. W. 

Representing France. 

E. Mascart, Membre de l'Institut, 176 rue de 
Université, Paris. 

T. Violle, Professeur au Conservatoire des Arts et 
Metiers, 89 Boulevard St. Michel, Paris. 

De la Touanne, Telegraph Engineer of the French 
Government, 13 rue Soufflot, Paris. 

Edouard Hospitalier, Professor a Ecole de phy- 
sique et de chimie industrielle de la ville de Paris ; 
Vice-President de la Societe internationale des Elec- 
triciens, 6 rue de Clichy, Paris. 

Dr. 8. Leduc, 5 quai Fosse, Nantes. 

Representing Italy. 

Comm. Galileo Ferraris, Professor of Technical 
Physics and Electro-technics in ‘the R. Museo Indus- 
triale, Turin, Via Venti Settembre, 46. 

Representing Germany. 

H. E. Hermann von Helmholtz, Priisident der 
Physikalisch-technischen Reichsanstalt, Professor, a. 
d. Universitit, Berlin, Charlottenburg bei Berlin. 

Dr. Emil Budde, Berlin N. W. Klopstock- 
Strasse 53. 

A. Schrader, Regierungsrath, Mitglied des Kaiser]. 
Patentamts, Berlin. 

Dr. Ernst Voit, Professor an der technischen Hoch- 
sehule, Miinchen, Schwanthalerstrasse, 73-3. 

Dr. Otto Lummer, Mitglied der Physikalisch-tech- 
nischen Reichsanstalt, Charlottenburg, Berlin. 

Representing Mexico. 
Augustin W. Chavez, City of Mexico. 
Representing Austria. 
Dr. Johann Sahulka, Technische Hochschule, Wien. 
Representing Switzerland. 


A. Palaz, Professeur, Lausanne. 
René Thury, ingenieur, Florissant, Genéve. 


SCIENCE. 11 


Representing Sweden. 
M. Wennman, Byrachef i Rougle Telegrafstyrelsen, 
Stockholm. 
Representing British North America. 
Ormond Higman, Electrician, Standards Branch, 
Inland Revenue Department, Ottawa. 


As a result of the deliberation of this 
Chamber, it was agreed to recommend to 
the several governments represented by the 
various delegations the adoption of eight 
units of electrical measure, namely: the 
ohm, the ampere, the volt, the coulomb, the 
farad, the joule, the watt and the henry. 
The Chamber also prescribed definitions 
for these several units, but as they are es- 
sentially the same as those adopted by 
Congress, and which will be found in detail 
below, it is not necessary to refer to them 
here. 

Shortly after the adjournment of the Con- 
gress a report of its proceedings was made 
to the Secretary of State by the United 
States delegates, and this report was dis- 
tributed by the Department of State among 
the various nations represented, and also 
among those not represented, with the re- 
quest that they should codperate with the 
United States in the legalization of the units 
of electrical measure thus carefully selected 
and defined. In order to secure action on 
the part of our own Government, a bill was 
prepared and introduced into the House of 
Representatives by Mr. Charles W. Stone, 
of Pennsylvania, early in 1894, defining 
these units substantially in agreement with 
the definitions adopted by the Chamber of 
Delegates at Chicago, and declaring them 
to be the legal units of electrical measure 
for the whole of the United States. Through 
the active interest of Mr. Stone, and by the 
assistance of the American Institute of 
Electrical Engineers or a few individual 
members thereof who interested themselves 
in the passage of the measure, this bill be- 
came a law by the approval of the President 
on the 12th of July last. 


12 


The differences between the definitions 
adopted by the International Congress at 
Chicago and those found in this law are 
very slight, and consist entirely of verbal 
changes that were thought to be desirable 
and necessary by the Senate Committee to 
which this bill was referred after its passage 
by the House of Representatives. It may 
be well to remark that a subcommittee of 
the Chamber of Delegates, consisting of von 
Helmholtz, Professor Ayrton and Professor 
Carhart, had been appointed to prepare 
specifications for the better realization of 
the adopted material representation of the 
volt. The continued illness of von Helm- 
holtz, from the time of his leaving this 
country, at the close of this Congress, up to 
the day of his lamented death, about a year 
later, prevented the completion of the labors 
of this committee at an earlier date; how- 
ever, correspondence had been begun, and 
many points had been defined and settled 
among its members. The specifications for 
the better representation of the ampere to 
which the Chamber of Delegates had agreed 
will be found in the report of the American 
delegates to the Secretary of State. As 
this subcommittee had not yet been able to 
formulate a report, and as it was necessary 
for Congress to make some reference to 
these specifications in the Act adopting the 
units, it was agreed that the matter should 
be referred to the National Academy of 
Science, as is provided in the last section of 
the Act. This Act, as it finally became a 
law. is as follows: 


(PuBiic No. 105.) 
An Act to define and establish the units of electrical 
measure. 


Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States of America in Congress 
assembled, That from and after the passage of this 
Act the legal units of electrical measure in the United 
States shall be as follows: 

First. The unit of resistance shall be what is known 
as the international ohm, which is substantially equal 
to one thousand million units of resistance of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 1. 


centimetre-gramme-second system of electro-magnetic 
units, and represented by the resistance offered to an 
unyarying electric current by a column of mereury at 
the temperature of melting ice fourteen and four 
thousand five hundred and twenty-one ten thousandths 
grammes in mass, of a constant cross sectional area, 
and of the length of one hundred and six and three 
tenths centimetres. 

Second. The unit of current shall be what is known 
as the international ampere, which is one-tenth of the 
unit of current of the centimetre-gramme-second 
system of electro-magnetic units, and is the practical 
equivalent of the unvarying current, which, when 
passed through a solution of nitrate of silver in water 
in accordance with standard specifications, deposits 
silver at the rate of one thousand one hundred and 
eighteen millionths of a gramme per second. 

Third. The unit of electro-motive force shall be 
what is known as the international volt, which is the 
electro-motivé force that, steadily applied to a con- 
ductor whose resistance is one international ohm, will 
produce a current of an international ampere, and is 
practically equivalent to one thousand fourteen hun- 
dred and thirty-fourths of the electro-motive force be- 
tween the poles or electrodes of the voltaic cell known 
as Clark’s cell, at a temperature of fifteen degrees 
centigrade, and prepared in the manner described in 
the standard specifications. 

Fourth. The unit of quantity shall be what is 
known as the international coulomb, which is the 
quantity of electricity transferred by a current of one 
international ampere in one second. 

Fifth. The unit of capacity shall be what is known 
as the international farad, which is the capacity of a 
condenser charged to a potential of one international 
volt by one international coulomb of electricity. 

Sivth. The unit of work shall’ be the joule, which 
is equal to ten million units of work in the centi- 
metre-gramme-second system, and which is practically 
equivalent to the energy expended in one second by 
an international ampere in an international ohm. 

Seventh. The unit of power shall be the watt, 
which is equal to ten million units of power in the 
centimetre-gramme-second system, and which is prac- 
tically equivalent to the work done at the rate of one 
joule per second. 

Eighth. 'The unit of induction shall be the henry, 
which is the induction in a cireuit when the electro- 
motive force induced in this circuit is one interna- 
tional yolt while the inducing current varies at the 
rate of one ampere per second. 

Sec. 2. That it shall be the duty of the National 
Academy of Sciences to prescribe and publish, as soon 
as possible after the passage of this Act, such specifica- 
tions of details as shall be necessary for the practical 


JANUARY 4, 1895.] 


application of the definitions of the ampere and the 
volt hereinbefore given, and such specifications shall 
be the standard specifications herein mentioned. 


Approved July 12, 1894. 


It will be desirable to add some remarks 
upon the steps which have been taken in 
the same direction by. the English Govern- 
ment since the adjournment of the Inter- 
national Congress. All who are familiar 
with the legislation in the United States on 
the subject of Weights and Measures will 
recognize the passage of the Act given 
above as the first general legislation estab- 
lishing units of measure for the whole coun- 
try, on the part of the American Congress. 

Although the Constitution provides that 
Congress shall have the power to establish 
systems of weights and measures, it is well 
known that Congress has never exercised 
this power except in the Act of 1866, which 
involves the semi-establishment of such a 
system by making the use of the Metric 
System permissive throughout the United 
States. Aside from this, systems of weights 
and measures in this country have been 
uniformly and universally the result of 
State legislation until the passage of the 
above Act defining units of electrical 
measure. 

In England a committee has for some 
time been in existence whose object was 
the recommendation of suitable units of 
electrical measure, that they might be le- 
galized, as is the practice in Great Britain, 
by means of an ‘ Order in Council’ signed 
by the Queen. Among the members of this 
committee are such well known names as 
Lord Kelvin,Preece,Glazebrook and Ayrton. 
This committee made a report on the 2d 
of August, 1894, and this report was ap- 
proved by the Queen on the 23d of the 
same month, so that in this country we 
were a little more than a month in advance 
of Great Britain in the legalization of units 
of electrical measure. The English com- 
mittee, however, did not feel prepared to 


SCIENCE. 13 


go as far as we have gone in the recom- 
mendation for the adoption of the whole 
list of eight units approved at Chicago. 
Some members of this committee have ex- 
plained this in personal conference by the 
statement that the three primary units, the 
ohm, the ampere and the volt, were found 
to be not difficult of material representa- 
tion, while most of the others were very 
decidedly so, and, as most of the others are 
derived from these three, it was thought 
best, at the present time, to restrict author- 
itative adoption to the ohm, the ampere 
and the volt. In defining these units the 
English committee has also departed 
slightly from the definitions as adopted at 
Chicago, the changes being mostly verbal, 
but, in one or two instances, of such a char- 
acter as to quite alter the fundamental rela- 
tion of the materialized unit to its theoreti- 
cal representative. In order that this may 
be clearly seen, it may be well to quote the 
definitions of these three units, as found in 
the ‘Order in Council’ of August 23d. 
The following is quoted directly from said 
‘Order’: 

“And whereas it has been made to ap- 
pear to the Board of Trade that new de- 
nominations of standards are required for 
use in trade based upon the following units 
of electrical measurement, viz.: 

“ First. The Ohm, which has the value 
of 10° in terms of the centimetre and the 
second of time and is represented by the 
resistance offered to an unvyarying electric 
current by a column of mercury at the tem- 
perature of melting ice 14.4521 grammes 
in a mass of a constant cross sectional area 
and of a length of 106.3 centimetres. 

“ Second. The Ampere, which has the 
value ,; in terms of the centimetre, the 
gramme and the second of time, and which 
is represented by the unvarying electric 
current which, when passed through a solu- 
tion of nitrate of silver in water, in accord- 
ance with the specification appended hereto 


14 


and marked A, deposits silver at the rate 
of 0.001118 of a gramme per second. 

“ Third. The Volt, which has the value 
of 108 in terms of the centimetre, the 
gramme and the second of time, being the 
electrical pressure that if steadily applied 
to a conductor whose resistance is one ohm 
will produce a current of one ampere, and 
which is represented by .6974 (4282) of the 
electrical pressure at a temperature of fifteen 
degrees C. between the poles of the voltaic 
cell known as Clark’s cell, set up in accord- 
ance with the specification appended hereto 
and marked B.” 

The specifications referred to in the above 
as marked A are those that were adopted 
at the Chicago Congress, together with some 
additional suggestions as to the methods of 
procedure. 

The specification marked B refers to 
the method of preparation of Clark’s cell, 
including a detailed statement as to ma- 
terials and as to the method of setting up 
the cells. These specifications are made 
so as to include several different kinds of 
cells, so that the Lord Rayleigh modifica- 
tion of the Clark cell, and also a modifica- 
tion devised and used by the Germans, may 
be used at will. There is certainly a de- 
cided advantage in this. Attached to the 
“Order in Council’ is a schedule which is 
declared to set forth the several denomina- 
tions of electrical standards as approved by 
the Queen. In this schedule the standard 
of electrical resistance is described as be- 
ing the resistance between the copper ter- 
minals of a particular coil of wire under 
standard conditions. The standard of cur- 
rent is described as being the current which 
when passed through the coils forming a 
part of a particular instrument under spe- 
cific conditions gives rise to forees which 
are exactly balanced by the force of gravity 
at Westminster upon a particular mass of 
matter forming a part of said instrument. 
The standard of electro-motive force, or, 


SCIENCE. [N.S. 


Vou. I. No. 1. 


as it is termed in the ‘Order in Council,’ 
‘ electrical pressure,’ which is denominated 
as one volt, is described as being ,3,5 part of 
the pressure which when applied between 
the terminals of a particular instrument 
causes the rotation of a certain portion of 
said instrument tothe extent which is 
measured by the coincidence of a certain 
wire with the image in the eyepiece of the 
telescope and with certain fiducial marks. 

A careful examination of the above defi- 
nitions,together with the schedule following, 
and a comparison of the same with the 
units as defined by Act of Congress, which 
are essentially those of the Chicago Cham- 
ber of Delegates, will give rise to many in- 
teresting and important reflections to which 
space cannot now be given. It may be 
suggested, however, that there is room for 
uncertainty under the provisions of the 
English regulations as to what is the’ 
standard of resistance, or of current, or of 
electro-motive force. Of course this will 
all turn upon what would be the action of 
the English authorities in case of a sus- 
pected error in the material representation 
of these standards as provided for in the 
schedule. The ‘Order in Council’ makes 
no provision for a course of procedure in 
such an event, and it is but natural to as- 
sume that standards of a very complicated 
character, and so composite in material as 
those thus adopted, must be continually 
liable to changes, and the reintroduction of 
errors of considerable magnitude. 

The actual material representations of 
these three electrical units, it will be ob- 
served, are by this ‘Order’ removed at a 
considerable distance from the fundamental 
definitions adopted by the English com- 
mittee, as well as by the Chicago Chamber 
of Delegates, thus, although the ohm is 
defined primarily by reference to the C. G. 
S. system of units, and secondarily by refer- 
ence to the column of mercury, in actual 
practice it is neither the one nor the other 


JANUARY 4, 1895.] 


of these, but is the resistance of a solid 
metallic conductor. 

The ampere, while defined primarily in 
terms of the C. G. S. system, and secondarily 
in reference to the silver voltameter, is in 
practice determined by the dynamic action 
of one current upon another. In the same 
way, the volt is not in practice referred to 
the C. G. 5. system of units, nor is it deter- 
mined by comparison with the Clark cell, 
but by the measurement of the rotation 
effect upon a part of a certain instru- 
ment when the electro-motive force is ap- 
plied between certain points in that instru- 
ment. 

One cannot refrain from the opinion that, 
from an absolutely metrological standpoint, 
the regulations of the ‘Order in Council’ 
should be condemned rather than approved ; 
however, personal conference with the re- 
presentatives of the English Board of Trade 
and Standardizing Laboratory reveals the 
fact that the material representations of 
electrical units, thus provided, are to be 
considered as but tentative in character, 
adopted on account of greater convenience 
in actual practice, and to be continually re- 
vised and corrected by reference to the fun- 
damental definitions, which are essentially 
the same as those approved by the repre- 
sentatives of Great Britain at the Chicago 
Congress, and where they do differ from 
those are, it will be generally admitted, I 
think, on the whole, more sound. 

It is very important for the United States 
that, when the time shall come, as it must 
before long, for the preparation of material 
representations of as many of the electrical 
units that have been legalized as can conve- 
niently be represented, the greatest effort 
shall be made to see that there be no hasty 
action, and that, as far as possible, already 
well established principles of metrology 
shall be strictly applied. 

T. C. Menpenuatt. 

WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 


SCIENCE. 15 


THE HUMANITIES. 

THE study of the history of mankind is 
logically developed into five great branches, 
viz.: industries, pleasures, languages, insti- 
tutions and opinions. These are the Humani- 
ties. Into all of these realms modern scienti- 
fie research penetrates and seeks to discover 
their origin and development from the be- 
ginning of primeval human life to the pres- 
ent time. In following the course of hu- 
manity from the earliest savagery to the 
highest enlightenment it is found that man 
has traveled by five parallel roads from the 
starting place of ignorance toward the goal 
of wisdom. Now he travels on one road, 
now on another, pareeling out his activities 
and dividing his time between all. On 
wings of thought he passes from way to 
way. When he travels by one road he 
seems to have one end in view, by another 
road another end in view, and yet as often 
as he may change his goal and the road by 
which he travels he is pursuing the route 
to wisdom. He may travel by false charts, 
or he may lose his way, and yet the end in 
view may remain thesame. He engages in 
the arts of industry and the purpose is wel- 
fare; he engages in the arts of pleasure and 
the purpose is happiness; he engages in the 
arts of speech and the purpose is expres- 
sion; he engages in institutional arts and 
the purpose is justice ; he engages in the arts 
of learning and the purpose is knowledge. 
In the way by labor, the way by pleasure, 
the way by speech, the way by institutions 
and the way by learning—in all ways—he 
runs to the goal of wisdom. 

In all the research prosecuted during the 
present century, and especially during the 
later decades, one great generalization is 
reached from the multitudinous facts gath- 
ered from the world; this is the intellectual 
unity of the human race. The history of 
the lower animals, from primeval geologic 
time to the present, exhibits a constant dif- 
ferentiation of species, genera, orders and 


16 


higher groups. The evolution of animal 
life is the unfolding of new forms. In the 
study of mankind this evolution is replaced 
by an inyolution which tends toward uni- 
fication. In his early history biotic forms 
and varieties were developed, with more 
or less differentiation of functions. Some 
men were high of stature, others were low 
of stature ; some men were blondes, others 
were brunettes; some men had long skulls, 
others short skulls; some men had their 
eyes placed obliquely, others horizontally ; 
some men had round hair, others had flat 
hair. The tendency in the beginning was 
toward the differentiation of varieties, 
which, had man continued in his lowly es- 
tate on a plane with the lower animals, 
might have resulted in the differentiation 
of species not interfertile with one another ; 
but with mankind interfertility was pre- 
served. 

Man was endowed with superior intellect. 
He had outrun the lower animals in the 
race of culture and began to develop the 
five great activities: industry, pleasure, 
speech, government and learning. With 
these evolving powers the evolution of 
varieties was checked. The evolution of 
activities superseded the evolution of biotic 
varieties, and man’s course of development 
was by involution and seriation; men be- 
came more and more interdependent, and 
this is involution. Some men made more 
progress in the five great activities than 
others, but all progress resulted in serial 
development. So some peoples have a 
higher culture than others. All of the 
human activities are interrelated and ever 
become more and more interrelated. Not 
only are the activities interrelated, but the 
peoples themselves become more and more 
interrelated through them in the progress 
of activital development. 

Let us now take a hasty view of mankind 
in his early estate, moving along the high- 
ways of progress toward the present time. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S: Vou. I. No: i. 


Early man was scattered over all the earth 
in kinship tribes, each one knit together by 
bonds of kindred blood and cords of mar- 
riage ties. All tribal ‘society was thus 
organized. These little tribes, in vast num- 
bers, each contained but a few individuals 
who inhabited the Eden between the walls 
of ice. Their arts of welfare sprung from 
conditions of local environment. Where 
the waters were abundant they became fish- 
ermen; where the beasts of the wold and 
prairie were plenty they became hunters, 
where the fruits of the forest and plain were 
rich they became gleaners, and where all of 
these sources of supply existed their food 
industries were diversified. In frigid lands 
they built their houses of snow and ice; in 
forest lands they built their homes of shards 
of trees, boughs and bark; in the savannahs 
they built their homes of reeds and mats ; in 
arid lands of naked rock and cliff they built 
their homes of stone—everywhere they 
adapted the materials of the local environ- 
ment to their use. Where the beasts were 
plenty they made their clothing of pelts; 
where animals yielded wool they made their 
clothing of woolen fibers; where fibrous 
plants were abundant they made their cloth- 
ing of vegetable tapestries, and they decor- 
ated homes and clothing with the pigments 
and stains which they found where they 
lived. So man started on the way of wel- 
fare. 

The children of these little tribes had 
their youthful sports. They kept play- 
house as their mothers kept house; they 
played with dolls as their mothers played 
with babies; they played at hunting as 
their fathers were hunters; they played at 
fishing as their fathers were fishermen ; 
they played at fruit gathering as their 
fathers and mothers gathered fruit; and 
they played at war as their heroes made 
war, and thus mimetic sports were de- 
veloped. The elders engaged in running 
races, in wrestling matches and various 


JANUARY 4, 1895. ] 


games of athletic prowess and skill, and 
thus their athletic sports began. They en- 
gaged in games of chance and staked their 
little stores of wealth and sought to divine 
their chances and developed simple meth- 
ods of divination, and thus their intellec- 
tual games began. With sports of mim- 
iery, sports of athletic skill and sports of 
ehance and divination, the highway of 
pleasure was entered. 

They began to express their ideas by 
gesture speech and oral speech in imitation 
of the sights and sounds of the world, and 
especially of the characteristics of one an- 
other; thus gesture speech and oral speech 
began, and the tribes entered upon the 
highway of speech. 

In the biotic constitution of man the 
seeds of government are planted, for there 
must be husbands and wives, parents and 
children, and there must be authority and 
obedience. As the kinship tribes were de- 
veloped authority and obedience grew with 
the group, and a system of terms was de- 
veloped by which kinship through streams 
of blood and marriage relations was clearly 
exhibited, and to the elder was given the 
right to command, and to the younger the 
duty to obey—a system of perfect equality, 
for every individual grew in authority as 
he grew in years, and must command some 
and obey others. Thus began forms of 
government, and the tribes entered upon 
the highway of institutions. 

Every child learns by experience. The 
accumulation of experience from infancy to 
old age is great even with primal man, but 
by speech the experience of the elder is 
taught to the younger. In the stream of 
generations there are elder and younger in 
every tribe, and the experience of ancestors 
is handed down. ‘Thus primal man entered 
upon the highway of learning. 

Let us see where the human race began. 
A multitude of kinship tribes spread over 
the habitable earth, each tribe on the high- 


SCIENCE. 17 


rays of progress, with simple arts suited to 
local environment, with simple pleasures 
suited to home environment, with simple 
speech developed from the gestures and 
vocal sounds of men and the lower animals 
and the scenes of nature found in the en- 
vironment, with simple governments de- 
veloped out of biotic life conforming to the 
environment of kinship and age and the 
needs of daily life, and with simple knowl- 
edge gathered by the individual through 
experience and transmitted one to another 
by speech and handed down from genera- 
tion to generation in an ever-growing stream 
of wisdom, all taught by the environment. 

In this picture we have primal men in 
multitudes of distinct tribes under the 
differentiating forces of environment by 
which they may be developed into species, 
but for one overpowering factor—superior 
human intellect. There can be but one 
kind of mind. ‘Two and two are four with 
every people; the moon is round, gibbous 
or crescent wherever it shines for man; the 
sun shines in every eye; the child grows 
in every experience. Thus the four great 
mental activities of number, form, cause 
and becoming are the same in every land, 
and the mind of every man is a unity of 
these four powers, and every mind is like 
every other mind in their possession. They 
differ only in extent of experience acquired 
directly by self or indirectly from others. 
While the mind is the same with all men 
the will is the same. All desire to gain 
good and to avoid evil, so all wills develop 
onacommon plan. By mind and will, by 
mentality and volition, man progresses on 
the five highways of life, so that all men 
are impelled to the same goal of wisdom. 
Pursuit of the common end has proved to 
be more powerful in producing involution 
than the forces of environment in produc- 
ing differentiation or classifie evolution. 
It now becomes necessary to make a hasty 
sketch of human evolution. 


18 


The kinship tribes first developed by man 
gradually underwent a change. ‘Tribe co- 
alesced with tribe, and when tribes became 
too large by union or by natural multipli- 
eation they divided. In the consolidation 
of tribes the plan of union by kinship re- 
mained. Two or more tribes allied their 
fortunes by intermarriage, each furnishing 
wives to the other; so the chains of affinity 
were forged, and out of this affinity spring 
new bonds of consanguinity. In succeeding 
generations fathers and mothers belong to 
different clans, and each tribe is made up of 
individuals, every member of which is kin 
to both primal tribes. Kinship through af- 
finity and kinship, through consanguinity, 
was maintained in knowledge by a device 
of naming, so that the name not only ex- 
pressed kinship by clan, but also kinship 
by tribe as composed of clans, and at the 
same time expressed relative age by which 
authority was claimed and yielded and 
primeval equality maintained. In the co- 
alescing of tribes in this manner a new gen- 
eration became heirs to the activities of the 
coalescing tribes. They inherited indus- 
tries, pleasures, languages, institutions and 
opinions of the ancestral tribes. So tribes 
coalesced with tribes and divided and coal- 
esced again, until tribal society was lost in 
the confusion of ancestries. Then nations 
were born, based not on kinship bonds but 
on territorial boundaries. The first nation 
and every other nation since has in its very 
organization lost its ancestral identity by 
multiplied admixture of streams of blood. 
To speak of a nation as of one blood or as 
derived from one primeval tribe with its 
primitive industries, pleasures, speech, in- 
stitutions and opinions is absurd. To search 
for the origin of a nation in one primeval 
tribe having some one or all of the primeval 
activities is a search for the impossible. 

It is thus that the study of the human 
race has led to the discovery of its unity. 
It is found that we cannot classify men as 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 1 
biotic kinds with differing forms, functions 
and genealogies, as the lower animals are 
classified. An early tendency to such dif- 
ferentiation is discovered, but it is farther 
learned that this tendeney has been par- 
tially obliterated and greatly obscured in 
the later history of mankind. By these 
discoveries many interesting facts have been 
recorded of variations in human forms, 
functions and genealogies. The study is 
one of interest and proves to be valuable. 
Thus the old science of ethnology remains as 
the study of biotic varieties of mankind, 
and is pursued with more vigor than ever 
and becoming of more and more import- 
ance. 

In the study of ethnology as the science 
of biotic races the attempt was early made 
to supplement biotic characteristics with 
cultural characteristics from the domain of 
arts, or, as they are here called, humanities. 
This has led to the development of a new 
science pertaining to human activities as 
herein classified, and to which the term 
demology is sometimes given, while even the | 
term ethnology is made to include both the 
biotic and the activital history of mankind. 
It may be well to keep the term ethnology 
to the limits of its primitive use and to 
adopt the term demology for the new 
science of human activities. i 
J. W. PowEtt. 


W ASHINGTON. 


ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 

THE EARLIEST GENERIC NAME OF THE GROUND 
SQUIRRELS COMMONLY PLACED IN THE 
GENUS SPERMOPHILUS. 

Tue eccentric Rafinesque, who imposed 
such a multitude of new names upon ani- 
mals and plants, seems to haye been first 
to name the group of ground squirrels for 
which the later name Spermophilus of Cuvier 
(1825) has been in common use for more 
than half a century. In 1817 Rafinesque 
published a paper entitled ‘ Descriptions of 
new genera of North American Quadrupeds,’ 


JANUARY 4, 1895.] 


in which the ‘ Burrowing Squirrel’ of Lewis 
& Clark was made the type of a new genus 
and species, Anisonyw brachiura.* This ani- 
mal had been named Aretomys columbianus 
by Ord two years previously ;+ and was 
afterward erroneously referred to the genus 

ynomys—likewise proposed by Rafinesque 
for one of Lewis & Clark’s animals. Several 
years ago I showed that the animal in ques- 
tion is a true ground squirrel or spermo- 
phile, {| but refrained from reinstating Rafin- 
esque’s genus Anisonyx because it was then 
believed that a still earlier name would be 
found. A somewhat exhaustive search 
through the literature, however, has failed 
to bring to light anything earlier; hence it 
seems necessary to publicly reintroduce 
Anisonyx as the proper generic name for the 
group of mammals now commonly referred 
to Spermophilus. 


THE EARLIEST AVAILABLE NAME FOR THE MOUN- 
TAIN GOAT. 

Iv has been customary of late to refer the 
Mountain Goat to the genus Mazama of Ra- 
finesque.§ But Mazama was based prima- 
rily on the Temamazame of Mexico, which 
Rafinesque called M. tema, and which has 
been since shown to be a deer.|| The next 
species mentioned by Rafinesque is our 
Mountain Goat, which he named M. dor- 
sata. But under this species he makes 
the following unequivocal statement which 
seems to have been overlooked : ‘‘ This spe- 
cies, with the following [JL sericea, which is 
really the same animal] and the Mazama 
puda [of Chili], will form a particular sub- 
genus (or perhaps genus) which I shall call 
Oreamnos, distinguished by the horns slightly 


*Am. Monthly Magazine, II., 1817, 45. 

{} Guthrie’s Geography, 2dA m. Ed., II., 1815, 292 
and 303-304. 

{ Mammals of Idaho, N. Am. Fauna, No. 5, July, 
1891, 39-42. 

%4Am. Monthly Mag., II., 1817, p. 44. 

|| Biologia Centrali-Americana, Mammalia, 1880, 
p. 113. 


SCIENCE. 19 


curved backwards or outwards, often rough 
or annulated, and long hair, besides living 
in mountains.”” (Am. Monthly Mag., IT., 
1817, 44). In view of these facts there 
seems to be no escape from the adoption of 
the name Oreamnos as the earliest available 
generic name for the Mountain Goat, which 
is the type and only known species of the 
genus, the ‘ MW. puda’ being a South Amer- 
ican deer. The full name for the species 
is Oreamnos montanus (Ord) 1815, and the 
type locality is the Cascade Range, near the 
Columbia River, in Oregon or Washington, 


C. Harr MEerrRIAM. 
WASHINGTON. 


THE NEED OF A CHANGE OF BASE IN THE 
STUDY OF NORTH AMERICAN ORTHOPTERA. 

Some twenty years ago one of the very 
acutest and most industrious of modern 
entomologists, the late Carl Stal, of Stock- 
holm, began the publication of a Re- 
censio Orthopterorum. In it and in kindred 
papers he had within five years laid the 
foundation of an entirely new system in 
nearly every family of Orthoptera, offering 
novel and taxonomically important but 
easily overlooked points of structure for 
subdivisions of a high order. <A great deal 
of work has been done since then (the num- 
ber of species has perhaps doubled), and it 
has been mainly upon the lines laid down 
by him, but in greater detail. 

Most American students of Orthoptera, 
however, have been very poorly acquainted 
with these modern studies, and the result 
is that, with a distressing wealth of unde- 
termined species, new forms haye been de- 
scribed and referred to genera of ancient 
name, a procedure which in many cases has 
given little or a wrong impression of the 
real affinities of the insects in question, and 
it has now become impossible to correlate 
American and European work. Something, 
indeed much, has been done by European 


20 


entomologists, but their autoptie acquaint- 
ance with our fauna is relatively poor ; and 
while there are ample materials here, there 
appears a remarkable paucity of students 
inclined to serious work in this direction. 
Lists we have in number, but in them al- 
most invariably figure Acridium, Calop- 
tenus, Oedipoda, Stenobothrus, Mantis, etc., 
genera which in their now restricted appli- 
eation do not or hardly exist in North 
America. 

There has been some excuse for this, since 
the broad scope of Stal’s work, embracing 
the Orthoptera of the globe, rendered work 
upon exclusively American material diffi- 
cult to one without means of reference to 
extra-American insects, collections of which 
are uncommon in this country, though 
easily obtainable by any one with means. 
Still, it is strange that no one having access 
to the museums in our larger cities or uni- 
versities has undertaken to apply the 
modern system of classification to one or 
another of the families or subfamilies of 
American Orthoptera. He would have 
earned merited applause from all students 
in this field. 

One attempt, indeed, was made to collate 
what could be known of the Acridide, but 
it was before Stal began his work, and it 
may almost be classed as a hindrance. 
Now, however, the field is open, for Brunner 
von Wattenwyl, whose collection of Or- 
thoptera is the richest in the world, pub- 
lished a year ago a Révision du Systeme des 
Orthopteres, through which, by means of 
the tables given by him of an exceedingly 
simple character (sometimes in practice one 
finds them too limited), one may quickly 
group his collection in a natural order, and 
by means of the literature to which refer- 
ence is briefly made, determine the generic 
position or affinities of whatever he has be- 
fore him. The way for a revision of any 
group is therefore clearer than ever before, 
and our entomologists will have none but 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 1. 


themselves to blame if they do not here- 
after better codrdinate their work with that 
of the European writers. 
SamurEL H. ScuppeEr. 
CAMBRIDGE. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

An Elementary Treatise on Theoretical Me- 
chanies.—Part I., Kinematics ; Part [L., In- 
troduction to Dynamics; Part IIT., Kineties. 
—By Atpxanper Zier, Assistant Pro- 
fessor of Mathematics in the University 
of Michigan.— 8vyo.— Macmillan & Co., 
London and New York, 1893-94. Pp. 
vili+181, viii+-183, vilit+236. 

Since Lagrange set the model for analyti- 
eal mechanics in his Mécanique Analytique, a 
little more than a century ago, there has 
been no serious lack of good elementary 
works devoted to that science. Most con- 
spicuous of the latter is Poisson’s Mécanique 
(1811, 2d ed., 1833), which was undoubtedly 
more widely read and followed than any 
other work during the first half of this cen- 
tury. Itis only recently, however, that the 
great advantage of the analytical over the 
geometrical method in mechanics has come 
to be generally recognized by authors and 
educators. The influence of Newton has 
long held English writers to the geometrical 
form of the Principia. To this, neverthe- 
less, there are a few noteworthy exceptions, 
the most important of which in the present 
half century is probably Price, whose vol- 
umes on analytical mechanies (Injinitesimal 
Calculus, Vols. ITI. and IV., 1862) have 
done excellent service. 

Along with the remarkable growth of 
science in general during the past thirty 
years a great impetus has been given to 
mechanics. This is traceable chiefly to two 
sources, namely: first, the development of 
the Faraday-Maxwell view of electricity 
and magnetism; and, second, the thought- 
inspiring qualities of the great work of 
Thomson and Tait on Natural Philosophy. 


JANUARY 4, 1895.] 


The latter treatise and the Electricity and 
Magnetism of Maxwell have stimulated a 
wonderful activity in the study of mechani- 
cal ideas ; and, as a result, a number of high- 
class elementary books on pure mechanics 
have appeared during the past decade. The 
work of Professor Ziwet is one of the best of 
this class. It is up to date and distinctively 
in touch with the progressive spirit of the 
age. In accordance with the modern order 
of presentation, Part I. is devoted to kine- 
matics, Part II. to staties as a special case 
of dynamics, and Part III. to kinetics. No 
one acquainted with the magnitude of theo- 
retical mechanics would expect to find a 
complete treatise even in the space of 600 
octavo pages. It goes without saying, in 
fact, that he who would now do battle in 
the fields of mechanics should be armed 
with a battery of treatises. But it must be 
admitted that the work of Professor Ziwet 
covers the ground exceedingly well, giving 
a fairly good idea of nearly every important 
principle and process from the composition 
of vectors to the kinetics of variable systems. 
The mode of treatment, though distinctly 
analytical, is tempered by the introduction 
of geometrical illustrations and analogues 
where they serve to give clearness and fixity 
of ideas. A noteworthy feature of the work 
is the large number of references to the 
literature of the science. These references 
alone make the work one of the best that 
can fall into the hands of the enterprising 
student. The typography and press work 
are worthy of the distinguished publishers 
under whose auspices the volumes appear. 
A few misprints and a few inaccuracies of 
expression are visible in the work; but 
these are inevitable in a first edition of such 
a treatise. A speedy demand for a second 
edition will, we hope, enable the author not 
only to remove these trifling defects, but 
also to add an index, which will much 
enhance the value of the work for purposes 
of reference. k. S. W. 


SCIENCE. 21 


From the Greeks to Darwin.—An outline of 
the development of the evolution idea.— By 
Henry Farrrretp Ossorn.— Columbia 
University Biological Series 1.— New 
York and London, Macmillan & Co., 
1894. Pp. 259. $2.00. 

This is a timely book. For it is time 
that both the special student and the gen- 
eral public should know that the doctrine 
of evolution has cropped out on the surface 
of human thought from the period of the 
Greek philosophers, and that it did not 
originate with Darwin, and that natural 
selection is not a synonym of evolution. 

The author divides his work into six 
sections, entitled respectively: The antici- 
pation and interpretation of nature ; Among 
the Greeks; The theologians and natural 
philosophers; The evolutionists of the 
eighteenth century; From Lamarck to St. 
Hilaire ; Darwin. 

It is clearly shown that evolution has 
reached its present completeness as a result 
of a slow growth during the past twenty- 
four centuries, and that Darwin owes more 
to the Greeks than has been hitherto recog- 
nized by any of us. The Greek philoso- 
phers in biology, as in geology, anticipated, 
at least in some slight degree, modern 
scientific philosophy. The doctrine of con- 
tinuity in the organic and inorganic world, 
anticipations of the monistic philoso- 
phy, and of the evolution of life, were 
taught by Thales and Anaximander, while 
Aristotle spoke of some of the factors of 
transformation, and even clearly stated the 
principle of the survival of the fittest, 
though he afterwards rejected it. 

The father of evolution was Empedocles, 
who believed in spontaneous generation, 
that plants came first, that animal life long 
after budded forth from the plants, and in 
his poetry Osborn finds the germ of the the- 
ory of the survival of the fittest or of 
natural selection. Democritus perceived 
the principle of adaptation of single organs 


22 


to certain purposes, while Anaxagoras at- 
tributed adaptations in nature to intelligent 
design and was thus the founder of Tele- 
ology. But as Aristotle was the father of 
natural history so was he the first scientific 
evolutionist, being the earliest to conceive 
of the chain of being from polyps to man, 
a view afterwards generally held until La- 
marek replaced it by his truer simile of a 
branching tree. The great Greek natural- 
ist and anatomist understood the principle 
of adaptation of organs in its modern sense, 
discovered the law of the physiological 
division of labor, and conceived of life as 
the function of the organism; was not a 
vitalist; understood the doctrine of hered- 
ity, atavism or reversion ; and finally, with 
all his errors and misconceptions, had vague 
notions of the unity of type, of nature, of 
gradations in nature, while the core of his 
views on evolution was the doctrine of an 
‘internal perfecting tendency,’ which crops 
out in modern science in the writings of 
Owen, and even Koelliker, as well as 
others, including Weismann. 

Passing to the evolutionists of the present 
century, Oken’s place is, it seems to us, 
properly assigned; due credit is given to 
Buffon, who saw the force of isolation, and 
full credit to Erasmus Darwin, though suffi- 
cient stress is perhaps not laid on the fact 
that he was not a working zodlogist and 
had no followers. Osborn effectually dis- 
poses of the strong suspicion of Dr. Krause 
that Lamarck was familiar with the ‘ Zo- 
onomia,’ and made use of it in the develop- 
ment of his theory. He clearly brings out 
the fact, as stated by Martins, that Laplace 
supported Lamarck in the doctrine of the 
inheritance of acquired habits, as applied 
to the origin of the mental faculties of man, 
both of these authors anticipating Spencer, 
the doctrine being an old one, and ex- 
pressed by De Maillet. 

The statement of Lamarck’s views is full 
and carefully drawn up, and his preémi- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S: Vou. I.. No: 1: 


nence as the founder of modern evolution, 
though he had no immediate followers, ow- 
ing to his Cuvierian environment, clearly 
stated. This being the case, and in view or 
the fact that the number of Lamarckian 
evolutionists is now so great and constantly 
increasing, we should have wished that he 
had devoted still more space to one of the 
ereatest naturalists of pre-Darwinian times, 
giving more quotations from his works. 

Osborn controverts, and with success, we 
think, Huxley’s dictum that Treviranus 
should be placed in the same rank as an 
evolutionist with Lamarck. We certainly 
do not hear of Treviranians. The state- 
ment of the views of Owen is fair, and yet 
we should scarcely use the word ‘ hostility ’ 
in stating his attitude towards Darwinism 
or natural selection. Owen refused to at- 
tack the Vestiges of Creation when that 
book appeared, but rather sympathized with 
the general views of its author. As Osborn 
states, ‘“Owen was an evolutionist in a 
limited degree,” somewhat in the manner 
of Buffon, and perhaps a shade more from 
his wide knowledge of paleontology, but it 
is to be borne in mind that neither was 
Koelliker nor were others, Darwinians as 
such, and there are many still who accept 
the general doctrine of evolution, but do not 
regard natural selection as an adequate or 
efficient cause, or at least consider it as only 
one of many factors. 

While mentioning Darvin and Wallace 
as the leading selectionists no reference is 
made to the botanist Hooker, who, in his 
Flora antarctica arrived at the doctrine of 
transformation independently of Darwin, 
and became one of his two strongest support- 
ers. Also Bates should have been mentioned. 

The book should be widely read, not only 
by science teachers, by biological students, 
but we hope that historians, students of 
social science, and theologians will acquaint 
themselves with this clear, candid and 
catholic statement of the origin and early 


JANUARY 4, 1895. ] 


history of a theory which not only explains 
the origin of life-forms, but has transformed 
the methods of the historian, placed phil- 
osophy on a higher plane, and immeasurably 
widened our views of nature and of the 
Infinite Power working in and through the 
universe. A. S. PAcKARD. 
BRowN UNIVERSITY. 


Materials for the Study of Variation. —W LL1AM 
Batrson.—London and New York, Mac- 
millan & Co., 1894. xv +597 $6.50. 


Over thirty years ago Mr. Darwin out- 
lined the great problems for investigation 
in natural history, and, one after another, 
these lines of investigation have been 
studied by naturalists. Embryology, pale- 
ontology and systematic classification early 
attracted the attention of many naturalists, 
and these branches of investigation have 
been very thoroughly studied in the last 
quarter of a century. Geographical distri- 
bution was made a special subject of re- 
search by Mr. Wallace and others. These 
various lines of study, while, of course, 
they have not been exhausted, have cer- 
tainly been studied to such an extent that 
most of the valuable lessons which they 
teach have been learned. In recent years 
also another factor of the evolution problem, 
namely, that of heredity, has been the 
subject of eager research by various natural- 
ists. It is somewhat strange that the 
problem of variation has been so universally 
neglected except by Darwin’s Animals and 
Plants. It is upon variations in animals 
that the whole of the theories of Darwin and 
all evolutionary doctrines are based, but 
while the. last thirty years has seen’ much 
speculation as to variations, both concern- 
ing their causes and distribution, while 
many illustrative instances have been ac- 
eumulated, while nearly all the modern 
theories of evolution are based directly 
upon certain conceptions of variation, there 
has been no systematic attempt to study 


SCIENCE. , 23 


this fundamental problem. Speculative 
zodlogy has always a greater attractiveness 
to most minds than the more laborious and 
less entertaining work of collecting facts. 
The last twenty-five years has seen an 
abundance of publications upon evolution 
from theoretical grounds, and while varia- 
tions themselves have been discussed on 
both sides of the Atlantic, these discussions 
have been almost universally based upon a 
few stock illustrations, and must be recog- 
nized as without any proper foundation in 
facts. Natural science is certainly indebted 
to Mr. Bateson for haying taken up at last 
this branch of research which lies at the 
very foundation of the origin of species. 
Mr. Bateson’s book has a very modest title, 
and the author simply claims to have 
brought together materials out of which a 
theory of the origin of species may in the 
future be built. But this is the only 
systematic attempt yet made to study varia- 
tions themselves. The present volume is 
only the first instalment, and we are prom- 
ised more in the future. A book of nearly 
600 pages, filled with numerous illustrations, 
describing in more or less detail variations 
of all kinds, in all types of animals, will 
certainly find its way into the library of 
every naturalist who has any interest in 
speculative thought. 

A review of this character is hardly a 
fitting place to discuss the subjects pre- 
sented in this work. In reading over its 
pages there are, however, three or four 
striking conclusions of so much general 
theoretical importance that they may be 
selected as the teachings of this first volume. 
Most prominent among them stands the 
deduction of the author that variations are 
discontinuous. It is the theory of Darwin, 
and, in general, of his followers, that species 
were produced by natural selection acting 
upon slight continuous variations. The 
difficulties of this thought were plain to 
Mr. Darwin, and have become more plain 


24 


and more forcible as the years have passed. 
While the followers of Darwin’s views have 
tried to shut their eyes to them and have 
tried to explain away the objections that 
have arisen, it has been plain to every 
thinking naturalist that the natural selec- 
tion of minute accidental variations is en- 
tirely inadequate to accomplish the great 
end of producing species. The most import- 
ant result of Mr. Bateson’s study of varia- 
tions is that the variations that occur in 
animals are not minute and continuous, or, 
rather, that they are frequently discontin- 
uous. By this term the author means that 
variations may be sudden and extreme in 
character, such as the sudden development 
of a new tooth in a single generation, or 
the appearance of a new leg, or some other 
very prominent characteristic which appears 
at once without the numerous intermediate 
stages which Mr. Darwin’s theory assumes. 
While Mr. Bateson does not claim that this 
view is demonstrated by the facts now col- 
lected, he does insist that all of his data 
point in that direction. The extreme sig- 
nificance of this conclusion upon the ques- 
tion of the origin of species is plain at once. 
A second conclusion which one reaches in 
the perusal of these instances is that varia- 
tions are not haphazard, but,while, of course, 
they cannot be predicted with certainty, 
they do fall under certain definite laws. 
Mr. Bateson has found it possible to group 
the variations that occur in animals under 
very definite classes, so definite that, in many 
cases, at least, it is impossible to question 
that they are regulated by some organic 
law. Of course, Mr. Darwin recognized that 
variations had their causes, but, neverthe- 
less, he was inclined to believe that they 
were ‘par hazard.’ According to the con- 
clusions of Mr. Bateson, however, they are 
of a more or less definite nature. Inci- 
dentally also Mr. Bateson points out that 
the study of variation gives us a new con- 
ception of homology, and almost deprives 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 1, 


us of the belief in the long recognized law of 
reversion. It is somewhat surprising to be 
called upon to abandon the law of reversion, 
and perhaps the author does not deny that 
it may be a factor in development, but he 
does claim most of the instances so ex- 
plained have nothing to do with this prin- 
ciple. It is not possible here to dwell fur- 
ther upon the many suggestive facts which 
are brought out by this study. 

In criticism one may say that the Eng- 
lish is extremely poor. The subject, of 
course, is a difficult one, and the author is 
obliged to use a new terminology and to ex- 
plain his principles as he progresses. This 
in itself renders the book somewhat obscure, 
but we must add to this the fact that in 
many cases his sentences are very involved 
and cumbersome, and altogether the work 
is difficult reading. We may also some- 
what regret that the author does not weave 
into the work a few more suggestions as to 
the significance of some of the facts that he 
has treated. The great part of this work 
reads like a museum catalogue, and museum 
catalogues are much more intelligible if one 
understands the basis of classification. Mr. 
Bateson, however, distinctly states that he 
does not consider the evidence as yet suffi- 
cient to warrant conclusions except in re- 
gard to some few general subjects. One 
may also question if most of his material 
does not savor too strongly of abnormal, 
and, indeed, almost pathological variations, 
to fairly serve as a basis for a theory of the 
origin of species. But, in spite of one or 
two such minor criticisms, the book of Mr. 
Bateson is an extremely valuable addition 
to zodlogical literature, and when it is com- 
pleted by subsequent yolumes upon varia- 
tions of different nature it is hardly possi- 
ble to doubt that it will be one of the few 
valuable and lasting additions to the litera- 
ture on the general subject of the evolution 
of organic nature. H. W. Conn. 

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 


JANUARY 4, 1895.] 


Grundriss der Ethnologischen Jurisprudenz.— 
Atsert Hermann Post.—Two Vols.— 
Oldenburg and Leipzig, 1895. 

Ethnologische Studien zur Ersten Entwicklung 
der Strafe-—S. R. Sterymetz.—Two Vols. 
—Leiden and Leipzig, 1894. 

In these two carefully prepared and thor- 
oughly reasoned works we have for the first 
time an unbiased application of the facts 
furnished by ethnology to an analysis of 
the evolution of jurisprudence. The study 
of them will prove of the greatest profit 
to the advocate, the anthropologist and 
the philosophic student of the growth of 
society. 

Dr. Steinmetz, in his over 900 large oc- 
tavo pages devoted to the subject, pursues 
the idea of punishment through all the 
forms under which it appears in early con- 
ditions, such as personal revenge, blood 
feuds, compounding of offences, family, 
totemic and social punishment, the venge- 
ance of the gods, and religious chastise- 
ment. The foundation for this historic 
analysis is laid in the earlier pages of the 
first volume by an able excursus on the 
psychological motives which underlie the 
thirst for vengeance and the passion for 
cruelty. This furnishes a philosophic basis 
on which the author constructs his conclu- 
sions by an inductive study of all the forms 
of punishment and penalty found in primi- 
tive and early peoples. With this he is 
contented, and with a temperance worthy 
of high commendation, he refrains from 
committing his work to one or another 
‘school’ by applying it to the defence 
of some pet doctrine of popular sociol- 
ogy, whieh would at once limit its use- 
fulness. He rather says: ‘‘ Here are the 
psychic motives; and here are the results 
to which under various conditions they 
have givenrise. Let the facts present their 
own inferences.” 

This impartial spirit also thoroughly per- 
vades the more comprehensive study of Dr. 


SCIENCE. 25 


Post. It is considerably over a thousand 
pages in length and is an exhaustive analysis 
of the whole notion of rights, of the person, 
the family, the clan and the state, as they 
apply to both persons and things. In the 
second volume he traverses in his investiga- 
tion of penalties much of the ground occu- 
pied by Dr. Steinmetz, and a comparison of 
their methods and results is quite interest- 
ing. The author’s reading is immense, and 
the care with which he cites his authorities 
is most praiseworthy. While fully aware 
of the distinctly philosophic nature of his 
subject,—for a people’s abstract conceptions 
of ethics are embodied in their concrete 
forms of laws,—he withstands the tempta- 
tion to theorize on these points and keeps 
himself strictly within the limits of objective 
and inductive inquiry. 

Of both these works it may be said that 
they represent the purest scientific method, 
and that they stand in the front rank of the 
contributions to Ethnology in its true sense 
which have appeared of late years. 

Grate 


Flora of Nebraska.—Edited by members of 
the Botanical Seminar of the University 
of Nebraska.—Introduction and Part 1., 
Protophyta-Phycophyta ; Part 2, Coleocheta- 
cee, Characee.—Lincoln, Nebraska, Pub- 
lished by the Seminar, 1894. 4to, pp. 
123, pl. 36. 

The beautiful work here noticed must 
long hold first place in the published results 
of the exploration and study of a local flora. 
It is hard to find words in which to express 
our gratification at its appearance, and we 
have tried in vain to find any point which 
is fairly open to adverse criticism. Begin- 
ning with a synopsis of the larger groups, 
including families, and an introduction con- 
tributed by Professor Bessey, in the details 
of which there is room for much difference 
of opinion, there follow concise descriptions 
of the classes, orders, genera, 


families, 


26 


species and varieties of Protophyta and 
Phycophyta found within the State, con- 
tributed by Mr. DeAlton Saunders, and of 
the Coleocheetaceze and Characez by Mr. 
Albert F. Woods. The descriptions are 
well drawn, the typography excellent and 
the plates accurate and well executed. We 
tender our cordial congratulations to all 
concerned in the production of the book and 
to all who may have opportunity to use it. 
N. L. B. 


NOTES. 
THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 

THE programs of the mid-winter meetings 
of the several scientific societies promise 
large attendance and many important 
papers. The American Society of Natural- 
ists meets at Johns Hopkins University, 
Baltimore, and in conjunction with it the 
American Morphological Society and the 
American Physiological Society. At the 
same place and time the American Society 
of Geologists meets. During the same 
week the Anatomists meet at Columbia 
College, New York; the American Psycho- 
logical Association meets at Princeton ; the 
American Folklore Society meets at Wash- 
ington, and the annual meeting of the 
American Mathematical Society is held at 
Columbia College. These meetings will be 
fully reported in Science. 


PHYSICS. 

AcTuAL trial trips with flying machines 
have recently been made by Mr. Maxim 
and Prof. Langley. Mr. Maxim’s machine 
was fastened to rails to prevent its rising, 
and sailed 500 feet at the rate of 45 miles 
per hour. Prof. Langley’s xroplane was 
allowed to fly over the water at Quantico, 
Md., on December 8th. Both Mr. Maxim 
and Prof. Langley use light steam engines 
in preference to storage batteries. 


Tue Société Internationale des Electri-. 


ciens established a central laboratory at 
Paris about seven years ago. The principal 


SCIENCE. 


IN. S. Voz. I. No: 


object of the laboratory was the preserva- 
tion of electrical standards, and to afford 
practical electricians an opportunity for 
testing their various instruments. It is 
evident that such a laboratory offers special 
advantages for the investigation of questions 
belonging to the science and industry of 
electricity. These facilities have been to 
some extent utilized; but, in order to in- 
crease the usefulness of the institution, the 
Society has added to it a School of Applied 
Electricity. This school, which will be 
opened on December 3d, has been con- 
structed on a plot of land granted by the 
city of Paris, the funds for the building 
having been raised by private subscription. 
Purely practical instruction will be given 
at the school. There will be two chief 
courses, one dealing with the industrial 
applications of electricity, and the other 
with electrometry. It is hoped that the 
school will be a training ground for higher 
work in the Central Laboratory, to which 
it is attached.— Nature. 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


Dr. CHarues L. Dana’s address on Degen- 
eration and its Stigmata, delivered at the 
Anniversary Meeting of the New York 
Academy of Medicine, Nov. 28, 1894, has 
been printed in the Medical Record, of 
Dec. 15th. Dr. Dana traces with much skill 
the historic development of the scientifie 
method that discovers mental traits and 
especially mental degenerations from their 
physical manifestations. 


Tue charges made against the manage- 
ment of the Elmira Reformatory have been 
dismissed by Governor Flower. The ma- 
jority of the commissioners who examined 
the charges report that the institution 
stands preéminent among the reforma- 
tories of the world and that its success in 
the reformation of criminals has been extra- 
ordinary. This confirms the views of the 
leading criminologists and reformers. 


JANUARY 4, 1895.] 


EDUCATIONAL. 

Dr. J. K. Tatmace has been called to the 
professorship of geology recently established 
in the University of Utah. 


America has accomplished much for the 
advancement of Anthropology, but the work 
has been largely done by the Government 
institutions and by individuals. Columbia 
College offers this year courses in Anthro- 
pology (Dr. Farrand and Dr. Ripley), and 
the University of California must now be 
added to the institutions proposing courses 
in this subject. 


Tuer Universities of Oxford and of Cam- 
bridge have recently taken action of con- 
siderable interest to Americans proposing 
to study abroad. The comparatively few 
Americans who have been in residence at 
Oxford or Cambridge would undoubtedly 
agree in recommending this course to others 
as highly as studying at a German univer- 
sity. But hitherto degrees could only be 
obtained by undergoing very irksome ex- 
aminations. Oxford will now confer the 
degrees Litt. B. and Se. B. on evidence of 
‘a good general education,’ and research 
work evincing ‘a high standard of merit.’ 
Three years’ residence is required, but this 
condition may be modified. The grace 
adopted at Cambridge is as follows: ‘ That 
a syndicate be appointed to consider: (1) the 
means of giving further help and encourage- 
ment to persons who desire to pursue courses 
of advanced study or research within the 
University; (2) what classes of students 
should be admitted to such courses; (3) 
what academic recognition, whether by 
degrees or otherwise, should be given to 
such students, and upon what conditions ; 
that the syndicate be empowered to consult 
and confer with such persons and bodies as 
they may think fit; and that they report 
to the Senate before the end of the Lent 
Term, 1895.” 


Tue fourth edition of Minerva (1894-1895) 


SCIENCE. 27 


presents as frontispiece an etched portrait of 
Lord Kelvin by Herkomer. The book now 
extends to 930 pages, an increase of 69 
pages over the preceding edition, many new 
institutions having been included. The 
American universities and colleges added 
in this edition are Bryn Mawr, Cincinnati, 
Colgate, Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology, Nebraska, Ohio Wesleyan, Ver- 
mont, Wellesley, Western Reserve, making 
the total number thirty-nine. In attend- 
ance of students the order of the great uni- 
versities is Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Vienna, 
Naples, Moscow, Budapest, Munich, Athens, 
Oxford, Harvard. But in many of these 
institutions attendance on popular lectures 
seems to be included. 


A work with the range of Minerva, giving 
the courses as well as the instructors in in- 
stitutions of learning, would be of much 
use, but a difficult undertaking. The need 
has, however, been supplied for the differ- 
ent institutions of Paris by Le livret de 
Vétudiant de Paris (Delalain Frére 1894— 
95), prepared under the direction of the 
general council of the faculties. 


FORTHCOMING BOOKS. 


Dr. Dante G. Brinton, Professor of 
American Archzeology in the University of 
Pennsylvania, has in press a Primer of 
Mayan Hieroglyphics, to be published by 
Ginn & Co., Boston, in which he aims 
to explain the elements of the mysterious 


writing: on the monuments of Central 
America. 
Ginn & Co. also announce a series of 


handbooks on the History of Religions, edited 
by Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., of the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. The Religions of India, 
by Prof. E. W. Hopkins, of Bryn Mawr, 
will form the first volume. 


Macmitian & Co. announce The Principles 
of Sociology, by Prof. Franklin H. Giddings, 
of Columbia College ; Monism, The Confession 


28 


of Faith of a Man of Science, by Dr. Ernst 
Haeckel; Life at the Zoo, by C. J. Cornish ; 
a new edition of S. Thompson’s Electricity 
and Magnetism and Mental Development in the 
Child and in the Race, by J. Mark Baldwin. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 


J. A. Marrnews, Notes on Carborundum. 

Basurorp Dean, On the collections of Fossil 
Fishes at Berea, New London and Delaware, 
Ohio. 

L. Mcl. Luqurr, The Relative effects of Frost 
and Sulphate of Soda Efflorescence as shown 
by Tests of Building Stone. 

J. F. Kemp, Secretary. 


THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 


B. D. Hatsrep, Abnormalities in Plants Due 
to Fungus Parasites. 
Henry H. Russy, Secretary. 


AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL 
ENGINEERS. 

Lupwic Gurmann, On the Production of Ro- 
tary Magnetic Fields by a Single Alternating 
Current. 

In the absence of the author, the paper will 
be presented in abstract by Dr. M. I. Pupin. 
A meeting of Western members will be 
held the same evening at Chicago, where 
the paper will be read by the author. 
Rape W. Porn, Secretary. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Quarternary Time Divisible in Three Periods, 
the Lafayette, Glacial, and Recent: WARREN 
UPHAM. 
The Homologies of the Uredinea (The Rusts) : 
CHARLES EH. Bussey. 
On the Evolution of the Art of Working in 
Stone; a preliminary paper by J. D. Me- 
Guire: CHARLES H, Reap. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 1. 


Zoblogy in the High School: Cuarence M. 
WEED. 

Editorials; Recent Books and Pamphlets; Re- 
cent Interature. 

General Notes:—Petrography; Geology and 
Paleontology ; Botany ; Zoblogy ; Entomology ; 
Archeology and Ethnology. 

Proceedings of Scientific Societies. 


THE PHYSICAL REVIEW. 
Frontispiece : portrait of Professor von Helmholtz. 
Studies of the Lime Light: Epwarp L. Nicu- 

ots and Mary L. CREHORE. 

A Study of the Residual Charges of Condensers 
and their Dependence upon Temperature: 
FREDERICK BEDELL and Cart KINSLEY. 

A General Theory of the Glow-Lamp I: H. 
S. WEBER. 

Minor Contributions ; Notes; New Books. 


BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL 
SOCIETY. 

On the Group of Holoedric Transformation of a 
Given Group into Jiself: E. Hasrrnes 
Moore. 

On the Non-Primitive Substitution Groups of 
Degree Ten: G. A. MruiER. 

Briefer Notices; Notes; New Publications. 


NEW BOOKS. 
Popular Lectures and Addresses. Vol. IL., 
Geology and General Physics. Sir W. 


THompson. London and New York. 
Macmillan & Co. 1894. Pp. x., 599. 
Light. Elementary text-book; theoretical and 
practical. R. T. GuAzEBROOK. Cambridge 
University Press. New York. Macmillan 
& Co. 1894. Pp. vii., 213. $1.00. 
Manual of Physico- Chemical Measurements. By 
Witpetm Osrwatp. Trans. by JAMES 
Waker. London and New York. Mac- 
millan & Co. 1894. Pp. xii., 255. $2.25. 
Electricity One Hundred Years Ago and To-day. 
Epwin J. Houston. New York. W. J. 
Johnson & Co. 1894. Pp. 199. $1.00. 


~. 163 Holzschnitten und einer Tafel. 


SCIENCE. 


New SERIEs. 
Vor. I. No. 2. 


Fripay, JANUARY 11, 


SINGLE Coptes, 15 cts. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 


1895. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


PHYSICS. 


ABHANDLUNGEN, physikalische, der kénigl. Aka- 
demie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. 4°. Mit. 1 Taf. 
Mk. 10. 


Bois, Dk. H. pu. Magnetische Kreise, deren The- 
orie und Anwendung. Mit 94in den Text gedruck- 


ten Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Gebunden. Mk. 10. 


CHRISTIANSEN, PRor. Dr. C., Elemente der theo- 
retischen Physik. Deutsch vy. Dr. Joh. Miller. Mit 
e. Vorwort v. Prof. Dr. E. Wiedemann. gr. 8°. Mk. 
10. 


Drupe, P. Physik des Aethers auf elektromag- 
netischer Grundlage. 8°. Mit66 Abbildgn. Mk. 14. 


Foppt, Prof. Dr. A., Einfiihrung in die Maxwell- 
*sche Theorie der Elektricitit. Mit. e. Einleit. Ab- 
schnitte tiber das Rechnen m. Vectorgréssen in der 
Physik. gr. 8°. Mk. 10. 

GARNAULT, E. Mécanique, physique et chimie. 
Paris, 1894. 8°. Avec. 325 fig. 8 fr. 

Korn, Dr. ArntHUR. Eine Theorie der Gravita- 
tion und der elektrischen Erscheinungen auf Grund- 
lage der Hydrodynamik. Zweiter Teil: Elektrody- 
namik. Erster Abschnitt. Theorie des permanenten 
Magnetismus und der konstanten elektrischen Stréme. 
pr. 8°. Mik. 3. 


WEBER. Sechster Band. Mechanik der mensch- 
lichen Gehwerkzeuge. Besorgt durch Friedrich Mer- 
kel und Otto Fischer. Mit 17 Tafeln und in den Text 
gedruckten Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Mk. 16. 

WEBER’S WERKE, WILHELM. Herausgegeben yon 
der Koéniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu 
Gottingen. Vierter Band Galvanismus und Elektro- 
dynamik. Zweiter Teil. Besorgt durch Heinrich 
Weber. Mit 4 Tafeln und in den Text gedruckten 
Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Mk. 16. 

WIEDEMANN, GustAy. Die Lehre der Elektriz- 
itit. Zweite umgearbeitete und vermehrte Auflage. 
Zugleich als vierte Auflage der Lehre vom Galvanis- 
mus und Elektromagnetismus. Zweiter Band. Mit 
gr. 8°. Mk. 28. 


CHEMISTRY. 

BIECHELE, Dr. Max., Pharmaceutische Uebungs- 
praparate. Anleitung zur Darstellung, Erkennung, 
Prifung und stéchiometrischen Berechnung von of- 
fizinellen chemisch-pharmaceutischen Priparaten. 8°. 
Gebunden. Mk. 6. 

BusarD Dr. AL¥rons, und Dr. Epuarp BArer. 
Hilfsbuch fiir Nahrungsmittelchemiker auf Grund- 


| 
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Nahrungsmittelchemiker. 


Mit in den Text gedruck- 
ten Abbildungen. 8°. 


Gebunden. Mk. 8. 


ERLENMEYER’S, E., Lehrbuch der organischen 
Chemie. II. Thl. Die aromatischen Verbindungen. 
Begonnen von Rch. Meyer fortgesetzt von H. Gold- 
schmidt, weiter fortgefithrt von K. v. Buchka. I. Bd. 
8 Ltg. "Mk. 6. 

GEISSLER, DR. EWAup. Grundriss der pharma- 
ceutischen Massanaly se. Mit Beriicksichtigung ein- 
iger handelschemischen und hygienischen Analysen. 


Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Mit 37 
in den Text gedruckten Holzschnitten. 8°. Gebun- 
den. Mk. 4. 

2896. GIRARD, C., et. A. DupRE. Analyse des 
matiéres alimentaires et recherche de leurs falsifica- 
tions. 8°. 32 fr. 50c. 


GLUCKSMANN, Karu. Kritische Studien im Be- 
reiche der Fundamentalanschauungen der theoretisch- 
en Chemie. Zweiter Teil: Uber die Molekularhypo- 
these. 8°. Mk. 2.30. 

HANDWORTERBUCH DER CHEMIE, herausgegeben 
von A. Ladenburg. XII. Bd. 8°. Mit Holzschn. S. 
Nr. 2532. Mk. 16. 

JAcQuot, E. et WILM, 
France. Etudes chimiques et géologiques. 
carte et 21 fig. 20 fr. 

J AHRESBERICHT iiber die Leistungen der chemisch- 
en Technologie m. besond. Beriicksicht. der Gewerbe- 
statistik f..d. J. 1893. Jahrg. 1—XXV bearb. von 
R. v. Wagner. Fortgesetz v. Dr. Ferd. Fischer. 39. 
od. neue Folge. 24 Jahrg. gr. 8°. M. 200 Abbildgn. 
Mk. 24. 

CECHSNER DE CONNICK. 
ique. 2vol. 8°. Fr.20. 

OsTWALD, W. Die wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen 


Les Eaux minérales de la 
8°. Avec 


Cours de chimie organ- 


der analytischen Chemie. 8°. Mk. 4 
OsTWALD, W. Elektrochemie. Ihre Geschichte 
und Lehre. 3. u. 4. Lfg. 8°. Mit Abbildgn. 4 Mk. 2. 


RICHTER’s, V. v., Chemie der Kohlenstoffverbin- 
dungen od. organische Chemie. 7. Aufl. Neubearb. 


y. Prof. Dr. R. Anschiitz. (In 2 Bdn.) 1. Bd. Die 
Chemie der Fettkérper. 8°. Holschn. Mk. 10. 
SCHNELLER, K. Reactionen und Reagentien. Ein 


Handbuch fiir Aerzte, Analytiker, Apotheker und 
Chemiker. Bd. 8° Mk. 6. 


ZIRKEL, Prov. Dr. FERDINAND. Lehrbuch der 
Petrographie. Zweite, giinzlich neu verfasste Auf- 
lage. Zweiter Band. gr. 8. Mk. 19. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT, 
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il SCIEN CE.—ADVERTISEMEN'S. 


Macmillan & Co.’s New Books in Science. 


Elementary Lessons in Electricity and 
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By SYLVANUs P. THompson, D.Sce., B.A., F.R.A.S., 

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Lectures on Human and Animal Psy- 
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Popular Lectures and Addresses. 

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A Laboratory Manual of Physics and 
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Manual of Physico-Chemical 
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S. Newcoms, Mathematics ; R. S. WoopwaArp, Mechanics ; E. C. PICKERING, As- 


tronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THuRsTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
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Fripay, January 11, 1895. 


CONTENTS : 


On the Magnitude of the Solar System: WILLIAM 
HEPA ESRC NESE ce s/s wna cis s « « git niginissi =e oes 29 


The Baltimore Meeting of the American Society of 
Naturalists: WW. A. SETCHELL, Secretary. ..... 34 
The Princeton Meeting of the American Psychological 
Association: J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Secretary. . .42 
Current Notes on Anthropology; New Series, I.: D. 
RS MESNRTUEONY core sls 2.0 ws - +0 sic Meat ta(cls (ais a's a)e\siare 47 
FRM hw 0 se von san «Re lees 8 mio ARO Es 
The New Serum Treatment of Diphtheria ; Oys- 
ters as a Means of Transmitting Typhoid Fever. .49 
The Evolution of Invention: O. T. MASON. .....- 50 
Boientific Literature :-—. .....cscnnsccesveesessne: 50 
Kelvin’s Popular Addresses: T, C. Mendenhall. 
Laws of Temperature Control of the Geographic 
Distribution of Life. Lamson-Scribner’s Grasses 


of Tennessee: N. L. B 
ER os os <a: aie. 2\p.c1s.a's's 2’ = SE eeteLctesie.oin. 2, «1 55 
Physics ; Personal; Zodlogy ; New Publications. 
Societies and Academies. ..... slo edwnveveveccsecce: 56 
HUE BOOKS 5; 6 ones ose c= 2s oe Bee <ia's o\s:acte-o= 56 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

Subscriptions’ (five dollars annually ) and advertisements 
— “tag tothe Publisher of ScrENcE, 41 East 49th St., 

ew Yor 


ON THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM.* 

Nature may be studied in two widely 
different ways. On the one hand we may 
employ a powerful microscope which will 
render visible the minutest forms and limit 
our field of view to an infinitesimal frac- 


*Part of the Address delivered before the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science at its 
Brooklyn meeting, August 16, 1894, by the retiring 
President, Professor Bkney and reprinted with 
his permission. 


tion of an inch situated within a foot of our 
own noses ; or on the other hand, we may 
occupy some commanding position and from 
thence, aided by a telescope, we may ob- 
tain a comprehensive view of an extensive 
region. The first method is that of the 
specialist, the second is that of the philos- 
opher, but both are necessary for an ade- 
quate understanding of nature. The one 
has brought us knowledge wherewith to de- 
fend ourselves against bacteria and microbes 
which are among the most deadly enemies 
of mankind, and the other has made us 
acquainted with the great laws of matter 
and force upon which rests the whole fabric 
of science. All nature is one, but for con- 
venience of classification we have divided 
our knowledge into a number of sciences 
which we usually regard as quite distinct 
from each other. Along certain lines, or 
more properly, in certain regions, these 
sciences necessarily abut on each other, and 


just there lies the weakness of the special- 


ist. He is like a wayfarer who always 
finds obstacles in crossing the boundaries 
between two countries, while to the trav- 
eler who gazes over them from a command- 
ing eminence the case is quite different. If 
the boundary is an ocean shore there is no 
mistaking it ; if a broad river or a chain of 
mountains it is still distinct ; but if only a 
line of posts traced over hill and dale, then 
it becomes lost in the natural features of 
the landscape, and the essential unity of the 


30 


whole region is apparent. In that case the 
border land is wholly a human conception 
of which nature takes no cognizance, and 
so it is with the scientific border land to 
which I propose to invite your attention 
this evening. 

To the popular mind there are no two 
sciences further apart than astronomy and 
geology. The one treats of the structure 
and mineral constitution of our earth, the 
causes of its physical features and its his- 
tory, while the other treats of the celestial 
bodies, their magnitudes, motions, distances, 
periods of revolution, eclipses, order, and of 
the causes of their various phenomena. 
And yet many, perhaps I may even say 
most of the apparent motions of the heavenly 
bodies are merely reflections of the motions 
of the earth, and in studying them we are 
really studying it. Furthermore, preces- 
sion, nutation and the phenomena of the 
tides depend largely upon the internal struc- 
ture of the earth, and there astronomy and 
geology merge into each other. Neverthe- 
less the methods of the two sciences are 
widely different, most astronomical prob- 
lems being discussed quantitatively by 
means of rigid mathematical formule, while 
in the vast majority of cases the geological 
ones are discussed only qualitatively, each 
author contenting himself with a mere state- 
ment of what he thinks. With precise data 
the methods of astronomy lead to very exact 
results, for mathematics is a mill which 
grinds exceeding fine ; but, after all, what 
comes out of a mill depends wholly upon 
what is put into it, and if the data are un- 
certain, as is the case in most cosmological 
problems, there is little to choose between 
the mathematics of the astronomer and the 
guesses of the geologist. 

If we examine the addresses delivered by 
former presidents of this Association, and of 
the sister—perhaps it would be nearer the 
truth to say the parent—Association on the 
other side of the Atlantic, we shall find 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 2. 


that they have generally dealt either with 
the recent advances in some broad field of 
science, or else with the development of 
some special subject. This evening I pro- 
pose to adopt the latter course, and I shall 
invite your attention to the present condi- 
tion of our knowledge respecting the magni- 
tude of the solar system, but in so doing it 
will be necessary to introduce some con- 
siderations derived from laboratory experi- 
ments upon the luminiferous ether, others 
derived from experiments upon ponderable 
matter, and still others relating both to the 
surface phenomena and to the internal 
structure of the earth, and thus we shall 
deal largely with the border land where 
astronomy, physics and geology merge into 
each other. 

The relative distances of the various 
bodies which compose the solar system can 
be determined to a considerable degree of 
approximation with very crude instruments 
as soon as the true plan of the system be- 
comes known, and that plan was taught by 
Pythagoras more than five hundred years 
before Christ. It must have been known to 
the Egyptians and Chaldeans still earlier, if 
Pythagoras really acquired his knowledge 
of astronomy from them as is affirmed by 
some of the ancient writers, but on that 
point there is no certainty. In public Pytha- 
goras seemingly accepted the current belief 
of his time, which made the earth the center 
of the universe, but to his own chosen dis- 
ciples he communicated the true doctrine 
that the sun occupies the center of the 
solar system, and that the earth is only one 
of the planets revolving around it. Like 
all the world’s greatest sages, he seems to 
have taught only orally. A century elapsed 
before his doctrines were reduced to writing 
by Philolaus of Crotona, and it was still 
later before they were taught in publie for 
the first time by Hicetas, or, as he is some- 
times called, Nicetas, of Syracuse. Then 
the familiar cry of impiety was raised, and 


JANUARY 11, 1895. ] 


the Pythagorean system was eventually sup- 
pressed by that now called the Ptolemaic, 
which held the field until it was overthrown 
by Copernicus, almost two thousand years 
later. Pliny tells us that Pythagoras be- 
lieved the distances to the sun and moon to 
be respectively 252,000 and 12,600 stadia, 
or taking the stadium at 625 feet, 29,837 
and 1,492 English miles; but there is no 
record of the method by which these num- 
bers were ascertained. 

After the relative distances of the various 
planets are known, it only remains to de- 
termine the scale of the system, for which 
purpose the distance between any two 
planets suffices. We know little about the 
early history of the subject, but it is clear 
that the primitive astronomers must have 
found the quantities to be measured too 
small for detection with their instruments, 
and even in modern times the problem has 
proved to be an extremely difficult one. 
Aristarchus of Samos, who flourished about 
270 B. C., seems to have been the first to at- 
tack it in a scientific manner. Stated in 
modern language, his reasoning was that 
when the moon is exactly half full, the earth 
and sun as seen from its center must make 
a right angle with each other, and by meas- 
uring the angle between the sun and moon, 
as seen from the earth at that instant, all 
the angles of the triangle joing the earth, 
sun and moon would become known, and 
thus the ratio of the distance of the sun to 
the distance of the moon would be deter- 
mined. Although perfectly correct in theory, 
the difficulty of deciding visually upon the 
exact instant when the moon is half full is 
so great that it cannot be accurately done 
even with the most powerful telescopes. Of 
course Aristarchus had no telescope, and he 
does not explain how he effected the obser- 
vation, but his conclusion was that at the 
instant in question the distance between the 
eenters of the sun and moon, as seen from 
the earth, is less than a right angle by ,!5 


SCIENCE. 3 


part of the same. 
this by saying that the angle is 87 degrees, 


We should now express 


but Aristarchus knew nothing of trigonom- 
etry, and in order to solve his triangle, he 
had recourse to an ingenious, but long and 
cumbersome geometrical process which has 
come down to us, and affords conclusive 
proof of the condition of Greek mathematics 
at that time. His conclusion was that the 
sun is nineteen times further from the earth 
than the moon, and if we combine that re- 
sult with the modern value of the moon’s 
parallax, viz. : 3,422.38 seconds, we obtain 
for the solar parallax 180 seconds, which is 
more than twenty times too great. 

The only other method of determining 
the solar parallax known to the ancients 
was that devised by Hipparchus about 150 
B.C. It was based on measuring the rate 
of decrease of the diameter of the earth’s 
shadow cone by noting the duration of lunar 
eclipses, and as the result deduced from it 
happened to be nearly the same as that 
found by Aristarchus, substantially his value 
of the parallax remained in vogue for nearly 
two thousand years, and the discovery of 
the telescope was required to reveal its er- 
roneous character. 
ency was due 
of the true parallax, which we now know is 


Doubtless this persist- 
to the extreme minuteness 


far too small to have been visible upon the 
ancient instruments, and thus the supposed 
measures of it were really nothing but 
measures of their inac-uracy. 

The telescope was first pointed to the 
heavens by Galileo in 1609, but it needed 
a micrometer to convert it into an accurate 
measuring instrument, and that did not 
come into being until 1639, when it was in- 
vented by Wm. Gascoigne. After his death 
in 1644, his original instrument passed to 
Richard Townley who attached it toa four- 
teen foot telescope at his residence in Town- 
ley, Lancashire, England, where it was used 
by Flamsteed in observing the diurnal paral- 
lax of Mars during its opposition in 1672. 


32 SCIENCE. 


A description of Gascoigne’s micrometer was 
published in the Philosophical Transactions 
in 1667, and a little before that a similar 
instrument had been invented by Auzout in 
France, but observatories were fewer then 
than now, and so far as I know J. D. Cassini 
was the only person beside Flamsteed who 
attempted to determine the solar parallax 
from that opposition of Mars. Foreseeing 
the importance of the opportunity, he had 
Richer dispatched to Cayenne some months 
previously, and when the opposition came 
he effected two determinations of the paral- 
lax ; one being by the diurnal method, from 
his own observations in Paris, and the 
other by the meridian method from ob- 
servations in France by himself, Romer 
and Picard, combined with those of Richer 
at Cayenne. This was the transition from 
the ancient instruments with open sights 
to telescopes armed with micrometers, and 
the result must have been little short of 
stunning to the seventeenth century as- 
tronomers, for it caused the hoary and gi- 
gantic parallax of about 180 seconds to 
shrink incontinently to ten seconds, and 
thus expanded their conception of the solar 
system to something like its true dimen- 
sions. More than fifty years previously 
Kepler had argued from his ideas of the 
celestial harmonies that the solar parallax 
could not exceed 60 seconds, and a little 
later Horrocks had shown on more scientific 
grounds that it was probably as small as 14 
seconds, but the final death-blow to the 
ancient values ranging as high as two or 
three minutes came from these observa- 
tions of Mars by Flamsteed, Cassini and 
Richer. 

Of course the results obtained in 1672 
produced a keen desire on the part of as- 
tronomers for further evidence respecting 
the true value of the parallax, and as Mars 
comes into a favorable position for such in- 
vestigations only at intervals of about six- 
teen years, they had recourse to observations 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 2. 


of Mercury and Venus. In 1677 Halley 
observed the diurnal parallax of Mercury, 
and also a transit of that planet across the 
sun’s disk, at St. Helena, and in 1681 J. D. 
Cassini and Picard observed Venus when 
she was on the same parallel with the sun, 
but although the observations of Venus 
gave better results than those of Mercury, 
neither of them was conclusive, and we now 
know that such methods are inaccurate 
even with the powerful instruments of the 
present day. Nevertheless, Halley’s attempt 
by means of the transit of Mercury ulti- 
mately bore fruit in the shape of his cele- 
brated paper of 1716, wherein he showed 
the peculiar advantages of transits of Venus 
for determining the solar parallax. The 
idea of utilizing such transits for this pur- 
pose seems to have been vaguely conceived 
by James Gregory, or perhaps even by 
Horrocks, but Halley was the first to work 
it out completely, and long after his death 
his paper was mainly instrumental in induc- 
ing the governments of Europe to undertake 
the observations of the transits of Venus in 
1761 and 1769, from which our first aceu- 
rate knowledge of the sun’s distance was 
obtained. 

Those who are not familiar with practical 
astronomy may wonder why the solar par- 
allax can be got from Mars and Venus, but 
not from Mercury, or the sun itself. The 
explanation depends on two facts. Firstly, 
the nearest approach of these bodies to 
the earth is for Mars 33,870,000 miles, 
for Venus 23,654,000 miles, for Mercury 
47,935,000 miles and for the sun 91,239,000 
miles. Consequently, for us Mars and 
Venus have very much larger parallaxes 
than Mercury or the sun, and of course the 
larger the parallax the easier it is to meas- 
ure. Secondly, even the largest of these 
parallaxes must be determined within far 
less than one-tenth of a second of the truth, 
and while that degree of accuracy is possible 
im measuring short ares, it is quite unat- 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


tainable in long ones. Hence one of the 
most essential conditions for the successful 
measurement of parallaxes is that we shall 
be able to compare the place of the near 
body with that of a more distant one situ- 
ated in the same region of the sky. In the 
ease of Mars that can always be done by 
making use of a neighboring star, but when 
Venus is near the earth she is also so close 
to the sun that stars are not available, and 
consequently her parallax can be satisfac- 
torily measured only when her position can 
be accurately referred to that of the sun, or, 
in other words, only during her transits 
across the sun’s disk. But even when the 
two bodies to be compared are sufficiently 
near each other, we are‘still embarrassed by 
the fact that it is more difficult to measure 
the distance between the limb of a planet 
and a star or the limb of the sun than it is 
to measure the distance between two stars, 
and since the discovery of so many asteroids, 
that circumstance has led to their use for 
determinations of the solar parallax. Some 
of these bodies approach within 75,230,000 
miles of the earth’s orbit, and as they look 
precisely like stars, the increased accuracy 
of pointing on them fully makes up for their 
greater distance, as compared with Mars or 
Venus. 

After the Copernican system of the world 
and the Newtonian theory of gravitation 
were accepted it soon became evident that 
trigonometrical measurements of the solar 
parallax might be supplemented by deter- 
minations based on the theory of gravita- 
tion, and the first attempts in that direction 
were made by Machin 1729 and T. Mayer in 
1753. The measurement of the velocity of 
light between points on the earth’s surface, 
first effected by Fizeau in 1849, opened up 
still other possibilities, and thus for deter- 
mining the solar parallax we now have at 
our command no less than three entirely 
distinct classes of methods which are known 
respectively as the trigonometrical, the gray- 


SCIENCE. : 


OW 
Oo 


itational and the photo-tachymetrical. We 
have already given a summary sketch of the 
trigenometrical methods, as applied by the 
ancient astronomers to the dichotomy and 
shadow cone of the moon, and by the mod- 
erns to Venus, Mars and the asteroids, and 
we shall next glance briefly at the gravita- 
tional and photo-tachymetrical methods. 
* * * * * * 

The theory of probability and uniform 
experience alike show that the limit of ac- 
curacy attainable with any instrument is 
soon reached; and yet we all know the 
fascination which continually lures us on 
in our efforts to get better results out of the 
familiar telescopes and circles which have 
constituted the standard equipment of ob- 
servatories for nearly a century. Possibly 
these instruments may be capable of indi- 
cating somewhat smaller quantities than 
we have hitherto succeeded in measuring 
with them, but their limit cannot be far off 
because they already show the disturbing 
effects of slight inequalities of temperature 
and other uncontrollable causes. So far as 
these effects are accidental they eliminate 
themselves from every long series of obser- 
vations, but there always remains a residuum 
of constant error, perhaps quite unsuspected, 
which gives us no end of trouble. Encke’s 
value of the solar parallax affords a fine 
illustration of this. From the transits of 
Venus in 1761 and 1769 he found 8-58 
seconds in 1824, which he subsequently 
corrected to 8°57 seconds, and for thirty 
years that value was universally accepted. 
The first objection to it came from Hansen 
in 1854, a second followed from Le Verrier 
in 1858, both based upon facts connected 
with the lunar theory, and eventually it 
became evident that Encke’s parallax was 
about one-quarter of a second too small. 
Now please observe that Encke’s value 
was obtained trigonometrically, and_ its 
inaccuracy was never suspected until it 
was revealed by gravitational methods 


34 


which were themselves in error about one- 
‘tenth of a second and required subsequent 
correction in other ways. Here then was a 
lesson to astronomers who are all more or 
less specialists, but it merely enforced the 
perfectly well known principle that the 
constant errors of any one method are acci- 
dental errors with respect to all other 
methods, and therefore the readiest way of 
eliminating them is by combining the re- 
sults from as many different methods as 
possible. However, the abler the specialist 
the more certain he is to be blind to all 
methods but his own, and astronomers 
have profited so little by the Encke-Hansen- 
Le Verrier incident of thirty-five years ago 
that to-day they are mostly divided into 
two great parties, one of whom holds that 
the parallax can be best determined from a 
combination of the constant of aberration 
with the velocity of light, and the other 
believes only in the results of heliometer 
measurements upon asteroids. By all 
means continue the heliometer measure- 
ments, and do everything possible to clear 
up the mystery which now surrounds the 
constant of aberration, but why ignore the 
work of predecessors who were quite as 
able as ourselves? If it were desired to 
determine some one angle of a triangulation 
net with special exactness, what would be 
thought of a man who attempted to do so 
by repeated measurements of the angle in 
question while he persistently neglected to 
adjust the net? And yet, until recently 
astronomers have been doing precisely that 
kind of thing with the solar parallax. I 
do not think there is any exaggeration in 
saying that the trustworthy observations 
now on record for the determination of the 
numerous quantities which are functions of 
the parallax could not be duplicated by the 
most industrious astronomer working con- 
tinuously for a thousand years. How then 
can we suppose that the result properly 
deducible from them can be materially 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 2. 


affected by anything that any of us can do 
in a lifetime, unless we are fortunate 
enough to invent methods of measurement 
vastly superior to any hitherto imagined ? 
Probably the existing observations for the 
determination of most of these quantities 
are as exact as any that can ever be made 
with our present instruments, and if they 
were freed from constant errors they would 
certainly give results very near the truth. 
To that end we have only to form a system 
of simultaneous equations between all the 
observed quantities, and then deduce the 
most probable values of these quantities by 
the method of least squares. Perhaps some 
of you may think that the value so obtained 
for the solar parallax would depend largely 
upon the relative weights assigned to the 
various quantities, but such is not the case. 
With almost any possible system of weights 
the solar parallax will come out very nearly 
8°809” +0:0057”, whence we have for the 
mean distance between the earth and sun 
92,797,000 miles with a probable error of 
only 59,700 miles; and for the diameter of 
the solar system, measured to its outermost 
member, the planet Neptune, 5,578,400,000 
miles. Witt1AM HARKNESS. 
WASHINGTON. 


THE BALTIMORE MEETING OF THE AMERI- 
CAN SOCIETY OF NATURALISTS. 

Tuer thirteenth annual meeting of The 
American Society of Naturalists was held at 
Baltimore during the Christmas vacation. 
Considering that Baltimore is the southern 
limit where meetings may be held by the 
Society, the attendance was large, forty to 
fifty members being present. 

The first session was called to order by 
the President, Professor Charles S. Minot of 
the Harvard Medical School, at 2 P. mM. on 
Thursday, December 27th. 

A quorum being present, the Society at 
once proceeded to the transaction of busi- 
ness. The committee appointed in 1893 to 


JANUARY 11, 1895. ] 


obtain, if possible, the removal of the duty 
on scientific instruments reported that al- 
though they had succeeded in obtaining the 
codperation of most of the leading scientific 
men, yet the inception of the movement 
had been so delayed that the Gorman Bill 
was already being considered by the Senate 
before the petitions could be presented to 
the House. 

The following resolution recommended 
by the committee was then adopted: “ In- 
asmuch as the repeal of the present iniqui- 
tous duty on scientific instruments is im- 
peratively needed by the interests of the 
country, we recommend that a committee 
be appointed to present our just demands 
to the President, to the Chairman of the 
Committee on Finance of the Senate and 
the Chairman of the Committee of Ways 
and Means of the House of Representatives, 
and to take such other steps as may be 
practicable to secure the immediate repeal 
of the duty.” 

The report of the committee on the revi- 
sion of the Constitution and By-Laws was 
unanimously adopted. By the new consti- 
tution The American Society of Naturalists en- 
courages the formation of other societies 
of similar name and object in other parts 
of the country and invites other societies 
whose chief object is the encouragement 
of the study of Natural History to become 
affiliated with it. The affiliated societies 
shall have a common place and time of 
meeting with the American Society of Nat- 
uralists, the expenses of which are to be 
paid from a common treasury supplied from 
a common fee. The records of the secre- 
taries of the different societies are also to 
be published at common expense. 

The discussion upon Environment in its 
Influence upon the Successive Stages of Develop- 
ment and as a Cause of Variation, took place 
in the Physical Lecture Room, Thursday 
afternoon. It was opened by four papers 
and followed by remarks by Professors Cope 


SCIENCE. 


and Hyatt, Dr. Dall, Dr. C. V. Riley and 
others. 

Professor Osborn, of Columbia College, in 
opening the discussion, observed that natu- 
ralists were reacting from the discussion of 
theories towards the renewed inductive and 
experimental study of the factors of Evolu- 
tion. This was due to the feeling that the 
prolonged discussion led by Spencer and 
Weismann had assumed a largely deductive 
character and would not lead to any per- 
manent results. The inductive reaction 
had taken two directions: first towards 
the exact study of Variation, and second 
towards experimental Evolution. As re- 
gards Variation we should not expect to 
form any laws so long as variations were 
considered en masse without regard to the 
past and present history of the organisms 
studied. That organisms vary with their en- 
vironment is a truism. What we need is a 
clearer conception and interpretation of this 
relation as a basis for experimental study 
in the laboratory andin the field. The first 
misconception to be removed is that which 
has sprung up from the misuse of the terms 
Heredity and Variability. Nageli pointed 
out many years ago as Weismann and 
Hurst have insisted more recently that 
Heredity includes one phenomenon seen 
from two sides which may conveniently be 
termed Repetition and Variation. A large 
number of the variations recorded by Bate- 
son, for example, are simple repetitions of 
ancestral structure, and every new variation 
is to be regarded as the expression of here- 
ditary forces working under new conditions. 
The first object of investigation is to decide 
the time of origin of a variation, first in race 
history, second in individual history. Vari- 
ations which arise as practical repetitions 
of past experience may conveniently be 
termed ‘palingenic,’ while those which are 
new to the organism may be termed ‘ceno- 
genic.’ As regards individual history the 
most important question is to determine 


36 


whether a variation is merely ‘ontogenic,’ 
that is springing up in the course of indi- 
vidual development from some disturbance 
of the hereditary mechanism, or ‘phylogenic’ 
and constant as distinguished by Nageli. 
From recent study of palingenic variation 
we must recast our conception of Heredity 
especially in view of the remarkable re- 
searches of Cunningham upon the color, 
and of Agassiz, Giard and Filhol upon the 
symmetry of the flat fishes (Pleuronec- 
tide). These characters of enormous an- 
tiquity, summoned as it were from the vasty 
deep, reveal the law that repetition or vari- 
ation in ontogeny depend largely upon 
repetition or variation in environment, that 
for many of the most fundamental charac- 
ters, development and environment are 
inseparable and all theories which tend to 
separate the two are untenable. Asregards 
cenogenic variations or those which are 
new in the experience of the organism, the 
distinction between ontogenic variations, or 
what are commonly called acquired chara- 
eters, and phylogenic variations is also of 
pressing importance. The organism may 
be compared to a clock, keeping regular time 
upon a base; if the base is tilted slightly 
the clock may continue to tick but it may 
not keep the same time ; if after the lapse 
of a long period the base is restored to its 
original position the clock will tick in cor- 
rect time as before. This thought shows 
that the conditions which have been de- 
manded as crucial tests of the permanent 
phylogenic influence of environment upon 
organisms will be very difficult to fulfill in 
experiment—when the repetition of a meso- 
zoic environment is found to produce a repe- 
tition of a mesozoic structure. Experiment 
should now be directed separately upon 
each of the four stages of development 
(germ cell, fertilization, embryonic, larval 
and adult) and then withdrawn, and put- 
ting together the results of all the work 
which has been recently done of this kind 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vox. I. No. 2. 


we find three classes of variation phenomena 
coming to the surface; first ‘palingenic 
variations,’ second ‘saltations,’ third ‘onto- 
genic adaptions’ (Haeckel); fourth a class 
of ‘phylogenic variations’ which have been 
termed ‘mutations’ by some paleontologists. 
We are so far from a solution of the work- 
ing causes of these four classes of variation 
that it seems best to consider that we are 
on the threshold of the Evolution Problem, 
to take an entirely agnostic or doubtful posi- 
tion as to all the prevalent theories,and press 
forward in strictly inductive search for laws 
which may not be forthcoming until the 
next century. 

Professor Edmund B. Wilson, of Columbia 
College, followed with a discussion of the 
influence of the environment on the early 
stages of embryonic development. That a 
change of external conditions, such as tem- 
perature, chemical nature of the medium and 
the like, causes changes in the rate or form 
of development has long been a familiar 
fact, but we have only recently come to per- 
ceive clearly how significant are the changes 
thus brought about and how vital is the part 
played by the environment in all develop- 
ment, whether pathological or normal. For 
if a changed mode of development is the 
‘result’ of a change of environment, the 
normal development must in exactly the 
same sense be the ‘ result’ of the normal en- 
vironment, 7. e., in both cases we are deal- 
ing with a definite physiological response of 
the idioplasm to external conditions. The 
facts both of normal and of experimental 
embryology demonstrate the justness of this 
point of view. The experiments of Pfluger, 
Driesch, Roux and others show, for instance, 
that the forms of cleavage may be pro- 
foundly altered by mechanical means, and 
indicate that some of the normal fundamen- 
tal cleavage-forms are the direct result of 
mechanical conditions, such as the shape of 
the egg, pressure of the membranes, surface 
tensions between the blastomeres, and the 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


like. Temperature has a profound effect 
not only on the rate of development, but 
also on its form. Thus Driesch showed 
that the eggs of sea-urchins when incu- 
bated at a temperature slightly above the 
normal undergo remarkable changes. The 
form of cleavage may be considerably al- 
tered (without affecting the end result of 
development), and the gastrulation may be 
profoundly affected. In some cases ‘ exo- 
gastrule’ are formed, the archenteron be- 
ing turned out instead of in, and these 
undergo all the normal differentiations of 
the Pluteus, though they ultimately perish 
since the alimentary canal is turned inside 
out and the larve are incapable of taking 
food. Other physical agents such as gravity 
have been shown to have a profound effect 
on development, determining the position 
of roots and branches in hydroids (Loeb), 
or even the polar differentiation of the egg 
as in the frog (Pfluger, Born, etc. ). 

The most remarkable and significant ex- 
amples of environmental influence are, how- 
ever, found in the effect of change in the 
chemical environment. In the case of sea- 
urchins Ponchet and Chabry found that in 
sea-water deprived of caleareous matter the 
Pluteus larva is unable to develop its spicu- 
lar skeleton, and Herbst showed that the 
same result was produced by a very slight 
excess of potassium chloride in the water 
even though the normal amount of caleare- 
ous matter were present. In both cases the 
larvee not only fail to develop spicules, but 
are unable to produce the characteristic 
ciliated arms. Thus arises a larva having 
asimple ciliated belt and very similar to 
a young Tornaria. This is a very instruct- 
ive case ; for it shows in the first place that 
a definite character (formation of the skele- 
ton) has a fundamental though very subtle 
relation to the external environment, and 
in the second place, that this relation indi- 
rectly extends to other characters (ciliated 
arms) that follow upon the development of 


SCIENCE. 37 


a> 


the first character. Such cases pave the 
way to a rational conception of epigenesis, 
by showing the multiplication of effects in 
ontogeny and the complicated results that 
may follow from a single and apparently 
insignificant condition of the environment. 

Even more striking results are those ob- 
tained (by Herbst) by the addition of a 
minute percentage of lithium chloride to 
the sea-water. The primary result is to 
cause exogastrulation (like the eftect of 
raised temperature). Beyond this, how- 
ever, the entoderm area (7. e., archenteric re- 
gion) often becomes abnormally large. The 
entoderm may then be reduced to a mere 
knob consisting of only a few cells, or may 
even disappear altogether so that a blastula 
is formed that consists entirely of entoderm ! 
This extraordinary result, if it can be ac- 
cepted, shows that even so fundamental a 
process as the differentiation of the germ- 
layers stands in a vital relation to the 
chemical environment. It is a revelation 
of the importance of environmental influ- 
ences in development and it shows that we 
must readjust our conceptions not only of 
development but also of inheritance, of 
which development is an expression. Our 
attention has been focussed too closely upon 
the formal morphological aspect of develop- 
ment which we have regarded too largely 
as the result of a pre-organized germ- 
plasm operating like a machine. Embryo- 
logical development must be thoroughly re- 
examined from a physiological point of 
view, full weight being given to the essen- 
tial part played by the environment. This 
point of view in no way sets aside the ne- 
cessity of assuming a specifically organized 
germ-plasm for every species as the basis 
of inheritance. It simplifies the problem, 
however, and opens the way for further in- 
vestigation, which is practically barred by 
the artificial and formal theories of devel- 
opment advocated by Roux and Weismann. 

The third paper read was by Professor 


38 


W. K. Brooks, of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity. The subject was: An Intrinsic 
Error in the Theories of Galton and Weismann. 
It will be published in full later. The 
principal point taken was against the theory 
of variation springing from a mixture of an- 
cestral characters. It was shown that many 
lines of descent may arise from a very small 
number of parents and represent a slender 
thread, consisting of very few strands, many 
individuals of the same species having an 
identical remote ancestry. In other words, 
sexual environment instead of being unlim- 
ited is very narrow, and as we pass back- 
wards the number of ancestors imereases 
rapidly fora number of generations, and then 
decreases instead of increasing indefinitely. 
The causes of variation are therefore to be 
sought rather in modern conditions of organ- 
isms than in the remote past. 

Dr. C. Hart Merriam, of the United 
States Department of Agriculture, contri- 
buted an exhibition and discussion of a 
beautiful series of mammal and bird types 
exhibiting protective coloring and a number 
of dynamic variations. The origin of pro- 
tective colors is to be sought in fortuitous 
variation preserved by selection. The the- 
ory of the direct action of environment in 
modifying color as in the bleached types of 
the desert regions is not borne out by obser- 
vations and is disproved in the case of noc- 
turnal types. A second and distinct class 
of facts comes under the head of Dynamic 
Variation, and to this class we refer to 
modifications of the beak, of the feet and 
limbs as due primarily to the habits and 
activities of the animals themselves. 

At the close of the afternoon session, Pro- 
fessor E. B. Wilson, of Columbia College, 
exhibited by means of the stereopticon, lan- 
tern slides, prepared from photographs 
taken from sections, illustrating the cytolo- 
gical changes during maturation, fecunda- 
tion, and segmentation. The different ef- 
fects of the various killing, fixing and stain- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 2. 


ing agents upon the ultimate details of cell- 
structure, were admirably brought out. 

At eight o’clock the Society had the 
pleasure of listening to Professor William 
Libbey, of Princeton, who told of his expe- 
riences during Zwo Months in Greenland. 
The lecture was illustrated by a large num- 
ber of magnificent views of Polar Scenery. 

After the lecture the members were en- 
tertained by the authorities of the Johns 
Hopkins University and the citizens of Bal- 
timore at a most pleasant assembly in Mc- 
Coy Hall. 

The Society reassembled at nine o’clock 
on Friday morning, Dec. 28th. 

Officers for the year 1895 were chosen as 
follows : 

President—Professor EH. D. Cope, Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. 

Vice Presidents—Professors Wim. Libbey, 
Jr., Princeton University ; W. G. Farlow, 
Harvard University; C. O. Whitman, Chi- 
cago University. 

Secretary—Professor H. C. Bumpus, Brown 
University. ‘ 

Treasurer—Doctor E. G. Gardiner, Bos- 
ton, Mass. 

Committee-at-Large—Professors E. B. Wil- 
son, Columbia College; W. H. Howell, 
Johns Hopkins University. 

The following persons were elected to 
membership in the Society : 

William Ashmead, U. 8. Dept. Agricul- 
ture, Washington; Severance Burrage, 
Mass. Inst. Tech., Boston; W. E. Castle, 
Harvard University ; H. HE. Chapin, Uni- 
versity of Ohio, Athens, Ohio; J. E. Hum- 
phrey, Johns Hopkins University ; M. M. 
Metcalf, Woman’s College, Baltimore; H. 
C. Porter, University of Pennsylvania; W. 
H. C. Pynchon, Trinity College, Hartford ; 
Charles Schuchert, U.S. National Museum; 
Norman Wyld, late of Bristol, England. 

The report of the Treasurer showing a 
balance of somewhat over $200 was ac- 
cepted by the Society. 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


The Society, on motion of Professor Bum- 
pus, appropriated a sum not to exceed $150 
to equip the American table at the Naples 
Station with proper microtomes, and a com- 
mittee of three was appointed to attend to 
this matter. 

Professor J. S. Kingsley detailed a ‘ bib- 
liographieal project’ originating with Pro- 
fessor G. W. Field of Brown University. 
This proposes to put into the hands of 
workers in zodlogy a bibliography of cur- 
rent literature, in such a form as to be 
readily accessible, the latter to be readily 
combined with the earlier, and to present 
the matter both as to subjects and as to 
authors. By a vote of the Society, a com- 
mittee of five was appointed to consider 
this ‘project’ and to report in print both 
in Scrence and in The American Natural- 
ist. 

President Gilman, in a very pleasant and 
cordial way, then welcomed the members 
of the visiting societies to Baltimore, speak- 
ing on behalf of the authorities of the Johns 
Hopkins University and of the citizens of 
Baltimore. 

President Minot chose for the subject of 
his address ‘The Work of the Naturalist in the 
World” The object of the naturalist is to 
discover the truth about nature and to pub- 
lish the results of his work to the world. 
The conditions of success are readily to be 
observed. First and foremost is truth. The 
naturalist’s first business is to get at the 
truth, and the obstacles which stand most 
prominently in his way are: (1) the limita- 
tions of his own abilities, and (2) the limi- 
tations of accessories for carrying on his 
work. The naturalist must observe, experi- 
ment and reason, and his training must 
necessarily be along these lines. Experi- 
mentation is necessarily more difficult than 
observation, for in the former case the 
naturalist asks why, not how. The great 
work of the future, as is already being 
shown, is to be done by the experimenters. 


SCIENCE. 39 


Our notion of causation is still in a very 
rudimentary condition. 

Again, the reasoning faculty is one of our 
weakest points. The naturalist must learn 
to carefully distinguish between discussion 
and controversy, and while being led and 
taught to indulge freely in the former with 
all the intelligence at his command, he must 
also be taught to avoid the latter. 

The naturalist is naturally exposed to 
many evils, such as this matter of contro- 
versy, which tend to cause him to depart 
from his proper mission, viz., of getting at 
the truth. He is especially likely to be led 
astray by impatience to get results. Pre- 
liminary communications are a very great 
as well as a very prevalent evil. The opin- 
ion of the speaker was very pronouncedly 
adverse to this form of publication. The 
greed for priority leads many even fine 
workers far astray. 

The tendency to speculate is a third evil, 
and this has perhaps reached its culmina- 
tion in the doctrines of Weismann. An- 
other evil is the one which leads us to ac- 
cept too readily simple and well finished 
conceptions. 
with an illustrious example of the effects of 
this. 

In the matter of publication, four classes 
may be distinguished: (1.) Original Memoirs; 
(2.) Handbooks ; (3.) Text Books ; (4.) Biblio- 
graphies. The last three are important 
both in form and in the matter. The first 
are like digestive organs. It is their func- 
tion to assimilate crude facts and render 
them digestible. Advice to prune and di- 
gest such matter for publication is much 
needed. Details not bearing directly upon 
the subject should be carefully excluded. 
Most original papers could be ‘boiled 
down’ to one half, and some even to one 
tenth of the amount that is really published. 
The English write best and this may be 
owing to the example of Huxley. The 
Germans and Americans who copy after 


Herbert Spencer furnishes us 


40) 


them come next, and the French are the 
greatest sinners in the matter of verbiage. 

The effect of the work of the naturalist 
upon his own character is especially shown 
in his optimism. Literary men seem much 
inclined to grow pessimistic. This point is 
well illustrated .by a comparison of the re- 
cently published letters of Asa Gray and of 
James Russell Lowell. Lowell’s letters 
show increasing pessimistic views toward 
the end of his life, while those of Gray re- 
main uniformly optimistic. Something of 
this was undoubtedly due to the different 
temperaments of the two men, but much 
was also due to the different nature of their 
work. Gray could always see new things 
unfolding before him. 

One drawback in the naturalist’s life is 
his comparative loneliness and isolation. 
Seldom has he in his own neighborhood an- 
other interested in the same particular line 
as himself. Reunions of naturalist societies, 
such as those at the time meeting in Balti- 
more, counteract this to a considerable ex- 
tent, but there is need of even greater affili- 
ation. 

The influence of the naturalist upon man- 
kind in the way of teaching them compe- 
tence had not been considered sufficiently. 
In political questions competency comes in, 
and the solution of much of our present 
trouble lies not so much in restricting the 
right to vote as it does in restricting the 
right to become a candidate. We, as na- 
turalists and as citizens, should uphold com- 
petence. Our schools, even the best of 
them, judging by their results, do not edu- 
cate properly. The naturalist should see 
to it that our schools educate, with science 
in its proper place. It is the duty of the 
naturalist to advance the development of 
the university. The schools use elementary 
knowledge to advance the mind in aecquisi- 
tiveness, and the college uses advanced 
knowledge in the same way, but the uni- 
versity attempts to advance the mind in 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 2. 


independent work, to develop and discipline 
originality. 

To carry on its proper work the univer- 
sity needs a large endowment, at least $10,- 
000,000. It is not possible to teach zodlogy 
unless the proper instruments and books 
are proyided. The university, above all, 
needs proper professors. The qualifications 
of a professor in a university should be : (1) 
the ability to carry on original researches 
himself, and (2) to train others to carry 
out original work. 

The annual discussion on ‘ Laboratory 
Teaching of Large Classes’ followed Pro- 
fessor Minot’s address. Professor Alpheus 
Hyatt, of the Boston Society of Natural 
History, introduced the subject somewhat 
as follows : 

Teaching has two objects in view: (1) to 
train the faculties of individuals, and (2) to 
increase the store of information. The im- 
portance in laboratory teaching of bringing 
the pupil into contact with the organisms 
themselves is absolutely necessary. The 
term, ‘large classes,’ is relative. It may 
mean twenty, thirty, forty, up to several 
hundred. In teaching large classes, there 
must be taken into account the matter of 
division into sections, rooms, assistants, ap- 
paratus, ete. The first point to be insisted 
upon is the matter of personal contact be- 
tween the pupils and the instructors. In 
experience with Boston teachers, the classes 
numbered five hundred. Tables were pro- 
vided for the whole number, and on these 
tables were placed the trays of specimens — 
on which the exercise was to be given. The 
specimens were thus arranged before the 
exercises by assistants. The lecturer then 
proceeded to demonstrate the various points 
upon his own specimens, and the pupils fol- 
lowed him by working out the same points 
on the specimens in the tray. The speci- 
mens kept the lecturer down to his subject 
and also kept the pupils at work. Of course 
the field was necessarily limited. 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


The initial expense for providing the ma- 
terial was small, being about $10 for geo- 
logy, $15 for botany, and $25 for zodlogy. 
Diagrams and crayon sketches, magnifying 
glasses, and various methods of a simple 
kind were made use of. These methods 
were afterwards used with smaller sections 
with even more satisfactory results. Ex- 
aminations were given to test the pupils’ 
proficiency, not only in knowledge of the 
subject but also of methods of study. For 
this purpose test objects were given the pu- 
pils to examine and deseribe. At the close 
of his paper, Professor Hyatt exhibited 
some specimens of these examinations. 

Professor H. C. Bumpus, of Brown Uni- 
versity, spoke upon the subject from the 
zoological point of view. The value of 
laboratory work depends largely upon good 
material, which should be supplied in abund- 
ance and in excellent condition. At the 
present time there is no excuse for supply- 
ing poor or scanty material, since abundance 
of excellent material can be obtained at 
small cost. The importance of having the 
best dissections and best drawings obtain- 
able in the laboratory itself cannot be over- 
estimated. It does not induce the laziness 
and attempts at shirking that seem to be 
the fear of somany teachers. Ifthe student 
desires to copy a fine dissection he is to be 
encouraged to do so, and any teacher can 
readily detect the sketches copied from a 
chart or diagram. The speaker said also 
that he had found it an excellent plan in 
certain difficult cases to supply blanks 
on which the outlines of important struc- 
tures were laid down, the details to be 
added by the pupil. A printed outline of 
the order of work, directions for manipula- 
tion, and questions to be answered from the 
specimens are a great help. The need of 
competent assistants is obvious. 

The botanical side of the question was 
considered in a paper by Professor W. F. 
Ganong, of Smith College. The experience 


SCIENCE. 41 


given was obtained in managing classes of 
about 200 men at Harvard, and the plan 
given was worked out under the guidance 
of Professor G. L. Goodale. The conditions 
under which the instruction was under- 
taken were: (1) The classes were too large 
for individual teaching by the instructor; 
(2) laboratory hours must be adjusted to 
other academic work, to insuflicient ac- 
commodations, and sometimes even to yet 
other considerations; (3) many students of 
diverse attainments must be taught how to 
work and to think scientifically, and must 
be kept progressing together through the 
stages of a logically graded course, and (4) 
large quantities of special material must be 
provided for at unfavorable seasons. 

In conducting such classes competent 
assistants were necessary, each to have not 
more than twenty men under him, and 
these were to remain under his special 
charge throughout the course. Such as- 
sistants may be readily recruited in any 
large university where there are special 
students doing advanced work. The assist- 
ants met the instructor to talk over plans 
and details of coming work. Uniformity of 
plan was insisted upon, but details of me- 
thod were left to the assistant. The in- 
structor did not devote himself to any one 
section, but visited each one as often as was 
possible. Weekly guides were printed for 
the use of the student, indicating the points 
to be studied, their relative importance, and 
any necessary information given. They 
were intended to supply just enough data 
to enable the student to progress to correct 
conclusions. 

The materials required were arranged in 
the course, so that in the winter such things 
as could be grown easily or procured out of 
doors, as seeds, seedlings and buds, came 
first, and then followed the succession of 
opening buds, leaves, flowers and fruit made 
accessible by the advance of spring. In other 
words, the time of giving the course and the 


42 


grouping of the subjects was so arranged 
that the material for each subject was in 
proper condition when it came before the 
class. Some of the weekly guides accom- 
panied the paper, for examination. 

Discussions were presented by Professors 
H. W. Conn, Marcella O’Grady, E. 8. Morse 
and C. §. Minot, and the additional fact was 
brought out that a good synoptic collection 
was a desirable feature of the laboratory 
equipment, in order that the pupil might 
not have too narrow a view of each group 
of organisms, such as he is likely to carry 
away from the study of a single type. 

After passing a vote of thanks to the au- 
thorities of the University, the citizens of 
Baltimore and the University Club for the 
hospitality extended to it, the Society ad- 
journed. 

The annual dinner of the affiliated So- 
cieties took place at ‘The Stafford’ at 7:30 
on Friday evening. No set toasts were 
given, but informal speeches formed a very 
. pleasurable close to this reunion. 

W. A. SercHEy, Secretary. 
YALE UNIVERSITY. 


THE PRINCETON MEETING OF THE AMER 
CAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 

Tue third annual meeting of The Ameri- 
can Psychological Association was held at 
Princeton College on Thursday and Friday, 
December 27th and 28th, under the presi- 
dency of Professor William James, of Har- 
vard University. Psychology is the young- 
est and likewise one of the most vigorous 
of the sciences. Although the Association 
is small, consisting of those only who are 
actively engaged in psychological investi- 
gation, and the members are widely scat- 
tered, there were sixteen papers read, ex- 
elusive of those presented in the absence of 
their authors. Indeed, the only drawback 
to the pleasure of the meeting was the fact 
that the program was so crowded that there 
was not sufficient time for discussion and 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 2. 


social intercourse. The short intervals be- 
tween the meetings were, however, pleas- 
antly filled, owing to the hospitality of 
President Patton and Professor Baldwin, 
and the excellent accommodations of the 
Princeton Inn. 

The Association was welcomed to Prince- 
ton by President Patton in a fitting address 
in which he alluded to the importance of 
such meetings, not only for the advance- 
ment of science, but also for the cultivation 
of inter-university friendliness, to the death 
and life-work of President MeCosh, and to 
the prominent place always given to philo- 
sophy and psychology at Princeton. 

The papers presented covered a wide 
range of psychological topics. Experimen- 
tal psychology proper was not so fully rep- 
resented as in the Philadelphia and New 
York meetings, owing to the detention of 
several members, but all the communica- 
tions were strictly scientific in method. 

The first paper, Minor Studies and Appa- 
ratus, by Professor Sanford, was, indeed, of 
purely experimental character, coming from 
Clark University, where President Hall has 
given such a prominent place to experi- 
mental psychology. Professor Sanford first 
showed charts demonstrating that the reti- 
nal fields for color are relatively smaller in 
the case of children than in the case of 
adults. In the second study he reported 
experiments on the aceuracy with which an 
observer can distinguish by different senses 
which of two stimuli is first presented. A 
flash of light is perceived relatively earlier 
than a sound—contrary to results formerly 
published by Exner. In a third study pri- 
mary memory was investigated. Ina fourth 
study questions were asked students con- 
cerning the confusion of related ideas, for 
example:—How do you distinguish your 
right from your left hand? How do you call 
up a forgotten name? How do you collect 
the attention? What were your favorite 
games when a child? What is the earliest 


—"'% 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


thing you can remember and how old were 
you? The distinction between motor and 
sensory types and other psychological ques- 
tions were discussed in connection with the 
answers, and the method of securing mental 
statistics by asking questions was criti- 
eized. In conclusion, an instrument was 
shown for presenting objects alternately to 
each eye, and charts and photographs illus- 
trating illusions of size, Listing’s Law 
and the Horopter. These studies will be 
published in the forthcoming number of the 
American Journal of Psychology. 

Professor Ormond, Professor Baldwin and 
others took part in the discussion that fol- 
lowed the reading of the paper. The dis- 
cussion of the different papers was of nearly 
as great interest as the papers themselves, 
but to report it would carry us too far into 
details. 

The second paper was on The Psychie De- 
velopment of Young Animals and its Physical 
Correlation, by Professor T. Wesley Mills, 
of McGill University. The speaker em- 
phasized the importance of comparative and 
genetic psychology —that is the study of 
the mental life of the lower animals and of 
children. He had observed the dog, cat, 
rabbit, guinea-pig and birds. They were 
watched from their birth, and notes were 
made several times during the day. The 
method was emphasized rather than the 
results, which will be published later. 

Following Professor Mills’ paper was one 
On the Distribution of Exceptional Ability, by 
Professor Cattell. The speaker explained 
how he had selected the 1,900 most eminent 
men by an objective method, and how this 
enabled him to measure and express num- 
erically their mental traits. Curves were 
shown giving the time and racial distribu- 
tion of great men. These demonstrate the 
rise and fall of leading tendencies in the 
past, and enable us, to a certain extent, to 
predict the course of civilization in the 
future. 


SCIENCE. 43 


Dr. A. Macdonald, of the Bureau of Edu- 
cation, presented a report on Sensitiveness 
to Pain. He exhibited the instrument used 
and described his method for 
ing sensitiveness to pain. Women are more 
Sensitive than men in the ratio of 7:5. 
Men taken from the street are not half so 
sensitive to pain as professional men. 
Americans are more sensitive than English- 
men or Germans. The right-hand side of 
the body is less sensitive than the left-hand 
side. Some instruments for anthropometric 
tests were also exhibited and described. 

At the close of the morning session 
Brother Chrysostom, of Manhattan College, 
read a paper on Freedom of the Will. This 
time-honored problem was discussed from 
the point of view of St. Thomas Aquinas, 
with due recognition of recent writers. 
The Catholic Church certainly deserves 
honor for finding or putting modern science 
in the works of the great Schoolman. 

The afternoon session was opened by the 
longest and most carefully prepared paper 
of the meeting, Consciousness of Identity and 
So-Called Double Consciousness, by Professor 
Ladd, of Yale University. Professor Ladd 
began by defining identity in material 
things and in minds. Changes heighten 
rather than diminish the consciousness of 
identity. A metaphysical ego is not needed 
—minds vary in their unity and reality. 
Double consciousness and hypnotic states 
should be treated in their relations to nor- 
mal mental life, as it is not likely that the 
principle of continuity is violated in this 
ease. Psychical automatism should be care- 
fully studied—a man is not only that of 
which he is conscious. We can consider 
our automaton as well as our ego; one or 
the other may be predominant; they may 
be in conflict or act in coéperation. The 
automaton is evident in our daily life—in 
games, in dreams, in dramatic composition 
and acting, in prophecy. Ethically con- 
sidered, a man is usually two or three, 


measur- 


44 


rather than one—hence the categorical im- 
perative of Kant. The sanest minds are at 
times divided into two or more selves, as 
much as are the most extreme cases of hyp- 
notice or pathological double-consciousness. 
Prof. Ladd’s paper is included in his forth- 
coming work on Psychology, in the press of 
Charles Seribner’s Sons. It excited much 
discussion and some criticism. 

The remainder of the session was taken 
up by a paper on A Preliminary Report and 
Observations on a Research into the Psychology 
of Imitation by Professor Royce, of Harvard 
University. He began by noting the diffi- 
culty of defining imitation from other men- 
tal functions. He then described experi- 
ments now in progress in the psychologi- 
cal laboratory of Harvard University. An 
observer listens to a rhythmic series of 
taps which are later repeated or imitated 
by movements. The record was taken ona 
kymograph, and the impressions of the ob- 
servers were noted and studied. The objec- 
tive records have not been collated, but 
Professor Royce reported the subjective 
state as described by the observer, and its 
variations with different rhythms. In fur- 
ther discussion of the subject Professor 
Royce considered different kinds of imita- 
tion, and their relation to the rest of mental 
life and to the physical organism. The 
subject of imitation has recently become 
* prominent and is evidently of the utmost 
importance in social psychology—not only 
the development of the child but also the 
thoughts, feelings and actions of men de- 
pend largely, if not chiefly, on imitation, 
and our theoretical knowledge has impor- 
tant practical applications. 

The address of the President, Professor 
James, of Harvard University, occupied 
the evening session. The subject, The Unity 
of Consciousness, was treated with the speak- 
er’s unvarying clearness and literary skill. 
Professor James once said that meta- 
physics in a natural science ‘spoils two 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 2. 


good things,’ but no natural science, be it 
physics or psychology, can draw a sharp 
line between its facts and its philosophy. 
It is also worth noting that what the phy- 
sicist considers part of his science may be 
regarded as metaphysics by the psycholo- 
gist, and conversely. The question of the 
unity of consciousness is, perhaps, as much 
a part of scientific psychology as the doc- 
trine of the conservation of enery is a part 
of the science of physics. . Professor James’ 
address was largely made up of a review of 
the various theories proposed to account for 
the principle of union in the mind when 
many objects, susceptible upon occasion of 
being known separately, are brought to- 
gether in the mind and known all at once. 
The Associationists say that the ‘ideas’ 
of several objects ‘combine.’ The Anti- 
Associationists say that such a process of 
selfcompounding of ideas is incomprehen- 
sible, and that they must be combined by a 
higher synthetic principle, the Soul, the 
Keo, or what not. The speaker expressed 
dissatisfaction with the both these views. 
He said that his own aversion to the doc- 
trine of the ‘Soul’ rested on an ancient 
prejudice, of which he could give no fully 
satisfactory account to himself, and he com- 
plimented Professor Ladd, of Yale, for his 
continued loyalty to this unpopular princi- 
ple. Even Professor Ladd in his book pre- 
fers to speak of ‘Soul’ by some paraphrase 
such as ‘real spiritual being.’ Within the 
bounds of the psychological professor the 
‘Soul’ is not popular to-day. Professor 
James conceived his problem as that of how 
we can ‘know things together,’ and in the 
first half of his address he incidentally said 
a good deal about knowledge. To the pop- 
ular mind all knowledge involves a sort of 
mutual presence or absence as regards the 
object and the mind, which is treated as 
very mysterious. Professor James expelled 
this mystery from most cases of knowledge. 
He found the mystery of presence or ab- 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


sence, however, to abide in one little fact, 
from which it cannot be driven, and that is 
the very smallest pulse of consciousness, 
which always is consciousness of change. 
The present moment is no fact of experience; 
it is only a mathematical postulate, and the 
minimum real experience gives us a passing 
moment, in which a going and a coming 
fact meet on equal terms, and what was is 
known in one indivisible act with what 
does not quite yet exist. This is the origi- 
nal type both of our knowing at all and of 
knowing of things together, according to the 
speaker. He said there was no use trying 
to explain it, for it was the fundamental 
element of all experience. But we might 
seek to determine the exact conditions that 
decide what particular objects should be 
known together, and to this inquiry the end 
of the address was devoted. Various phys- 
iological, psychological and purely spiritual 
theories of the conditions were reviewed, 
without the speaker saying which one he 
favored. He hoped, however, that his re- 
marks might stimulate inquiry which should 
bear fruit at the meeting next year. He 
closed with a modification of one of the 
most important doctrines of his own book 
on psychology, which in that state of mind, 
subjectively considered, ought not to be 
ealled complex at all. He admitted them 
to be complex, but is as far as ever from al- 
lowing the complexity to be described in 
the usually accepted way of the Associa- 
tional school. The address will be printed 
in full in the March number of The Psycho- 
logical Review. 

The morning session of the second day 
was taken’ up by five papers on pleasure, 
pain and the emotions, and in the afternoon 
when the papers of the program had been 
read, the discussion returned to this subject 
and was carried on with much eagerness to 
the moment of adjournment. The papers 
were The Classification of Pleasure and Pain, 
By Prof. Charles A. Strong, of the University 


SCIENCE. 


45 


of Chicago; A Theory of Emotions from the 
Physiological Standpoint, by Prof. G. H. 
Mead, of the University of Chicago ; De- 
sire, by Dr. D. S. Miller, of Bryn Mawr 
College; Pleasure and Pain Defined, by 
Prof. 8. E. Mezes, of the University of 
Texas; Pleaswre-Pain 
Mr. H. R. Marshall. 
It would not be easy to give an abstract 
of these papers that would be intelligible to 
men of science working in other depart- 
ments—indeed, the mose careful attention 
was demanded of the audience. The kind 
of psychology presented is a development of 
descriptive psychology which may be called 
analytic psychology—a subject best repre- 
sented in English by Dr. Ward’s able but 
difficult article on Psychology, in the Encyclo- 
peedia Britannica. The question of the emo- 
tions and their expression has recently be- 
come prominent in psychological discussion 
—witness the articles on the subject by 
Professors James, Baldwin and Dewey in 
the last three numbers of the Psychological 
Review. Professor James’ original the- 
ory that the mental state is rather the re- 
sult of the ‘expression’ than that the ex- 
pression is caused by the mental state is 
pretty well made out. The theory, to put 
the matter most bluntly, says that, ‘‘ we 
feel sorry because we cry, angry because 
we strike, afraid because we tremble, and 
not that we ery, strike or tremble, because 
we are sorry, angry or fearful, as the case 
may be.’ Darwin’s work, for example, 
should not be called The Expression of the 
Emotions. The movements are not caused 
by the emotions, but are aroused reflexly by 
the object, and are or have been useful. 
Thus the animal in the presence of its 
enemy may feign death or run away as will 
best contribute to its chances of escape, and 
aman may be ‘ paralyzed’ by fear or flee 
A man sneers 


versus Emotion, by 


according to circumstances. 
because his ancestors were preparing to 
The emotion results from 


bite. mental 


46 


movements and other changes in the body, 
being largely due to altered blood supply 
and the like. 

Professor Strong’s paper treated especi- 
ally the classification of pains, reviewing 
the evidence in favor of special nerves for 
pain and the distinction between pain and 
distress (the German Schmertz and Un- 
lust). Mr. Mead emphasized the impor- 
tance of vaso-motor changes for pleasure 
and pain, attributing pleasure to increased 
blood supply and assimilation. Dr. Miller 
argued that desire is the essence of pleas- 
ure, and Mr. Marshall discussed the rela- 
tions of pain, pleasure and emotion. It is 
interesting to note how even descriptive and 
analytic psychology is influenced by a 
psycho-physical point of view. Professor 
James aptly concluded the discussion by 
saying that such papers make us feel that 
we are in ‘the place where psychology is 
being made.’ 

At the opening of the fifth and concluding 
session Professor Newbold read a paper 
entitled Notes on the Experimental Production 
of Illusions and Hallucinations. He reported 
that in twenty-two cases out of eighty-six 
tried, he had. produced illusions by causing 
the patient to gaze into a transparent or 
reflecting medium, such as water, objects of 
glass and mirrors. The phantasm usually 
appeared within five minutes, was preceded 
by cloudiness, colors or illumination of the 
medium, and varied from a dim outline to 
a brilliantly colored picture. These were 
often drawn from the patient’s recent visual 
experience, but were often unrecognized and 
sometimes fantastic. Successive images 
were usually related, if at all, by similarity, 
but often no relation was discoverable. 
The image was often destroyed by move- 
ments of the medium and by distracting 
sensory impressions and motor effort. The 
speaker was not inclined to regard the 
phantasms of the glass as demonstrating the 
existence of subconscious visual automa- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 2. 


tisms, but rather as illusions of the reco- 
gnized types. But he was not prepared to 
deny that visual automatism might in some 
cases exist and be traced in such phantasms. 

Mr. Griffing, of Columbia College, de- 
seribed Experiments on Dermal Pain. The 
pressure just causing pain (in kg) was for 
boys 4.8, for college students 5.1, for law 
students 7.8, for women 3.6. Experiments 
were also described giving the relations of 
area and duration and of velocity and mass 
for the pain threshold. These latter ex- 
periments are of special interest as determin- 
ing the correlation of quantities followed 
by a given mental result. 

The third paper of the session and last of 
the meeting was on Recent Advances in the 
Chemistry and Physiology of the Retina, by Mrs. 
Franklin, of Baltimore, who gave an ac- 
count of the recent experiments by Professor 
Kénig on the absorption spectrum of the 
visual purple of the retina, and of her own 
experiments which demonstrated that the 
fovea is color-blind for blue. The recent 
experiments on vision, largely carried out 
in the laboratories of Berlin, are of great 
importance, and make all the older theories 
of color-vision inadequate. The theory 
proposed by Mrs. Franklin is undoubtedly 
more satisfactory than any other, but even 
her theory meets difficulties in these new 
facts. 

At the business meeting of the Associa- 
tion Professor Cattell (Columbia) was el- 
ected President, and Professor Sanford 
(Clark), Secretary. Several new members 
were elected and a new constitution was 
adopted. Under this constitution a coun- 
cil of six members is prescribed, and Pro- 
fessors Ladd (Yale), Cattell (Columbia), 
James (Harvard), Baldwin (Princeton), 
Dewey (Chicago), and Fullerton (Pennsyl- 
vania) were elected. Probably the most 
important business before the meeting was 
the invitation of the American Society of 
Naturalists offering affiliation. It was de- 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


decided to meet next year, if possible, at the 
same time and place as the Naturalists, 
and the Council was given power to decide 
the question of a closer affiliation. 

J. McKeen Carrett, 


Secretary for 1894. 
COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 


CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY, NEW 
SERIES—I. 
THE ‘ MISSING LINK’ FOUND AT LAST. 

No publication of late date is likely to 
excite more interest than a quarto of forty 
pages which has just been issued from the 
local press of Batavia, with the title, ‘Pithe- 
canthropus Erectus. Eine Menscheniinliche 
Uebergangsform aus Java. Yon Eug. Dubois, 
Militararzt der Niederland. Armee.’ 

This noteworthy essay contains the de- 
tailed description of three fragments of three 
skeletons which have been found in the 
early pleistocene strata of Java, and which 
introduce to us a new species, which is also 
a new genus and a new family, of the order 
of primates, placed between the Simiide and 
Hominide,—in other words, apparently sup- 
plying the ‘ missing link’ between man and 
the higher apes which has so long and so 
anxiously been awaited. 

The material is sufficient for a close oste- 
ological comparison. The cubical capacity 
of the skull is about two-thirds that of 
the human average. It is distinctly doli- 
chocepalic, about 70°—and its norma verti- 
calis astonishingly like that of the famous 
Neanderthal skull. The dental apparatus is 
still of the simian type, but less markedly 
so than in other apes. The femora are sin- 
gularly human. They prove beyond doubt 
that this creature walked constantly on two 
legs, and when erect was quite equal in 
height to the average human male. Of 
the various differences which separate it 
from the highest apes and the lowest men, 
it may be said that they bring it closer to 
the latter than to the former. 


SCIENCE. 47 


One of the bearings of this discovery is 
upon the original birth-place of the human 
race. The author believes that the steps in 
the immediate genealogy of our species were 
these: Prothylobates : 
ensis: Pithecanthropus erectus: and Homo sa- 
piens. This series takes us to the Indian 
faunal province and to the southern aspects 
of the great Himalayan chain, as the region 


Anthropopithecus Sival- 


somewhere in which our specific division 
of the great organie chain first came into 
being. 


THE ANALOGIES OF RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM. 

A LEARNED Hungarian lady, Madame 
Sofie von Torma, has lately published an 
interesting little work, a prologue to a large 
one, in which she points out a number of 
close analogies or even identities between 
the symbols and myths of primitive peoples. 
Its title ‘ Ethnagraphische Analogieen; ein 
Beitrag zur Gestaltungs und Entwicklungsge- 
schichte der Religionen’ (Jena, 1894). 

Beginning with the study of local archie- 
ology, she soon found that the analysis of 
her home relics took her back to ancient 
Arcadian and Egyptian prototypes, and the 
question arose, In what way were they re- 
lated? To this it is her intention to devote 
an extended research; and in the volume be- 
fore us, she states with force and brevity the 
many remarkable similarities she has noted, 
and presents the inquiries to which they 
give rise. The text is accompanied with 
127 illustrations. 


ETHNIC AFFILIATIONS OF THE JAPANESE. 

Arter a great deal of rambling discussion 
as to the ethnic relationship of the Japanese, 
it is gratifying to find a writer who has 
touched bottom at last, and brings a satis- 
factory theory with plenty of good evidence 
to support it. The writer is Dr. Heinrich 
Winkler, who, in his little pamphlet, Ja- 
paner und Altaier (Berlin, 1894), offers a 
solution of the problem which is certainly 
bound to stand. 


48 


He has studied the Japanese both from 
the anthropometric and the linguistic side. 
He points out that they present many and 
positive physical differences from the 
Chinese type, and can not be classed as a 
Sinitie people. On the other hand, the 
measurements bring them into close paral- 
lellism with the northern Ural-Altaic peo- 
ples, to that group which includes the 
Samoyeds, the Finns, the Magyars and, in 
a less degree, the Tungoose. This affiliation 
is strikingly supported by a careful com- 
parison of languages. There is not a 
marked morphological trait of the Japanese 
tongue which is not also found in this 
Sibiric group. Dr. Winkler rehearses them 
with brevity and force. What is more, in 
the opinion of some, the material portion of 
the language, its vocabulary and radicals, 
present so many identities with this Ural- 
Altaic group that their primitive oneness 
must be conceded. 

This, however, is not to be understood as 
if the Japanese was the Altaic Ursprache ; 
but only as one of the children of a common 
mother, each of which has pursued inde- 
pendent lines of development, though al- 
ways retaining the family characteristics. 

D. G. Brinton. 


UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 


HYGIENE. 
THE NEW SERUM TREATMENT FOR DIPHTHERIA. 


By cultivating the specifie bacillus of 
diphtheria in broth, there is developed in 
the liquid a peculiar product, which is 
known as the toxine of this bacillus. When 
an extensive growth of the bacillus has oc- 
eurred, so that a considerable quantity of 
this toxine is developed, the fiuid is filtered 
through a porcelain filter, which permits 
the soluble toxine to pass through, but re- 
tains the bacilli. 

If this filtered fluid is sufficiently strong, 
yo Of a cubic centimeter of it will kill a 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 2. 


guinea pig weighing 500 grammes, in from 
48 to 60 hours. The effect produced is in 
proportion to the quantity injected, just as 
for any chemical poison, differing in this 
respect from the action of a fluid contaiming 
the bacilli themselves, which might mul- 
tiply in the body. The bacilli in the fluid 
might be killed by heating, but this would 
also decompose the toxine ; hence the sepa- 
ration is effected by simple filtration, or by 
the addition of some substance like tricresol 
which will kill the bacilli without affecting 
the toxine. 

If small quantities of this toxine be in- 
jected under the skin of an animal, com- 
mencing with a dose which is not fatal and 
eradually increasing it, the animal gradu- 
ally becomes immune to the effects of the 
poison and after several successive imjec- 
tions can receive a very strong dose without 
injury. The blood serum of an animal thus 
rendered immune against diphtheria has 
the power to confer a similar immunity on 
other animals if given in sufficient quantity 
in one dose, thus doing away with the need 
for the repeated and carefully graduated 
injections required to produce immunity in 
the first animal. 

To obtain such an anti-diphtheritic serum 
to be used on man, a horse is injected with 
the solution of toxine, commencing with 
from 2 to 5 cubic centimeters and increasing 
the dose at intervals until within three 
months as much as 250 cubic centimeters 
may be injected without producing any se- 
rious effect. The horse is more resistant 
than many other animals to the action of 
the diphtheritie poison, being naturally 
somewhat immune. The blood serum of the 
horse produces no harmful effects on man, 
if injected in small doses, and it can readily 
be obtained in considerable quantities with- 
out killing the animal. 

This serum, taken from a horse which 
has thus been rendered immune, will not 
only produce a temporary immunity in man 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


against the diphtheritie poison, but will 
antagonize the effects of the diphtheritic 
poison after this has been already intro- 
duced into the system, in other words, it 
may be employed as a curative agent in 
cases of diphtheria. The immunity which 
it produces is a temporary one only, lasting 
from ten days to three weeks. Its curative 
effect in cases of the disease depends, to a 
considerable extent, upon its use in the early 
stages before the system has been saturated 
with the poison. 

We have not yet sufficient data to speak 
positively of the value of this anti-diph- 
theritie serum as a means of treatment 
of the disease as compared with certain 
other methods of treatment, especially in 
the early stages, but the evidence thus 
far collected seems to indicate that such 
serum obtained in the proper manner, and 
used with proper precautions in the hands 
of experts, is a valuable addition to our 
means of combatting this terrible malady. 
The serum can only be properly prepared 
and tested by a skilled bacteriologist. It 
must be sufficiently strong in its immuniz- 
ing power, and at the same time must con- 
tain no living pathogenetic germs of any 
kind. Itmustalso have been comparatively 
recently obtained from the living animal, 
for it gradually loses its specific anti-diph- 
theritic powers. Special antiseptic precau- 
tions are also necessary in injecting the 
serum under the skin in the human sub- 
ject to prevent the entrance of noxious 
germs. 

One of the most useful points in applying 
the anti-diphtheritic serum to practical use 
isto have the cases diagnosed at the earliest 
possible date, and this can only be done by 
a skilled bacteriologist. In New York, 
Boston, and some other cities, means are 
now provided by which practicing physicians 
can have such diagnoses promptly made, 
and if the case of diphtheria can be seen by 
a physician in its earlier stages, it is possible 


SCIENCE. 


49 


to treat it with great hope of success by 
means of local applications to the throat 
of certain substances which will quickly 
destroy the bacillus, and prevent the further 
production of its peculiar toxine; for ex- 
ample, a solution of tri-cresol of the strength 
of one per cent. will usually effect this with- 
out producing undue irritation or causing 
any injury to the patient. Those who 
advocate the use of the immunizing serum 
say little about the local treatment, but 
this last is if anything the more important 
of the two, for the serum does not kill the 
bacilli which are on the surface of the 
mucous membrane of the throat, and there- 
fore does not prevent a person rendered im- 
mune by it from being the means of spread- 
ing contagion. 


OYSTERS AS A MEANS OF TRANSMITTING 


TYPHOID FEVER. 


TuE Medical Record of December 15, 1894, 
contains a paper by Professor H. W. Conn 
upon an outbreak of typhoid at Wesleyan 
University in October and November last, 
which included about twenty-six cases. 
When the serious character of the outbreak 
was recognized, an investigation as to causes 
was begun. The water supply was tested, 
and the house plumbing was examined 
without result. It was found that the dis- 
ease was almost entirely limited to the 
members of three fraternities. The period 
of incubation of typhoid—that is, the time 
which elapses between the taking of typhoid 
bacillus into the body and the definite mani- 
festation of the disease—is usually from ten 
to fourteen days, but may range from seven 
to twenty-eight days. The first cases of 
the fever among the students appeared 
October 20th, and suspicion soon fell upon 
the fraternity suppers of October 12th. 
Careful examination of the food supplied at 
these suppers showed that raw oysters, ob- 
tained by each of the three fraternities from 
the same oyster dealer, were the only things 


50 


which were peculiar to their suppers, and 
inquiry was at once directed to these oysters, 
It was found that they had been obtained 
from the deep water of Long Island Sound 
and had been deposited in the mouth of a 
fresh water creek to freshen, or to ‘ fatten,’ 
as it is termed, since under such circum- 
stances the oyster absorbs the fresh water 
by osmosis and therefore swells and becomes 
plump. Further inquiry showed that, 
within about three hundred feet of the 
place where the oysters had been deposited, 
was the outlet of a private sewer coming 
from a house in which were two cases of 
typhoid fever at the time when the oysters 
were taken up and sent to the University. 

The typhoid bacillus will live for a time 
in salt or brackish water, and it was proved 
by trial that if such bacilli are forced in be- 
tween the two valves of the shell they re- 
mained alive long enough to enable the 
oysters to be carried and used at the fra- 
ternity suppers. Whether the bacillus will 
grow and multiply in living or dead oysters 
has not yet been determined, but experi- 
ments on this point are in progress. 

It will be seen that the evidence that the 
outbreak of typhoid was produced by these 
oysters is purely circumstantial, but the 
links in the chain are well connected and 
strong. 

It is by no means certain that there were 
any typhoid germs within the oysters or 
the oyster shells when they were sent to 
Middletown. If the shells were smeared 
on the outside with typhoid exereta some 
particles of this might easily have gotten 
among the oysters during the process of 
opening them. But it is evident that oys- 
ters grown or fattened in positions where 
sewage may come in contact with them are 
dangerous if eaten raw. 

THE EVOLUTION OF INVENTION. 

Iy a recent study that I have made on 

the evolution of invention I have divided 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 2: 


the changings which underlie all examples 
of the process into those— 

1. Of the thing or process, commonly 
called inventions. 

2. Of the apparatus and methods used. 

3. Of the rewards to the inventor. 

4. Of the intellectual activities involved. 

5. Of society. 

Each one of these has undergone an eyo- 
lution or elaboration, from monorganism to 
polyorganism, from simplicity to complexity, 
from individualism to codperation, from use 
to comfort,and soon. This statement needs 
no extended proof; the roller mill is the de- 
scendant of the metals, machinery springs 
from tools, the device beneficial only to its 
originator becomes, the world-embracing 
and world-blessing invention; the happy 
thought of one person at last comes to be 
the beneficent result of an endowed and 
perennial codperation, a perpetual reposi- 
tory of invention renewed constantly by 
the removal of the senescent and the intro- 
duction of new and trained minds as in a 
university. 3 

Now it requires great patience to get to- 
gether the material evidence of this unfold- 
ing or evolution. The mental processes are 
no longer in sight. The nearest approach 
to them are the makeshifts of savages, and 
their minds are almost a sealed book. It 
has therefore occurred to the writer that 
among the questions proposed to those who 
are collating information relating to the 
psychic growth of children there should be 
a short series respecting the unfolding of the 
inventive faculty or process, the finding out 
originally how to overcome new difficulties 
or surmounting old ones in new ways. 

O. T. Mason. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

Popular Lectures and Addresses—Vol. IL, 
Geology and General Physics—Lorp K=EL- 
vin.—Macemillan & Co., New York and 
London. Pp. 599. Price $2.00. 


—— 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


It is characteristic of the work of a really 
great genius, either in Science, Literature 
or Art, that it is not displaced and cannot 
be displaced by that which may come 
after it. 

A bit of scientific work may later be 
found to be erroneous as to data, and, there- 
fore, in the wrong as to conclusions, but if 
it be the work of an aggressive, original 
thinker, it will always have great value- 
In the brilliant galaxy of physicists, or, as 
he would himself call them, natural philos- 
ophers, which the present century has pro- 
duced, it is moderation to say that none 
outshines Lord Kelvin, and it will not be 
denied that none has equalled him in ag- 
gressiveness and originality. The range of 
subjects upon which he has touched during 
his long and active life is so extensive as to 
certainly justify the use of the term Natural 
Philosopher in its broader sense (and cap- 
italized at that), for he has never touched a 
department of human knowledge without 
leaving it richer and more extensive for his 
contact with it. That he has not been in- 
variably infallible is recognized by no one 
more fully than by himself, and the new 
editions of his earlier papers which have 
been issuing from the press at intervals dur- 
ing the past few years, bear most interest- 
ing evidence of his readiness to change his 
attitude on great questions whenever the 
verdict of later investigations is against him. 
It is delightful to note the occasional par- 
enthetical ‘ not’ put to-day into a sentence 
which twenty years ago declared very pos- 
itively that ‘there is’ so and so, or, ‘we 
can,’ ete., completely reversing the mean- 
ing of statements which were once made 
with a good degree of confidence. What- 
ever else may be said, it cannot be asserted 
that Lord Kelvin has ever lacked the cour- 
age to express his own views in most forci- 
ble and unmistakable language. Indeed, in 
this respect, especially, he has set a splendid 
standard of unswerving scientific honesty 


SCIENCE. 5] 


for the innumerable workers who have been, 
and will be, more or less influenced by his 
methods and their tremendous product- 
iveness. 

His views as to the proper attitude of the 
philosopher in his relations to unexplored 
regions of human experience are concisely 
expressed in this noble sentence from his 
Presidential Address before the British As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Science, in 
1871 : “Science is bound by the everlasting 
law of honor to face fearlessly every prob- 
lem which can fairly be presented to it.’’ 
When he comes, however, to touch upon 
some problems which have long been of 
great interest to the human race, but which 
have been assumed, usually, to lie outside 
the domain of experimental or exact science 
(and he touches upon them not infrequently 
in the volume under consideration), it is not 
difficult to see a very decided bias towards 
certain views, and a promptness to accept 
propositions not always well supported by 
evidence, very greatly in contrast with 
what is found in more vigorously scientific 
discussion. 

This series of popular lectures and ad- 
dresses is published in three volumes, the 
first and third having already appeared. 
The second (issued later than the third), 
to which attention is now invited, contains 
the important addresses on geological phys- 
ies which have attracted so much attention 
during the past quarter of a century, to- 
gether with a number of lectures and short 
papers on subjects related to general physics 
and extracts from addresses as president of 
the Royal Society since 1890. The geologi- 
cal papers are of great interest and have 
had much to do with the moulding of the 
views of geologists as to Dynamical Geology. 
The series begins with a short note covering 
but a single octavo page, entitled, ‘ The 
Doctrine of Uniformity in Geology Briefly 
Refuted,’ read at Edinburgh in 1865. It 
fairly ‘opens the ball,’ and may be regard- 


52 


ed as the key note to the more elaborate dis- 
quisitions which followed at intervals up to 
recent dates. These papers are so well 
known, or ought to be so well known, to all 
geologists as to make it only necessary to 
say here that they will be found collected 
in this volume in convenient form and with 
a few notes and occasional comments by the 
distinguished author, made while the collec- 
tion was being prepared for the press. The 
most important of the earlier papers are the 
address ‘On Geological Time,’ given in Glas- 
gow, early in 1868, and that on ‘Geological 
Dynamics’ at the same place about a year 
later. In the first of these will be found 
the somewhat severe strictures upon ‘British 
Popular Geology’ which brought forth the 
interesting and pointed criticisms of Huxley 
in his address to the Geological Society of 
London, and in the second the replies to 
Huxley’s criticisms and futher remarks upon 
the subject. Nearly ten years later came a 
“Review of the Evidence Regarding the Physical 
Condition of the Earth,’ read at the British As- 
sociation meeting at Glasgow; two papers 
read before the Geological Society of Glas- 
gow, on ‘Geological Climate,’ and on the ‘In- 
ternal Condition of the Earth;’ and after the 
lapse of another ten years a paper before the 
same society on ‘Polar Ice Caps and their In- 
fluence in Changing Sea Levels.’ In these 
much of the ground of the earlier addresses 
is again gone over, in the light of later dis- 
covery in geology, physics and astronomy. 
Indeed these same topics recur again and 
again, sometimes incidentally in other ad- 
dresses in the volume, and Lord Kelvin 
makes it entirely clear that in thus taking 
up the discussion of geological problems 
and applying to them the methods and 
data of physics and astronomy, he does not 
wish to be considered an interloper. In 
his reply to Huxley, who had rather point- 
edly intimated that view of the situation, 
he good-naturedly remarks: “ For myself 
I am anxious to be regarded by geologists, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 2. 


not as a mere passer-by, but as one con- 
stantly interested in their grand subject, 
and anxious in any way, however slight, to 
assist them in their search for truth.” 

It seems difficult to over-estimate the im- 
portance of these geological addresses, not 
only to the geologist, but to the physicist as 
well. They not only have a general interest 
to both, but are of special importance to 
each. ‘To the one they open new possibili- 
ties of a somewhat exact and satisfactory 
treatment of a most important but hitherto 
rather unmanageable department of his sub- 
ject; and to the other they offer a most in- 
structive illustration of the power and scope 
of the methods of exact science, when ap- 
plied by one who may justly be called not a 
master, but the master. 

Of the other addresses, none, of course, is 
more important or interesting than the 
British Association Presidential Address of 
1871, so well known to all. One of the 
earliest, on ‘The Rate of a Clock or Ohrono- 
meter as Influenced by the Mode of Suspension,’ 
is most entertaining and suggestive as an ex- 
ample of the many ‘side-lights’ of a re- 
markable intellectual activity. Of great 
historical value is the Royal Institution lec- 
ture of 1856 on the ‘Origin and Transforma- 
tion of Motive Power’—already republished in 
Volume II. of the ‘Mathematical and Physical 
Papers ;’ and one of the most interesting is 
that of late date (1892) on the ‘Dissipation 
of Energy.’ In this much attention is given 
to the principle of Carnot, and here also oe- 
curs a remarkable statement which the au- 
thor himself has thought worth while to 
print in italics ;—it is :—‘‘ The fortuitous con- 
course of atoms is the sole foundation in Philoso- 
phy on which can be founded the doctrine that tt 
as impossible to derive mechanical effect from heat 
otherwise than by taking heat from a body at a 
higher temperature, converting at most a definite 
proportion of it into mechanical effect, and giving 
out the whole residue to matter at a lower tem- 
perature.” 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


The address on the opening of the Bangor 
Laboratories will be of interest to all who 
have to do with their like ; that on the occa- 
sion of the unveiling of Joule’s statue will 
interest everybody who cares for or who 
knows of the greatest generalization of 
modern science. In short, every page of 
this volume is deserving of the careful 
perusal of all who are devoted to Natural 
Philosophy in its most comprehensive sense, 
and who wish to know something of the 
spirit of one whose splendid contributions 
to physical science are, as a whole, greater 
than those of any other philosopher of the 
present time. 

The mechanical execution of the book 
does not seem to be quite in keeping with 
the classical character of its contents, and 
its pages are occasionally marred by negli- 
gent proof reading. T.C. MENDENHALL. 

WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 


Laws of Temperature Control of the Geographic 

Distribution of Life. 

In the December isste of the National 
Geographic Magazine, Dr. C. Hart Merriam 
announces the discovery of the laws of 
temperature control of the geographic dis- 
tribution of terrestrial animals and plants. 
Dr. Merriam has been engaged on this 
problem for sixteen years and believes he 
has at last obtained a formula which ful- 
fills the requirements. He states that in 
the Northern Hemisphere animals and 
plants are distributed in cireumpolar belts, 
the boundaries of which follow lines of 
equal temperature rather than parallels of 
latitude. Between the pole and the equator 
there are three primary belts or regions— 
Boreal, Austral and Tropical. In the 
United States the Boreal and Austral have 
each been split into three secondary trans- 
continental zones, of which the Boreal are 
known as the Arctic, Hudsonian and Cana- 
dian; and the Austral as the Transition, 
Upper Austral and Lower Austral. 


SCIENCE. 


53 


The temperature data computed and 
plotted on maps as isotherms are not avail- 
able in locating the boundaries of the zones, 
because they show the temperature of arbi- 
trary periods—periods that have reference 
to a particular time of year rather than a 
particular degree or quantity of heat. 

It is assumed that the distribution of 
animals and plants is governed by the 
temperature of the season of growth and 
reproductive activity—not by that of the 
entire year. The difficulty is to measure 
the temperature concerned. 

Physiological botanists have long main- 
tained that “the various events in the life 
of plants, as leafing, flowering and matur- 
ing of fruit, take place when the plant has 
been exposed to a definite quantity of heat, 
which quantity is the sum total of the daily 
temperatures above a minimum assumed 
to be necessary for functional activity.”’ 
The minimum used by early botanists was 
the freezing point (0° C or 32° F), but re- 
cent writers believe that 6° C or 42.8° F 
more correctly expresses the temperature of 
the awakening of plant life in spring. ‘‘ The 
substance of the theory is that the same stage 
of vegetation is attained in any year when the 


sum of the mean daily temperatures reaches the 
same value, which value or total is essentially 
the same for the same plant in all localities. 
This implies that the period necessary for 
the accomplishment of a definite physio- 
logical act, blossoming, for instance, may be 
short or long, according to local climatic 
peculiarities, but the total quantity of heat 
must be the same. The total amount of 
heat necessary to advance a plant to a given 
stage came to be known as the physiological 


constant of that stage.’”? But students of 


geographic distribution are not concerned 
with the physiological constant of any stage 
or period in the life of an organism, but 
with the physiological constant of the species it- 
self—if such a term may be used. “If it 
is true that the same stage of vegetation is 


54 


attained in different years when the sum of 
the mean daily temperatures reaches the 
same value, it is obvious that the physio- 
logical constant of a species must be the 
total quantity of heat or sum of positive tempera- 
tures required by that species to complete its cycle 
of development and reproduction.” Now, ‘if 
the computation can be transferred from the 
species to the zone it inhabits—if a zone 
constant can be substituted for a species con- 
stant—the problem will be well nigh solved.”’ 
This Dr. Merriam has attempted to do. 
“In conformity with the usage of botanists, 
a minimum temperature of 6°C (48°F) 
has been assumed as marking the inception 
of the period of physiological activity in 
plants and of reproductive activity in ani- 
mals. The effective temperatures or degrees 
of normal mean daily heat in excess of this 
minimum have been added together for 
each station, beginning when the normal 
mean daily temperature rises higher than 
6°C in spring and continuing until it falls 
to the same point at the end of the season.” 
The sums thus obtained were plotted on a 
large scale map of the United States, and 
isotherms were run which were found to 
conform to the northern boundaries of the 
several zones. This is shown by colored 
maps. The data seem to justify the state- 
ment that “animals and plants are restricted 
in northward distribution by the total quantity 
of heat during the season of growth and repro- 
ductive activity.” 

In the case of the southern boundaries of 
the zones, it was assumed that animals 
and plants in ranging southward would en- 
counter, sooner or later, a degree of mean 
summer heat they are unable to endure. 


“The difficulty is in ascertaining the length 


of the period whose mean temperature acts 
as a barrier. It must be short enough to 
be included within the hottest part of the 
summer in high northern latitudes, and 
would naturally increase in length from the 
north southward. For experimental pur- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No: 2: 


poses, and without attempting unnecessary 
refinement, the mean normal temperature 
of the six hottest consecutive weeks of sum- 
mer was arbitrarily chosen and plotted on 
a large contour map of the United States, 
as in the case of the total quantity of 
heat.” 

On comparing this map with the zone 
map, the isotherms of 18°, 22° and 26°C 
were found to conform respectively to the 
southern boundaries of the Boreal, Transi- 
tion and Upper Austral zones, leading to 
the belief that “animals and plants are re- 
stricted in southward distribution by the mean 
temperature of a brief period covering the hottest 
part of the year.” 

Except in a few localities the northern 
boundary of Austral species coincides with 
the southern boundary of Boreal species, 
but for a distance of more than a thousand 
miles along the Pacific coast a curious over- 
lapping and intermingling of northern and 
southern types occurs. On looking at the 
temperature maps this is at once explained, 
for the mean temperature of the six hottest 
consecutive weeks from about lat. 35° north- 
ward to Puget Sound is truly Boreal, being 
as low as the mean of the corresponding 
period in northern Maine and other points 
well within the Boreal zone. On the other 
hand, the total quantity of heat is found to 
be the same as that required by Austral 
species. ‘It is evident, therefore, that the 
principal climatic factors that permit Boreal 
and Austral types to live together along the 
Pacific coast are a low summer tempera 
ture combined with a high sum total of 
heat.” 

A table is given showing the actual goy- 
erning temperatures, so far as known, of the 
northern and southern boundaries of the 
several zones. 

In conclusion, Dr. Merriam calls attention 
to the subordinate value of humidity as 
compared with temperature. ‘ Humidity 
and other secondary causes determine the 


JANUARY 11, 1895.] 


presence or absence of particular species in 
particular localities within their appropriate 
zones, but temperature predetermines the 
possibilities of distribution; it fixes the 
limits beyond which species cannot pass ; it 
defines broad transcontinental belts within 
which certain forms may thrive if other 
conditions permit, but outside of which they 
eannot exist, be the other conditions never 
so favorable.”’ 


Grasses of Tennessee—Part II—F. Lamson- 
ScrisNeR.—University of Tennessee, 
Agric. Exper. Sta. Bull., VII. 1-141, 187 
figures. 1894. 


The first part of this important work treat- 
ing of the structure of grasses in general, 
issued two years ago, is now supplemented 
by the part here noticed, containing descrip- 
tions and figures of all species known by the 
author to inhabit Tennessee. Carefully pre- 
pared keys to the genera and species are a 
feature of the book. The cuts are good, al- 
though printed on paper hardly firm enough 
to bring them out to the best advantage. 
The descriptions are diagnostic and couched 
in strictly technical language ; on this point 
it isremarked: ‘‘ Attempts to avoid tech- 
nical or ‘ hard’ words often result in obscur- 
ing the meaning of the author, and an undue 
simplicity of expression is often apt to be 
offensive by implying a lack of intelligence 
on the part of the reader.”’ As the book is 
intended primarily for the farmers of the 
State, this may be considered by some as a 
position of doubtful value. 

It is to be regretted that the rules of no- 
menclature adopted by the botanists of the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, which are practically those ap- 
proved by the zodlogists, have not been 
strictly followed. This will seriously ham- 
per the usefulness of the book, for some of 
the names used by Prof. Seribner have be- 


come obsolete. . 
Nadu: B: 


SCIENCE. 5 


Or 


NOTES. 
PHYSICS. 

THE newly discovered gas is to be the 
subject of a discussion at a meeting of the 
Royal Society on January 31st, when Lord 
Rayleigh and Prof. Ramsay will present 
their paper. This will be the first meeting 
under a resolution of the Council of the 
Society passed last session, whereby certain 
meetings, not more than four in number, 
are to be devoted every year each to the 
hearing and consideration of some one im- 
portant communication, or to the discussion 
of some important topic.—Nature. 


PERSONAL. 

Tue University of Berlin is seriously 
crippled by the deaths of Helmholtz and 
Kundt. Their places cannot be filled, but 
Prof. Kohlrausch will probably be called 
to one of the vacant chairs. 


Tue Physical Review has published excel- 
lent portraits of Helmholtz, Kundt and 
Hertz, with biographical sketches by the 
editor-in-chief, Professor Nichols. Proba- 
bly the best account so far published in 
English of the work of Helmholtz is that 
contributed to the Psychological Review for 
January by Professor Stumpf, of the Uni- 
versity of Berlin. 

Mr. F. Y. Powell, of Christ’s College, 
succeeds Froude in the Regius Professor- 
ship of Modern History at Oxford. 


ZOOLOGY. 


A PicrurE-PuzzLE of a remarkable kind 
appears in the Zoilogist for December. It 
is a reproduction of two photographs of a 
Little Bittern, showing the strange atti- 
tude assumed by the bird to favor its con- 
cealment. One of the figures shows the 
the bird standing in a reed-bed, erect, with 
neck stretched out and beak pointing up- 
wards; and in this position it is difficult 
to distinguish the bird at all from the 


56 


reeds. The eye is deceived in a similar 
manner when the bird is crouching against 
a tree-stump at the river side. Mr. J. E. 
Harting thinks that the curious attitudes 
adopted by the bird, on finding itself ob- 
served, are assumed in the exercise of the 
instinet of self-preservation. He mentions 
a similar habit, observed and described by 
Mr. W. H. Hudson, in the ease of South 
American Little Heron, which frequents 
the borders of the La Plata, and is occa- 


sionally found in the reed-beds scattered 


over the pampas. Without the aid of dogs 
it was found impossible to secure any spec- 
imens of this bird, even after making the 
spot where one had alighted.—WNature. 


NEW PUBLICATIONS. 


Astronomy and Astro-Physics will hereafter 
be called the Astrophysical Journal and will be 
published from the University of Chicago, 
under the editorship of Profs. Payne and 
Keeler and a board of the leading men of 
science in this department. 


A monthly Magazine of Travel, somewhat 
practical and popular in character, will 
hereafter be published from 10 Astor Place, 
New York. 

The Aeronautical Annual for 1895, soon to 
be published by W. B. Clarke & Co., Bos- 
ton, will contain reprints of some early 
treatises on aeronautics, among them da 
Vinei’s Treatise on the Flight of Birds, Sir 
George Gayley’s Aerial Navigation (1809), 
A Treatise upon the Art of Flying, by Thomas 
Walker (1810), and Franklin’s aeronauti- 
cal correspondence.— Critic. 

P. Blakiston, Son & Co. announce The 
Dynamies of Life, by William R. Gowers, 
M. D., of London. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES: 
THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
DECEMBER 31, 1894. 
Dr. Hatsrep, President, in the chair. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vout. I. No. 2. 


James E. Toomeson ; Address. 

Davin Cerna; The phonetic arithmetic of 
the ancient Mexicans. A 

Wruram Keitier ; Descriptive anatomy of — 
the heart. 

Tuomas Fravin; Developmental anatomy 
and pathology of the kidneys. 

Tuomas U. Taytor; Present need of engi- 
neering education in the South. 

Rosert A. THomeson ; The storm-water stor- 
age system of wrigation. 

T. H. Bryant, Acting Secretary. 


NEW BOOKS. 

Progress in Flying Machines. O. CHANUTE. 
New York, The American Engineer and 
Railroad Journal. 1894. Pp. iv+308. 

Lectures on the Darwinian Theory. A. M. 
MarsHatu. Edited by C. F. MArsHann. 
London, D. Nutt; New York, Macmil- 
lan & Co. 1894. Pp. xx+236. $2.25. 

Sea and Land. Features of Coasts and 
Oceans with Special Reference to the Life 
of Man. N. S. SHater. New York, 
Charles Seribner’s Sons. 1894. $2.50. 

Teat-book of Invertebrate Morphology J. F. 
McMourricu. New York, Henry Holt & 
Co. 1894. Pp. 294. $4.00. 

The Planet Earth. An Astronomical In- 
troduction to Geography. RicHArp A. 
Grecory. London and New York, 
Macmillan & Co. 1894. Pp. viiit-105. 
60c.  - 

Physiology for Beginners. M. Foster and 
Lewis E. Saorr. New York and Lon- 
don, Macmillan & Co. 1894. Pp. ix+ 
241. 75e. 

The Rise and Development of Organie Chemistry. 
Cari ScHorRLEMMER. Revised edition, ed- 
ited by ARTHUR SmiTHELLS. London and 
New York, Macmillan & Co. 1894. Pp. 
ix+280. 

Woman’s Share in Primitive Culture O. T. 
Mason. New York, D. Appleton & Co. 
1894. Pp. xiii+295. 


SCIENCE. 


NEW SERIES. 
VoL. I. No. 3. 


Fripay, JANUARY 18, 1895. 


SINGLE Copies, 15 ets. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


MATHEMATICS. 


BACHMANN, PAvuL, Zahlentheorie. Versuch e. 
Gesammtdarstellung dieser Wissenschaft in ihren 
Haupttheilen. 2. Thl. Die analytische Zahlentheorie. 
gr 8°. Mk. 12. 

GRASSMANN’s, HM., Gesammelte mathematische 
und physikalische Werke. Auf Veranlassung der 
mathematisch-physikalischen Klasse der kénig]. siich- 
sischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften und unter 
Mitwirkung von Jul. Liiroth, Ed. Study, Just. Grass- 
mann, Hm. Grassman Md. J., G. Scheffers herausge- 
geben von F. Engel. I. Bd. 1. Thl. Die Ausdeh- 
nungslehre von 1844 und die geometrische Analyse. 
u 8° 35 Fig. Mk. 12. 

CANTOR, Mor., Vorlesungen tib. Geschichte der 
Mathematik. 3. Bd. Vom. J. 1668 bis zum J. 
ag 1. Abtlg. Die Zeit von 1668 bis 1699. gr. 8°. 

“LG: 


Herter, Pror. Dr. LorHar. Einleitung in die 
Theorie der linearen Differentialgleichungen mit 
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Texte. gr. 8°. Mk. 6. 

THOMAE, Jou. Die Kegelschnitte in rein-projek- 
tiver Behandlung. Mit in den Text eingedruckten 
Holzschnitten und 16 lithographierten Figurenta- 
feln. gr. 8°. Mk. 6. 


ASTRONOMY. 


GALLE, J. G. Verzeichnis der Elemente der 
bisher berechneten Cometenbahnen, nebst Anmer- 
kungen und Literatur-Nachweisen, neu bearbeitet, 
erginzt und fortgesetzt bis zum Jahre 1894. Mk. 12. 

Publikationen des astrophysikalischen Observator- 
iums zu Potsdam. Herausgegeben yon H. C. Vogel. 
Nr. 32. X. Bd. 1. Stiick. 4°. Mit 30 Taf. Mk. 
12. 


GEOLOGY 


Lévy, A. M. Etude sur la détermination des feld- 
spaths dans les plaques minces au point de vue de la 
classification des roches. 8°. Avee 8 pl. cal. et 9 fig. 
Fr. 7; 50¢. 

Hintze, C. Handbuch der Mineralogie. 
Mit 56 Abbildgn. Mk. 5. 

WALTHER, Prof. Johs, Einleitung in die Geologie 
als historische Wissenschaft. III. (Schluss-) Thi. 
Lithogenesis der Gegenwart. Beobachtungen tib die 
Bildg. der Gesteine an der heut. Erdoberfliiche. 
gr. 8°. m. 8 Abbildgn. Mk. 13. 


AND MINERALOGY. 


8. Lfg. 


ZOOLOGY. 


BERGH, Dr. R. S., Vorlesungen iiber die Zelle und 
die einfachen Gewebe des tierischen Kérpers: Mit 
einem Anhang: Technische Anleitung zu einfachen 
histologischen Untersuchungen. Mit 138 Figuren im 
Texte. gr. 8°. Mk. 7. 


Boas, Dr. J. E. y., Lehrbuch der Zodélogie. 2. 
Aufl. gr. 8°. Mk, 10; geb. Mk. 11. ; 

DE GROSSOUVRE, A. Recherches sur la craie 
supérieure. 2° partie. Paléontologie: Les ammonites 
de la craie supérieure. 4°. Avec 39 fig. et atlas de 
39 pl. Fr. 20. : 

LINNAEI, Caroli, systema naturae. Regnum ani- 
male. Ed. X. 1758, cura societatis Zoblogiacae ger- 
manicae iterum edita. gr. 8°. Mk. 10;—Einbd. Mk. 
2.25. 

HALLER, B. Studien iiber docoglosse und rhipido- 
glosse Prosobranchier nebst Bemerkungen iiber die 
phyletischen Beziehungen der Mollusken unterein- 
ander. 4°. Mit 6 Textfig. u. 12 Taf. Mk. 32. 

Pororr, Demetrius. Die Dottersack-Getiisse der 
Huhnes. Mit 12 lithographischen Tafeln in Farben- 
druck und 12 lithographierten Tafel-Erkliirungsbliit- 
tern. 4° Mk. 27.— 

ScumipT, Apr. Atlas der Diatomaceen-Kunde. 
In Verbindung mit Griindler, Grunow, Janisch und 
Witt herausgegeben. 48. u. 49. Heft. Fol. 8 Taf. 
Mit. 8 Bl. Erklirgn. Mk. 6. 

SEMON, PRoF. Dr. RICHARD. Zodlogische Forsch- 
ungsreisen in Australien und dem malayischen Ar- 
chipel. Mit Unterstiitzung des Herrn Dr. Paul von 
Ritter ausgefiihrt in den Jahren 1891-1893. Erster 
Band. Ceratodus. Erste Lieferung. Mit 8 lito- 
graphischen Tafeln und 2 Abbildungen im Texte. 
(Text und Atlas.) gr. 4°. Mk, 20. 


BOTANY. 


ENGLER, A., und K. PRANTL. Die natiirlichen 
Pflanzenfamilien nebst ihren Gattungen und wich- 
tigeren Arten, insbesondere den Nutzpflanzen, unter 
Mitwirkung zahlreicher hervorragender Fachgelehr- 
ten begriindet von A. E. und K. P., fortgesetzt von 
A. Engler. III. Tl. 6. Abtlg. 8°. Mit 592 Ein- 
zelbildern in 87 Fig. sowie Abteilungs-Register. 
Subskr.-Pr. Mk. 8; Einzelpr. Mk. 16. 

LINDEN, L. Les Orchidées exotiques et leurs cul- 
ture en Europe. Avec nombr. fig. Fr. 25. 

SCHUMANN, Kust. Prof. Dr. K., Lehrbuch der sys- 
tematischen Botanik, Phytopaliiontologie u. Phyto- 
geographie. gr. 8°. 193 Fig. u. 1 farb. Karte. Mk. 16. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT, 
810 Broadway, New York. 


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Fripay, January 18, 1895. 


CONTENTS : 


The Baltimore Meeting of the Geological Society of 
EIR De, IOEMP 5. ctteeerieclets s <1s/2 = \< 0 57 


i 
i ce ier is ‘ 


The Connecticut Sandstone Group: C. F. Hrrcu- 
cock 7 

Length of Vessels in Plants: ERWIN F. SMITH ....77 

eentajic Literature —.. 2... cccctesceccecceseces 78 
Dodge's Practical Biology: H.W.Conn. Cha- 
telier’s Le Grisow: CHARLES PLATT. Bolles’ 
Bearcamp Water: W. T. DAvis. 

Noles a Ia\<) c's w'e csi « ss 5 SMORIMICIG one ici cinie ss 80 
The Botanical Society of America ; Psychology ; 
Articles on Science ; Forthcoming Publications. 


EEMEIUATIOIOUPNOLS) vag «>< « «aR Me sini 2 es ola vi si= 82 
Societies and Academies ..... Sagteete Saiiatsie cleavclcicels 83 
SUPRIPEDUER wn qaia'c's Dus so nc Biyee ees ace ves os 84 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

Subscriptions (five dollars annually ) and advertisements 
oe Re sent to the Publisher of SCIENCE, 41 East 49th St., 

ew York. 


THE BALTIMORE MEETING OF THE GEOLOGI- 
CAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA. 

Tue seventh annual meeting was held in 
Baltimore, December 27, 28 and 29, in the 
geological rooms of Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity. 

The first session took place at 10 A. M., 
December 27, and was presided over by 
President Chamberlin. The Society was 
welcomed by President Gilman, of the Uni- 
versity, who made a graceful and cordial 
address, that was warmly received. Presi- 


feelings of the members in a few felicitous 
words. A printed report of the Council was 
distributed, reviewing the events of the 
year. B. K. Emerson and J.§. Diller were 
elected an auditing committee. The results 
of the ballot for officers were as follows: 

President, N.S. SHALER. 

Ist Vice President, Joseru Lr Conve. 

2d Vice President, C. H. Hrrcencock. 

Secretary, H. L. Farrourmp. 

Treasurer, I. C. Wire. 

Councillors, R. W. Ets, C. R. Van Hise. 

Messrs. Clements, Cobb, Hopkins, Hub- 
bard and Spurr were elected fellows. 

The constitution was so amended that 
the qualifications for fellows shall hereafter 
be as follows, geographical location in North 
America being no longer a requisite, ‘‘ Fel- 
lows shall be workers or teachers in geo- 
logy.”? An amendment allowing the Treas- 
urer to be elected without limit was also 
passed. After some announcements by the 
local committee the Society listened to a 
memorial of the late Professor George H. 
Williams, of Johns Hopkins University, and 
Second Vice President of the Society, by 
Professor William B. Clark. It was on Dr. 
Williams’ invitation that the Society met 
in Baltimore and the great loss to the 
science by his death was the thought upper- 
most in the minds of all present. Dr. 
Clark’s graceful and touching memorial to 
his late colleague was appreciated by all 


58 


present. Brief additional tributes were 
also paid by Professor B. K. Emerson, of 
Amherst, Dr. Williams’ first geological 
teacher and life-long friend; by J. F. Kemp, 
an old college-mate; by W.S. Bayley, his 
first student in petrography, and by his 
friends and colleagues, J. P. Iddings, I. C. 
White, C. D. Walcott and N. 8. Shaler. 

A memorial of Amos Bowman, of the 
Canadian Survey, was then presented by H. 
M. Ami, after which the Society listened to 
the reading of papers, as follows: 


1. On Certain Peculiar Features in the Joumting 
and Veining of the Lower Silurian Limestones 
near Cumberland Gap, Tenn. N. S&S. 
SHALER, Cambridge, Mass. 

The paper described peculiar forms of 
dolomitic limestone near Smiles, Tenn., in 
practically undisturbed strata which are 
ribbed and seamed by minute veins of 
calcite, in the form of small gash veins. 
They were regarded as due to some power- 
ful, though local strains in the rock, but 
the subject was frankly admitted to be an 
obscure one. 


2. The Appalachian Type of Folding in the 
White Mountain Range, of Inyo Co., Cal. 
Cuas. D. Watcorr, Washington, D. C. 
The White Mountain range, which lies 

east of the Sierra Nevada, was shown to 
consist of conformable quartzite and cam- 
brian shales and limestone. The series had 
been thrown into synclinal folds with inter- 
vening eroded anticlines and with a struc- 
ture which, on the whole, closely reproduces 
the Appalachian sections of the Hast. 

The paper was discussed by Messrs. 
Becker, Ami, Willis and Russell, after 
which recess was taken until the afternoon 
session. 


3. New Structural Features in the Appala- 
chians. ArtHur Kerra. 
The paper reviewed the old generaliza- 
tions of Appalachian structure, analyzed 
the recently published knowledge, described 


SCIENCE. 


ENSS:) Vol. dee Noss: 


new structures, such as fan structure, cross 
folds, cross zones of shear, a secondary sys- 
tem of folding, the distribution of meta- 
morphism, and advanced a theory to ac- 
count for their production. According to 
the theory, the compressive strain which 
deformed the strata began in the crystalline 
gneisses and granites, thrust the crystallines 
against the sediments and by the differential 
motion along the shear zones produced but- 
tresses around which the chief changes of 
structure were grouped. 

In the discussion which followed, Mr. C. 
Willard Hayes considered two of the shear 
zones with the conclusion that the changes 
in structure were due to differences of rigid- 
ity in the sediments when they were thrust 
against the crystallines. 

Mr. Keith replied that the changes of 
structure extended through the crystallines 
as well as the sediments, a fact incompatible 
with a merely passive resistance on the part 
of the crystallines. 

Mr. Bailey Willis argued that the chief 
structural changes were due to original 


- differences in sediment and in bases of sedi- 


mentation. His conclusion was that the 
sediments moved against a rigid crystalline 
mass, being actuated by a force acting from 
the westward, which was due to the isosta- 
tic flow of material from beneath the load 
of sediment. 

4. The Faults of Chazy Township, Clinton 
County, N. Y. H. P. Cusutne, Cleve- 
land, O. 

That the Lake Champlain region is, 
structurally, one of faulting without fold- 
ing, is well known. The structure is well 
exhibited in Chazy township, which has not 
heretofore been mapped in detail, except 
for a small area around Chazy village. Its 
consideration is of importance, because of 
its bearing on the structure of the Adiron- 
dack region, in which, on account of the 
lithological similarity of the rocks, the de- 
termination of the precise structural rela- 


JANUARY 18, 1895. ] 


tions isa matter of great difficulty, if not 
impossibility. The great number of the 
faults, and the consequent small size of the 
various faulted blocks, are striking facts. 
In discussion C. D. Walcott showed how 
these faults had led Professor J. Marcou to 
believe that he had discovered colonies of 
Trenton fossils in rocks of the Potsdam. 


5. The Formation of Lake-basins by Wind. 

G. K. Grrzert, Washington, D. C. 

The paper described the formation of ba- 
sins in the arid regions of the West, by the 
erosive action of wind-blown sand upon a 
shale devoid of vegetation. In time they 
became filled with water and formed small 
lakes. 


6. The Tepee Buttes. 
F. P. Guiiver. 
The paper was read by Mr. Gulliver and 

described a series of conical buttes west of 

Pueblo, Col. They consist of Pierre shales, 

surrounding cores of limestone formed of 

shells of Zucina. It is supposed that as the 
shales were deposited, a colony of lucinas 
established themselves and grew upward 
pari passu, forming a conical or columnar 
deposit of limestone, whose greater resist- 
ance to erosion has left the buttes in relief. 


G. K. Grupertr and 


7. Remarks on the Geology of Arizona and 
Sonora. W J McGer, of Washington. 
The arid region was described as consist- 

ing of north and south mountain ranges 

with wide valleys between. In Arizona the 
surface is largely of voleanic rock, in Sonora 
of Mesozoic limestone. The rivers have 
definite courses and water in the moun- 
tains, but in the valleys they are lost by 
evaporation and absorption before the ocean 
is reached. Their valleys were transverse 
to the mountains and larger valleys because 
of the general southwesterly dip of the 
rocks. Buttes near the Gulf of California 
show slight talus, which fact gives good 
ground for thinking that the gulf has stood 
at an altitude, as regards the land, several 


SCIENCE. 


59 


hundred feet above its present level in re- 
cent geological time, or, in other words, that 
the Jand has been depressed by that amount. 


8. Geology of the Highwood Mountains, Mon- 
tana. Waurrr H. Weep, Washington, 
D.. C., and Lovurs V. Prrsson, New 
Haven, Conn. 

On account of the illness of Mr. Weed this 
paper was not read. 


the Ozark 
Cares R. Keyes, Des Moines, 


9. Genesis and 
Iplift. 

Iowa. 

On account of the author’s absence the 
paper was not read. 

10. The Geographical Evolution of Cuba. 

J. W. Spencer, Washington, D. C. 

The description of the physical geography 
of Cuba and of the adjacent submerged 
banks was given. Exclusive of a few areas 
locally older, the apparent basement is com- 
posed of volcanic rocks of Cretaceous or 
slightly earlier date. These are succeeded 
by fossiliferous Cretaceous sands, ete., and 
limestone greatly disturbed. The Eocene 
and Miocene deposits form a physical unit, 
and are composed mostly of limestone 
having a thickness of from 1,900 to 2,100 
feet. The Pliocene period was mostly one 
of high elevation, accompanied by a very 
great erosion. At the close of the Pliocene 
period the Matanzas subsidence depressed 
the-island so as to leave only a few small 
islets, and permit of the accumulation of 
about 150 feet of limestones. Then followed 
the great Pleistocene elevation with the 
excavation of great valleys, the lower por- 
tions of which are now fjords reaching in 
one case at least to 7,000 feet in depth be- 
fore joining the sea beyond. The elevation 
was followed by the Zapata subsidence, re- 
ducing the island to smaller proportions 
than to-day, and permitting the accumu- 
lation of the loams and gravels like the 
Columbia of the continent. The subsequent 
minor undulations are also noted, as shown 


Structure of 


60 


in terraces and recent small caions now 
submerged. Also the modern coralline for- 
mations and harbors are notable. 

On the completion of the paper the Society 
adjourned its business session until the 
following morning. 

In the evening many members attended 
Professor Wm. Libbey’s lecture on Green- 
land, and afterwards the reception which 
was hospitably tendered the visiting socie- 
ties by the Johns Hopkins University in 
McCoy Hall. On reassembling Friday morn- 
ing the council presented some minor points 
of business, and Mr. J. 8. Diller, the chair- 
man of the committee on photographs, read 
his annual report. It showed that some 
1,200-1,500 photographs of geological phe- 
nomena and scenery had been presented to 
the Society, the same being on exhibition in 
the hall. The negatives of the U.S. Geol. 
Survey in many instances and also those of 
not a few geologists have been made acces- 
sible to the fellows for prints at cost. Mr. 
Diller finally tendered his resignation, which 
was accepted with regret. Mr. G. P. Mer- 
rill, of the U. S. National Museum, was ap- 
pointed to the vacancy. The committee now 
consists of G. P. Merrill, W. M. Davis and 
J. F. Kemp. 

The first paper on the programme was— 
11. Observations on the Glacial Phenomena 

of Newfoundland, Labrador and Southern 

Greenland. G. FREDERICK WricHT. Ob- 

erlin, Ohio. 

Note was made of the direction of the 
glacial scratches in Newfoundland and of 
the evidences of a preglacial elevation of the 
island; also of the contrast between the 
flowing outlines of the coast range of moun- 
tains in Labrador and the jagged character 
of the coast range of Southern Greenland. 
A description was also given of the projec- 
tion of the inland ice which comes down to 
the coast near Sukkertoppen, in Lat. 65° 
50’, and of the phenomena which indicate 
the former extension of the Greenland ice 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 3. 


far beyond its present boundaries. Still, 

the bordering mountains were never coy- 

ered with ice. 

12. Highland Level Gravels in Northern 
New England. C. H. Hrrencock, Han- 
over, N. H. 

Recent observations prove the existence 
of a glacial lake in the basin of Lake Mem- 
phremagog, whose beaches exceed a thou- 
sand feet above sea level, and others 
1,500 feet above sea level in northern New 
Hampshire. The author wished to present 
a preliminary notice of what may prove to 
be of great service in a more exact defini- 
tion of glacial work in New England and 
Canada. 

The paper was discussed by Professor J. 
W. Spencer, who spoke of his own studies 
in the same region. 

During the reading of the following six 
papers the petrographers and mineralogists 
adjourned to the room above and listened 
to the reading of papers of a petrographic 
character, aS subsequently outlined. The 
principal session then listened to the follow- 
ing: 

13. Variations of Glaciers. HARRY FIBLD- 
Inc REDD. 

The paper called attention to the desira- 
bility of keeping accurate records of the 
movements of glacial ice wherever possible. 
A committee was appointed to further this 
movement at the Geological Congress in 
Zurich last summer, and the writer urged 
the importance of the work, especially as 
regards our western glaciers. 


14. Discrimination of Glacial Accumulation 
and Invasion. \VARREN UpHam, Somer- 
ville, Mass. 

The accumulation of ice-sheets by snow- 
fall on their entire area was discriminated 
from an advance or invasion by the front 
of the ice, extending thus over new terri- 
tory. The former condition is shown to 
have been generally prevalent, on the gla- 


JANUARY 18, 1895. ] 


ciated portions of both North America and 

Europe, by the occurrence of comparatively 

small areas of ice accumulation beyond the 

extreme boundaries of the principal ice- 
sheets. The latter condition, or ice invasion, 
is indicated on the outer part of the drift- 

bearing area eastward from Salamanca, N. 

Y., through Staten and Long Islands, 

Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, where 

the soft strata beneath the ice were dis- 

located and folded. 

15. Climatic Conditions Shown by North 
American Interglacial Deposits. WaAR- 
REN UpnHam, Somerville, Mass. 

During the times both of general accu- 
mulation and growth of the ice-sheets and 
of their final recession, fluctuations of their 
borders were recorded in various districts 
by forest trees, peat, and molluscan shells, 
enclosed in beds underlain and overlain by 
till. Such fluctuations, while the ice accu- 
mulation was in progress, enclosed chiefly 
arctic or boreal species; but when the ice 
was being melted away, in the Champlain 
epoch, the remains of the flora and fauna 
thus occurring in interglacial beds, as at 
Toronto and Scarboro’, Ont., may belong 
wholly to temperate species, such as now 
exist in the same district. The cold climate 
of the Ice age appears thus to have been 
followed by a temperate Champlain climate 
close upon the waning ice-border. 

16. Glacial Lakes in Western New York 
and Lake Newberry, the Successor of Lake 
Warren. By H. L. Farrcarrp, Roches- 
ter, N. Y. 

The paper presented evidence that the 
finger lakes of central New York were all 
pre-glacial-in character and that during the 
presence of the ice-sheet at their outlets 
they were backed up and discharged south- 
ward, as is abundantly shown by deltas at 
various heights on both sides of the present 
divide. Professor Fairchild cited eighteen 
glacial lakes from Attica on the west to the 
Onondaga river valley on the east. These 


SCIENCE. 61 


he has named from important towns now 
on the sites, as Lake Ithaca for the glacial 
form of Cayuga lake, which was 35 miles 
long, 5-10 miles broad and 1100 feet deep. 
It has been long known that when the ice 
covered western New York the great lakes 
discharged at Chicago to the Mississippi 
and the great lake formed by them is called 
Lake Warren, and has left a good beach. 
Ata much later stage, when the Mohawk 
was uncovered, the waters ran to the Hud- 
son, and the great lake on the site of On- 
tario has been called Lake Iroquois. The 
intermediate stage between these two, when 
the discharge of the water covering western 
New York was through the low pass at the 
south end of Seneca lake through Horse- 
heads near Elmira, Professor Fairchild has 
ealled Lake Newberry. The elevations of 
this and the Chicago pass are such that 
when allowance is made for the depressed 
condition of the area at that time, the exist- 
ence of the lake can be demonstrated. 

The paper was discussed by Messrs. Me- 
Gee and Gilbert, who commended the 
choice of the new name as felicitous and 
timely. J. W. Spenser also spoke, but dif- 
fered with the author in some points. 

Meantime, in the upper laboratory (the 
Williams room), the petrographic section, 
under the chairmanship of Professor B. K. 
Emerson listened to 
18. The Relation of Grain to Distance from 

Margin in Certain Rocks. Atrrep C. 

Lane, Houghton, Michigan. 

A description of the variation in texture 
and grain of some quartz diabase dikes of 
Upper Michigan was given, and the same 
compared with effusive flows of similar 
mineral composition. These descriptions 
were based on series of thin sections of 
known distance from the margin. Inter- 
stitial micropegmatite is primary or pneu- 
matolytic, and the feldspar crystallization 
begins before that of the augite, continuing 
until later. The distinction between the 


62 SCIENCE. 


intrusive or dike type and the effusive type 
was pointed out. The main object of pre- 
senting the paper at this time is to elicit the 
best methods of measuring the coarseness of 
grain of a rock, the object being to express 
by some arithmetical or mathematical form- 
ula based on statistics, or in some other def- 
inite way, the relation of texture to walls 
and thickness ina dike. The paper elicited 
considerable discussion by Messrs. Hovey, 
Kemp, Iddings, Cross, and G. P. Merrill, in 
which the following points were made ; the 
large size of the phenocrysts in some very 
narrow dikes ; the importance of not meas- 
uring minerals of the intratelluric stage ; 
the great variability of circumstances under 
which dikes cooled, as heated or cold walls, 
pressure, mineralizers, etc., and the difficult- 
ies of getting reliable data of the kind re- 
quired by Dr. Lane. ; 

19. Crystallized Slags from Coppersmelting. 
ALrrep C. LANE, Houghton, Michigan. 
This paper described (with exhibition of 

specimens) slags from the cupola furnaces 
used in coppersmelting, which contained 
large melilite crystals, between one and two 
centimeters square, interesting optically and 
in mode of occurrence. Crystallized hema- 
tite was also noted. 

The specimens elicited great interest on 
account of the size and perfection of the 
crystals. 

20. On the Nomenclature of the fine-grained 
Siliceous Rocks. L. S. Griswo~p, Cam- 
bridge, Mass. 

The writer described the difficulties met 
first, in his study of novaculite, and later, 
in connection with other siliceous rocks, 
such as cherts, jaspers, etc., in applying defi- 
nite names. The troublesome characters of 
opaline, chalcedonic and quartzose silica, as 
regards the origin of each, presented obsta- 
cles both for mineralogic and genetic classi- 
fication. 

This paper elicited an interesting dis- 
cussion which threatened at times to take 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 3. 


up the whole subiect of the classification of 
rocks. The general feeling seemed to be 
that rocks could best be named primarily 
on a mineralogic and textural basis, and 
that these principles furnished the best so- 
lution of the difficulties presented by the 
paper. The speakers were Messrs. Wolff, 

Emerson and Lane. 

21. On Some Dykes containing ‘ Huronite.’ 
By Atrrep E. Barnow, Ottawa. (Read 
by F. D. Apams.) 

This paper contained a brief petrographi- 
eal notice of certain dykes of diabase con- 
taining ‘ Huronite,’ as the mineral was 
originally named by Dr. Thomson, of Glas- 
gow, in his Mineralogy of 1836. Dr. B. J. 
Harrington’s re-examination of this mineral 
in 1886 showed some yery grave errors in 
Thomson’s work and the ‘ huronite’ must 
simply be regarded as an impure or altered 
form of anorthite, which has undergone 
either partial or complete ‘saussuritiza- 
tion,’ owing to metamorphic action. Cer- 
tain localities were mentioned north and 
northeast of Lake Huron, where these dykes 
have been noted cutting the Huronian as 
well as the granitoid gneisses usually classed 
as Laurentian. Mr. A. P. Low, of the Can- 
adian Geological Survey, noticed dykes con- 
taining this mineral cutting the Laurentian 
and Cambrian in the Labrador Peninsula. 
22. The Granites of Pike’s Peak, Colorado. 

Epwarp B. Maruerws, Baltimore, Mary- 

land. (Introduced by W. B. CrarK.) 

This paper gave an areal and petrographi- 
eal description of the granites composing 
the southern end of the Rampart or Colo- 
rado range and showed that great macro- 
scopic variation may result, while the micro- 
scopic characters remain monotonously uni- 
form. Four types in all were distinguished, 
based on the size of phenocrysts and coarse- . 
ness of grain. The paper was discussed by 
Whitman Cross and J. P. Iddings, after 
which the section adjourned to meet again 
at 4:30 P. M. 


JANUARY 18, 1895.] 


About the same time the main section 
also adjourned for lunch, which was most 
hospitably seryed to the visiting societies 
in the Johns Hopkins gymnasium. High 
praise is due the local committee for the ex- 
cellent arrangements. After lunch the so- 
ciety reconvened and the first paper was : 
23. Notes on the Glaciation of Newfound- 

land. By T. C. CHAMBERLIN. 

The paper brought out the very interest- 
ing facts that the glaciation of Newfound- 
land is local and that the moraines and 
striz show that it proceeded from the cen- 
ter of the island to the coast. The drift is 
all peripheral and can be easily traced to its 
sources. 

24. The Pre-Cambrian Floor of the North- 
western States. By C. W. Hall. (Read 
in the absence of the author by WARREN 
UPHAM. ) 

The paper pointed out the distribution of 
the Pre-Cambrian areas in the territory 
under investigation so far as it is known at 
the present time. It thenshowed by means 
of records of deep and artesian well bor- 
ings, within reasonable limits of probability, 
the depth of the Pre-Cambrian rocks over 
a considerable area beyond the surface area 
outlined. : 

Maps and a series of profiles accompanied 
the paper. 

The paper was discussed by G. K. Gil- 
bert, who called attention to the importance 
of the results. 

25. A Further Contribution to Our Knowl- 
of the Laurentian. Frank D. ADAms, 
Montreal, Canada. 

After referring briefly to the author’s pre- 
vious work on the anorthosite intrusions of 
the Laurentian, the paper gave a condensed 
account of the results of a study of the 
stratigraphical relations and petrographical 
character of the gneisses and associated 
rocks of the Grenville series in that portion 
of the protaxis which lies to the north of 
the Island of Montreal. By means of lan- 


SCIENCE. 63 


tern slides Dr. Adams gave a very graphic 
account of the region in question. Some 
thin sections of rocks as large as an ordi- 
nary lantern slide were used to illustrate 
the passage of a massive rock into a crushed 
and sheared or gneissoid form. The paper 
formed not only an important contribution 
to the geology of the region, but to our 
knowledge of dynamic metamorphism as 
well. Discussion was reserved until after 
the reading of the next two. 

26. The Crystalline Limestones, Ophiolites, 
and Associated Schists of the Eastern 
Adirondacks. J. F. Kemp, New York. 
After a brief introduction and sketch of 

what others had done on the subject in 
hand, the areas of these rocks, especially in 
Essex county, were outlined and described 
with geological sections. It was shown 
that they are generally small, usually less 
than a square mile; that they consist of 
(a) white graphitic crystalline limestone, 
with great numbers of inclusions of sili- 
cates, (b) of ophiolites, (¢) of black garneti- 
ferous hornblende schists, (d) of lighter 
quartz schists, and (e) in one area, of closely 
involved granulite very like the Saxon 
granulite. The evidence of the plasticity 
of limestone under pressure was graphically 
shown by lantern slides. The trap dikes 
that often cut the limestones were referred 
to, and the relations with the intrusive gab- 
bros were set forth, and the argument 
made that the limestones are older than 
the gabbros and anorthosites of the Norian 
series, and that they are the remnants of 
an extended formation which was cut up by 
these intrusions, metamorphosed largely by 
them and afterward eroded. A comparison 
was drawn with those on the western side 
of the mountains. 

27. The Relations of the Crystalline Lime- 
stones, Gneisses and Anorthosites in St. 
Lawrence and Jefferson Counties, N. Y. 
C. H. Suytu, Jr., Clinton, N. Y. 

The paper dealt especially with areas in 


64 


the towns of Diana, Pitcairn and Wilna, 
but was really a review of the relations of 
these rocks in a wider region and was based 
on extended field experience. Petrographic 
details were presented of the several kinds of 
rocks, and especially of the varieties of the 
anorthosites, which were shown to shade 
into angite-syenites, and apparently into red 
gneiss. Many irruptive contacts of anor- 
thosites-and limestone were cited and the 
location of the classic mineral localities of 
this region was shown to be along these 
contacts. The same important thesis was 
worked out as in the preceding two papers, 
that the great intrusions of the Norian se- 
ries were later than the gneisses and lime- 
stones. 

The papers were discussed by Whitman 
Cross, who called attention to the close 
parallelism of the geology in the Pike’s 
Peak district of Colorado; and by C. D. 
Walcott who referred to his own studies in 
the Adirondacks and similar conclusions to 
those advanced. 

28. Lower Cambrian Rocks in Hastern Calt- 
fornia. CHARLES D. Watcorr, Wash- 
ington, D. C. 

An account of the discovery of the Lower 
Cambrian rocks and fauna in the White 
Mountain range of Inyo County, Cal. See 
also No. 2 above. This important discov- 
ery affords a means of correllating the early 
Cambrian life in the remote West with 
those already known in the Hast. 

29. Devonian Fossils in carboniferous strata. 
H.S. WitiiAms, New Haven, Conn. 

The paper described the fauna of the 
Spring Creek limestone of Arkansas, which 
lies between the Keokuk-Burlington strata 
below and the Batesville sandstone above, 
and is at about the horizon of the Warsaw 
and Chester of the Lower Carboniferous in 
the Mississippi Valley. The fossils are 
closely related to the carboniferous fauna 
described by Walcott from Eureka, Ney., 
and by J. P. Smith from Shasta County, Cal. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 3. 


But certain Devonian forms as Leiorhyncus 

quadricostatum and Productus lachrymosus of 

the New York Devonian are found with 
them, which are lacking in the Mississippi 

Valley, but are found in the Devonian of 

the West. The interpretation was then 

made, that the Arkansas fossils indicated a 

Devonian incursion from the westward. 
During the reading of this and the suc- 

ceeding titles the petrographers reconvened 

in the upper laboratory, as later recorded. 

30. The Pottsville series along the New 
River, West Va. Davin WuitE, Washing- 
ton, D. C. 

This paper was a careful description of 
the stratigraphy of the series, the determi- 
nations being based on the fossils, which 
evidence was presented in full. 

31. The Cretaceous Deposits of the Northern 
Half of the Atlantic Coast Plain. Wm. 
B. Cxrarx, Baltimore, Md. 

The several formations established as a 
result of a detailed study of the Cretaceous 
strata of Monmouth county, New Jersey, 
were shown to have a wide geographical 
range towards the south. They have been 
traced throughout the southern portion of 
that State, while all except the highest 
members of the series are found crossing 
Delaware and the eastern shore of Mary- 
land. Several representatives of these for- 
mations appear on the western shore, reach- 
ing to the banks of the Potomac. 

32. Stratigraphic Measurements of Creta- 
ceous Time. G.K. GitBert, Washington, 
D. C. 

The writer described a great series of 
Cretaceous rocks, 3500-4000 ft. thick, lying 
in the Arkansas River Valley, west of 
Pueblo, Colo. They consist of layers of lime- 
stone 1 ft. to 1 ft. 6 in. thick, separated by 
1 in. of shale—this alternation being uni- 
formly repeated through the whole thick- 
ness. The writer argued that frequent con- 
tinental oscillation from deep to shallow 
water deposits was unlikely as having caused 


JANUARY 18, 1895.] 


the beds, and hence appealed to climatic 

eycles. 

The cycles of a year’s changing seasons is 
too short to account for the limestone; the 
next longer cycle, the lunar, involves no 
changes of climate; hence the cycle of the 
precession of the equinoxes, 21,000 years 
long, was selected, and allowing four feet of 
deposit for each cycle, this portion of Cretace- 
ous time was estimated at 21,000,000 years. 

There was no discussion, but a very evi- 
dent feeling of solemnity at the announce- 
ment. 

33. Notes on the Cretaceous of Western Tex- 
as and Coahuila, Mexico. E.T. Dust, 
Austin, Texas. 

The author being absent the paper was 
only read by title. 

The main section then adjourned until 
the presidental address at 7:30 the same 
evening. Meantime the petrographers lis- 
tened to 
34. Spherulitic Volcanics at North Haven; 

Maine. W.S. Baytey, Waterville, Me. 

In the Journal of Geology a few months 
ago the late Dr. George H. Williams referred 
to the existence of old rhyolites on the 
coast of Maine. The author described very 
briefly the occurrence of these rocks, and 
exhibited specimens of them: The speci- 
mens showed very perfect spherulites, litho- 
physze and all the common features of glassy 
voleanics. They brought out an interesting 
discussion regarding the abundance of these 
rocks along the Altantic sea-board. J. E. 
Wolff spoke of their great extent near Bos- 
ton, and especially at Blue Hill, where the 
relations with the Quincy granite are a hard 
problem. A.C. Lane mentioned their fre- 
quency in central Maine, as shown by the 
collections of L. L. Hubbard. T. G. White 
referred to those near Mt. Desert. J. F. 
Kemp spoke of recent field and petrogra- 
phic work in progress on the great areas 
near St. John, N. B. W.S. Yeates brought 
up the curious phosphatic spherulites lately 


SCIENCE. 65 


found in Georgia, which closely simulate 

lithophyse, and remarks were made on 

them by W. Cross and J. P. Iddings. 

35. The Peripheral Phases of the Great Gab- 
bro Mass of Northeastern Minnesota. W. 
8. Bayiry, Waterville, Me. 

On the northern border of the great gab- 
bro mass in northeastern Minnesota are 
basic and granulitic rocks whose composi- 
tion indicates their relationships with the 
gabbros with which they are associated. 
The basic rocks are aggregates of the basic 
constituents of the gabbro. They are char- 
acterized especially by the abundance of 
titanic iron. The granulitic rocks differ 
from the central gabbro mainly in struc- 
ture. They consist of aggregates of rounded 
diallage, hypersthene and plagioclase, all of 
which minerals are present also in the nor- 
mal rocks. The basie rocks are probably 
differentiated phases of the gabbro, of ear- 
lier age than the great mass of the nor- 
mal rock. The granulitic phases are simply 
peripheral phases. Closely parallel cases 
were brought out in the discussion as 
existing in the Adirondacks (by C. H. 
Smyth, Jr., and J. F. Kemp), and in Que- 
bee (F. D. Adams), where they have been 
been called granulites, augite-syenites and 
augite gneisses. H. D. Campbell mentioned 
the same phenomena in similar rocks in 
Rockbridge county, Virginia, and all the 
speakers commented on the peculiar deyel- 
opment of orthoclase feldspar in the border 
facies of a gabbro mass. 

36. The Contact Phenomena at Pigeon Point, 
Minn. W.S. Bayiey, Waterville, Me. 
The speaker distributed copies of his re- 

cent Bulletin U. 8. Geol. Survey, No. 109, 

and exhibited a series of specimens which 

illustrate the peculiar contacts and transi- 
tion rocks at Pigeon Point. Discussion fol- 
lowed by by J. P. Iddings and others. 

37. A New Discovery of Peridotite at Dewitt, 
3 miles east of Syracuse, N. Y. N. H. Dar- 
ton. LPetrography of same, J. F. Kemp. 


66 


Mr. Darton described the opening up of 
this new boss of peridotite in the building 
of a reservoir. The wall rock is Salina 
shales, and the geological section of that 
part of the state was outlined in explana- 
tion. J. F. Kemp described the rock as a 
very fresh peridotite as these rocks go, with 
perfectly unaltered olivines and a ground 
mass of small augite crystals, with what 
was probably originally glass. Gabbroitic 
seeregations were also mentioned contain- 
ing feldspar. The interest of the rock lies 
in the fact that it gives much fresher mater- 
ial than that described by Dr. G. H. Wil- 
liams from Syracuse, in which the larger 
original minerals were represented only by 
alteration products. No perofskite or me- 
lilite could be found in the Dewitt material. 

Professor B. K. Emerson exhibited re- 
markable pseudomorphs of olivine from a 
rediscovered though long lost mineral lo- 
cality in Massachusetts, and corundum with 
interesting enclosures. 

The section then adjourned with the in- 
tention of haying an exhibition of rock sec- 
tions the following morning in the same 
place. 

A goodly audience greeted President 
Chamberlin at 7:30 in the evening for the 
annual presidential address, the subject be- 
ing recent Glacial Studies in Greenland. 
The speaker brought out the distribution of 
the ice sheet over Greenland, described his 
observations at Disko Bay and elsewhere 
and his final location at Lieut. Peary’s sta- 
tion, Inglefield Gulf. Many peculiar feat- 
ures of Greenland glaciers were brought out, 
such as their rampart-like terminal cliffs, 
their general foliation or banding and en- 
closed debris, their causeways of morainic 
material, etc. The glaciation is thought to 
be now near its maximum extent because 
just beyond the ice are unglaciated areas 
and jagged islands that have never been 
covered. A large series of lantern views 
followed and brought out still more forcibly 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 3. 


the points of the address. President Cham- 
berlin was listened to with close attention 
during the two hours occupied, and all thor- 
oughly enjoyed the lecture, but it is never- 
theless true that an hour and a quarter, or 
at most an hour and a half, is about as long 
as a speaker can wisely keep a general 
audience. 

The Society reassembled in the geological 
laboratory about ten o’clock for the annual 
supper. After an excellent ménu had been 
cared for, Professor B. K. Emerson was cho- 
sen toastmaster, and by his characteristic 
sallies, in which he was ably aided by several 
speakers, resolved his hearers into inter- 
mittently active spiracles of mirth upon the 
lava stream of his wit. 

When the Society reassembled on Satur- 
day morning the first paper read was 
38. The Marginal Development of the Miocene 

in Eastern New Jersey. Wu. B. Crarx, 

Baltimore, Md. 

The deposits which characterize the mar- 
ginal phase of New Jersey Miocene in Mon- 
mouth and Ocean counties were especially 
discussed. The gravels, sands and clays 
were considered and their relations shown, 
together with the occurrence of glauconite 
in certain areas. The connection of the 
strata in the northern counties with the 
highly fossiliferous beds in South Jersey 
was explained. The paper was discussed 
by N. H. Darton bringing out some slight di- 
vergence of views on the classification of the 
deposits, in that the discovery of fossils by 
W. B. Clark had somewhat revised the ear- 
lier stratigraphic work. 

39. Sedimentary Geology of the Baltimore Re- 
gun. N. H. Darron, Washington, D. C. 
An account of the local geology of Meso- 

zoic and Cenozoic formations and some 

statements regarding certain unsolved prob- 
lems in coastal plain geology, illustrated by 
maps and sections. The sections which 
passed through the erystallines of the Pied- 
mont plateau and the city of Baltimore 


JANUARY 18, 1895.] 


brought out admirably the relations of the 

later sediments to the older protaxis. 

40. The Surface Formations of Southern New 
Jersey. Ror D. Sarispury, Chicago, 
Til. 

The surface formations of southern New 
Jersey, which have often been grouped to- 
gether under the names, ‘ Yellow Gravel’ 
and ‘Columbia,’ are believed to be divis- 
ible into five formations, the oldest of which 
greatly antedates the glacial period. The 
several formations are unconformable on 
each other and are believed to have been 
widely separated in time of origin. These 
formations were called the (1) Beacon Hill, 
(2) Canasaucon (the spelling may be 
wrong), (3) Jamesburg, (4) Trenton and 
the (5) Keyport. It is impossible as yet to 
say which are Columbia and which not, but 
(2) is probably Pleistocene, and formed 
during ice action on the north. Nothing 
later than (3) is Columbia. The paper was 
discussed by Warren Upham. 

41. New Forms of Marine Alge from the Tren- 
ton Limestone, with Observations on Butho- 
graptus laxus, Hall. R. P. Wurrrrerp, 
New York. (The paper was read by E. 
O. Hovey.) 

Certain fossils from Platteville, Wis., re- 
ferred years ago by Hall with doubt to the 
graptotiles, were shown to be really articu- 
lated, marine alg:e, and referable to several 
species. True corallines from the same 
horizon at Middleville were also described 
which are much older than any hitherto 
mentioned members of this group of plants. 
42. On the Honeycombed Limestones in the Bot- 

tom of Lake Huron. Roperr Bex, Ottawa, 

_ Canada: (Read by H. M. Amt.) 

The Limestones over a certain region in 
the bottom of Lake Huron are extensively 
eroded in a peculiar manner which the 
writer calls honeycombing and pitting. He 
described this condition, the area within 
which it is found, the depth of the water and 
other conditions most favorable to its pro- 


SCIENCE. 67 


duction and then attempted to account for its 
origin, enumerating various possible causes 
which might suggest themselves, and giving 
the most probable one, namely, a differential 
solubility of the rock in the presence of 
slightly acidulated water. Reasons in sup- 
port of this view were stated. The geologi- 
eal ages and the lithological characters of 
the various limestones attacked were men- 
tioned in trying to arrive at the conditions 
which produce the phenomena described. 
The localization of this form of erosion may 
be attributed to a slight acidity of the water 
in that part of Lake Huron, and reasons are 
given for believing that an acid condition 
actually exists. In addition to the consider- 
ations due to the structure and composition 
of the rock lying at the bottom of such water, 
certain external conditions were mentioned 
as favoring the honeycombing process, which 
Ex- 
amples were given of somewhat similar 
erosion elsewhere, but the typical honey- 
combing here described appears to be con- 
fined to Lake Huron. The paper was illus- 
trated by specimens and photographs. 

43. On the Quartz-keratophyre and its Asso- 
ciated Rocks of the Baraboo Bluffs, Wisconsin. 
SamurL WeipMAN. (Read by J. P. Ip- 
DINGS. ) 

In the vicinity of Baraboo, Wisconsin, 
oeeur acid porphyritie rocks which corre- 


appears to be still in active progress. 


spond chemically with quartz-keratophyres. 
They exhibit under the microscope fluxion, 
spherulitic, poicilitic, and other structures 
of voleanic rocks, and are associated with 
voleanic breccias which show them to have 
their origin in a surface flow. They are of 
Pre-Cambrian age, since they rest upon the 
upper Huronian quartzite and are overlaid 
by the Potsdam sandstone and conglomer- 
ate. In some portions of the area they 
have been completely changed to finely foli- 
ated sericite schists through the orographic 
movement which elevated the quartzites to 
form the Bluffs. 


68 


44, The Characteristic Features of the Califor- 
nia Gold Quartz Veins. WALDEMAR Linp- 
GREN, Washington, D. C. 

The writer described the extent and asso- 
ciations of the veins, bringing out the fact 
that they are in all manner of wall rocks, 
although especially in the auriferous slates. 
They were shown to be true fissure veins 
that cut the walls at all angles, although 
mostly along the strike. Direct issue was 
taken with the view that they are replace- 
ments of limestone or related rock, for it 
was shown that while the veins are sili- 
ceous and filled with quartz, the wall rocks 
have very generally suffered carbonatiza- 
tion. Finally the source of the gold was 
placed in deep seated regions, whence it had 
been brought by uprising solutions. 

On the conclusion of the paper, the cus- 
tomary votes of thanks were passed to the 
local committee, to the Johns Hopkins 
University and to others whose efforts had 
made the session a success. The next 
place of meeting, a year hence, has not been 
settled. On the whole, the meeting was 
the best attended and most interesting and 
successful yet held. J. F. Kemp. 


COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 


THE BALTIMORE MEETING OF THE AMERI- 
CAN MORPHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 


THE Society met on Thursday morning 
in the lecture room of the Chemical Build- 
ing and again upon Friday afternoon, ad- 
journing for the intermediate sessions of 
the Society of Naturalists. In the absence 
of Professor C. O. Whitman, President of the 
Society, Professor W. B. Scott, of Princeton, 
Vice-President, took the chair. Among 
those present at these sessions besides those 
who presented papers were Alpheus Hyatt, 
Edward 8. Morse, Edward D. Cope, Samuel 
F. Clarke, C. F. Herrick, Henry F. Osborn, 
E. A. Andrews, W. H. Dall. 

The officers elected for the year 1895 were: 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. I. No. 3. 


President—Professor Edmund B. Wilson, 
Columbia College. 

Vice-President—Professor 
Princeton College. 

Secretary and Treasurer, Dr. G. H. Parker, 
of Harvard University. 

The following are abstracts of the papers 
presented :— 

Dr. C. W. Stiles, of the U. 8. Agricul- 
tural Burean, presented the first paper upon 
Larval Stages of av Anoplocephaline Cestode 
and exhibited specimens of Distoma (Poly- 
orchis) molle (Leidy, 756), S. & H., ’94; 
of Dioctophyme gigas, Rud., and of Distoma 
tricolor,S & H. Five hundred of the last 
named species are ready for distribution as 
exchanges to college zodlogists. 

Professor William A. Locy, of Lake For- 
est University, presented the first paper on 
Primitive Metamerism in Selachians, Amphibia 
and Birds. It has been generally assumed 
that the metameric divisions of the Verte- 
brates depend primarily on the middle 
germ-layer, and that whenever they appear 
in the ectoderm they are secondarily 
moulded over the mesodermic segments. 
This proposition is not supported by these 
observations. We find in very young em- 
bryos of amphibians and birds, primitive 
metameric divisions which effect the entire 
epiblastic folds and in Selachians extend 
also out’ into the germ-ring. They are 
present before any protovertebrze are formed 
and are most clearly marked in the border 
regions. These segments become later co- 
incident with the so-called neuromeres, but 
it is to be noted that they are by no means 
confined to the neural tube. The time- 
honored designation ‘metamerism of the 
head’ should be interpreted as meaning 
regional metamerism not as a different form 
of segmentation from that which affects the 
trunk region. This paper was discussed 
and the accuracy of the author’s obserya- 
tions was questioned because of the con- 
spicuous character which he assigned to 


W. B. Scott, 


JANUARY 18, 1895.] 


certain surface markings never observed by 
others. The opportunity given for examin- 
ing the specimens, however, proved that the 
markings could be faintly seen as described 
by the author. 

Dr. Loey’s second paper was a Note on the 
Homologies of the Pineal Sense-Organ. The 
basis for determining homologies of the two 
epiphysial outgrowths of Petromyzon, Tele- 
osts and Lacertilia has been furnished by 
recent publications by Studnicka, Hill and 
Klinckowstrém. Basing a comparison upon 
innervation and also upon the history of 
the vesicles, we may regard the upper epi- 
physial vesicle in Petromyzon as corres- 
ponding to the epiphysis of Teleosts and 
Lacertilia, and the lower epiphysial vesicle 
as equivalent to the anterior vesicle of Hill 
(which early absorbs) in the teleosts, and to 
the pineal eye in the Lacertilia. 

Under the title: ‘The Quadrille of the 
Centrosomes’ in the Echinoderm egg; a second 
contribution to biological mythology, Professor 
E. B. Wilson, of Columbia, presented the 
somewhat surprising results of his renewed 
investigation of the phenomena of fertiliza- 
tion in the eggs of the sea-urchin. Rabl 
had predicted in 1889 that the union of the 
germ-cells would be found to involve a con- 
jugation of centrosomes or archoplasmic ele- 
ments in addition to the well-known conju- 
gation of nuclear elements. Fol’s celebrated 
paper on the Quadrille of the Centrosomes 
in 1891 was apparently a triumphant fulfill- 
ment of the prediction, and, having been 
immediately and universally accepted, ex- 
ercised an important influence on the current 
theories of inheritance. A prolonged re- 
search upori the eggs of Toxopneustes variegatus 
shows, with a high degree of certainty, that 
Fol’s results were based on material pre- 
pared by defective methods; that his ac- 
count of the origin of the archoplasm is 
fundamentally erroneous; that no ‘ Quad- 
rille’ occurs in the American species at least, 
and that his account of it is largely mythical. 


SCIENCE. 


69 


Results essentially similar and fully corrob- 
orating the above have been reached in the 
Columbia Laboratory by Mr. A. P. Mathews 
In all 
these cases the ege-centrosome and archo- 
plasm degenerate and completely disappear 
after formation of the second polar body, 
and, therefore, do not play any part in the 
fertilization. The sperm-archoplasm is de- 
rived not from the tip of sperm but from the 
middle-piece (as in the earth-worm and in 
the axolotl) and by division gives rise di- 
rectly to the amphiaster of the first cleavage 
without any participation of an egg-centre 
or egg-archoplasm. All the stages in the 
fertilization process of Toxopneustes were ex- 
hibited by the author in photographs taken 
with an enlargement of one thousand dia- 
meters with the codperation of Dr. Edward 
Leaming, of the College of Physicians and . 
Surgeons, New York. These photographs 
illustrated furthermore the effect upon the 
ege of various reagents, a considerable num- 
ber of which have been carefully tested. 
Fol’s picro-osmic mixture was shown to be 
very defective, causing more or less marked 
disorganization of the archoplasmic struct- 
ures and producing various artefacts. The 
‘centers’ (centrosomes) of Fol were un- 
questionably such artefacts, produced by the 
shrinking and clotting together of the ar- 
In properly pre- 
served material (sublimate-acetic, Flem- 


in the eggs of Arbacia and Asterias. 


choplasmie recticulum. 


ming’s fluid, etc.,) the archoplasm-masses 
(‘astrospheres’) consist of a uniform reti- 
culum and contain no centrosomes. 

In a second paper on the ‘Polarity of the 
Egg in Toxopneustes’ Professor Wilson de- 
seribed the results of his observations on 
the paths of the pronuclei in the transpar- 
ent living egg. The very unexpected result 
was reached that in this case the ultimate 
vertical axis of the egg (‘ egg-axis’ proper) 
does not necessarily coincide with the polar 
axis but may form any angle with it; but 
the plane of first cleavage is nevertheless 


70 


always nearly through the entrance-point 
of the sperm. Regarding the former point 
there is a possible source of error in that 
the excentrie ege-nucleus may wander from 
its original position (near the polar bodies), 
so that the diameter passing through it no 
longer represents the egg-axis. (This can- 
not be determined from the polar bodies, 
since they quickly become detached from 
the egg). Many facts indicate, however, 
that such wandering does not occur. If it 
does not, then the polarity of the egg is not 
primordial but induced, and one of the most 
fundamental characteristics of the egg is 
thus brought into the category of epigenetic 
phenomena. 

Professor Charles S. Minot, of the Har- 
vard Medical School, presented a paper upon 
The Olfactory Lobe. He showed that of 
eleven layers of cells in the olfactory lobe 
only the inner two layers belong to the cere- 
bral cortex proper, proving that the olfac- 
tory lobe is a ganglion structure belonging to 
the sensory ganglion series with certain great 
secondary modifications. This is further 
supported by the fact that the lobe primar- 
ily connects with the brain at a point topo- 
graphically similar with a point midway be- 
tween the ‘dorsal zone’ and the ‘ ventral 
zone’ of His. In a second paper Professor 
Minot pointed out asa Fundamental Difference 
Between Animals and Plants, of value princi- 
pally in teaching, that while animals feed 
typically upon solids, plants always procure 
their food in a gaseous or liquid form. This 
paper was discussed by Dr. Locy, Dr. 
Humphries and several other botanists and 
zoOlogists present, the point being raised 
that plants manufacture their own food and 
that when plant assimilation really begins 
it is practically analgous to that of animals, 
as it consists in the taking up of solid par- 
ticles. 

Dr. Arnold Graf, of Columbia, presented 
the next paper upon The Origin of the Pig- 
ment and the Causes of the Presence of Patterns 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 3. 


in Leeches. The pigment originates in the 
excretophores. These are wandering cells 
which pick up excretory substances from 
the walls of the capillaries; one part of the 
cells wanders to the funnels of the nephri- 
dium and thus delivers their contents into 
the nephridium, while another part of the 
excretophores wanders under the skin 
emerging along the lines of least resistance, 
which lie between the muscle bundles. 
The color patterns of the leeches vary, 
therefore, according to the arrangement of 
the musculature. In Nephelis the longitud- 
inal musculature is developed most strongly 
and consequently the pattern consists in 
longitudinal stripes. Clepsine has as a con- 
sequence of its parasitical mode of life a 
strongly developed dorso-ventral muscula- 
ture and therefore the pattern consists in 
spots, the longitudinal stripes haying been 
interrupted and broken up by the trans- 
verse and oblique muscle bundles. The 
bearing of these facts 1s very important. 
The color pattern of the leeches is not in 
itself adaptive; it is entirely incidental and 
secondary to the musculature which is es- 
sentially adaptive. A change in the mus- 
culature would result in a change in the 
superficial color pattern. This shows how 
a very striking superficial character may 
originate without any adaptive significance 
and as a secondary inheritance. 

The following paper by Professor H. T. 
Fernald, of Central College of Pennsylvania, 
was entitled Homoplasy as a Factor in Mor- 
phology. A review of zodlogical literature 
in the past ten years shows that in every 
group of animals beginning with the sponges 
and extending up to the highest vertebrates 
the phenomenon of parallel or homoplastic 
development is becoming increasingly ap- 
parent. Numbers of cases were cited from 
all classes of animals showing that identical 
structures, produced independently in differ- 
ent phyla, are extremely numerous... The 
paper was discussed by Professors Hyatt, 


“2% 


JANUARY 18, 1895.] 


Cope and Scott, who pointed out that 


while the term ‘homoplasy’ was proposed 


by Lankaster the phenomenon itself was 
early pointed out by Darwin and has 
been fully elucidated by palaeontologists. 

Mr. Seitar6é Gat6, of the Johns Hopkins 
University, gave a demonstration of some 
parts of the Ectoparasitie Trematodes in- 
eluding a number of features from his full 
memoir upon this subject recently pub- 
lished in Japan. 

Mr. A. P. Matthews, of Columbia, fol- 
lowed with a paper on the Morphological 
Changes in the Pancreatic Cell, corresponding 
with Functional Activity. The cells of Nec- 
turus are exceptionally large and favorable 
for observation of the changes which occur 
before and after feeding. The striated ap- 
pearance of the outer zone of the pancreatic 
cell is due to coarse cytoplasmic filaments 
or threads which end in the centre of 
masses of chromatin within the nuclear 
membrane. In fact, these threads are di- 
rectly continuous with the cytoplasmic reti- 
eulum in the inner zone; these threads are 
often coiled and in such cases explain the 
structures known as Nebenkerne. When 
the gland is secreting the zymogen granules 
and reticulum are washed out of the cell by 
lymph currents and new thread substance 
is manufactured by the chromatin. Dur- 
ing the so-called ‘ rest’ of the cell the thread 
substance degenerates into zymogen gran- 
ules and the cytoplasmic reticulum of the 
inner zone. The zymogen granules grow 
by accretion. The thread substance grows 
by accretion at the chromatin end. The 
nucleus undergoes no appreciable changes. 
There are indications that the chromatin is 
a ferment, and that it is the essential forma- 
tive element of the cell; probably this is 
true of all the cells and all chromatin; if 
so, the character of cytoplasm and new 
chromatin formed will depend on the char- 
acter of the nutrition. It is possible that 
the chromatin of embryonic cells differenti- 


SCIENCE. 71 


ates as a result of differentiations depend- 
ent upon the location in the segmenting cell 
mass of the chromatin of the original blas- 
tomeres. If this is true it is unnecessary 
to assume that 
sented definitely in a so-called ‘ stirp’ lo- 
cated in the chromatin. 

Professor J. 8. Kingsley, of Tufts College, 
next presented a paper upon the Anatomy 


characteristics are repre- 


and Relationships of Pauropida, on behalf of 
Mr. F. C. Kenyon. 

Professor Alpheus Hyatt, of the Museum 
of Comparative Zodlogy, Cambridge, pre- 
sented a paper summing up his researches 
upon the Parallelisms between the Ontogeny and 
Phylogeny of Pecten. 

Professor Andrews submitted for Profes- 
sor T. H. Morgan, of Bryn Mawr, some of 
his observations recently made in Naples at 
the American table supported by the Smith- 
sonian Institution. It is found that the 
unsegmented eggs of a sea-urchin may be 
broken into minute fragments which develop 
into perfect larvee. One such fragment may 
be one-fiftieth of the volume of the egg and 
yet develop into a gastrula if it contain a 
male and a female pronucleus. The gas- 
trula thus produced is so exceedingly small 
that three in a row are no longer than 
an infusorian, such as Paramoecium. The 
volume of such a gastrula is one-sixty-fourth 
part of that of a normal gastrula. While 
the number of cells in a normal blastula on 
the point of invaginating is five to seven 
hundred, the number in one of the minute 
blastulas at the same stage may be as small 
as sixty. With such facts we explain the 
known difficulty in rearing larvee from iso- 
lated cells of late cleavage stages, as due to 
a limit in the number of cleavages possible 
before gastrulation. That is, gastrulation 
comes after a definite number of cleavages 
and a cell has its possible cleavages reduced 
in a certain ratio by the number of preced- 
ing cleavages. 

The paper of Professor F. H. Herrick, of 


72 


Adelbert College, upon the Biology of the 
Lobster will be printed in full in a later 
number of SCIENCE. 


CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY (IZ). 


NATIVE ASTRONOMY IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL 
AMERICA. 

Ar the International Congress of Ameri- 
canists, which met in Stockholm last Au- 
gust, two papers were presented which ought 
to give pause to those would-be critics who 
of late years have been seeking to belittle 
the acquirements of the semi-civilized tribes 
of Mexico and Central America. Both are 
studies of the positive astronomic knowledge 
which had been gained by the observers 
among those tribes. One is by Mrs. Zelia 
Nuttall, and bears the title, Motes of the 
Ancient Mexican Calendar System. It is 
intended merely as a preliminary publica- 
tion to a thorough analysis of this system 
as it was carried out in Mexico, and con- 
tains only the outlines of her discoveries. 
These are, however, sufficient to support 
her thesis, that the astronomer-priests 
possessed a surprisingly accurate knowl- 
edge of the exact length of the solar 
year, of the revolution of the moon, and 
of the synodical revolution of the planet 
Venus. 

The second paper is by Dr. Férstemann, 
who is the foremost student in Germany of 
the contents of the books written in the 
hieroglyphic script of the ancient Mayas. 
He takes up page 24 of the Dresden Codex, 
and explains its meaning. This page has 
been long recognized as a sort of abstract or 
table of contents of those which follow it in 
the Codex, but its exact bearing has not 
previously been interpreted. Dr. Férste- 
mann shows by ingenious and accurate 
reasoning that it relates chiefly to the syn- 
odical revolution of the planet Venus and 
its relation to the courses of the sun and 
moon. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 3. 


RECENT AMERICAN LINGUISTIC STUDIES. 


Tr is gratifying to note that the immense 
field of native American languages is find- 
ing cultivators in many countries. 

Even in England, where so little has been 
done in this direction, a special fund has 
been raised called the ‘vocabulary pub- 
lication fund,’ which prints and issues 
(through Kegan Paul, Trench, Tribner & 
Co.) short grammars and vocabularies of 
languages from MSS. in the possession of 
learned societies and individuals. The first 
printed is a grammar and vocabulary of the 
Ipurina language, by the Rey. J. E. R. Po- 
lak. This is one of the Amazonian dia- 
lects, and though we were not without some 
material in it before, this addition to our 
knowledge is very welcome. 

From the same teeming storehouse of 
Brazil, Dr. Paul Ehrenreich has lately pub- 
lished in the Berlin Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, 
his excellent studies in the language of the 
the Carayas and Cayapos. They are practi- 
eally new in matter and form. The Pu- 
quinas are a rude tribe who live about Lake 
Titicaca. M. Raoul de La Grasserie has 
lately issued (through Koehler, Leipzig) a 
number of old texts in their language; and 
Dr. Max. Uhle has collected considerable 
material in it as spoken to-day. Dr. A. F. 
Chamberlain, in the American Anthropolo- 
gist for April last, analyzes a number of ne- 
ologisms in the Kootenay language ; while 
our knowledge of the remote and confusing 
dialects of the Gran Chaco has lately been 
notably increased by the activity of the-Ar- 
gentine scholars, Macedo and Lafone-Que- 
vedo, in editing from rare or manuscript 
works the notes collected by the early mis- 
sionaries. 


AMERICAN ONOMATOLOGY. 


Tue study of the meaning and origin of 
geographical names has a higher purpose 
than to satisfy a passing curiosity. They 
are often the only surviving evidences of 


se 


JANUARY 18, 1895.] 


migrations and occupancy ; they preserve 
extinct tongues or obsolete forms ; and they 
indicate the stage of culture of the people 
who bestowed them. Especially useful in 
these directions are the aboriginal names 
on the American continent ; for the shifting 
of the native population was so rapid, and 
the dialects disappeared so quickly, that the 
place-names are sometimes the only hints 
left us of the presence of tribes in given 
localities. 

A model study in this field is that of Dr. 
Karl Sapper in Globus, Bd. LX VI., No. 6, 
on ‘The Native Place-names of Northern 
Central America.’ It embraces Guatemala, 
Chiapas, Tabasco, and portions of Yucatan, 
Honduras and San Salvador. The aim of 
the writer is to define the limits of the 
Mayan dialects, and to explain the presence 
of Nahuatl influence. He accomplishes his 
purpose in a thorough manner. Mr. De 
Peralta, in his Etnologia Centro-Americana 
(Madrid, 1893), did much the same for 
Costa Rica; and in the Algonkian regions 
of the Eastern United States, Mr. William 
Wallace Tooker (in the American Anthropol- 
ogist and other periodicals) has supplied 
unquestionably correct analyses of the com- 
plicated and often corrupt forms derived 
from that stock. 


SOME RECENT EUROPEAN ARTICLES ON 
AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY. 


AtrHouGH some lofty archeologists in the 
United States display an inability to per- 
ceive the yalue of the antiquities of this 
continent, it is gratifying to note that this 
purblindness does not prevail in Europe. 

What native American skill could accom- 
plish in the line of true art is well shown by 
the reproduction on the design on a beau- 
tifully colored and decorated vase from 
Chama, Guatemala, figured by Herr Diesel- 
forff in the Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, 1894, Heft 
V. It will ereditably bear comparison with 
the higher periods of Etruscan technique. 


SCIENCE. 


=~] 
iw) 


In a publication which has been lately 
started by the Museum of Ethnography of 
Berlin, called Ethnologisches Notiablatt, Dr. EB. 
Seler, well known for his profound re- 
searches into Mexican antiquity, has a copi- 
ously illustrated article on the great stone 
sculptures of the National Museum of Mex- 
ico. He identifies several of the figures 
about which doubt has been entertained. 

The Count de Charencey, also an author 
who has written abundantly on American 
subjects, has an article in the Revue des Re- 
ligions for June last, on Les Déformations 
Craniennes. Unfortunately, he has not out- 
grown the theories of Angrand and other 
obsolete writers, who saw ‘ Toltecs’ and 
‘ Asiatic influence’ and the ‘Ten Lost 
Tribes’ wherever they turned their gaze in 
the New World. It is a pity that his real 
learning should be thus misdirected. 

The Report, the ninth, of the British As- 
sociation on the Northwestern Tribes of Can-. 
ada, contains this year but 11 pages, writ- 
ten by Dr. Boas. At the next meeting it 
will conclude its labors. 


SOME OF ADOLPH BASTIAN’S LATER WRITINGS. 


THE untiring activity of Professor Adolph 
Bastian, who for more than a quarter of a 
century has occupied the position of Direc- 
tor of the Royal Museum of Ethnography 
at Berlin, is something amazing. 

He but recently returned from a long 
journey in the Orient, one of the products 
of which was a remarkable book with a 
not less remarkable title, Ideal Worlds ac- 
cording to Uranographie Provinces, in which 
he discusses at length the cosmogonies and 
theogonies of the philosophers of India. 
This indicates the special direction of his 
studies of late years. They have turned 
toward the elementary conceptions of primi- 
tive and early peoples concerning the uni- 
verse, cosmogony and theogony, the nature 
and destiny of the soul, the life and sup- 
posed worlds hereafter, the processes of 


74 


thought, the notions of social relation, 
traced as far into their abstract forms as it 
was possible for the human mind in that 
stage of development to conceive and ex- 
press them. 

This tendency is illustrated by the titles 
of some of his latest issues; as, Vorges- 
chichtliche Schopfungslieder in thren Ethnischen 
Elementargedanken ; Zur Mythologie und Psy- 
chologie der Nigritier in Guinea mut Bezug- 
nahme auf Socialistische Elementargedanken ; 
Wie das Volk Denkt; ein Beitrag zur Beant- 
wortung sozialer Fragen auf Grundlage Eth- 
nischer Elementargedanken, etc. 

These writings are all crammed with wide 
erudition and mature reflection; but, unfor- 
tunately, the author persists in following a 
literary style of expression which is certainly 
the worst of any living writer, intricate, ob- 
scure, sometimes unintelligible to a born 
German, as one of his own pupils has as- 
sured me. This greatly limits the useful- 
ness of his productions. 

D. G. Brinton. 

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


THE CONNECTICUT SANDSTONE GROUP. 

THE attempt to revive the abandoned 
name of Newark for the older designation 
of Connecticut, in its application to the 
Triassic terranes in the Atlantic geographic 
area, is supported by G. K. Gilbert and op- 
posed by B.S. Lyman, in a joint discussion, 
in the Journal of Geology, Vol. I1., No. 1. 
One would think that the considerations 
presented by me in the American Geologist, 
Vol. V., page 201, would have been suffi- 
cient to satisfy any one looking at the sub- 
ject judicially and impartially, of the inad- 
equacy of the name Newark to special 
recognition. In seeking a name for a ter- 
rane we should naturally inquire, first, where 
is the area which exhibits best the typical 
features? In answer to this we have the 
fact that in the Connecticut area the early 
exploration was the most thorough, the very 


SCIENCE. 


[N..S. Vou. I. No: 3: 


unique occurrence of fossil footmarks was 
first recognized, and is the only one in which 
they have been thoroughly studied. At 
first these were thought to have been made 
by birds ; but the later suggestion of deino- 
saurs has been verified by the masterly 
restorations of Anchisaurus by Prof. O. C. 
Marsh, obtained in the same Connecticut 
valley. Reptilian bones were known also 
from Pennsylvania, but no one has ever 
connected them with the tracks. Thus the 
feature which characterizes the American 
Trias is found in its perfection in the Con- 
necticut and not in the Newark area. The 
fish are also more abundant in the first 
named area. The other features of import- 
ance are the coal and fossil plants, and 
these are best developed in a Virginia. 
area. 

Second. It is essential for the suitability 
of a geographical term, that the locality be 
one where the terrane should be exhibited 
in its entirety or maximum. The Connec- 
ticut valley has the whole series. The city 
of Newark ‘does not contain one-fourth 
part of the thickness of this sandstone, and 
that which is visible is only a fraction of 
this fourth.’ This early statement of mine 
is confirmed by Mr. B. 8. Lyman, who says: 
the exposures at Newark amount to ‘ one- 
tenth or one-twentieth of the beds to be 
included in the name.’ Mr. Lyman has 
still later called attention to the probability 
that the Newark beds belong to the Permian 
instead of the Triassic. 

Third. The name of Connecticut or Con- 
necticut river sandstone has precedence 
over Newark. It was both in actual use 
before the suggestion of Newark, and was. 
again proposed and used after 1856 and be- 
fore 1892, because no one except Mr. Red- 
field employed the term Newark. The pro- 
posal was never accepted by the geological 
public. 

In the early days of geology the use of 
local names was confined to the groups like 


JANUARY 18, 1895.] 


Silurian and Devonian. It was not until 
geologists found it necessary to specify the 
smaller divisions that it was discovered 
how convenient they were. The first users 
of names like Potsdam and Trenton did 
not make formal announcements that here- 
after a particular name would be applied 
to a definite set of beds with special paleon- 
tological characteristics. It was the ‘ sand- 
stone of Potsdam,’ the ‘limestone of Tren- 
ton Falls,’ enunciated almost apologeti- 
cally. We would not to-day question the 
validity of these early names because their 
authors did not set them forth in their 
perfection, like Minerva springing forth 
from the brain of Jupiter. I find the sug- 
gestion of Connecticut to have been made 
by E. Hitcheock in his report upon the 
Geology of Massachusetts in 1833, page 209. 
He says, ‘the group which I denominate 
new red sandstone in the Connecticut valley’ 
(the italics are mine). This was repeated 
in the Final Report, p. 441. Like his con- 
temporaries he preferred the use of the Eu- 
ropean term of Trias, New Red or sometimes 
Liassic to the geographical one. We note 
that the expression of new red sandstone in 
the Connecticut valley is fully as definite 
as the later one of sandstone of Potsdam. 
This usage of Connecticut appears in all of 
E. Hitchcock’s papers, and he distinctly 
included the terranes of New Jersey, Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina. I quote later 
samples of its use. In the Ichnology of 
New England, 1858, page 20, may be found 
the following heading descriptive of an ex- 
tended discussion ; ‘5. Conclusions as to 
the Age and Equivalency of the Connecti- 
eut River Sandstone.’ In 1859 he pub- 
lished in the Report of the Secretary of the 
Massachusetts Board of Agriculture a cata- 
logue of the State Collection. The follow- 
ing is the headingused descriptive of the spe- 
cimens from this terrane: ‘‘ Connecticut 
River Sanpstone. (Liassie and perhaps Tri- 
assic and Permian sandstones and limestones. )”’ 


SCIENCE. 75 


In 1860 Messrs. H. and ©. T. Smith, 356 
Pearl street, New York, published a wall 
map of Hampshire county, Massachusetts, 
based upon the surveys of Henry F. Wall- 
ing. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these 
maps adorned the walls of houses belong- 
ing to citizens of that county. Upon it 

yas placed a geological map of the county 
by Edward Hitchcock, and in explanation 
of the colors we have ‘Connecticut River 
Sandstone, Lower and Upper,’ and the 
words New Red or Trias do not appear at 
all. Thus the usage of the name Connecti- 
cut in the writings of this author has been 
constant and has passed from the employ- 
ment of both the European and local terms 
conjointly to the use of the latter one ex- 
clusively. 

Other earlier authors employed the geo- 
graphical name in a geological sense. Thus 
Lyell in his Travels, 1845, page 100, Vol. 2, 
says ‘the Connecticut deposits.’ Dr. James 
Deane constantly speaks of the Connecticut 
river sandstone ; and in his final work upon 
the footmarks, a quarto with 61 pages and 
46 plates, published by Little, Brown & Co., 
Boston, in 1861, his title is ‘A Memoir upon 
the Fossil Footprints and other Impressions 
of the Connecticut River Sandstone, by 
James Deane, M. D.’ 

Roderick Impey Murchison, in his anni- 
versary address before the Geological Soci- 
ety of London, 1843, page 107, etc., speaks 
of the ‘deposit in Connecticut’ and the 
‘ornithichnite and Paleoniseus beds of Con- 
necticut.’ 

Dr. John C. Warren, President of the 
Boston Society of Natural History, is re- 
ported as having given ‘an historical ac- 
count of the science of Ichnology, particu- 
larly as illustrated by the fossil footprints 
in the Connecticut River Sandstone;’ Nov. 
2, 1853, Proc. B. S. N. H., Vol. IV., p. 376. 
Various remarks of his on these subjects 
were printed in 1854 in a book entitled 
‘Remarks on Some Fossil Impressions in the 


76 


Sandstone Rocks of Connecticut River,’ by John 
C. Warren, M. D., President of the Boston 
Society of Natural History. 

Prof. W. B. Rogers, at a meeting of the 
Boston Society of Natural History, June 20, 
1855, spoke of the discovery of the fern 
Clathropteris in the ‘Connecticut River 
Sandstone.’ 

The use of the name Connecticut River 
Sandstone as applied to the rocks in ques- 
tion seems to have been universal among 
the members of the Boston Society of Nat- 
ural History in the fifties, and it is applied 
as a matter of course in the index in Vols. 
V., VI., VIL., ete. Mr. TI. T. Bouvé also 
uses the expression prior to 1855. 

A sufficient number of citations have now 
been made to prove the frequent application 
of the term Connecticut River Sandstone to 
the Triassic terranes before the proposal of 
W.C. Redfield in 1856 to apply the designa- 
tion of Newark to the same. Others could 
be added. But I will in the next place call 
attention to the fact that no one had followed 
Redfield’s suggestion till 1889, a period of a 
third of a century, until Mr. I. C. Russell 
proposed to revive the name of Newark. 
Every American geologist by his silence in- 
dicated his disapproval of the suggestion. 
Furthermore, the use of the expression Con- 
necticut had become pronounced. In fact, its 
use, coupled with the rejection of Newark, is 
sufficient to establish the usage of the former 
without any regard to the usage previous to 
1856. I will cite a few instances of its use. 
The catalogue of the Massachusetts State 
Cabinet in 1859, the Ichnology in 1858, the 
map of Hampshire county, 1860, and the 
title of Dr. Deane’s book in 1861, belong to 
this category. H. D. Rogers, in the Geology 
of Pennsylvania, 1858, prefers the term 
‘older Mesozoic,’ but certainly rejects the 
use of Newark, as he makes no reference to 
it, and uses the following expressions : ‘ The 
vegetable fossils in the Connecticut sand- 
stone ;’ ‘the organic remains in the Connec- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 3. 


ticut red sandstone.’ A title, ‘Red Sand- 
stones of the Connecticut Valley.’ Roswell 
Field ‘ made a verbal communication on the 
footmarks of the Connecticut river sand- 
stones’ before the Boston Society of Natural 
History, June 6, 1860. In 1859, at the 
Springfield meeting of the A. A. A.5., he 
discusses the ornithichnites of the ‘sand- 
stone of the Connecticut valley.’ This 
paper was reprinted the following year in 
the American Journal of Science. 

Prof. O. C. Marsh presents in a section il- 
lustrating the occurrence of vertebrate life 
in America the name of Connecticut river beds 
which includes all the Atlantic areas. This 
has been printed with his 1877 address be- 
fore the A. A. A. §., the third edition of 
Dana’s Manual of Geology, 1880, the mono- 
graph on the Dinocerata, 1885, ete. 

Prof. Joseph Le Conte in his Elements of 
Geology, 1878, and later editions describes 
the eastern Jura-Trias under the head of 
Connecticut river valley sandstone. 

Prof. J. P. Lesley in C 4 of Second Penn- 
sylvania Survey, p. 179, 1883, says, ‘‘Amer- 
ican geologists now write habitually of the 
Triassic red sandstone of the Connecticut val- 
ley and of North Carolina.”? Although the 
Newark area was through Pennsylvania he 
prefers to select the locality name from 
either of the other principal areas. There 
are two references to the want of acceptance 
of the term Newark. I had the pleasure of 
attending Prof. J: D. Dana’s course of lec- 
tures on Geology at Yale College in 1856. 
I noted that he then mentioned the fact 
that Mr. Redfield had proposed the name of 
of Newark for the American Trias. But 
he has never used the name in any publica- 
tion, evidently for good reasons. In a 
sketch of the Geology of Massachusetts 
with map in Walling’s Official Atlas, 1871, 
the following is printed, written by myself: 
““W. C. Redfield proposed the name of 
Newark sandstones for the group; but be- 
sides being inappropriate, it was of later 


JANUARY 18, 1895.] 


date than the appellation of Connecticut.”’ 

This review of the usages of names for 
the trias shows that the name of Connecti- 
cut was distinctly proposed by E. Hitch- 
cock in 1833, and was constantly used by 
the geologists specially interested in those 
works before 1856: W. C. Redfield pro- 
posed the name of Newark for the terranes 
in 1856: that instead of accepting the name 
geologists universally employed the name 
of Connecticut when using a local designa- 
tion up to 1889: that in this period there 
were several unmistakable formal proposals 
of the use of Connecticut: and that there 
were in this period allusions to the fact that 
the name of Newark was not accepted. 
Even Mr. Russell, in his learned paper of 
1878, used the name of Triassic in prefer- 
ence to Newark. 

Mr. Gilbert mentions three ‘ qualifica- 
tions of a geographic name for employment 
in stratigraphy, (1) definite association of 
the geographic feature with the terrane, (2) 
freedom of the term from pre-oceupation in 
stratigraphy, (3) priority.’ These are ac- 
ceptable with the addition of a fourth, ap- 
propriateness of application. All of these 
qualifications are possessed by the term 
Connecticut , while the term Newark can- 
not satisfy a single one of them. 


C. H. Hircncock. 
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. 


LENGTH OF VESSELS IN PLANTS. 

Tue diameter of pitted and other vessels 
is easily measured upon the cross-section of 
any stem, but their length is less readily de- 
termined. Probably, if the question were 
put, a majority of botanists would say that 
they rarely exceed a few inches in length, 
especially if they still believe with Sachs 
that the water ascends through the walls of 
the vessels. As a matter of fact, the spiral 
and pitted vessels of plants often form open 
passageways of great length. Some experi- 
ments made upon woody stems by Strass- 


SCIENCE. hid 


burger (Ueber den Bau u. die Verrichtungen 
der Leitungsbahnen in den Pflanzen) seem to 
place this beyond dispute. His method of 
procedure was to fasten a glass tube to the 
upper end of a cut stem by a rubber band, 
insert a funnel into the upper end of the tube, 
and subject the cut surface to the pressure 
of a column of mereury kept at a uniform 
height of twenty centimeters, successively 
shortening the stem until mercury appeared 
at the lower end. Using this method, he 
obtained the following results : 

(1.) In a branch of Quereus rubra, 1.5 
meters long and about three centimeters 
thick, mercury ran out of thirty vessels on 
the lower cut surface almost as soon as it 
was poured into the funnel. When the 
branch was shortened to one meter fifty- 
four to fifty-six vessels were permeable. In 
a slender branch of Quercus pedunculata, 
one meter long, thirty-five vessels dropped 
mercury, and when this was shortened to 
one-half meter mercury came out of more 
than 100 vessels. Another branch five 
centimeters thick at the base and 3.6 meters 
long was tried, and drops of mercury fell in 
quick succession from eight vessels. In 
Quercus Cerris mercury came through seven 
vessels of a branch four meters long and six 
centimeters thick at the base. Shortened 
to 3.5 meters nine vessels dropped mercury ; 
at three meters, twelve vessels; at 2.5 me- 
ters, numerous vessels. Conclusion: Vessels 
two meters long are quite common in the 
oaks, and it is probable that single vessels 
may be as long as the stem itself. 

(2.) In Robinia Pseudacacia, a branch 
two meters long and three centimeters thick 
was impermeable and first let through mer- 
cury when shortened to 1.18 meters. Then 
it dropped from four vessels. Successively 
shortened mercury dropped from an increas- 
ing number of vessels as follows: One 
meter, nine vessels ; fifty centimeters, thirty- 
eight vessels; twenty-five centimeters, fifty- 
seven vessels. 


78 


(3.) A stem of Wistaria 1.75 meters 
long and haying seven internodes dropped 
mercury from seven vessels. Another stem 
three meters long and containing forty- 
seven internodes was first killed by heating 
for an hour in water at 90°, and then dried. 
This did not let mercury through until it 
had been shortened to 2.5 meters. Then it 
dropped pretty fast from four vessels. Re- 
duced to two meters, nine vessels dropped 
mercury, and out of some it ran rapidly. 
Another shoot gave nearly the same re- 
sults. A fresh and very long stem had to 
be shortened to three meters before mercury 
came through. Then it dropped from three 
vessels. Successively shortened, the num- 
ber of permeable vessels was as follows: 2.5 
meters, eleven vessels ; two meters, eighteen 
vessels; 1.5 meter, twenty-seven to twenty- 
nine vessels. These stems were one to two 
centimeters thick. Conclusion : Some of the 
vessels in Wistaria are quite long, though 
scarcely more than three meters. Most of 
the wide vessels are about one meter long. 

(4.) A eane of Vitis Labrusca 1.2 centi- 
meter thick, which was previously killed 
by heating for an hour in water at 90° C. 
and then air-dried, first let mercury through 
(3 vessels) when shortened to 2.2 meters. 

(5.) A shoot of Aristolochia Sipho 1.5 cen- 
timeters thick, 2.5 meters long, and having 
fifteen internodes was killed in the same 
way. This let mercury through fourteen 
vessels. Another shoot 2.1 meters long let 
the mereury through many vessels. A fresh 
stem five meters long, the longest he could 
get, dropped mercury from five vessels. 
When successively shortened, more and 
more vessels dropped mercury. At 3.5 me- 
ters twenty-five vessels let it through, and 
when the stem was cut down to three me- 
ters the number of vessels dropping mercury 
could not be determined. Conclusion: In 
this plant numerous vessels are three meters 
long, some are five meters long, and a few 
are probably longer. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 3. 


In Aristolochia the vessels of different an- 
nual rings were equally permeable, but in 
the wistaria, the locust and the oaks the 
permeable vessels were mostly on the per- 
iphery. The records were made in from ten 
to thirty minutes from the beginning of the 
pressure, the time depending on the length 
of the stem. In general the mercury was 
passed through the stem in the same direc- 
tion as the ascending water current, but a 
change of direction did not give contradic- 
tory results. These experiments were re- 
peated, using a pressure of forty centime- 
ters, but even this did not rupture any cross- 
walls. This increased pressure overcame 
the capillary resistance and forced the mer- 
eury through many smaller vessels, but 
otherwise the results were much the same. 


Erwin F. Sire. 
W ASHINGTON. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 


Introduction to Elementary Practical Biology.— 
By Charles Wright Dodge, M. 8.—Har- 
per Bros., New York. 1894. 

This book is a laboratory guide for high 
school and college students. The teacher 
of biology who is endeavoring to train his 
students in the best manner is in modern 
times, amid the abundance of laboratory 
guides, in very much of a quandary as to 
the best of two opposite methods. If, on 
the one hand, he puts a laboratory guide 
into the hands of the student, the result is 
apt to be that the student soon learns simply 
to verify the facts mentioned in the book, 
and thus loses all stimulus for original ob- 
servation, which should be the foremost 
result of practical work in biological science. 
On the other hand, if the teacher gives to an 
elementary student a specimen to study 
without laboratory directions, he is at such 
complete loss to know how to proceed, what 
to do, and particularly what points to no- 
tice, that a large proportion of his time is 
wasted through sheer lack of the proper 


JANUARY 18, 1895.] 


knowledge of methods. To force a student 
to invent methods does stimulate indeed 
observation, but it is a very great waste of 
time on the part of most students. Between 
this loss of stimulus to original observation 
and the loss of time, the instructor is very 
puzzled how to proceed. 

Prof. Dodge of Rochester University in 
the guide just published has attempted to 
solve the problem by a new method of direc- 
tion. The laboratory guide here noticed 
gives the student some few directions as to 
methods of dissection and methods of pro- 
cedure, but beyond this gives him practi- 
eally no information in regard to his speci- 
mens. By a series of skilfully arranged 
questions it forces the student to make his 
own observations and to make them in the 
right direction. Instead of directing the 
student to observe a certain fact a question 
is asked which leads him to hunt for 
a solution, and the result is independent 
observation. This method of study renders 
the text book of no value unless the student 
has the specimen directly in front of him, 
for there is no possibility of answering these 
questions in any other way than from the 
Specimen. 

The method of teaching here planned is 
certainly an ideal one and has been quite 
successfully carried out by Prof. Dodge. It 
is true that the questions given are some- 
times entirely beyond the possibility of the 
student’s solution, and it must also be re- 
cognized that this method is one designed 
to occupy a very great amount of time. 
Some of the problems which are set before 
the student will require days for solution, 
and others have not yet been settled by the 
observation of scientific investigators. It 
will therefore take a great amount of time 
to complete the outline given, for the book 
is a comprehensive study of biology, includ- 
ing the study of the animal and vegetable 
cell, on the side of animals, the study of the 
sponge, hydra, campanularian hydroid, star 


SCIENCE. 


79 


fish, earthworm, the lobster, locust, clam, 

and the frog; and on the side of the vege- 

table kingdom, green felt, stone work, rock 
weed, mould, mushrooms, liverworts, ferns 
and flowering plants. Whether the student 
in the time allotted to the study of general 
biology even in our best colleges will be able 
to complete the list by the method outlined 
in the guide is doubtful, but there can be 
little doubt that the method of teaching 
adopted by Prof. Dodge in this book is an 
ideal one, and for stimulating observation 
and at the same time enabling the student 
to do the most work in the smallest amount 
of time, there is perhaps no laboratory guide 
in biology yet published which succeeds as 
well as the one here noticed. 

H. W. Conn. 
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 

Le Grisou [Fire Damp], par H. Le Cuarer- 
IER, Ingénieur en Chef des Mines.—Pro- 
fesseur 4 l’Ecole nationale des Mines.— 
Paris, Gauthier Villars et Fils, 1894. 
Pp. 187. Broché 2 fr 50, Cartonné 3 fr. 
The rapid extension of technical scientific 

knowledge, and the increasing call for spe- 

cialists in every department, is best shown 
in the literature of the past few years. The 
discussion of general topics within the limits 
of a single volume is now possible only in 
the most elementary works designed for be- 
ginners and for the lower classes of our col- 
leges. We have in place of the general text 
book a rapidly increasing library devoted to 
special subjects, each presented by special- 
ists in their own field and each treating of 
some small part of the great sciences form- 
erly considered as a unit. The present vol- 
ume is of this nature, and, coming from the 
hand of an engineer of wide reputation, will 
be of great service to all advanced students 
of mining whether still within the college 
confine or employed in the active practice of 
their profession. ‘Fiery’ mines are com- 
mon in our coal fields, and many mines long 
worked without suspicion of danger, or with 


80 


carelessness engendered by delayed casu- 
alty, suddenly become the scenes of disaster 
and great loss of life. M. Le Chatelier has 
brought together a great mass of facts from 
many sources and has so presented them as 
to place them conveniently within reach of 
all workers in the field. Part I. treats of 
the nature and production of fire damp, its 
composition, manner of explosion, its limit 
of inflammability, and other properties, phy- 
sical and chemical. Part II. is highly prac- 
tical and is devoted to the consideration of 
the immediate cause of accidents, with pre- 
cautions against the same, the use of safety 
lamps and of safety explosives, ete. To 
those desiring a more extended treatment of 
any of these subjects, or those wishing to 
consult original papers, the very complete 

Bibliography which is given at the end of the 

work will be of great service, particularly 

as a guide to continental publications. 
CHARLES PLATT. 

PHILADELPHIA. 

At the North of Bearcamp Water.— Chronicles 
of a Stroller in New England from July to 
December—By FRANK BouuEs.—Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co., 16 mo. pp. 297. 

Any one who will go afield in the rain 
for the purpose of seeing how the wet birch 
trees look, or who will stay through a stormy 
night on a mountain top for the sake of the 
scenery, has certainly a lively interest in 
nature. The late Frank Bolles had all of 
this interest and in addition a kindly sym- 
pathy with every wandering creature. In 
his last book, At the North of Bearcamp 
Water, one does not find as many paragraphs 
suitable for quotations on a daily calendar 
as would occur in a volume of Thoreau, but 
his description of a July afternoon when 
“The air was full of quivering heat and 
hazy midsummer softness,’ has all the 
strength of beauty and truth. 

The book particularly describes nature in 
the vicinity of Chocorua mountain, but 
there are also chapters on Old Shag, Bear 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 3. 


and other White Mountain peaks. In these 
accounts of scenery of deer, foxes, birds and 
trees there is an evident truthfulness, as 
real as the objects themselves. The mass 
of detail brought into some of these chapters 
is surprising, and a frog did not jump 
across the path without being made to play 
his part in the account of the day’s ramble. 

Among the most interesting pages are 
those devoted to‘ A Lonely Link,’ and to 
‘ A Night Alone on Chocorua.’ Mr. Bolles 
had his red roofed cottage by the lake and 
describes the squirrels, muskrats, poreu- 
pines, and many birds that were his 
neighbors. The narrative is peaceful in 
tone, as restful as a quiet ramble in the 
woods, and those who wish to be trans- 
ported in spirit to pleasing natural scenes 
will do well to accept Mr. Bolles as guide. 

W. T. Davis. 


NOTES. 
THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA. 

The Botanical Society of America was 
organized during the meeting of the Ameri- 
can Association for the Advancement of 
Science at Brooklyn, N. Y., in August, 
1894. The following extracts from the Con- 
stitution adopted are of general interest. 

“There may be two classes of members— 
active and honorary. Only American bot- 
anists engaged in research, who haye pub- 
lished work of recognized merit, shall be 
eligible to active membership. Before the 
Ist of January following his election, each 
active member shall pay into the treasury 
of the Society a fee of twenty-five dollars 
($25), and thereafter annual dues to the 
amount of ten dollars ($10), payable before 
the 1st of January.” 

“Candidates for active membership shall 
be recommended by three active members 
of the Society not members of the Council, 
who shall certify that the candidate is elig- 
ible under the provisions of the Constitu- 
tion. These nominations shall be placed in 


JANUARY 18, 1895.] 


the hands of the Secretary at least three 
months before the meeting of the Society 
which is to act on them. Two months be- 
fore said meeting, the Secretary shall cause 
to be prepared and sent to each active 
member of the Society-a list of the nomi- 
nees, indicating the residence, occupation 
and qualifications of each and the names of 
those recommending him.” 

“The officers of this Society shall be a 
President, Vice-President, Secretary and 
Treasurer. Their duties shall be those us- 
ually performed by such officers in other 
bodies, and such additional duties as may 
be prescribed by the Constitution of this 
Society. They shall hold office through the 
annual meeting following the year of elec- 
tion, and until their successors have been 
elected and qualified. An address shall be 
delivered by the President at the annual 
‘meeting two years after his election.” 

“The officers, together with the last 
Past-President and two members elected 
by the Society at its annual meeting, shall 
constitute a Council, which shall be charged 
with such duties as are prescribed by the 
Society, and shall represent the Society in 
the interval between meetings of the lat- 
ter, reporting any ad interim action at the 
next general meeting of the Society; but 
acts of the Council not specified in the 
Constitution, or for which special power 
has not been conferred by the Society, shall 
be binding on the latter only after they 
have been reported and approved at such 
general meeting. The Council shall con- 
stitute a Publication Committee, charged 
with editing, publishing and distributing 
such publications as may be authorized by 
the Society, and they shall have the power 
to select from their own number or the 
membership of the Society an editor to 
whom they may delegate the immediate 
duty of editing such publications. They 
shall all constitute a Board of Curators 
for the property of the Society, subject to 


SCIENCE. 81 


such rules as are provided in the Constitu- 
tion or otherwise prescribed by the Soci- 
ety.” 

“The Society shall hold an annual meet- 
ing at such time and place as the Council 
each year may select; and special meetings 
for the presentation of papers or the trans- 
action of business, at such other times and 
places as the Society or Council may from 
time to time deem necessary.” 

The officers for the present year are: 
Prof. Wm. Trelease, Missouri Botanical 
Garden, President; Prof. N. L. Britton, 
Columbia College, New York City, Vice- 
President; Prof. C. R. Barnes, University 
of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., Secretary. 

PSYCHOLOGY. 

The department of Philosophy and Psy- 
chology at Chicago has been made this year 
one of the strongest in America. Professor 
Dewey, formerly of the University of Michi- 
gan, has accepted a call to the Head Pro- 
fessorship of Philosophy; Mr. G. H. Mead, 
also of the University of Michigan, has 
been made assistant Professor of Philoso- 
phy; Mr. J. R. Angell, formerly of the 
University of Minnesota, has been made as- 
sistant Professor of Psychology, and Mr. 5S. 
F. McLennan has been made assistant in 
Psychology. 

ARTICLES ON SCTENCE. 

Among the articles of scientific interest 
in the popular magazines are the following : 

A New Flying Machine, Abram 8. Maxim 
(Jan. Century) ; Want of Economy in the 
Lecture System, John Trowbridge; The 
Genius of France, Havelock Ellis; Gallia 
Rediviva, Adolphe Cohn (Jan. Atlantic 
Monthly) ; The World’s Debt to Astronomy, 
Simon Neweomb (Dee. Chautauquan) ; The 
World’s Debt to Chemistry, H. B. Corn- 
wall (Jan. Chautauquan); Mental Character- 
ists of the Japanese, George Trumbull 
Ladd (Jan. Seribner’s); Heredity, Part 
III., St. George Mivart (Jan. Humanita- 


82 


rian) ; Recent Science, Prince Krapotkin 
(Dee. Nineteenth Century). 

Nature has reprinted (Dec. 13 and 20) 
in full the interesting address on Endow- 
ment for Scientific Research and Publication 
given by Mr. Addison Brown before the 
Scientific Alliance of New York, and pub- 
lished in the Report of the Smithsonian 
Institution for 1892. 


Mr. Kumagusu Minakata has written, in 
view of the claims of priority recently made 
by two English writers, a letter to Nature 
(December 27), calling attention to the use 
of ‘finger-prints’ as a means of signing 
documents and identification in the laws 
and usage of China and Japan as early as 
650 A. D. 


The Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschaw is 
publishing in its current numbers an ac- 
count of the sixty-sixth Versammlung der 
Gesellschaft deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte, 
held last year in Vienna. 


FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS. 

Following the publication of H. M.Ward’s 
translation of Hartig’s Text-book of the Dis- 
eases of Trees, the same publishers (Messrs. 
Macmillan & Co.) announce as nearly ready 
three other important translations: Ratzel’s 
Volkerkunde, translated by A. J. Butler; 
the article Construction from Viollet le 
Due’s Dictionnaire raisonné de V architecture 
francaise, translated by G. M. Duss, and 
Paulsen’s Universities of Germany, translated 
by E. D. Perry, of Columbia College. 


There will be issued this month as a 
supplement to The Psychological Review a 
Bibliography of Psychological Literature for 
1894, compiled by Dr. Livingston Far- 
rand, of Columbia College, and Mr. Howard 
C. Warren, of Princeton College. The 
bibliography will include so far as possible 
all books, monographs and articles in Psy- 
chology, and those publications in philo- 
sophy, biology, anthropology, neurology 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 3. 


ete., which are important for psychology. 


Aw Année Psychologique, edited by Profes- 
sor Alfred Binet, will be issued in March. _ 


Messrs. Macmitnan & Co., announce for 
early publication A Rural Science Series, 
edited by Professor L. H. Bailey, of Cor- 
nell University. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
THE BOTANICAL GAZETTE, DEC. 
Contribution to the comparative histology of pul- 
vint and the resulting photeolic movements. 
(With plate XXXIV.) F. D. Heaxp. 
Two new ferns from New England : GEorGE E. 
DAVENPORT. 
Some notes on the Leguminose of Siam: GLENN 
CULBERTSON. 
Briefer Articles; Editorial; Current Iitera- 
ture; Notes and News; General Index. 


THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, JAN. 

Hermann von Helmholtz and the New Psychol- 
ogy: C. STUMPF. 

The Theory of Emotion (IL) ; The Significance 
of Emotions: JounN DEWEY. 

The Muscular Sense and its Localization in the 
Brain Cortex: M. ALLEN STARR. 

A Location Reaction Apparatus: G. W. Firz. 

Discussion :—Paut SHorEY; H. M. Sran— 
LEY; H. R. Marswart; E. B. Tirce— 
ENER. 

Psychological Literature ; Notes. 

THE ENGINEERING MAGAZINE, JAN. 

Silver Coinage Historically Considered: H. D. 
McLeop. 

Modern Theories as to Electricity: Henry A. 
ROWLAND. 

The Drainage System of the Valley of Memico = 
Hon. M. Romero. 

Practical Hints for City Officials: E. C. Garp— 
NER, Lewis M. Haver. 

Selecting Motive Power for a New Plant: 
CHaries E. Emery. 

Plumbing Trade Schools and Their Influence = 
E. N. G. LrBors. 


JANUARY 18, 1895. ] 


Laboratory Training for Mining Engineers: 
R. H. Ricwarps. 

Operating Machine Tools 
GrorGE RricHMoND. 

First Principles in Architecture: Wu. Henry 
GoopYEAr. 


by Electricity : 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
THE LINNXAN SOCIETY. 

Tue Linnean Society of New York City, 
in codperation with the American Museum 
of Natural History, has arranged for a 
series of illustrated lectures to be given in 
the large lecture hall of the museum, on 
Tuesdays at 8 p.m. The lectures are :— 
Frank M. Cuapmay, assistant Curator in 

the American Museum of Natural His- 

tory. A Trip through the Lesser Antilles. 

Physical and Natural History of the Is- 

lands, their Products and Inhabitants. 

January 8. 

Henry Fairrretp Oszorn, Se. D., Da Costa 
Professor of Biology, Columbia College. 
The Great West, a Half Million Years Ago. 
An account of our Continent when it was 
separated from South America and joined 
to Asia, and the Climate and Vegetation 
were Sub-tropical. February 5. 

Wituam Lrssey, Jr., Se. D., Professor of 
Physical Geography and Director of the 
E. M. Museum of Geology and Arche- 
ology, Princeton College, New Jersey. 
Hawaii, the Paradise of the Pacific. March 12. 

Freperick W. Purnam, Professor of Amer- 
ican Archeology and Ethnology in Har- 
vard University, and Curator of Anthro- 
pology in the American Museum of Na- 
tural History. Ancient Earthworks in the 
Ohio Valley. April 2. 

_ UNIVERSITY ARCHEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 
The University Archeological Associa- 

tion of Philadelphia offers a course of lec- 

tures to be given at 4 p. m., in the Library 
building of the University of Pennsylvania, 
as follows :— 


; 


SCIENCE. 


83 


January 9.—Mr. Tatcorr WiLiiAMs, Some 
Morrocean Relations. 

January 16.—Dr. Dante G. Brovron, The 
Beginnings of the Fine Arts. 

January 23.—Mr. Henry G. Bryant, 
Notes on the Most Northern Eskimos. 

January 30.—Dr. Harrison ALLEN, The 
Human Skull ; what is its Place in a Museum 
of Archeology ? 

February 6.—Caprary Ricwarp §. Coiium, 
U.S. M. C., The Evolution of Small Arms. 
February 13.—Dr. Dantret G. Brinton, 

Love Charms and Tokens. 
Eebruary 20.—Mr. Srewartr Curr, The 
Wand of the Conjuror. 
Srewarr Cuiyy, Secretary. 


THE ROCHESTER ADADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
Program of Meetings, 1895. 

January 14.—Annual Meeting ; Election of 
Officers ; Illustrated Paper by the Presi- 
dent, Pror. H. L. Farreurip, The Geology 
of the Pinnacle Hills. 

January 21.—Emim Kuicuumne, The New 
Conduit of the Rochester Water Works. 

January 28.—Popular Lecture, J. D. Mar- 
LONER, The Structure of Rocks as Shown by 
Polarized Light. 

February 11.—J. Srantey-Brown, The Pri- 
bilof Islands and the Seal Industry. 

February 25.—J. Evcene Wuitney, The 
Depotism of the Plurality. 

March 11.—Cuartes H. Warp, The Teeth 
of Man. 

March 25.—Pror. W. W. Rowrer, The Evo- 
lution of Seeds. 

April 8.—Cuaries Wrieat Doper, Diph- 
theria and Anti-towine. 

April 22.—Apetsert Cronise, The Panama 
Canal. 

May 13.—Rrcuarp M. Moore, The Coleop- 
terous Fauna of Rochester and Vicinity. 

May 27.—H. L. Farromxp, Glacial Lakes of 
Western New York. 

June 10.—H. L. Fatrcurmp, The Geology of 
Trondequoit Bay. 


84 


AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. 
December 19. 
Mansrretp Merriman, The Strength and 

Weathering Qualities of Roofing Slates. 

This paper, which will be published in 
the transactions of the Society, about Feb- 
ruary ist, gave an account of original 
physical and chemical tests of the proper- 
ties of different slates. 


GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
January 9. 

Mr. J. S. Ditter, Artificial wire silver, pre- 
pared by ¥. C. PHILLIPS. 

Mr. G. P. Merritt, On the disintegration of 
the granitic rocks of the District of Columbia. 

Mr. W. Lrypcren, Characteristic featwres of 
the gold quartz veins of California, with speci- 


mens. Wuitman Oross, Secretary. 


THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
January 12. 
L. H. Battry, The Plant Individual im the 
Light of Evolution. 
Frepreric A. Lucas, Secretary. 


BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
January 14. 
J. WALTER Frwxess, The new jire ceremony 
at Walpi. SamuEL HunsHaw, Secretary. 


THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 


SECTION OF BIOLOGY. 


Exhibition of microscopical and lantern slides 
with notes on technique. 

R. H. Cunninenam, On the Sources of Ilu- 
mination for Photo-micrography. 

C. F. Cox, The Lantern Slides of Mr. E. F. 
Smith, F. k. M. S., of London, illustrating 
the latest Theories of Diatom Structure. 

O. S. Srrone, Notes of new histological Nerve 
Methods. 

Epwarp Lramine, Evhibition of photomicro- 
graphic slides, bacteriological, newrological, 
biological. 

BasHrorD Dray, Secretary. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 3. 


THE NEW YORK ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
January 15. 
Meeting at American Museum of Natural _ 
History. 
R. L. Dirmars, Notes on a collecting trip 
through Connecticut. 
Lewis H. Jouret, Secretary. 


NEW BOOKS. 


Radiant Suns. 
Macmillan & Co. 


AGNES GIBERNE. New York, 
1894. Pp. viit+328. 


Race and Language. ANDRE Lerzkyre. New 
York, D. Appleton & Co. 1894. Pp. vit 
424. 

Die Samoanische Schipfungs-Sage und Ansch- 
liessendes aus der Sudsee. ApoLF BASTIAN. 
Berlin, Emil Feller. 1894. Pp. 50. 


Die  Gtross-Schmetterlinge Europas. PRoF, 
Ernst Hormann. 2d Ed. C. Hoffmann. 
1894. Pp. xl+24. M. 28. 


Model Engine Composition with Practical In- - 
structions to Artificers and Amateurs. J. 
ALEXANDER. London, Whittaker & Co.; 
New York, Macmillan & Co. 1894. Pp. 
vilit824. $3.00. 

Hin geologische Querschnitt durch die Ost-Alpen. 
A. Rorupierz. Stuttgart, E. Schweizer- 
bart. 1894. Pp. iv+268. M. 10. 


Geotektonische Probleme. A. ROTHPLETZ, 
Stuttgart, E. ScHwEIZERBART. 1894. 
Pp aliion | Mis 8) 


Biological Lectures Delivered at the Marine 
Biological Laboratory of Wood’s Hall, Bos- 
ton. Ginn & Co. 1894. Pp. 242. 


Introduction to Chemical Analysis for Begin- 
ners. Fr. Ruporrr. Translated from 
the Sixth Edition by Caries B. Grsson 
and F. Mrnzri. Chicago, The W. T. 
Keener Co. 1894. $1.00. 

The Etiology of Osseous Deformities of the 
Head, Face, Jaws and Teeth. Eucune 8. 
Tarpor, 3d Ed. Chicago. The W. T. 
Keener Co. Pp. xvit487, $4. 


"Ty 


SCIENCE. 


NEW SERIES. 
VoL. I. No. 4. 


Fripay, JANUARY 25, 1895. 
b] 


SINGLE Coptres, 15 cts. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


MATHEMATICS. 


BACHMANN, PaAvL, Zahlentheorie. Versuch e. 
Gesammitdarstellung dieser Wissenschaft in ihren 
Haupttheilen. 2. Thl. Die analytische Zahlentheorie. 
gers’. Mk. 12. 

GRASSMANN’S, Hm., Gesammelte mathematische 
und physikalische Werke. Auf Veranlassung der 
mathematisch-physikalischen Klasse der kénigl. siich- 
sischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften und unter 
Mitwirkung von Jul. Liiroth, Ed. Study, Just. Grass- 
mann, Hm. Grassman Md. J., G. Scheffers herausze- 
geben von F. Engel. I. Bd. 1. Thl. Die Ausdeh- 
nungslehre von 1844 und die geometrische Analyse. 
a. 8° 35Fig. Mk. 12. 

CANTOR, Mor., Vorlesungen tib. Geschichte der 
Mathematik. 3. Bd. Vom. J. 1668 bis zum J. 
1759. 1. Abtlg. Die Zeit von 1668 bis 1699. gr. 8°. 
Mk. 6. 

HEFTER, Pror. Dr. LorHaR. LEinleitung in die 
Theorie der linearen Differentialgleichungen mit 
einer unabhingigen Variablen. Mit 3 Figuren im 
Texte. gr. 8°. Mk. 6. 

THOMAE, Jon. Die Kegelschnitte in rein-projek- 
tiver Behandlung. Mit in den Text eingedruckten 
Holzschnitten und 16 lithographierten Figurenta- 


feln. gr. 8°. Mk. 6. 
ASTRONOMY. 
GALLE, J. G. Verzeichnis der Elemente der 


bisher berechneten Cometenbahnen, nebst Anmer- 
kungen und Literatur-Nachweisen, neu bearbeitet, 
ergiinzt und fortgesetzt bis zum Jahre 1894. Mk. 12. 

Publikationen des astrophysikalischen Observator- 
iums zu Potsdam. Herausgegeben von H. C. Vogel. 
Nr. 32. X. Bd. 1. Stiick. 4°. Mit 30 Taf. Mk. 
12, 


GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 


Lévy, A. M.’ Etude sur la détermination des feld- 
spaths dans les plaques minces au point de vue de la 
classification des roches. 8°. Avee 8 pl. cal. et 9 fig. 
Fr. 7; 50c. 

Hintze, C. Handbuch der Mineralogie. 
Mit 56 Abbildgn. Mk. 5. 

WALTHER, Prof. Johs, Einleitung in die Geologie 
als historische Wissenschaft. III. (Schluss-) Thl. 
Lithogenesis der Gegenwart. Beobachtungen iib die 
Bildg. der Gesteine an der heut. Erdoberfliiche. 
gr. m. 8 Abbildgn. Mk. 13. 


8. Lfg. 


ZOOLOGY. 
_BERGH, Dr. R. S., Vorlesungen iiber die Zelle und 
die einfachen Gewebe des tierischen Kérpers. Mit 
einem Anhang: Technische Anleitung zu einfachen 


histologischen Untersuchungen. Mit 138 Figuren im 
Texte. gr. 8° Mk. 7. 

Boas, Dr. J. E. v., Lehrbuch der Zodlogie. 2. 
Aufl. gr. 8°. Mk. 10; geb. Mk. 11. 

DE GRossoUVRE, A. Recherches sur la craie 
supérieure. 2° partie. Paléontologie: Les ammonites 
de la craie supérieure. 4°. Avec 39 fig. et atlas de 
39 pl. Fr. 20. 


LINNAEI, Caroli, systema naturae. Regnum ani- 


male. Ed. X. 1758, cura societatis Zoélogiacae ger- 
manicae iterum edita. gr. 8°. Mk. 10;—Einbd. Mk. 
2:25. 


HALLER, B. Studien iiber docoglosse und rhipido- 
glosse Prosobranchier nebst Bemerkungen iiber die 
phyletischen Beziehungen der Mollusken unterein- 
ander. 4°. Mit 6 Textfig. u. 12 Taf. Mk. 32. 

Pororr, DEMETRIUS. Die Dottersack-Getiisse der 
Huhnes. Mit 12 lithographischen Tafeln in Farben- 
druck und 12 lithographierten Tafel-Erklirungsblit- 
tern. 4°. Mk. 27. i 

Scumipt, Apr. Atlas der Diatomaceen-Kunde. 
In Verbindung mit Griindler, Grunow, Janisch und 
Witt herausgegeben. 48. u. 49. Heft. Fol. 8 Taf. 
Mit. 8 Bl. Erklirgn. Mk. 6. 

SEMON, PRor. Dr. RICHARD. Zodlogische Forsch- 
ungsreisen in Australien und dem malayischen Ar- 


chipel. Mit Unterstiitzung des Herrn Dr. Paul von 
Ritter ausgefiihrt in den Jahren 1891-1893. Erster 
Band. Ceratodus. Erste Lieferung. Mit 8 lito- 


Abbildungen im Texte. 


graphischen Tafeln und 2 
Mk. 20. 


(Text und Atlas.) gr. 4°. 
BOTANY. 


ENGLER, A., und K. PRANTL. Die natiirlichen 
Pflanzenfamilien nebst ihren Gattungen und wich- 
tigeren Arten, insbesondere den Nutzpflanzen, unter 
Mitwirkung zahlreicher hervorragender Fachgelehr- 
ten begriindet von A. E. und K. P., fortgesetzt von 
A. Engler. II. Tl. 6. Abtlg. 8° Mit 592 Ein- 
zelbildern in 87 Fig. sowie Abteilungs-Register. 
Subskr.-Pr. Mk. 8; Einzelpr. Mk. 16. 

LINDEN, L. Les Orchidées exotiques et leurs cul- 
ture en Europe. Avee nombr. fig. Fr. 25. 

ScHUMANN, Kust. Prof. Dr. K., Lehrbuch der sys- 
tematischen Botanik, Phytopaliontologie u. Phyto- 
geographie. gr. 8°. 193 Fig. u. 1 farb. Karte. Mk. 16. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT, 
810 Broadway, New York. 


i SCIENCE.—ADVERTISEMENTS. 


Macmillan & Co.’s New Books in Science. 


Elementary Lessons in Electricity and 
Magnetism. 

By SYLVANUus P. THOMPSON, D.Sc., B.A., F.R.A.S., 
Principal of the City and Guilds of London Technical 
College, Finsbury. New, Revised Edition, with many 
Additions. With numerous Ilustrations. 12mo, 
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Lectures on Human and Animal Psy- 
chology. 

Translated from the Second and Revised German 
Edition (1892) by J. E. Crereuton, A.B. (Dalhou- 
sie), Ph.D. (Cornell), and E. B. TrrcHENER, A.B. 
(Oxon.), Ph.D. (Leipzig). 8vo, Cloth, $4.00, net. 


Popular Lectures and Addresses. 

By Lorp Ketvin, F.R.S. In 3 vols. Vol. II. 
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A Laboratory Manual of Physics and 
Applied Electricity. 

Arranged and Edited by EDWARD L. NICHOLs, 
Professor of Physics in Cornell University. In two 
vols. Vol. I. Junior Course in General Physics. 
By ERNEST MERRITT and FREDERICK J. ROGERS. 
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and Outlines of Advanced Work. By GEORGE 
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Kiss, CHARLES P. MATTHEWS, and the Editor. 
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man. 


A Treatise on the Measurement of Elec= 
trical Resistance. 
By WILLIAM ARTHUR PRICE, M.A., A.M.I.C.E., 
formerly Scholar of New College, Oxford. 8vo, Cloth, 
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Manual of Physico-Chemical [Tleasure= 


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By WILHELM OsTWALD, Professor of Chemistry in 
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Cambridge Natural 
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Essays in Historical Chemistry. 

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J. S. Brutryes, Hygiene ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psycholog 
DANIEL G. BRINTON, J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Fripay, JANUARY 25, 1895. 


CONTENTS: 
The Past and Present of the American Mathematical 
Society: Emory McCLINTOCK..... Mahia uini 1a) ope 85 
The Origin of our Vernal Flora: JOHN HARSH- 
PESEEESAS OED ral cl eve! aie «!o..6 0's.» sis ein (h(a mie etiare «e's ale)» 92 
On Certain Habits and Instincts of Social Insects : 
MARCUS HARTOG..... ....- Raa aia la k'e woe 98 


The Proper Scientific Name for Brewer’s Mole: 
FREDERICK W. TRUE 
The American Folk-Lore Society : 
Betentifie Literature :—... 22, cesesccscccesecces= 102 
Poincaré’s Les oscillations électriques (I.): M. 
I. Purin. Alexander’s Engine Construction : 
R. H. T. 

LOL == 33 ASE BIR: be cc voce By SRS eee 109 
Personal ; General ; Congresses ; New and Forth- 
coming Publications. 

Societies and Academies :—.....+..+++- oaginocore 110 
American Mathematical Society ; Iowa Academy 
of Sciences. 


UMILATIETSIOUPIULES 0.0: » « « o-0\a. SMM sinisin/0's acn0!0 Poe 23 
MUPIMEL TORY xin oda. s(c.s = =< «'a 6S MeeteIeta Ie, awe oe 112 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

Subscriptions (five dollars annually) and advertisements 
ous pent to the Publisher of ScreNcE, 41 East 49th St., 

ew York. 


THE PAST AND FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN 
MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY.* 

Hayine been requested by the Council 
to address the Society on retiring from the 
presidency, it has appeared to me that I 
must choose between the discussion of the 


*Address delivered by the retiring President, be- 
fore the American Mathematical Society at the annual 
meeting held December 28, 1894. 


position and prospects of some branch of 
mathematics with which I may be familiar 
and a more general and discursive review 
of the present position and future prospects 
of our Society. I have, after some hesita- 
tion, chosen the latter subject. It seems 
desirable, on the whole, that there should 
be made at this time some permanent 
record, however slight, of the steps by 
which so large and flourishing a society has 
come together, and of the views concerning 
its present scope and the hopes concerning 
its future possibilities which are entertained 
by those who have hitherto been most im- 
mediately concerned in the conduct of its 
affairs. 

The New York Mathematical Society, 
originating in 1888, was at first not much 
more than a small mathematical club meet- 
ing periodically at Columbia College. The 
first meeting was called by a circular signed 
by three young men. The number of those 
who could be expected to attend these meet- 
ings was not great, but all who were able 
and who were sufficiently interested to do 
so were invited to join the Society. It was 
fortunate in securing for its first president 
Professor Van Amringe, distinguished alike. 
by scientific attainments, official eminence, 
and administrative ability. The professor 
of astronomy at Columbia was also active 
in it from the first. The meetings of the 
young Society were, as I am informed (for 
at that time I did not reside in New York), 


86 


attended with more than interest, I might 
say with zeal. The three who called the 
Society into being may, without invidious- 
ness, be mentioned as having aided mater- 
ially in the prosecution of its work. One 
of these of course need not be named to 
you. He has served from the beginning as 
Secretary, and again as the leading mem- 
ber of the publication committee. It is no 
flattery to him to say that the growing en- 
ergies of the Society must at various stages 
have become chilled or misdirected, except 
for his comprehensive intelligence and un- 
tirimg industry. Another was our former 
Treasurer, now absent from the country. 
Still another has been elected by you to-day 
to the office of Librarian. The meetings 
were, as the ordinary meetings still are, 
held at Columbia College, and at that time 
the majority of the members of the Society 
were connected with that institution. The 
President, after two years’ service, fearing 
that the continuance of a representative of 
that College as presiding officer would tend 
to hamper its usefulness, proposed the elec- 
tion of a new President not connected with 
any college. It was in this way and for 
this reason that you honored me with the 
post from which I retire to-day. Itis not 
improper for me to add that I am myself 
an outspoken believer in the doctrine of ro- 
tation in office, and that I was only pre- 
vented from retiring at an earlier period by 
urgent representations concerning the pre- 
sumed welfare of the Society, at a time 
when all were not yet fully agreed upon the 
expediency of changes which have since 
taken place. 

The Society was therefore distinguished 
from all American mathematical clubs or 
associations by two circumstances : it was 
formed in and took the name of the largest 
city of America, and it was distinctly under- 
stood to be unconnected with any institu- 
tion of learning. Suggestions came to be 
made that its usefulness would be decidedly 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 4. 


increased by the publication of a periodical 
journal. Consideration of these sugges- 
tions by the Council led to the establish- 
ment of the Society’s Bulletin, with the 
nature and scope of which you are all fa- 
miliar. It was decided to be inexpedient 
to publish original investigations, that field 
being already occupied by successful Ameri- 
can periodicals. To meet the expense of 
the publication, the fees of the members 
were somewhat increased, and for the same 
reason, as well as to extend the usefulness 
of the Society, well-known mathematicians 
in all parts of the country were invited to 
become members. That this movement 
towards enlargement was judicious and 
timely was proved at once by the rapid 
growth of the membership, which since the 
middle of 1891 has included a large pro- 
portion of the prominent mathematicians 
of the United States and Canada. As the 
Society thus became in reality an associa- 
tion of American mathematicians as a body, 
the change of name effected this year was 
only a natural sequence. Finally, the re- 
sult of the change of name has been that a 
number of persons, including several of the 
highest repute, who had not previously 
joined the New York Mathematical Society, 
regarding it as a local organization, have 
connected themselves with the American 
Mathematical Society; and I need hardly 
say that, if any one of prominence still 
holds aloof, from inattention or otherwise, 
his entrance at any time as a member will 
be greeted with a hearty welcome. 

It is said that when the London Mathema- 
tical Society was organized there had been 
no previous example of a similar organiza- 
tion, and that fears were felt and expressed 
that its management might naturally drift 
into the hands of a few haying time and 
energy to give to its affairs, and that there 
might thus be serious danger of its falling 
into the control of a clique. The lapse of 
time has developed the fact that the lead- 


JANUARY 25, 1895.] 


ing members of that society have been men 
of broad views, unusually free from per- 
sonal prejudice and quick to recognize 
talent wherever displayed. We may al- 
most conclude from the history of that 
society that proficiency in the science of 
mathematics is distinct. evidence of a well- 
balanced mind. It may be doubted whether 
an equally numerous body of poets or mu- 
sicians could have held so successfully on 
its course during half a century. It is of 
course impossible to predict that the man- 
agement of our own Society will be equally 


‘prudent, energetic and successful during a 


half century to come. All that can be 
said at present is that not a trace of per- 
sonal self-seeking on the one hand or of 
personal prejudice on the other hand has as 
yet become visible in our counsels. One 
single motive has thus far been conspicuous 
among all who have interested themselves 
in the Society : a strong belief in its pros- 
pective usefulness combined with an earn- 
est desire to further its success. 

Thus far I have spoken only of the pro- 
gress of the organization as such. The or- 
ganization, however, is merely the frame- 
work. It has certain living objects, and 
even during its period of formation and 
growth it has been distinctly successful in 
promoting those objects. I have spoken of 
objects ; the Constitution, however, reminds 
me that there is but one object: to encourage 
and maintain an active interest in mathe- 
matical science. It is, however, possible to 
subdivide this very general statement of the 
aims of the Society. In order to encourage 
and maintain an interest in mathematical 
science, we may say, then, (1) that mathe- 
maticians must be brought to know more 
about each other and concerning each 
other’s work ; (2) that the number must 
be increased by the encouragement of the 
study of the higher mathematics among the 
young ; (3) that information should be dis- 
seminated fully and speedily concerning 


SCIENCE. 


87 


mathematical publications abroad as well 
as at home; (4) that, as regards the more 
important of such publications, gompetent 
critics should be induced to write and pub- 
lish papers descriptive of their contents and 
indicating their merits or defects ; (5) and 
that every member of the Society should be 
stimulated to the most successful effort pos- 
sible in his own line of mathematical labor, 
whatever it may be. This subdivision is 
not presented as scientific and exhaustive. 
Others would doubtless make variations of 
their own; and it is certain that the sepa- 
rate points I have indicated are not mutu- 
ally exclusive. I mention these several ob- 
jects merely as they occur to me for the 
purposes of this occasion. 

That by entering the Society and receiv- 
ing its monthly Bulletin the mathematicians 
of the United States and Canada have been 
and are brought to know far more about 
each other and concerning each other’s work 
than they ever knew before or could possi- 
bly have known otherwise is obvious to all. 
The mere list of members, which conveys 
to each of us the names, addresses and oc- 
cupations of all the rest, would alone justify 
this statement. The Bulletin, with its lists 
and reviews of new books, together with 
many notes concerning the higher mathe- 
matical work of different institutions, has 
afforded much additional information, and 
it may be expected that further experience 
will enable its conductors from time to time 
to add to its usefulness in this direction. 

While the Society is not directly con- 
cerned in encouraging the study of the 
higher mathematics among the young, its 
indirect influence in that direction has un- 
doubtedly been felt, and must be felt in- 
creasingly as time goes on. Years ago, 
when the present century was 
younger, the course of study in our colleges 
was so arranged as to give a large propor- 
tion of the time of the undergraduates to 
the study of mathematics. Subsequently 


much 


88 


the tendency in colleges having uniform 
courses of study was to cut down the num- 
ber of hours given to this science, as well 
as to the classics, and to parcel out the time 
among the modern languages and various 
sciences. It is believed that even already 
the organization, the meetings, and the 
publications of the Society have, by the ef- 
fect of numbers in association, perceptibly 
strengthened the tone of the mathematical 
departments of many institutions of learn- 
ing and assisted in enabling them, more or 
less successfully, to stem the hostile tide of 
sentiment to which I have just referred. I 
say ‘assisted,’ for other agencies, especially 
the journals, have done great good. That 
the dissemination of knowledge concern- 
ing the gigantic strides lately made and 
still making in mathematical science must 
in the future have the same favorable effect 
to an even greater extent is not to be 
doubted. 

As to the next point in my list of objects, 
I need hardly mention to you that the 
Society has succeeded and is succeeding in 
disseminating information fully and speed- 
ily concerning mathematical publications 
abroad as well as at home. In addition to 
this general statement, for the proof of 
which we need only refer to the monthly 
numbers of the Bulletin, I may recall to you 
that the Society is at this moment engaged 
in publishing, at its own expense, supple- 
mented by personal subscriptions, one of 
the largest and most important volumes 
ever published containing nothing but orig- 
inal investigations ; namely, the extensive 
and very valuable collection of papers— 
mostly by European authors—prepared for 
and presented to the Mathematical Con- 
gress in 1893, held in connection with the 
World’s Fair at Chicago. 

Again, considerable success has been at- 
tained in inducing competent erities to write 
and publish papers descriptive of the con- 
tents and indicating the merits or defects of 


SCIENCE. 


EN. S. Vou. I. No. 4. 


the more important current mathematical 
publications in all countries. In this re- 
spect it is hoped that the usefulness of the 
Bulletin, already recognized, will be largely 
augmented as time goes on. You have to- 
day strengthened the Publication Commit- 
tee by the addition of a third member of 
tried capacity. The Committee depends 
for its critical papers upon the cooperation 
of other members of the Society, and it is es- 
pecially pleased to receive voluntary offers 
of such papers from members who have not 
not yet contributed to the Bulletin. It is to 
this resource as much as to any other that 
we must look for the enlargement and im- 
provement of the Bulletin. The Committee 
must be aided freely by the presentation 
of an increasing amount of material from 
which to choose; and I use this occasion to 
urge upon each member that he take every 
opportunity consistent with other engage- 
ments to impart to his fellows the historical 
and critical results of his own reading in 
any special branch, and particularly in con- 
nection with any new and important work 
recently published in that branch. The 
well-known saying of Bacon cannot be too 
constantly before our minds: ‘“ I hold every 
man a debtor to his profession, from the 
which as men of course do seek to receive 
countenance and profit, so ought they of 
duty to endeayor themselves by way of 
amends to be a help and ornament there- 
unto.” 

Finally, and I might say above all, it is 
the object of the Society that every mem- 
ber should be stimulated to the most sue- 
cessful effort possible in his own branch of 
mathematical labor, whatever it may be; 
whether it be in teaching, or writing, or 
original investigation, or in any combina- 
tion of these lines of activity. The inves- 
tigator must also be a writer; the writer 
may present his own investigations, or com- 
ment upon or summarize or write the his- 
tory of those of others, or elaborate a treatise 


at: 


JANUARY 25, 1895. ] 


or text-book upon some special subject ; but 
whoever may investigate, and whoever may 
write, it is the lot of almost all of us in one 
way or another to teach. For this reason 
it is plain that this Society is, and must 
always remain, a society of teachers. Any 
tendency to restrict its usefulness solely to 
the paths of investigation and publication 
should, for every reason of prudence and 
wisdom, be resisted. The management of 
any organization which does not commend 
itself to the great majority of those inter- 
ested must not indeed necessarily end in 
failure, but must certainly fail of produc- 
ing the most appropriate, the most useful, 
and therefore the best results. While, 
however, expressing this general opinion, I 
would by no means be understood to dis- 
parage the work of the writers and investi- 
gators. Not every teacher, however suc- 
cessful, feels impelled to write for publica- 
tion, and not every writer has time and 
facilities for original investigation ; yet we 
all of us take pride in such work when 
done by others, and we all of us, as mem- 
bers of the Society, feel that it would fail 
of its highest objects if it did not encourage 
in every way the production of good papers 
and books and, above all, the prosecution 
of original discovery. 

In encouraging the writing of books, as 
distinguished from the prosecution of origi- 
nal research, the Society can do little except 
indirectly, by increasing the possible de- 
mand for such works. The need of what 
we may call advanced text-books giving, as 
far as possible, summaries of existing knowl- 
edge in the several higher branches, has 
long been felt, and of late years has to some 
extent been supplied. Some of these fields, 
however, are still open; and as time goes 
on, fresh books, to take the place of those 
now fresh, will still be wanted; for our 
science is in all points, even those sometimes 
regarded as most stationary, in a condition 
of advancing evolution. It is, if you please, 


SCIENCE. 89 


the same old oak, but what formerly were 
twigs are now sturdy limbs, and what now 
are tiny stems may soon be recognized as 
vitally important branches. As to the 
making of thorough and systematic books 
on mathematical subjects, it has before now 
been remarked that the task is really more 
difficult, for some at least, than that of work- 
ing up original papers. Some of the reasons 
for this were clearly stated by Mr. Glaisher 
in his presidential address in 1886 before 
the London Mathematical Society. I recall 
the case of a friend who at one time began 
the preparation of a summary of knowledge 
in a special field; but he had not gone far 
before he found such temptations in the way 
of unifying theories or bridging over gaps 
that the result was the production of two or 
three contributions to the journals and the 
abandonment of the book. We must, I 
think, accord unusual honor to those who 
apply themselves successfully to the task, 
more arduous every year as the mass of 
original work rolls up, of summarizing and 
condensing into clear bodies of doctrine all 
existing important discoveries in special 
fields of mathematical labor, certainly with- 
out hope of pecuniary reward and usually 
without prospect of any wide circle of 
readers. 

As yet the Society has done little towards 
the encouragement of writing and inves- 
tigation. The existing well-known and 
successful journals maintained, whether by 
a great university, by scientifie societies of 
a general character, or by the generous ef- 
forts of individuals, have afforded oppor- 
tunities for the publication of extensive 
papers with which the Society’s Bulletin 
is not intended to compete. For much the 
same reason those of its members who have 
been personally solicited to give their aid 
have been appealed to for contributions to 
the Bulletin rather than for original papers 
to be read and discussed at the meetings. 
It is to be hoped that, as time goes on, the 


90 


members of the Society will become more 
and more accustomed to present their orig- 
inal papers for reading at the meeting, be- 
fore publication. It may perhaps also be 
expected that a closer connection may be 
developed between the reading and the pub- 
lication of such papers, whereby, on the 
one hand, perhaps, editors of journals may, 
as members of the Council or otherwise, 
have some preliminary oversight of the 
acceptanee of papers for reading, and 
whereby, on the other hand, the accept- 
ance of a paper for reading shall insure its 
speedy publication. 

While the Society can thus do little di- 
rectly to encourage the writing of important 
treatises, it can and should, without doubt, 
do much to stimulate original research. 
Original discovery has always been recog- 
nized as the quickest and surest road to dis- 
tinction. A permanently valuable paper 
read and discussed at a meeting of the So- 
ciety becomes an immediate object of inter- 
est to those who attend; the subsequent 
record of the reading in the Bulletin, sup- 
plemented, perhaps, by a brief abstract, 
excites a still wider interest among the 
membership at large; and in this way many 
of the readers are prepared to welcome the 
publication of the paper when it appears. 
There are—apart from the institution of 
medals or prizes, which would be within the 
Society’s province—many other ways in 
which, directly or indirectly, the influence 
of the Society may be felt in turning the at- 
tention of individuals to the importance of 
original work. And as some slight contri- 
bution towards this desirable end, I shall 
close this address with a few remarks and 
suggestions intended more particularly to 
reach those members of the Society whose 
attention is turning in this direction, but 
who have not as yet produced original 
papers. If in doing so I happen to give 
good advice, particularly as regards style, 
of which I have not always succeeded in 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 4. 


following myself, I trust I may be favored 
with the same kindly personal considera- 
tion as is customarily accorded to an ema- 
ciated physician or to a stammering profes- 
sor of rhetoric. Yet as to the style in 
which a mathematical paper should be 
written, as distinguished from good Eng- 
lish style in general, there is not really 
very much to be said. Such papers should 
contain good English, and enough of it. 
Obscurity, above all things, should be 
avoided. The printer should not be an- 
noyed unnecessarily by complicated frac- 
tions and other things difficult to print. 
Phrases and symbols familiar to the writer, 
but not necessarily familiar to his readers, 
should not be introduced without explana- 
tion. Such phrases and symbols can al- 
ways be explained by taking the time and 
trouble; and though the paper be made 
somewhat longer, it becomes far more satis- 
factory. It is of course possible, especi- 
ally if one has not much to say, to err 
in the opposite direction by diffuseness 
and verbosity. The golden mean lies in 
the distinct explaining of every symbol, 
of every phrase not universally under- 
stood, and of every step in the discus- 
sion in language otherwise extremely con- 
cise. 

It would doubtless excite a smile were it 
known that any young man was for the first 
time saying to himself: “Go to! letme make 
a discovery.’’ Yet that is what each one 
implicitly does say to himself who makes. 
any discovery. It is hard to imagine how 
any new point could occur fortuitously to 
an investigator not engaged in investigat- 
ing. No one can tell until he tries whether 
or not he is fitted for that sort of work. No 
one can be sure, even though failure come 
to him after failure, that he shall not later 
meet with success. One sort of failure, in- 
deed, should convey the most flattering en- 
couragement. It is when a supposed dis- 
covery is made, which proves on further in- 


JANUARY 25, 1895. ] 


quiry to have been made long before by 
some one else. The immediate effect is dis- 
heartening ; and yet the occurrence has es- 
tablished the existence of the power of dis- 
covery. When once anything, no matter 
what and no matter how old, is discovered 
afresh and originally, the beginner has only 
himself to blame for any subsequent want 
of success. It may, in fact, be doubted 
whether every earnest mathematician who 
takes pleasure in his work has not in him, 
to some extent at least, the capacity for dis- 
covery. Indeed, any fresh solution of an 
interesting problem, any new proof of an old 
proposition, is in itself a piece of original 
work. Undoubtedly some are born with 
greater capacity than others; yet no one 
can tell, without trying, the limits of his 
own capacity in this direction; and it is 
probably true in this, as in other lines of 
effort, that genius consists in an infinite 
capacity for taking pains. 

He who for the first time makes an at- 
tempt towards original mathematical re- 
search must do so either in pure or in 
applied mathematics. By far the greater 
number of papers relate to the former class 
of investigations ; and yet it would seem 
that greater opportunities for attaining im- 
portant results lie in the latter direction. 
We all of us know, in a general way, that 
many important improvements in pure 
mathematics are the direct result of efforts 
connected with practical applications. Our 
knowledge of the laws of physics is con- 
stantly undergoing development. Just 
now, perhaps, the most important improve- 
ments are those connected with the laws of 
electricity, in which some of the members 
of this Society have taken a prominent 
part. Mr. Walker, in his presidential ad- 
dress of 1890 before the London Society, 
brought forward numerous instances illus- 
trating the enormous influence of applied 
mathematics upon the progress of the pure 
science. The numerous illustrations which 


SCIENCE. 


91 


he adduced should be consulted by every 
one interested in the applications, and 
should encourage him to active effort in 
extending the domain of applied mathema- 
tics, and thereby almost necessarily adding 
to existing knowledge in the region of pure 
mathematics. 

For some reason which no one has under- 
taken to explain, but probably connected 
with the much wider dissemination of ele- 
mentary instruction in pure mathematics 
as compared with applied, by far the greater 
number of investigations thus far have re- 
lated to pure mathematics ; and it may be 
presumed that for some time to come this 
disproportion will continue. In other 
words, our young mathematician who says 
to himself that he will make a discovery is 
most likely to confine his efforts to that in 
which he has been most thoroughly in- 
structed and with which he is therefore the 
most familiar—the pure science. How, 
then, is he to set about it? One way, 
and a most satisfactory one, would be to 
take part in some such seminar as that at 
Gottingen, described some time since in our 
Bulletin. Another quite similar method is 
to begin by assisting some active investiga- 
tor and carrying out his suggestions faith- 
fully. The impulse given to a number of 
dour best men in this way by Professor Syl- 
vester when he was in this country is well- 
known to us all. On the other hand, any 
attempt at collaboration between two equals 
would seem almost certainly predestined to 
failure. Though exceptions are well known, 
it is really rare to find any fresh and im- 
portant development in a paper worked up 
by two friends of equal skill, and still rarer 
to find a succession of papers by the same 
pair of authors. Good practice, however, 
can be had in correspondence between two 
friends on some fresh subject, each sharpen- 
ing the mind of the other, provided the 
correspondence be carried on as a matter of 
growing interest between the two, rather 


92 


than for the purpose of producing a joint 
publication. Asarule, however, the young 
discoverer works alone, and he will most 
likely find, before he gets to the publishing 
stage, that his first discoveries have been 
made earlier by others. He must choose 
his subject according to his own taste. 
Usually he will be led most easily to some 
fresh result, if he reads and digests with 
keen interest the latest publications of 
others upon some growing subject. He 
may, perhaps, perceive that one of these 
papers has not exhausted all the possibili- 
ties; or he may, by an alteration in the 
point of view, find himself enabled to ob- 
tain the same result by a much shorter and 
more satisfactory process. He must not 
fear that he is giving his mind to a subject 
too trivial. No matter how slight the ad- 
dition which he makes to the sum of knowl- 
edge, it is yet an addition, and unless it is 
superseded by the doing of the same thing 
by some one else in a better manner, it 
is a permanent contribution to science. 
Some are helped greatly, at times, by 
working first on some numerical illustra- 
tion of the problem in hand; others, again, 
by a preliminary geometrical representa- 
tion ; and the first path to any discovery 
is not usually the best. It is sometimes 
supposed that the mass of original work 
done in so many countries and published 
in so many languages makes it likely that 
any ordinary piece of work will be over- 
looked in the great mass. Nevertheless, 
hitera scripta manet; and what may now 
seem an unimportant addition to an unim- 
portant branch may probably one day, when 
that branch is no longer unimportant, and 
when its special history comes to be itself a 
topic of discussion, receive its due recogni- 
tion. Meantime, every little helps. The 
most trifling addition to the actual sum of 
knowledge will be at least useful as a step 
to aid the next investigator; but whether 
important or unimportant, whether appre- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 4. 


ciative recognition comes or not, whether 
others are helped or no one takes notice, 
there is a degree of personal pleasure in the 
mere fact of origination which is the just 
and certain reward of every piece of suc- 
cessful investigation. 


Emory McCurtocx. 
NEw YORK. 


THE ORIGIN OF OUR VERNAL FLORA. 

THOSE who have collected flowering plants 
for many years, without a doubt have been 
impressed with the wonderful regularity 
and precision displayed in the successive 
flowering of different species, even genera of 
plants. The character of the vernal flora in 
the northern United States * depends on the 
seasonal development of plants belonging to 
different natural orders. Hach plant, even 
orders of plants, have definite times of ap- 
pearance, when their flowers open, fertiliza- 
tion takes place, and seeds are distributed. 
At times, a lull or break in the continuity of 
this floral procession takes place just be- 
fore the true summer plants appear. Such 
a break seems to occur in the neighborhood 
of Philadelphia between the twenty-fifth day 
of May and the tenth or fifteenth day of 
June, when the first true summer plants 
appear. Curiously enough, this period cor- 
responds with the time of the ice saints in 
the United States, when there is a possibil- 
ity of frost over a large portion of our con- 


* The advent of spring may properly be considered 
as taking place at the approach of an isotherm one de- 
gree higher than 42.8° F., the general limit of proto- 
plasmic activity. There is no temperature in the ex- 
treme South, in the vicinity of the Gulf, below 43.8° 
on the average, and there is therefore no advent of 
spring; no real beginning of vegetation and recloth- 
ing of trees with leaves. On February Ist, the 
isotherm in question is found crossing the United 
States from the vicinity of Cape Hatteras on the east 
to the north of El Paso, then northward to the Pacific 
near San Francisco Bay. The phenomena of winter 
are to be found north of that line. See Harper's 
Monthly Magazine, May, 1894, page 874, article by 
Mark W. Harrington. 


JANUARY 25, 1895.] 


tinental area.* A floral calendar might be 
constructed with the dates of germination, 
seed discharge and death of annual plants, 
and it would be found that a plant year 
after year departs very little in the time ofits 
appearance from the dates put down in this 
yegetalalmanac. Take a common agricul- 
tural plant by way of illustration. The 
planting season for Indian corn is from the 
1st to the 10th of May in favorable weather. 
One hundred and ten days from date of 
sprouting to date of ripening or security from 
frost is about the average season. In many 
cases in the corn belt, Nebraska for instance, 
the farmers are quite sure of at least one 
hundred and twenty days. All this goes to 
prove that each plant has a peculiarity of 
its own with regard to temperature and en- 
vironment; that the sum of the mean daily 
temperatures from the time of sprouting un- 
til the time of seed discharge is pretty nearly 
a constant one, and that if a plant be 
watched for years in succession it will be 
found that this thermometrie sum oscillates 
little either way from the plant’s normal. 
‘Tt is desirable that our native plants should 
be investigated as to temperature condi- 
tions, for some rule must determine the 
appearance of plants, the time of flowering 
and the time of suspended growth. It is 
no haphazard process, but depends on 
fixed laws of growth and development. 
The daily appearance of new plants de- 
pends considerably more on the habits of 
their ancestors than on the controlling 
influence of present meteorological condi- 
tions. 

Our forest trees show some very interest- 
ing peculiarities in their early spring devel- 
opment, which is apparently caused by their 
past conditions of growth and development. 
Heredity seems to play a very important 
role in their vegetative habits. The facts 
condensed in the accompanying table will 
help to elucidate this statement : 

*See Harper’s Magazine, May, 1894. 


SCIENCE. 


93 


Quercus (oaks), Fagus 
(beeches), Salix (wil- 
lows), Platanus (plane- 


Gectancane trees), Sassafras, Laurus, 


{ 
J 
Period. | 
| 


- Malis Magnolia, Liriodendron, 

oe (tulip-trees), Myrica 

(wax myrtles), Betula 

Plants (birches), Liquidambar 

wind- (gum-trees), Juglans 

fertilized, _ (walnuts), Acer( maples). 
flowering | 

from Post { Cornus  (dog-wood), 

March Gretac a Nyssa (sour-gums), Frax- 

to ReMACCOUR, 3 inus (ashes). 
June. 


Eocene. Celtis, Carya (hickory), 


| Ulmus (elms), planera, 
Vaccinium (blue-berries ). 
Car- 
Ne- 


{ Almus (alders), 
Miocene. pinus (horn-beam ), 
{ gundo. 


Italicized genera insect-fertilized. 


It will be seen from this table that the 
more important genera of trees flower in the 
early spring. The cause for this is to be 
found in the past history of the plants, for 
if we arrange them, as in the table, as to 
their appearance in geological time, we dis- 
cover that nearly all of them appeared be- 
fore or during the Miocene (middle Tertiary 
or Mammalian Age) Epoch, when the north- 
ern hemisphere was many degrees warmer 
than at present, and when a mild climate 
extended far into the arctic regions. It is 
impossible to ignore the force of the testi- 
mony as to the continuous warm climate 
of the north temperate and polar zones 
throughout Tertiary (Mammalian) Times. 
We have in the lower Cretaceous (Chalk) 
Period an almost tropical climate down to 
the upper Eocene (Lower Tertiary), when 
it remains warm temperate, for instance, 
in central Europe and cold temperate 
within the polar area. It then gradually 
cools down and merges through the Pliocene 
(Upper Mammalian ) into the Glacial Epoch. 
That being the case, it is highly probable 
that the season of growth of our forest trees 
during the Miocene Period was uninter- 
rupted, and that flowers followed rapid vege- 
tation, as night follows day. The Glacial 
Period succeeded with its cold acting as a 


94 


disturbing influence, cutting off the growth 
of the trees sharply just before the flowers 
opened. The stately monarchs of the Plio- 
cene forests began to change their habit and 
adapt themselves to the new meteorological 
condition, the ever increasing cold. The 
unopened flowers were enveloped by the yet 
undeveloped leaves, which became harder 
and firmer, forming membranaceous and re- 
sinous covered bud scales, as a protection 
against the ice and cold. Flowers thus pro- 
tected remained dormant during the long 
glacial winter, and on the return of the next 
growing season opened their flowers for wind 
fertilization. This habit of early flowering 
became impressed so strongly on the plants 
that it became hereditarily fixed. Trees of 
abnormal habit frequently show atayvism, 
flowering in the late autumn, if exception- 
ally warm. This apparently indicates that 
the cold cut into two periods the normal 
process of plant growth. The division, thus, 
of the period of growth into two unequal 
halves by the glacial cold explains why our 
forest trees have varied little during the pro- 
cess of time from a wind pollinated (anemo- 
philous) state, because their floral organs 
are developed in the spring before the ap- 
pearance of the most highly specialized 
flower visiting insects. Two causes have 
operated to keep our trees permanently in 
an anemophilous condition, first, the sepa- 
ration of the vegetative and reproductive 
stages by the cold of the Glacial Epoch, and 
their early spring flowering ; and secondly, 
the association of trees together into forests, 
flower visiting insects loving essentially 
open glades, or areas devoid of timber. 

More difficulty is experienced in explain- 
ing the appearance of the herbaceous vernal 
flora. In order to arrive at a clear under- 
standing of the problem, a few statistics are 
necessary. 

The following table compiled from a 
variety of sources arranged for convenience 
of presentation according to the system of 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 4. 


A. L. Jussieu (now little used) will be of 
use as approximately showing the statistical 
systematic distribution of our spring plants. 


-_| Be 
</Bl. |B 
3.4 |: Bla 
Bala slg 
2)8)8)5/8 
AAS iA 
a 
3 Stamina epigyna Op) || 3 
5 Polypetalze i hypogyna 91 61 86 75 22 
z ce perigyna | 618173016 
ee Corolla hypogyna }13 12) 9 1117 
> | Monopetalee “ perigyna) |S sipaleies 
= ““  epigyna 8 5 913) 9 
| Apetalee. ane 13—| 6 
Monocotyledones. 26 15 12—21 


A predominant number of the plants, 
tabulated in the foregoing table, fall into 
eight natural orders: Ranunculaceze (but- 
tercup family), Cruciferee (cress family) 
Violacez (violet family), Caryophyllaceze 
(pink family), Rosaceze (rose family), Saxi- 
fragaceze, Ericaceze (heath family), Com- 
posites (sunflower family). The plants 
belonging to these eight natural orders form 
the major and characteristic part of our 
spring flora, and with the exception of the 
Ericaceze and Composite (few in number) 
are all polypetalous (many petals, distinct), 
and monocotyledons hypogynous (stamens 
and parts below the ovary) in its make-up. 
The more complex and irregular flowered 
families appear later inthe year. Now this 
order of flowering corresponds curiously 
with the order of evolution of the flowering 
plants, which was suppositiously as follows : 


A. Monocotyledons. Wind Fertilized. 


Sedges. 
B. Dicotyledons. 
1. Wind Fertilized. ‘Trees. 
2. True Insect Fertilized. 
(a) Polypetale. (Petals distinct, 4 or 5.) 
(b) Gamopetale. (Petals united. ) 


This comparison leads us to infer the ab- 


Grasses, 


1 Darrach, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1860, 145; 
? Darlington, Flora Cestrica; Gray Manual; * Roth- 
rock, Flora of Alaska; ‘Burk, Flora of Greenland, 
Proe. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1894. 


JANUARY 25, 1895.] 


sence of true flowers until late geologic 
times, for it is only by the visits of insects 
and their irritating action on vegetal proto- 
plasm that the most irregular flowers have 
been slowly evolved, for there is a broad 
parallelism between the more differentiated 
types of the vegetal kingdom and the ap- 
pearance of the various orders of insects, 
which was: 
GEOLOGICAL SUCCESSION OF INSECTS. 
Devonian, Orthoptera (ear-wigs, grasshoppers), Neu- 
roptera (ant-lions). 
Carboniferous, Coleoptera (beetles). 
Cretaceous Olite, Hymenoptera (bees), Hemiptera 
(lice), Diptera (flies). 
Tertiary, Lepidoptera ( butterflies). 


We know from the close association of 


insects and flowers that the insects were 
modified by their visits to flowers, and con- 
versely that flowers have been changed to 
suit the visits of insects, and it is therefore 
not improbable that our most highly spe- 
eialized flowers, and most irregular ones, 
appeared and were modified by the Lepidop- 
tera in the late Tertiary time ; for moths 
and butterflies are most highly specialized 
to insure cross fertilization, or allogamy. 
This variation in flowering plants must have 
been most strong at the close of the Mio- 
ecene period, and after the retreat of the 
glaciers still more rapid than before, for it 
is probable that the intense struggle which 
took place by the migration and intermix- 
ture of forms of different kinds, occasioned 
by the change of environmental conditions, 
was a powerful factor in causing the strik- 
ing variety of flowers and insects. The 
‘responsive power’ of the protoplasm of 
the plants, acting in concert with the exter- 
nal impulses received from the environ- 
ment, must have been strong after the dis- 
appearance of the glaciers, on account of the 
re-oceupation of a barren glacial country 
by northward moving plants, whose proto- 
plasm had become responsively mobile dur- 
ing the long continued struggle in the south. 

Tt is not at all improbable that the poly- 


SCIENCE. 


petalous groups of plants were northern 
ones during the Miocene period, and that 
their flowering period depends on this past 
geographical position. Those plants which 
lived far north during late Miocene and 
Pliocene times were least modified, for it is 
likely that moths and butterflies were then 
few in number, and the time was not sufli- 
ciently long for change to take place before 
the glacial ice sheet moved southward, mix- 
ing the northern and southern types, and 
introducing a struggle which was to last 
until the ice disappeared by the temperate 
heat. Many tropical plants remained asso- 
ciated with the northern forms crowded 
southward by the glaciers, notwithstanding 
that a great number perished under the 
more rigorous conditions of a colder climate. 
When the glaciers retreated, the predom- 
inant polypetalee adapted to a cold climate 
did one of three things: 1. They retreated 
northward. 2. They retreated up the high 
mountains. 3. They took almost exclusive 
possession in their growth of the spring 
months, for the temperature conditions are 
such as to suit well their hereditarily im- 
pressed preference for the cold. 

These plants flower and mature their seeds 
quickly before the summer is well advanced, 
which mark them as physiologicaily adapted 
to the influences of the short glacial summer, 
alternating with the long glacial winter. 
This rapid growth production of flowers and 
seed in a short space of time is possible from 
the quantity of nutritive material stored up 
in the plant. The beet, turnip, parsnip and 
carrot are familiar examples of biennials 
with the reserve substance packed in the 
roots; the houseleek, lily and onion with 
the bases of the leaves enlarged and thick- 
ened to contain the stores of starch, sugar 
and proteids. Even under these favorable 
conditions, when the plant would be in a 
condition to grow most vigorously, every 
externally perceptible vital motion never- 
theless ceases, and it is only after a dormant 


96 


period of some months that growth com- 
mences anew, and this frequently under 
circumstances which appear far less favor- 
able—especially at a conspicuously lower 
temperature. ‘This periodic alternation 
of vegetative activity and rest is in general 
so regulated that, for a given species of plant, 
both occur at definite times of the year, 
leading to the inference that the periodicity 
only depends upon the alternation of the 
seasons, and therefore chiefly upon that of 
temperature and moisture.” A few well- 
known examples are selected for illustration. 
‘“The leaf-shoot and flowers contained in 
the bulb of the Crown Imperial commence 
to grow vigorously in the spring-time with 
us, even at the beginning or middle of 
March, when the soil in which the bulb has 
passed the winter possesses a temperature 
of 6-10° C.; the leaf-shoots protrude for- 
cibly from the cold earth to grow vigor- 
ously in the but slightly warmer air. There 
would be but little to surprise us in this, if 
we did not at the same time notice the fact 
that a new leaf-shoot is already formed in 
embryo in the subterranean bulb in April 
and May; this shoot, however, does not grow 
to any extent in the warm soil during the 
summer and autumn. On the contrary, 
this favorable period of vegetation passes by, 
until at the end of the winter an inconsider- 
able rise of temperature above the freezing 
point suffices to induce vigorous growth; and 
as is well known, the same is the case with 
most bulbous and tuberous plants, as the 
meadow saffron, potato and kitchen onion.” 

‘““T have many times attempted to induce 
the tubers and bulbs ripened in autumn to 
put forth their germinal shoots during No- 
vember, December and January, by laying 
them in moist, warm loose soil; but as in 
the case of the potato, as well as in that of 
the kitchen onion, no trace of germination 
appeared. If, on the other hand, the at- 
tempt is repeated in February, or still better 
in March, the germinal buds begin to grow 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 4 


vigorously even in a few days. It is evident 
that some internal change must have taken 
place in the tubers and bulbs during the 
winter months, when it is impossible to bring 
them into activity from their state of rest.” 
Our spring plants in this agree physiologic- 
ally with their arctic congeners. The period 
of rest described above in such early spring 
plants, as the winter aconite, crocus, Ery- 
thronium, etc., has in my opinion been due 
to the influence of the glacial cold heredit- 
arily impressed on these plants in con- 
nection with the chemical changes which go 
on. The following diagrams will illustrate 
my meaning. Diagram B shows that the 
period of vegetative activity of our spring 
plants corresponds with an arctic or a glacial 
summer, while the dormant period corre- 
sponds with an arctic winter, although our 
present summer has encroached on the 
former glacial winter. 


Astronomical Year, Glacial Period. 
aS = SSS: 


Vegetative 
Period. 
r= | 


| 
| | 
————— 
Arctic Summer. 


| Flowers. Dormant Period. | 


Arctic Winter. 


Astronomical Year, 1894. 


| Vegeta- | cs | 
ont | Blowers. 


B) | 


Dormant Period. 


| 


— 


— 
Present Summer. Present Winter. 


It was necessary for this rapid growth 
that the food material should be prepared be- 
forehand, because the arctic or glacial sum- 
mer is an exceedingly short one. Mr. Henry 
Seebohm,* in his presidential address before 
the Geographical Section of the British As- 
sociation, gave a graphic description of the 
succession of the seasons in high arctic lati- 
tudes. A few sentences are worth quoting 
in this connection. He said thatthe stealthy 
approach of winter on the confines of the 
polar basin is in strong contrast to the 


*See Popular Science Monthly, XLY., 138, May, 1894. 


JANUARY 25, 1895. ] 


catastrophe which accompanies the sudden 
onrush of summer. “One by one the 
flowers fade and go to seed, if they have 
been fortunate enough to attract a bee or 
other suitable pollen-bearing visitor. The 
arrival of summer happens so late that the 
inexperienced traveler may be excused for 
sometimes doubting whether it really is 
coming at all. When continuous night has 
become continuous day without any percep- 
tible approach to spring, an Alpine traveler 
naturally asks whether he has not reached 
the limit of perpetual snow. During May 
there were a few signs of the possibility of 
some mitigation of the rigors of winter, but 
these were followed by frost. At last, when 
the final victory of summer looked hopeless, 
a change took place; the wind turned to 
the south, the sun retired behind the clouds, 
mists obscured the landscape, and the snow 
melted ‘like butter upon hot toast,’ and we 
were in the midst of a blazing hot summer 
picking flowers of a hundred different kinds 
and feasting upon wild ducks’ eggs of vari- 
ous species.” 

The polypetalous families which blossom 
early in the season, although old geologi- 
cally speaking, have not been greatly modi- 
fied since Pliocene times, because their 
flowers open in the spring before the Lepi- 
doptera hatch out from their cocoons. It 
is obvious that every species of flower can 
only be visited and fertilized by those in- 
sects which occur at the time when the 
plant is in flower and in stations where it 
grows. The insect visitors of a plant are 
therefore limited by the season. and by the 
time of day when it flowers, by its geogra- 
phical distribution and by the nature of its 
habitat. The high northern polypetale 
haye remained therefore regular while 
those plants growing in the southland have 
become highly irregular by the visits of 
numerous highly organized insects in great 
number near the equatorial zone. We 
must be cautious, however, in generalizing 


SCIENCE. 97 


too broadly, for we can only call those parts 
perfect which fulfill their purpose in the 
life of the plant essentially well; that is to 
say, which under existing conditions insure 
the sexual reproduction of the species with 
particular success. 

The Composite (sun-flower family), the 
highest expression of evolution amongst 
Dicotyledons, appeared latest in geological 
succession, for no undoubted form of them 
(Synantherz) has been found farther back 
than the middle Miocene. Miller says: * 
“The numerical preponderance which this 
family has attained in species and genera 
(1000), and the extreme abundance of many 
of the species, are due to the concurrence of 
several characters, most of which singly, or 
in some degree combined, we have become 
acquainted with in other families, but never 
in such happy combination as in the 
Composite. The following points deserve 
special mention: (1) the close association 
of many flowers; (2) the accessibility of the 
honey as well as the plentiful secretion and 
security from rain; (3) the possession of a 
pollen mechanism, which renders cross fer- 
tilization certain in the event of insect visi- 
tors.” It is a masterful order of plants 
most commonly met with in the late sum- 
mer and autumn, flowering profusely until 
the heavy frosts of early winter, when they 
cast their seeds abundantly. An enumera- 
tion of the Composite growing in the vicin- 
age of Philadelphia shows that the plants 
are essentially late summer growers. 


FLOWERING To Fruit Rreentne. |,Ap "BER 
Apml—-May,.. . . <<<) qn 9 
May-June, .. . . - « « Reeepiie « 4 
DONC-UULY,:.- < - + « sates 6 
srne-Aupust,..-. . «4a 4 
Suly—Aupust,.. . . « «isieee bess 8 
July-September, . . . < vases = ; 15 
Aupust-September,. . . . ss. . 32 
Aupust—-October, . . - sjsuuueueos = 35 
September-October,......... 15 

|. 121 


*Miiller, The Fertilization of Flowers. 


98 


These are the latest group of plants to ap- 
pear geologically, they grow and flower in 
the warm season added to the short arctic 
summer by the retreat of the glacial winter. 
The following diagram will indicate more 
clearly what is meant, and will show why it 
is that the Composite of the north temperate 
zone are the characteristic herbaceous vege- 
tation of the late summer and autumn 
months. 


PRESENT ASTRONOMICAL YEAR. 
dl 


Cae E = yan) 
SPRING. SUMMER. WINTER. 
— aN a SS SS =——S aay 


1 2Mo: 


é ; : : Spaice leift afiter 
i Spriing P:lants: : the: Glacial 
i : ; ; :Retrieat 


: Treies & 'Shrlubs | 


Glacial Winter. 


Glacial Summer. 


Xv J 


Miocene Season of Growth. 


The land area left bare by the retreat of 
the glaciers was one of low tension, although 
by the increase in the length of the summer 
(some three months) it had a climate in 
every way suited for the growth of plants. 
The country to the south was one of very 
high pressure tension, which must be re- 
lieved. The great strain was removed 
partially by the movement of plants to the 
northward. ‘Of all the plants which went 
south before the first invasion of the glacial 
ice sheet, none showed greater capacity for 
variation and improvement than the ances- 
tral forms of the modern dominant family 
of Composite.” Such plants in having 
seeds adapted to fly before the prevalent 
north winds had reached a low latitude, 
where great change of form took place 
owing to the intense struggle for existence. 
The composite plants were assisted north- 
ward by the same structural means as 
carried them south. Modified considerably 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 4. 


into new forms by their migrations and 
life in the south, they retained their fond- 
ness for a warm climate. By the extension 
of the arctic summer, some three months, 
they had an opportunity for extensive 
migration over the country formerly ice 
bound. 

It is thus from the high and low pressures, 
caused alternately by the glacial epoch, 
that the distribution of our flora in time 
has been accomplished. 

Joun W. HARSHBERGER. 

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


ON CERTAIN HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF 
SOCIAL INSECTS. 


Ir the mere inductive evidence for the 
Lamarckian theory of the hereditary trans- 
mission of acquired characters be strong 
anywhere, it is assuredly in the region of 
nervous and mental phenomena. Romanes, 
whose reserve on the inheritance of ac- 
quired characters of a physical nature is 
everywhere manifest, admits that many in- 
stincts are due to the ‘lapsing of intelli- 
gence.’* “Just as in the lifetime of the 
individual, adjustive actions which were 
originally intelligent may by frequent repe- 
titions become automatic, so in the lifetime 
of the species actions originally intelligent 
may, by frequent repetitions and heredity, 
so write their effects on the nervous system 
that the latter is prepared even before indi- 
vidual experience to perform adjustive ac- 
tions mechanically which in previous gen- 
erations were performed intelligently.” 

Even Weismann, with all his wealth of 
imagination and capacity for elaboration 
of details, has nowhere attempted to trace 
out the mechanism for the evolution of in- 
stinct on the line of his ‘germ plasm the- 
ory,’ nor applied to it the manifold combi- 
nations of ‘biophors’ and ‘ determinants,’ 
‘ids’ and ‘idauts’ which he assumes as the 
machinery of inheritance. So far the only 


* Mental Evolution in Animats, p. 178. 


JANUARY 25, 1895.] 


key to many instincts is found in the con- 
ception that they are inherited habits, 
themselves the originally conscious reac- 
tions of the individual to its surroundings ; 
and this conception has never been seriously 
attacked from the front in open field. Yet 
Darwin and all his followers have regarded 
the habits and instincts of social insects as 
mainly if not wholly evolved by casual vari- 
ations and natural selection. For the ori- 
gin of the instincts and habits of these 
creatures cannot obyiously be explained on 
Lamarck’s principle, since they are for the 
most part evinced by the workers and sol- 
diers, who are neuters ; and such, of course, 
cannot transmit their instincts by blood to 
their followers, who are only collaterals and 
outside the direct line. Here and there, in- 
deed, these neuters may lay eggs, unfertil- 
ized but not infertile, since in the bees they 
produce drones and in some ants also males ; 
but we have no evidence that this occurrence 
is frequent or regular enough really to in- 
fluence the race. However, there are two 
matters, the so-called instincts of neuters 
generally, and those of slave-makers in par- 
ticular, that may be dealt with from a 
point of view which will show that an ex- 
planation is available that makes no exces- 
sive demand on Lamarckians. 

Tt is a truism to say that one of the most 
potent factors in education is the imitation 
of one’s peers. As a teacher of experience, 
I know well how the presence of a few bright 
and handy students eases my annual task 
of breaking in a class of book-taught lads 
to a study requiring handiwork and obser- 
vation. The nearer akin the model, the 
more powerful is his example. Thus, the 
trained elephant is an almost necessary aid 
to the tamer of wild elephants ; no bird-or- 
gan can do as well as a good songster ; and 
if we wish to train a daw, magpie or star- 
ling to speak, its best teacher is a loquaci- 
ous parrot. 

Animals may readily thus acquire habits 


SCIENCE. 


99 


which, if we did not know their origin, we 
might well mistake for instincts. Thus a dog 
reared by a she-cat has aequired the habit 
of sitting up on his tail, licking his paws and 
washing his face—watching a mouse-hole 
for hours together ; ‘and had in short all the 
ways and manners and disposition of his wet 
nurse.”** So that in considering the behavior 
of any species we have to be cautious and 
bear ever in mind that manifestations which 
at first sight seem unequivocal instinct may 
be really habit, and habit only. 

Now every neuter insect is born from the 
pupa (as it was born from the egg) into a 
community of busy workers of its own kind, 
practising the art that shet will have to 
practise in turn. Ifthen her mental pow- 
ers and emotional development are up to 
the average of the race there can be no dif- 
ficulty in her qualifying for the place she 
will take in the nest. Again we must re- 
member that this neuter insect hatches from 
the egg into a helpless larva, to be fed and 
tended with most devoted care by the adult 
sister workers until it passes into the chrys- 
alis or pupa stage, where it sleeps out the 
transformations that make it an adult. We 
know well that neuter insects show every 
sign of varied emotion; everyone can tell 
the difference of demeanor between the busy 
bee and the angry one; and observers have 
shown us ample evidence of many other 
emotions. If then memory of the earlier 
larval state survives the pupa trance} our 

*See Romanes, op. cit., p. 226. 

+ The so-called neuter is always an imperfect female. 

t Lubbock has shown that ants will tend any young 
whatever of their own species even if born in other 
nests; but none the less they do reject them as 
strangers after they have passed through pupadom 
into the adult state, while they welcome back’ the 


offspring of their own nest that have been fostered by 


strangers. The converse experiments have not been 
tried, to ascertain whether the new-born adults that 
have been nursed outside their own nest show any 
memory of or preference for their own folk or their 
fosterers respectively. (See Lubbock, ‘Ants, Bees 


and Wasps.’ ) 


100 


newly emerged neuter should revive with 
the liveliest gratitude and almost filial af- 
fection for its mates, who have tended it as 
devotedly as elder sisters in charge of a 
family do even among ourselves. 

The only possible objections to this view 
are, first, that the insects have not intelli- 
gence enough for imitation, and secondly, 
that teaching presupposes communication 
between the teacher and the taught, which 
we have no right toassume. But these ob- 
jections fall as baseless when we observe for 
ourselves, or trace with a Huber, a Forel, a 
Lubbock, or a Bate the unmistakable in- 
telligence and the unequivocal signs of com- 
munication to be found among these ani- 
mals. 

We may still assign to natural selection 
a certain part; much more limited than has 
hitherto been supposed. It conserves the 
general intelligence of the race at a high 
pitch, by constantly weeding families proli- 
fic of foolish virgins; and it checks all ex- 
cessive development of individuality by de- 
stroying families with an undue proportion 
of those geniuses who aim at striking out 
new paths for themselves instead of de- 
votedly working at their settled codpera- 
tive tasks. But the singular mixture of 
ability and routine displayed by ants and 
bees is just what we should expect if their 
arts were largely attained by the influence 
of strong tradition. Our lawyers till quite 
recently showed the severe limitations im- 
posed by tradition on intelligence. And 
this is my case for regarding the ways of 
neuter insects as habits and practices, not 
instincts. Many ants make slaves; they 
raid the nest of other species, killing the 
adults and bringing home the helpless 
young. These are nursed by workers of 
the same slave race that were once them- 
selves brought in the immature state to the 
nest. Some of these slave makers can 
neither clean themselves nor feed them- 
selves; everything has to be done for them 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 4. 


by their slaves, save the work of war and 
capture. 

Lubbock writes: ‘“‘They have lost the 
greater part of their instincts; their art, 
that is, the power of building; their do- 
mestic habits, for they show no care for 
their own young, all this being done by the 
slaves; their industry—they take no part in 
providing the daily supplies if the colony 
changes the situation of its nest, the 
masters are all carried by the slaves on 
their backs to the new one; nay, they have 
even lost the habit of feeding How- 
ever small the prison, however large the 
quantity of food, these stupid creatures 
will starve in the midst of plenty rather 
than feed themselves.” 

The origin of this character is not far to 
seek; the fertile insects, 7. e., the males and 
perfect females of social insects, contribute 
little or nothing to the work of their nest 
save their offspring*; hence in the parents 
of each. generation there is a constant 
fostering of selfishness and dependence to 
be transmitted to their offspring. 

The female or queen termite (or White 
ant), indeed, is guarded from all exertion 
and tended in a way to satisfy the indolence 
of the most languid creole fine lady; the 
only drawbacks of her position being lack 
of amusements and of lovers on the one 
hand and an excessive fertility on the 
other. Where all or many of the neuters 
are workers, indolence and selfishness are 
checked and natural selection constantly 
eliminates those families whose altruism 
is insufficient for a social life. But if 
once circumstances arrive in which slaves 
are present to do the duties, it is easy 
to see how all the traditions of work or 
self help—save in war—can die out and be 
utterly lost, bravery, pugnacity and hon- 
orable codperation being the sole virtues to 
survive. It seems at first sight strange 


*The amount done is perhaps greatest among 
Wasps and Humble Bees, least among Termites. 


JANUARY 25, 1895.] 


that the slave holders have lost the power 
of feeding themselves; but this is not 
unexampled in human affairs. Surely 
many a fine lady might starve outright ina 
place with no provender but live fowls and 
unthreshed wheat and water, no utensils 
but dry sticks and a few stones. Yet we 
know that savages of far lower wit could 
kill and pluck the fowls and get fire, spit 
and roast them, crush the wheat between 
the stones and make a damper cook it in 
the embers. This is a case of the loss of 
the power of self help by peculiar education, 
and if we admit this explanation for the 
fine lady we have no right to reject it for 
the slave holding ant. 

Tam aware that I have not dealt exhaust- 
ively with the whole question of social in- 
sects. There are lots of cruxes in their 
manners and customs, and especially in the 
manifold forms that occur in one and the 
same species. Why, for instance, worse 
food and a narrower cell should make a fer- 
tilized bee’s egg become a sterile worker 
instead of a queen, no one knows; and the 
problems presented among ants are far more 
difficult and complicated. But it is as well 
to take stock frequently of our speculations, 
and to place our certain realized assets to 
the credit side, even though we have to 
keep most of our accounts open indefinitely. 


Marcus Harroe. 
QUEEN’S COLLEGE, CoRK. 


THE PROPER SCIENTIFIC NAME FOR 
BREWER'S MOLE. 

Tuere are three species of moles in the 
Eastern States, the Star-nosed mole, Condy- 
lura cristata, the common or Shrew mole, 
Scalops aquatieus, and a third less familiar 
species known as Brewer’s mole, or the 
Hairy-tailed mole. It is to this last species 
that my remarks relate. It was described 
by Bachman in 1842 in the Boston Journal of 
Natural History (vol. 4, page 32) under the 
name of Scalops breweri, and was cited under 
that designation until 1879, when Dr. Coues 


SCIENCE. 


101 


proposed to change the specific name to 
americanus. This proposition was based on 
the fact that in Harlan’s Fauna Americana, 
published in 1825, the name ‘ Tulpa ameri- 
cana, black mole, Bartram’s manuscript 
notes,’ occurs in synonymy at the head of a 
description which Dr. Coues thought might 
be in part, at least, applicable to the species 
under consideration. 

I find, however, that this is a literal trans- 
lation of Desmarest’s deseription of the 
European mole, Talpa ewropea, with no ad- 
ditions whatever, and no other alteration 
than the omission of a word or sentence 
here and there. It is evident, therefore, 
that Harlan included nothing from Bar- 
tram’s manuscript, whatever it may have 
contained, and that thename Talpa ameri- 
cana has no validity. 

It will be necessary to return to the 
specific name breweri. I recently separated 
Brewer’s mole as the representative of a 
distinct genus, which I called Parascalops. 
If this distinction be accepted, the proper 
name of the species will be Parascalops 
brewert (Bachman). 

Freperick W. TRUE. 

U. 8. NATIONAL MusEUM. 


THE AMERICAN FOLK-LORE SOCIETY. 

THE annual meeting of the Society was 
held at the Columbian University, Wash- 
ington, December 27th and 28th. Owing 
to a death in his family, the President, Dr. 
Alcee Fortier, of Louisiana, was prevented 
from attending. 

The Secretary, Mr. W. W. Newell, sub- 
mitted a report in which he detailed the 
publications of the Society for the year. 
These included two volumes of ‘ Folk Tales 
of Angola,’ prepared by Heli Chatelain, late 
United States commercial agent at Loanda, 
West Africa, and papers by various well- 
known authors as follows: ‘Notes on the 
folk-lore of the mountain whites of the 
Alleghanies,’ J. Hampton Porter; ‘Three 


102 


epitaphs of the seventeenth century,’ Sarah 
A. P. Andrews; ‘Popular medicine, cus- 
toms and superstitions of the Rio Grande,’ 
Capt. John G. Bourke; ‘ Plantation court- 
ship,’ Frank D. Banks ; ‘ Retrospect of the 
folk-lore of the Columbian Exposition,’ 
Stewart Culin; ‘Eskimo tales and songs,’ 
Franz Boaz; ‘Popular American Plant 
Names,’ Fannie D. Bergen. 

A large number of papers were read be- 
fore the Society and discussed by the mem- 
bers present. The first was by Dr. Wash- 
ington Matthews, entitled ‘A Navaho Myth,’ 
which related in detail one of the sacred 
legends of the tribe. 

Capt. R. R. Moten then read a paper on 
‘Negro folk-songs,’ in which he spoke of 
natural musical tendencies of the colored 
race and reviewed a number of the old 
songs of the South before the war. Negro 
music, he said, might be divided into three 
kinds, that rendered while working, a dif- 
ferent kind for idle hours, and a third and 
more dignified sort used for worship. Capt. 
Moten said the general public had but little 
idea of the old negro music, and that many 
of the so-called negro songs rendered by 
white men in minstrel performances were 
abortions. There were some old familiar 
melodies, however, which were true to 
nature, and full of inspiration. 

A quartet of colored men was present, 
and sang a number of negro songs illustrat- 
ing the points brought out by Capt. Moten. 

Several speakers dwelt upon the import- 
ant question of the diffusion of folk-tales 
and the explanation of striking similarities 
found in localities widely apart. Mr. W. 
W. Newell was inclined to explain such by 
theories of transmission; while Major J. 
W. Powell and Dr. D. G. Brinton, both of 
whom had papers on closely related topics, 
leaned toward the ‘anthropologic’ expla- 
nation, which regards those similarities as 
the outgrowth of the unity of human psy- 
chological nature and methods. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 4. 


Dr. J. W. Fewkes gave a detailed de- 
scription of the figures in the ancient Maya 
manuscript known as the ‘ Cortesian Codex.’ 
Other papers presented were: ‘Kwapa — 
folk-lore,’ Dr. J. Owen Dorsey; ‘Korean 
Children’s games,’ Stewart Culin ; ‘ Burial 
and holiday customs and beliefs of the Irish 
peasantry,’ Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen ; ‘Biblio- 
graphy of the folk-lore of Peru,’ Dr. Geo. 
A. Dorsey ; ‘Mental development as illus- 
trated by folk-lore,’ Mrs. Helen Douglass ; 
The game of goose with examples from 
England, Holland, Germany and Italy,’ 
Dr. H. Carrington Bolton ; ‘ The Swastika,’ 
Dr. Thomas Wilson ; ‘ Folk-food of New 
Mexico,’ Capt. John G. Bourke, U. 8. A.; 
‘Opportunities of ethnological investigation 
on the eastern coast of Yucatan,’ Marshall 
H. Saville; ‘Two Ojibway tales,’ Homer 
H. Kidder. 

The officers elected for the ensuing year 
were: President, Dr. Washington Mat- 
thews ; Vice Presidents, Rey. J. Owen Dor- 
sey, Captain John G. Bourke, U.S. A.; 
Permanent Secretary, William Wells Ne- 
well, Cambridge, Mass.; Corresponding Sec- 
retary, J. Walter Fewkes, Boston, Mass.; 
Treasurer, John H. Hinton, New York, N. 
Y.; Curator, Stewart Culin, Philadelphia, 
Pa. D. G. Brinton. 

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 


Les oscillations 
Membre de 
Carré, 1894. 
This work contains, briefly stated, a clear 

mathematical discussion of the general feat- 

ures of the Faraday-Maxwell electromag- 
netic theory in Hertzian form, and of those 
special problems bearing upon this theory 
which are of particular interest to the ex- 
perimentalist. The mathematical solution 
of these problems is compared carefully with 
the results obtained, principally by the ex- 
periments of Hertz and of other investiga- 


électriques—H. PorNncaRk, 
l'Institut. Paris, George 


JANUARY 25, 1895. ] 


tors who have extended the field of the 
Hertzian method of investigation. But it 
should be observed that the experiments of 
the pre-Hertzian epoch receive their full 
share of attention, as, for instance, the ex- 
periments of Rowland, Réntgen, and others. 

The work will undoubtedly exert a very 
strong influence upon the future develop- 
ments of the electromagnetic theory, and 
deserves, therefore, more than ordinary at- 
tention. This circumstance should, in the 
opinion of the reviewer, excuse the length 
of this review. 

General Theory.—Poincaré’s discussion di- 
vides itself naturally into two parts. In the 
first part an electromagnetic field with con- 
ductors at rest is considered. - In the second 
part the discussion extends to electromag- 
netic fields with conductors in motion. 

The Hertzian method of presentation is 
adopted in preference to the Maxwellian. 
Two distinct differences between these two 
methods should now be pointed out. The 
first difference is essential, and may be 
stated briefly as follows :— 

Hertz described Maxwell’s electromag- 
netic theory as the theory which is contained 
in Maxwell’s fundamental equations; he 
stated, however, very clearly that the sup- 
pression of all direct actions at a distance is 
a characteristic feature of this theory. But 
if it is not a sufficient hypothesis, and if no 
other hypotheses are clearly stated by Max- 
well, then his deduction of the fundamental 
equations which form the heart and soul of 
his theory must necessarily lack in clearness 
and completeness. This is the difficulty 
which Hertz discovered in Maxwell’s syste- 
matic development of his own electromag- 
netic theory, and Hertz obviates this diffi- 
culty by starting from the equations them- 
selves as given, proving their correctness by 
showing that they are in accordance with 
all our experience. 

The second difference is formal only. It 
may be stated briefly as follows: Maxwell 


SCIENCE. 


103 


considered the electrotonic state, discovered 
by Faraday, as of fundamental importance. 
The mathematical expression of this state, 
the vector potential, was considered by him 
as the fundamental function in his mathe- 
matical presentation of Faraday’s view of 
electromagnetic phenomena. Hertz, just 
as Heaviside did some time before him, 
considered the vector potential as a rudi- 
mentary concept which should be carefully 
removed from the completed theory just as 
the scaffolding is removed from a finished 
building. In place of the vector potential 
Hertz substituted the electric and the mag- 
netic force as the fundamental quantities. 
This enabled him to state the fundamental 
equations of Maxwell in a more symmetrical 
form than Maxwell did. 

It seems that it is principally this second, 
the formal, difference which decides Poin- 
caré in favor of the Hertzian method. But 
there is still considerable difference between 
the presentation of the electromagnetic the- 
ory given by Hertz and that which Poin- 
caré gives in this book. For whereas Hertz 
proceeded from the symmetrical form of 
Maxwell’s fundamental equations as given 
and by deducing from them and from several 
clearly defined assumptions the general ex- 
perimentally established laws of electrical 
phenomena proved the correctness of these 
equations, Poincaré deduces them from the 
following experimentally established facts : 

1. The energy of the electromagnetic 
field consists of two parts, one due to the 
action of the electric and the other to that 
of the magnetic forces. They are each 
homogeneous quadratic functions of the 
two fundamental quantities, that is of the 
electric and of the magnetic forces respect- 
ively. This experimental relation defines 
the units of the electric and of the magnetic 
force and also the physical constants of 
the medium, that is the specific inductive 
capacity and the magnetic permeability. 

2. Having defined the meaning of mag- 


104 


netic and of electric induction and of their 
fluxes in terms of the corresponding forces, 
Poincaré states then the fundamental law 
of electromagnetic induction in a closed 
conducting circuit as an experimental fact 
and deduces immediately the first group of 
the Maxwellian equations. This group is 
nothing more nor less than a symbolical 
statement that the law of electromagnetic 
induction is true for every cireuit whether 
it be conducting or not. 

3. Joule’s law is stated as an experi- 
mental fact. In a homogeneous conductor 
the heat generated per unit volume and 
unit time at any point of the conductor is 
proportional to the square of the electric 
force at that point ; the factor of propor- 
tionality is electrical conductivity by defi- 
nition. Another quantity is then introduced 
which is defined as the product of the 
electrical force into the conductivity and 
the name of conduction current is given 
to it. 

By means of these definitions, the prin- 
ciple of conservation of energy, and the first 
group of Maxwellian equations, the second 
group, in the form given by Hertz, is then 
deduced. This completes the Maxwellian 
electromagnetic theory for a homogeneous 
isotropic field in which both the medium 
and the conductors are at rest. 

Poincaré loses no time in commenting 
upon the physical meaning of these equa- 
tions, but proceeds rapidly to Poynting’s 
theorem, which introduces one of the most 
important quantities in the wave-propaga- 
tion of electromagnetic energy. It is the 
radiation vector, as Poincaré calls it. <A 
brief remark, however, prepares the reader 
for the good things that are to come. A 
comparison of Maxwell’s fundamental equa- 
tions with those of Ampére shows them to be 
identical except for rapid electric oscil- 
lations, when the displacement currents 
(Poincaré does not mention this name, but 
only refers to a mathematical symbol) in 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 4. 


the dielectric cease to be negligibly small. 
For these no provision was made in Am- 
pere’s or any other of the older theories. 
Here then is the starting point of the radi- 
cal departure of the Faraday-Maxwell view 
from that of the older theories. Hence the 
study of Hertzian oscillations takes us into 
a new region of electrical phenomena, a re- 
gion entirely unexplored by the older the- 
ories, and first brought before our view by 
the discoveries and surmises of Faraday, by 
Maxwell’s mathematical interpretation of - 
these discoveries and surmises, and by 
Hertz’s confirmation of Faraday and Max- 
well. 

Hertzian Oscillations—It is the study of 
these rapid oscillations which forms the 
subject of the rest of Poincaré’s work under 
consideration. 

Sir William Thomson’s theory of the dis- 
charge of a Leyden jar forms a fitting intro- 
duction to this study. It states clearly the 
essential elements which should be consid- 
ered in the study of electric oscillations. 
They are the period and the decrement. 
The relation of these to the self-induction, 
the electrostatic capacity, and the resistance 
of the circuit are given by this theory and it 
was verified by many experiments, espe- 
cially those of Feddersen, who measured 
the period of these oscillations and also 
their decrement by a photographic method. 
But inasmuch as these oscillations were of a 
comparatively long period, 10? per second, 
they were not apt to furnish a test of the 
Faraday-Maxwell theory. The waves of 
the oscillations studied by Feddersen would 
have been 30 kilometers long and would, 
therefore, have escaped experimental detec- 
tion. 

Hertz was the first to produce very rapid 
oscillations, 10* per second; but since their 
period was too short to be measured di- 
rectly, another method of testing the agree- 
ment between theory and experiment had 
to be devised. This was done by Hertz, 


JANUARY 25, 1895. ] 


who measured the wave length (about 3 
metres in the earliest experiments) of the 
waves produced by these rapid oscillations 
by means of the intensity of the spark in 
the spark-gap of a secondary circuit, the 
so-called resonator. The period was calcu- 
lated by the Thomson formula and dividing 
the wave-length by the period gave the ve- 
locity of propagation, which, according to 
the Faraday-Maxwell theory, should be 
equal to that of light, and that, too, both in 
the immediate vicinity of the conductors 
and in the dielectric. A mere sketch of 
these experiments is given for the purpose 
of outlining the plan of the discussion to be 
carried out in the succeeding chapters of 
the book. Hertz’s method of calculating 
the period of his oscillators is reproduced 
more or less faithfully and the various ob- 
jections against it discussed. 

Theory of Hertzian Oscillations —This dis- 
cussion paves the way gradually for the gen- 
eral theory of the Hertzian oscillator to be 
taken up in the next chapter. This theory 
ean be described as the mathematical dis- 
cussion of the following problem: Given a 
homogeneous dielectric extending indefi- 
nitely. This dielectric is acted upon by a 
steady electrical force applied at a conduc- 
ductor, the oscillator. It is therefore elec- 
triecally strained. Describe the process by 
means of which the dielectric returns to its 
neutral state when the initial electrical 
strain is suddenly released. 

The discussion must necessarily start from 
Maxwell’s fundamental equations. They 
are in the form given by Hertz, partial 
differential equations connecting the com- 
ponents of the electric and of the magnetic 
forces at any point in the dielectric. Hence, 
using the language of the mathematician, 
the solution of the above problem will 
consist in the integration of Maxwell’s dif- 
ferential equations, which, translated into 
the language of the experimental physicist, 
means that the solution will consist in find- 


SCIENCE. 


105 


ing the resulting electrical wave, that is, 
its period, its decrement due to radiation 
and dissipation, and its direction and 
velocity of propagation. It is evident, 
therefore, both to the mathematician and 
to the physicist that the conditions at the 
boundary surfaces separating the dielectric 
from the conductor must first be settled. 
To these Poincaré devotes careful attention. 
A lucid demonstration is given of the theo- 
rems that in the case of rapid oscillations 
there will be: a. Very slight penetration of 
the current into the conductor; b. A 
vanishing of the electric and the magnetic 
force in the interior of the conductor. c. 
Electric force normal and magnetic force 
tangential to the surface of the conductor, 
ete. 

Then follows a beautiful mathematical 
solution of the general problem mentioned 
above. It is this: The law of distribution 
of the conduction current on the oscillator 
being given the electric and magnetic force, 
and therefore the state of the wave, at any 
point in the dielectric and at any moment 
can be calculated by a simple differentiation 
of a quantity called the vector potential. 
This quantity is determined from the cur- 
rent distribution in a manner which is the 
same as that employed in the calculation of 
the electrostatic potential from the distribu- 
tion of the electrical charge, but on the sup- 
position that the force between the various 
points of the dielectric and the surface of 
the oscillator is propagated with the velocity 
of light. The value of this solution rests 
on the fact that the law of distribution of 
the conduction current can be closely esti- 
mated in some oscillators, as, for instance, 
in the case of Blondlot’s oscillator consisting 
of a wire bent so as to form a rectangle in 
one of whose sides a small plate condenser 
is interposed. A special form of this vector 
potential applicable to oscillators whose 
surface is that of revolution is deduced and 
applied to Lodge’s spherical oscillator, 


106 


whose oscillations are due to a sudden re- 
lease of a uniform electrostatic field. The 
solution of this case is complete. The actual 
values of both the period and the decrement 
are expressed in terms of the radius of the 
sphere. The smallness of the period and 
the exceedingly rapid rate of decay of the 
wave are striking. 

This theory throws much light upon 
Hertz’s method of calculating the period of 
an oscillator. Poincaré applies it also to 
the explanation of the Hertzian method of 
calculating the decrement due to electrical 
radiation and the force of Poynting’s 
theorem is exhibited in a masterly manner, 
although, of course, the calculation for more 
general cases is not as complete as that for 
Lodge’s oscillator. More experimental 
guidance is necessary and will not be sought 
in vain in subsequent chapters. 

Phenomena of Electrical Resonance.— Wave 
Propagation along a Wire.—Having described 
Hertz’s method of calculating the period 
and the decrement, Poincaré discusses next 
some of the more important experimental 
researches dealing with these two principal 
characteristics of an oscillating system. 
The earliest method employed in researches 
of this class is that devised by Hertz. A 
secondary circuit, the resonator, consisting 
of a turn of wire with an adjustable spark 
gap is brought into the inductive action of 
the oscillator. The length and intensity of 
the induced spark measures the inductive 
effect between the two. When the periods 
of the two are equal the effect is a maxi- 
mum; they are then in resonance. But 
experiment reveals the fact that the reson- 
ance effect is not as pronounced as in the 
case of acoustical resonance. Sarasin and 
de la Rive (Arch. des sciences phys. 23, p. 
1138; 23, p. 557, Généve, 1890) inferred from 
this that the oscillator sends forth a com- 
plex wave which, if analyzed in the manner 
of a ray of sunlight, would give a contin- 
uous spectrum. Poincaré, guided by a 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 4. 


carefully worked general theory of reson- 
ance, ascribes the absence of a strong reson- 
ance effect to the large decrement of the 
oscillator. An appeal is then made to ex- 
periments bearing on this point and the 
subject of stationary waves in long wires is 
taken up. Such waves are produced in 
the same way as in the case of sound waves. 
When a train of electrical waves travels 
along a wire and the leading wave reaches 
the end of the wire it is reflected there and 
by the interference between the direct and 
the reflected waves stationary waves are 
formed. Hertz’s theory of propagation of 
these waves is given, showing that their 
velocity is the same all along the wire and 
equal to that of light for all wave lengths. 
If the view of Sarasin and de la Rive be 
correct then stationary electrical waves 
should have no pronounced nodes and yven- 
tral seements and, therefore, a resonator 
which, unlike the oscillator, gives a simple 
wave of definite periodicity will pick out of 
the stationary waves that component only 
which is in resonance with it. In other 
words, every resonator, within large limits, 
will respond to stationary waves and if moy- 
ed along a wire which is the seat of such 
waves its spark will rise and fall in intensity 
every time the resonator passes by a node or 
a ventral segment of that component con- 
tained in the complex stationary wave with 
which it is in resonance. It measures, 
therefore, the wave length corresponding to 
its own period and not that corresponding 
to the period of the oscillator. This wave 
length divided by the caleulated period of 
the vibrator will give, therefore, a wrong 
velocity of propagation. A mistake of this 
kind was suspected in Hertz’s earliest ex- 
periments by which he obtained a different 
velocity of propagation along a wire from 
that in the dielectric. Sarazin and de la 
Rive called this phenomenon, first observed 
by them, the phenomenon of multiple reson- 
ance. It is undoubtedly one of the most 


JANUARY 25, 1895.] 


important discoveries in the region of Hert- 
zian oscillations. It was probably (1) Poin- 
earé (his modesty prevents him from men- 
tioning this fact) who first recognized its 
full value and detected its true meaning. 
He devotes a large part of the present work 
to the discussion of this phenomenon and 
every serious student will appreciate heart- 
ily this very interesting feature of the noble 
work before us. Briefly stated Poincaré’s 
explanation of multiple resonance is this. 
Ordinarily the oscillator has a large decre- 
ment; that of the resonator is very small, 
according to the results of Bjerkness’ experi- 
ments. The train of waves excited in a 
long wire by the inductive action of an os- 
cillator after each disruptive discharge 
consists of a big wave followed by a small 
number of waves of very rapidly decreasing 
amplitude. Such a train of waves is evi- 
dently not capable of forming interference 
waves after reflection. Their effect upon 
the resonator is practically the same as that 
of a single wave, giving the resonator an 
impulse when passing it on its way toward 
the end of the long wire and another im- 
pulse when it returns after reflection. 
Hence, if the time interval between these 
two impulses is a multiple of the period of 
the resonator the resulting oscillation in 
the resonator will be stronger than other- 
wise. If, therefore, the resonator be moved 


_ along the long wire its oscillations will vary, 


passing through a maximum at regular in- 
tervals; the distance between these intervals 
being equal to a wave length correspond- 
ing to the period of the resonator. But, 
obviously, the maxima will be most clearly 
pronounced when the resonator is in reson- 


(*) It is no more than just that a strong emphasis 
should be put upon the fact that Bjerkness independ- 
ently (Wied. Ann. 44 p. 74 and p. 92, July, 1891) 
worked out the same theory and proved it by experi- 
ment at about the same time that Poincaré first pub- 
lished his theory (Arch. des sciences phys. 25 p. 608, 
Généve 15 Juin, 1891). 


SCIENCE. 


LOT 


ance with the oscillator. This is especially 
true in the case of oscillators possessing a 
less strongly developed decrement, as for 
instance, Blondlot’s oscillator. This ex- 
planation is illustrated by a mathematical 
discussion of rare elegance and simplicity. 
Blondlot’s experiments (Jour. de Phys. 2 
serie t. X., p. 549) are then carefully de- 
scribed and the close agreement between 
them, especially as regards the velocity of 
propagation along conducting wires, and 
the above theory pointed out. 

Attenuation of Waves—An important feat- 
ure connected with wave propagation of 
Hertzian oscillations along wires was 
strongly emphasized by these experiments, 
namely, the diminution of the wave ampli- 
tude with the distance passed over. This 
has long since given Mr. Oliver Heaviside 
many an anxious thought. Poincaré is evi- 
dently not aware of that and he attacks the 
problem with just as much of his well- 
known mathematical vigour as if its solution 
had not been given long ago by Mr. Heavi- 
side. (Electr. Papers, Vol. II., p. 39, etc.) 
A few bold strokes of Poinearé’s unerring 
pen disclose the interesting fact that the at- 
tenuation is due, principally, to distributed 
capacity of the wire, since the decrement, 
calculated by Poynting’s theorem, is shown 
to be inversely proportional to the diameter 
of the wire. Experimental evidence bear- 
ing upon this point is then reviewed. In 
these experiments the employment of the 
resonator had to be discarded and the in- 
tensity of the wave at various points of the 
Various methods 
were employed in these experiments. The 
most important among them are the follow- 


wire measured directly. 


ing :— 

a. Hertz’s method (Wied. Ann, 42, p. 
407, 1891) of measuring the intensity of the 
wave at any point of a long wire by the 
mechanical force exerted upon another small 
conductor suspended in the vicinity of the 


wire. This method permits a study of the 


108 


distribution of the magnetic and the elec- 
tric force along the wire separately. 

b. The method of Bjerkness (Wied. Ann. 
44, p. 74) in which two symmetrically situ- 
ated points of a long loop are connected to 
the quadrants of a small electrometer and 
the difference of potential measured. 

e. The thermoelectric method [first sug- 
gested by Klemencic (Wied. Ann. 42, p. 
416) ] employed by D. E. Jones (Rep. Brit. 
Assoe., 1891, p. 561-562). The intensity 
of the wave at any point of the wire is 
measured by the thermoelectric effect pro- 
duced in a thermopile placed in the imme- 
diate vicinity of that point. 

d. The bolometric method first employed 
by Rubens and Ritter (Wied. Ann. 40, p. 
55, 1890). 

e. Perot’s micrometric spark gap method 
(C. R. t. CXIV., p. 165) by which the in- 
tensity of the wave at any point is measured 
by the maximum length of the spark gap 
when attached to the wire at that point. 

The theory of each method is discussed 
briefly but quite completely, and it is shown 
very clearly that the results of the experi- 
mental investigations cited above are in 
good agreement with the theory and that 
they all lead to the conclusion that the os- 
cillations of the oscillator produce simple 
waves, possessing a rapid rate of decay. 
This is in accordance with Poincaré’s view 
of multiple resonance. 

Bjerkness’ experimental method (Wied. 
Ann. 40, p. 94, 1891) of determining the 
decrement of a resonator and Poincaré’s the- 
ory of it are then given and itis shown that 
this decrement is a hundred times smaller 
than that of the oscillator. 

A brief theoretical discussion of the 
eurves plotted by Perot from the experi- 
ments cited above closes this exceedingly 
interesting and instructive part of the 
book. 

It is pointed out now that the experi- 
ments so far discussed do not decide the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. I. No. 4. 


superiority of the Maxwellian theory over 
the older theories because it can be and has . 
been predicted by older theories (Kirch- 
hoff, Abhandl. p. 146) that the velocity of ~ 
propagation of electromagnetic disturb- 
ances along a long straight wire suspended 
in air is the same as the velocity of light. 
A review of some of the older experiments 
in this direction is then given. 

Direct Determination of the Velocity of Propa- 
gation along Conducting Wires——The earliest 
experiments carried out according to meth- 
ods against which no serious objections 
could be raised were those of Fizeau and 
Gounelle (1850) over telegraph lines be- 
tween Paris and Amiens, a distance of 314 
kilometers. The method was similar to 
that employed by Fizeau in the determina- 
nation of the velocity of light. The mean 
velocity was found to be 10° kilometers per 
second for iron wire and 18X10? kilome- 
ters per second for copper wire. They em- 
ployed signals of, comparatively speaking, 
long duration, and Poincaré shows by a ref- 
erence to well known theoretical relations 
that in this case there is a strong distortion 
of the signals, so that a disturbance starting 
in form of a short wave returns, after passing 
over the whole line, in form of a more or 
less steep wave front followed by a long tail. 
This made the measurements very uncertain 
and the velocity of propagation necessarily 
much smaller than it ought to have been. 
The experiments of Siemens in 1875 avoided 
this objection, in a measure, by employ- 
ing the disruptive discharge of a Leyden 
jar for the purpose of starting an electri- 
eal disturbance on lines of varying length, 
between about 7 and 25 kilometers. The 
velocity found was in several cases nearly 
250,000 kilometers for iron wire. Here 
again the velocity came out smaller than 
that of light and for obvious reasons. 

The last and in all respects most success- 
ful direct determination of the velocity of 
propagation was that recently carried out by 


JANUARY 25, 1895.] 


Blondlot (C. R., 117, p. 548; 1893). The sig- 
nals were sent over a wire of about one kilo- 
meter in length and another of about 1.8 
kilometers. In the first case the mean ve- 
locity was found equal to 293,000 and in the 
second to 298,000 kilometers per second 
which is very close to the velocity of light. 
Poincaré proceeds now to the discussion of 
the most severe test of the Maxwellian the- 
ory, that is the propagation of electromag- 
netic waves through dielectrics. 
M. I. Puri. 
CoLUMBIA COLLEGE. 


( To be Concluded. ) 


Model Engine Construction —J. ALEXANDER. 
—New York and London, Whitaker & 
Co. 1894. Tllustrated by 21 sheets of 
drawings and 59 engravings in the text. 
12mo, pp. viii+ 324. Price, $3.00. 

This little book is an excellent treatise on 
the construction of models of stationary 
locomotive and marine engines, and con- 
tains also instructions for building one 
form of hot-air engine. It is written by an 
author evidently familiar with his subject, 
and the text and illustrations are such as 
will serve the purpose of both artificer and 
amateur, desiring to produce model repre- 
sentations of real working engines of stand- 
ard forms. Bright young mechanics will 
find here business-like statements of details 
of drawing, pattern-making, and finishing 
such models; and, if heedfully complied 
with, these instructions will result in the 
production of steam-engines which will actu- 
ally ‘steam,’ and which will delight the 
heart of the mechanician. The drawings 
are all representative of British practice, 
and, in some respects, therefore, quite dif- 
ferent from familiar practice in the United 
States; but British practice is ‘not so bad,’ 
after all, and many old mechanies, and prob- 
ably every amateur, will be able to profit 
greatly by the careful study of this little 
work. ee Ee. ‘T. 


SCIENCE. 


109 


NOTES. 
PERSONAL. 

Kari Hansnorer, Professor in the Uni- 
versity of Munich, and well known through 
his researches in crystallography and other 
branches of mineralogy, has died at Munich 
at the age of fifty-four. 

Pror. G. Lewirzky has been appointed 
Director of the Observatory in Dorpat, and 
Dr. L. Sturve succeeds Professor Lewitzky 
at Charkow. 

Pror. F. Konirauscu, of Strassburg, was 
proposed as the successor of Hertz at Ber- 
lin, but the death of Helmholtz interven- 
ing he will now succeed the latter in the 
Directorship of the Physico-Technical In- 
stitute. 

GENERAL. 

Tue discontinuation of the Index Medicus 
is threatened unless sufficient subscriptions 
are secured before February 1 to defray the 
costs of publication. 

Accorp1nc to the Publishers’ Circular there 
were 5,300 new books and 1,185 new editions 
published in Great Britain during 1895, 203 
more than during 1894. Of these, 98 new 
books and 30 new editions are placed under 
the heading ‘ Arts, Sciences and Illustrated 
Works.’ 

Mr. GrorcE F. Kunz, Special Agent, Di- 
vision of Mining Statistics and Technology, 
U.S. Geological Survey, has sent letters ask- 
ing for imformation concerning the fresh- 
water pearl fisheries, and concerning pre- 
cious and ornamental stones of the United 
States. 

Pror. 8. P. Lanauey, Secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution, has addressed a 
letter to the competitors for the Hodgkins 
Fund Prizes of $10,000, of $2,000, and of 
$1,000, stating that in view of the very 
large number of competitors, of the delay 
which will be necessarily caused by the in- 
tended careful examination, and of the 
futher time which may be required to con- 


110 


sult a European Advisory Committee, if one 
be appointed, it is announced that authors 
are now at liberty to publish these treatises 
or essays without prejudice to their interest 
as competitors. 

CONGRESSES. 


Tue sixth International Geographical 
Congress will be held at London, on July 
26, 1895, and contmue until August 3. 
There will be an extensive exhibition in 
connection with the congress. 


NEW AND FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS. 


W. B. Saunprers, Philadelphia, has in 
preparation An American Text-book of Physio- 
logy, by Henry P. Bowditch, M. D., John G. 
Curtis, M. D., Henry H. Donaldson, Ph. D., 
William H. Howell, M. D., Frederic 8. Lee, 
Ph. D., Warren P. Lombard, M. D., Gra- 
ham Lusk, Ph. D., Edward T. Reichert, M. 
D., and Joseph W. Warren, M. D., with 
William H. Howell, Ph. D., M. D,. as 
Editor. 

Tue idea of holding International Mathe- 
matical Congresses is crystallizing into 
shape. Prof. Vassilief, of Kazan, has sug- 
gested an assembly of mathematicians in 
1896, in order to definitely decide the or- 
ganization of such congresses. The matter 
was pushed a little further at the Vienna 
meeting of the Deutsche Mathematiker 
Vereinigung, in September last, when it was 
unanimously resolved that the Committee of 
the Mathematical Union should take part 
in framing the necessary arrangements; and 
the Mathematical Section of the French 
Association for the Advancement of Science 
have also expressed their support of the 
scheme. A circular now informs us that 
the Editors of the Intermédiare will be glad 
to receive the names of mathematicians who 
are in favor of international meetings of 
the kind suggested. M. C. A. Laisant’s ad- 
dress is 162 Avenue Victor-Hugo, Paris; 
and that of M. E. Lemoine, 5 rue Littré.— 
Nature. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 4. 


Ferix Atcan has just issued the first part 
(extending as far as Aliment only) of an 
elaborate Dictionnaire de Physiologie, edited 
by M. Charles Richet with the codperation 
of the leading French physiologists. The 
work is expected to contain about 5,000 
pages, and to be completed in fifteen parts 
or five volumes. 

Gixn & Co. announce for publication in 
February Molecules and the Molecular Theory 
of Matter, by A. D. Risteen. 

Appieton & Co. announce The Dawn of 
Civilization, by Prof. Maspero, and The Pyg- 
mies, translated from the French of A. de 
Quatrefages, by Prof. Frederick Starr. 

WuitrAker & Co. are publishing this year 
a weekly journal of science combining The 
Technical World and Science and Art. 

W. EnGEeLMANN has begun the publication 
of an Archiv fiir Entwickelungsmechamk der 
Organismen, edited by Dr. W. Roux. 

THE Rose Polytechnic Institute of Terre 
Haute, Ind., has begun the publication of 
a series of bulletins of which the first num- 
ber is Physical Units, by Prof. Thomas Gray. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN 
MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY. 

THE annual meeting of the American 
Mathematical Society was held Friday af- 
ternoon, December 28th, at Columbia Col- 
lege, New York. In the absence of the 
president, Dr. Emory McClintock, and of 
the vice president, Dr. G. W. Hill, Professor 
R. 8. Woodward, of Columbia College, pre- 
sided. Among those present were Professor 
Simon Newcomb, Professor J. M. Van 
Vieck, Professor Henry Taber, Professor 
Mansfield Merriman, Professor H. D. 
Thompson, Professor Mary W. Whitney, 
Dr. E. L. Stabler, Mr. P. A. Lambert, Mr. 
Rk. A. Roberts, Dr. Charlton T. Lewis, Mr. 
Gustave Legras, Professor J. H. Van Am- 
ringe, Professor Thomas §. Fiske, Dr. E. M. 


= 


Chariton T. Lewis. 


» papers. were also read: 


JANUARY 25, 1895.] 


Blake and Mr. G. H. Ling. In the secre- 
tary’s report, it was stated that the total 
membership of the Society was 251. The 
council and officers elected for 1895 were as 
follows: President, Dr. George W. Hill; 
Vice President, Professor Hubert A. New- 
ton; Secretary, Professor Thomas §. Fiske ; 
Treasurer, Professor R. 8. Woodward; Li- 
brarian, Dr. E. L. Stabler; Committee of 
Publication, Professor Thomas §S. Fiske, 
Professor Alexander Ziwet, Professor Frank 
Morley ; Other Members of the Council, 
Professor Thomas Craig, Dr. Emory Me- 
Clintock, Professor Mansfield Merriman, 
Professor Henry B. Fine, Professor E. Has- 
tings Moore, Professor Ormond Stone, Pro- 
fessor Simon Newcomb, Professor Charlotte 
Angas Scott, Professor Henry S. White. 

The address of the retiring president, Dr. 
McClintock, was read to the Society by Dr. 
It was entitled The 
Past and Future of the Society. The following 
On a Certain Class 
of Canonical Forms, by Mr. Ralph A. Roberts; 
A New Definition of the Hyperbolic Functions, 
by Professor Mellen W. Haskell. 

Tuomas §. Fiske, Secretary. 
CoLuMBIA COLLEGE. 


IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 

Ninth annual session, Des Moines, Iowa, 
December 27 and 28, 1894. 

Thursday Morning, December 27. 

1. Inter-Lesial Till near Sioux Cit, y: J. E. 
Todd and H. Foster Bain. 

2. Pre-Glacial Elevation of Iowa. 3. The 
Central Iowa Section of the Mississippian Series : 
H. Foster Bain. 

4. Secular Decay of Granitic Rocks. 5. Struct- 
ure of Paleozoic Echinoids. 6. Opinions Con- 
cerning the Age of the Sioux Quartzite. 7. Il- 
lustrations of Glacial Planing in Iowa : Charles 
R. Keyes. 

8. Record of the Grinnell Deep Boring. 9. 
The Topaz Crystals of Thomas Mountain, Utah : 
Arthur J. Jones. 


SCIENCE. 


111 


10. The Lansing Lead Mines : A. G. Leon- 
ard. 

11. How Old is the Mississippi? 12. On 
the Formation of the Flint Beds of the Burling- 
ton Limestones. 13. Coincidence of Present 
and Pre-Glacial Drainage Systems in Extreme 
Southeastern Iowa. 14. Extension of the Illi- 
nois Lobe of the Great Ice Sheet into ae 15. 
Glacial Markings in Southeastern Iowa: F. M. 
Fultz. 

16. The oe Delaware 
County, Iowa. - On Some Supposed Devon- 
tan Outliers in ae County, Iowa: S. 
Calvin. 

18. On the Occurrence of Megalomus Cana- 
dense in the LeClaire Beds at Port ee Til. 

19. Geological Section of Y. M. C. A. Ar- 
tesian Well at Cedar Rapids, Iowa: W ee 
H. Norton. 


Shales in 


Thursday Afternoon. 


20. President’s Address: Some Recent Work 
on the Theory of Solutions: L. W. Andrews. 

21. Report of Committee on State Fauna: 
C. C. Nutting. 

22. A New Method of Studying the Magnetic 
Properties of Iron. 23. On the Design of 
Transformers and Alternating Current Motors. 
24. Note on a Phenomenon of Diffraction in 
Sound: W.S. Franklin. 

25. A Kymograph and its Use: W.S.Windle. 

26. The Volatility of Mercurie Chloride: A. 
C. Page. 

27. Notes on Applying Pollen in the Cross- 
breeding of Plants: N. E. Hansen. 


Friday Morning, December 28. 


28. Changes that Oceur in the Ripening of 
Indian Corn: C. F. Curtiss. 

29. Methods of Soil Analysis: G. E. Patrick. 

30. The Coal Supplies of Polk County, Iowa : 
Floyd Davis. 

31. A Study of the Nitrogen Compounds of 
the Soil: D. B. Bisbee. 

32. A Chemical Study of Honey: W. H 
Heileman. 


112 


33. Notes from the Chemical Laboratory, Towa 

Agricultural College, 1894: A. A. Bennett. 
Friday Afternoon. 

34. Effects of Heat on the Germination of 
Corn and Corn Smut: F. C. Stewart. 

35. A General Discussion of the Family 
Psyllidee, with Descriptions of New Species found 
at Ames, Iowa: C. W. Mally. 

36. New Species of Thripide: Alice M. 
Beach. 

37. Studies of Migration of Certain Aphidi- 
dee : Herbert Osborn and F. Atwood Sirrine. 

38. Description of a Species of Aphid Occur- 
ring on Carex: F. Atwood Sirrine. 

39. The Pollination of Cucurbits—by title: 
L. H. Pammel and Alice M. Beach. 

40. Notes on the Pollination of Some Flowers : 
Alice M. Beach. 

41. On the Migration of Some Weeds. 42. 
Notes on Fungus Diseases of Plants at Ames, 
Towa, 1894—by title. 43. Notes on the Flora 
of Western Iowa—by title: L. H. Pammel. 

44. The Action of Antiseptics and Disinfect- 
ants on Some Micro-organisms: LL. H. Pam- 
mel and O. H. Pagelsen. 

45. Notes on a Micrococcus which Colors Milk 
Blue: Li. H. Pammel and Robert Combs. 

46. On the Structure of the Testa of Poly- 
gonacee: Kmma Sirrine. 

47. A Study of the Glands in Hoptree (Ptelea 
Trifoliata.) : Cassie M. Bigelow. 

48. Graphic Representation of the Properties 
of the Elements. 49. Strata Passed in Sinking 
a Well at Sidney: T. Proctor Hall. 

50. Notes on the Minerals of Webster County : 
Arthur C. Spencer. 

51. Some Notes on the Reptiles of Southeastern 
Towa. 52. Bones Found in a Cave in Louisa 
County. 53. Mastodon and Mammoth Remains 
in Southeastern Iowa: A. H. Conrad. 

54. Cement Clays in Iowa. 55. Conclusions 
as to the thickness of the Upper Carboniferous in 
Southwestern Iowa: E. H. Lonsdale. 

56. A Geographical and Synonymie Catalogue 
of the Unionide of the Mississippi Valley: by 
title, R. Ellsworth Call. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Voz. I. No. 4. 


Officers for 1895 were elected as follows : 

President, H. W. Norris. 

Ist Vice President, C. R. Krys. 

2d Vice President, T. P. Hau. F 

Secretary- Treasurer, HERBERT OSBORN. 

Tnbrarian, H. Fostrr Bar. 

Executive Committee, Elective Members: W. 
H. Norton, N. E. Hansen and T. H. 
McBriper. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, JAN. 

Late Glacial or Champlain Subsidence and Re- 
elevation of the St. Lawrence River Basin: 
By W. UpHam. 

Automatic Mercury Vacuum Pump: By M. I. 
PUPIN. 

Graphical Thermodynamics: By R. DE SAus- 
SURE. 

Application of the Schroeder-Le Chatelier Law 
of Solubility to Solutions of Salts in Organie 
Liquids: By C. EB. LinEBARGER. 

Preliminary Notice of the Plymouth Meteorite : 
By H. A. Warp. 

Scientific Intelligence. 


NEW BOOKS. 


Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnet- 
ism. SyLVANUS P. THompson. New York 
and London, Macmillan & Co. 1895. 
Pp. xv +628. $1.40. 


Popular Scientifie Lectures. Ernst Mac. 


Translated by J. McCormack. Chicago, 
The Open Court Publishing Co. 1895. 
Pp. 318. $1.00. 

Laboratory Exercises in Botany. Epson 8. 


Bastin. Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders. 
1885. Pp. 540. $2.50. 

The Aeronautical Annual. Edited by JAmEs 
Means. Boston, W. B. Clarke & Co. 
1895. Pp. 172. 

Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology. H. L. Rus- 
SELL. Madison, Wis., Published by the 
Author. 1894. Pp. vit 186. 


SGIE NCE. 


New SERIES. 
VoL. I. No.5. 


Fripay, FrEBRuARY 


1, 1895. 


SINGLE COPIEs, 15 c's. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


MATHEMATICS. 


BACHMANN, PAuL, Zahlentheorie. Versuch e. 
Gesammtdarstellung dieser Wissenschaft in ihren 
Haupttheilen. 2. Thl. Die analytische Zahlentheorie. 
gr 8. Mk. 12. 

GRASSMANN’S, HM., Gesammelte mathematische 
und physikalische Werke. Auf Veranlassung der 
mathematisch-physikalischen Klasse der kénigl. siich- 
sischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften und unter 
Mitwirkung von Jul. Liiroth, Ed. Study, Just. Grass- 
mann, Hm. Grassman Md. J., G. Scheffers herausge- 
geben von F. Engel. I. Bd. 1. Thl. Die Ausdeh- 
nungslehre von 1844 und die geometrische Analyse. 
a 8. 35 Fig. Mk. 12. 

Cantor, Mor., Vorlesungen tib. Geschichte der 
Mathematik. 3. Bd. Vom. J. 1668 bis zum J. 
1759. 1. Abtlg. Die Zeit von 1668 bis 1699. gr. 8°. 
Mk. 6. 


HeEFTeR, Pror. Dr. LoTHAR. Einleitung in die 
Theorie der linearen Differentialgleichungen mit 
einer unabhingigen Variablen. Mit 3 Figuren im 
Texte. gr. 8°. Mk. 6. 

THOMAE, JoH. Die Kegelschnitte in rein-projek- 
tiver Behandlung. Mit in den Text eingedruckten 
Holzschnitten und 16 lithographierten Figurenta- 
feln. gr. 8°. Mk. 6. 


ASTRONOMY. 


GALLE, J. G. Verzeichnis der Elemente der 
bisher berechneten Cometenbahnen, nebst Anmer- 
kungen und Literatur-Nachweisen, neu bearbeitet, 
ergiinzt und fortgesetzt bis zam Jahre 1894. Mk. 12. 

Publikationen des astrophysikalischen Observator- 
iums zu Potsdam. Herausgegeben von H. C. Vogel. 
7 32. X. Bd. 1. Stiick. 4° Mit 30 Taf. Mk. 


GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 


Lévy, A. M. Etude sur la détermination des feld- 
spaths dans les plaques minces au point de vue de la 
classification des roches. 8°. <Avee 8 pl. col. et 9 fig. 
Fr. 7; 50c. 

Hintze, C. Handbuch der Mineralogie. 
Mit 56 Abbildgn. Mk. 5. 

WALTHER, Prof. Johs, Einleitung in die Geologie 
als historische Wissenschaft. ID. (Schluss-) Thl. 
Lithogenesis der Gegenwart. Beobachtungen iib die 
Bildg. der Gesteine an der heut. Erdoberfliiche. 
gr. 8°. m. 8 Abbildgn. Mk. 13. 


€ 


8. Lfg. 


| 


ZOOLOGY. 


_BERGH, DR. R. S., Vorlesungen iiber die Zelle und 
die einfachen Gewebe des tierischen Kérpers. Mit 
einem Anhang: Technische Anleitung zu einfachen 
histologischen Untersuchungen. Mit 138 Figuren im 
Texte. gr. 8°. Mk. 7. ‘ 

Boas, Dr. J. E. v., Lehrbuch der Zodlogie. 
Aufl. gr. 8°. Mk. 10; geb. Mk. 11. 

DE GRossoUVRE, A. Recherches sur la craie 
supérieure. 2° partie. Paléontologie: Les ammonites 


2. 


de la craie supérieure. 4°. Avec 39 fig. et atlas de 
39 pl. Fr. 20. 

LINNAEI, Caroli, systema naturae. Regnum ani- 
male. Ed. X. 1758, cura societatis Zodlogiacae ger- 
manicae iterum edita. gr. 8°. Mk. 10;—Einbd. Mk. 
2.20. 


HALLER, B. Studien tiber docoglosse und rhipido- 
glosse Prosobranchier nebst Bemerkungen tiber die 
phyletischen Beziehungen der Mollusken unterein- 
ander. 4°. Mit 6 Textfig. u. 12 Taf. Mk. 32. 

Poporr, DEMETRIUS. Die Dottersack-Getiisse der 
Huhnes. Mit 12 lithographischen Tafeln in Farben- 
druck und 12 lithographierten Tafel-Erklirungsblit- 
tern. 4° Mk. 27.— 


Scumipt, Apr. Atlas der Diatomaceen-Kunde. 
In Verbindung mit Griindler, Grunow, Janisch und 
Witt herausgegeben. 48. u. 49. Heft. Fol. 8 Taf. 
Mit. 8 Bl. Erklirgn. Mk. 6. 

SEMON, PrRor. Dr. RICHARD. Zodlogische Forsch- 
ungsreisen in Australien und dem malayischen Ar- 
chipel. Mit Unterstiitzung des Herrn Dr. Paul von 
Ritter ausgefiihrt in den Jahren 1891-1893. Erster 
Band. Ceratodus. Erste Lieferung. Mit 8 lito- 
graphischen Tafeln und 2 Abbildungen im Texte. 
(Text und Atlas.) gr. 4°. Mk. 20. 


BOTANY. 


ENGLER, A., und K. PRANTL. Die natiirlichen 
Pflanzenfamilien nebst ihren Gattungen und wich- 
tigeren Arten, insbesondere den Nutzpflanzen, unter 
Mitwirkung zahlreicher hervorragender Fachgelehr- 
ten begriindet von A. E. und K. P., fortgesetzt von 
A. Engler. III. Tl. 6. Abtlg. 8° Mit 592 Ein- 
zelbildern in 87 Fig. sowie Abteilungs-Register. 
Subskr.-Pr. Mk. 8; Einzelpr. Mk. 16. 

LINDEN, L. Les Orchidées exotiques et leurs cul- 
ture en Europe. Avec nombr. fig. Fr. 25. 

ScHUMANN, Kust. Prof. Dr. K., Lehrbuch der sys- 
tematischen Botanik, Phytopaliiontologie u. Phyto- 
geographie. gr. 8°. 193 Fig. u. 1 farb. Karte. Mk. 16. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT, 
810 Broadway, New York. 


es 


i SCIENCE.—ADVERTISEMENTS. 


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Todel Engine Construction. 


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The Theory of Sound. 

By Lorp RAYLEIGH, Sc. D., F. R. S., ete., in 2 
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Electrical Papers. 


By OLIVER HEAVISIDE. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $7.00. 


A Treatise on the [leasurement of Elec= 
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Elementary Lessons in Electricity and 
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Lectures on Human and Animal Psy= 
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A Laboratory Manual of Physics and 
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Arranged and Edited by EpDwArD L. NICHOLs, 
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By WILHELM OSTWALD, Professor of Chemistry in 
the University of Leipzig. Translated, with the 
Author’s sanction, by JAMES WALKER, D.Sc., Ph.D., 
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Edited by HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN, Sc.D., Da 
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I. From the Greeks to Darwin. By Henry 
FAIRFIELD OSBORN, Sc.D. 8vo, Buckram, 
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tebrates. By ARTHUR WILLEY, B.Sc., 
Tutor in Biology, Columbia College. With 
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Edition, edited by ARTHUR SMITHELLS, B.Sc. 
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Essays in Historical Chemistry. 


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MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, 


SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL CoMMITTEE : S. NEwcomB, Mathematics ; R. S 
tronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Hegeaceing « 


. WOODWARD, Mechanics ; E. C. PICKERING, As- 
TRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 


JOsEPH LE ConTE, Geology; W. M. DAvis, Physiography; 0. C. MArsu, Paleontology; W. K. 
BROOKS, Invertebrate Zodlogy ; C. HART MERRIAM, Vertebrate Zodlogy ; N. L. BRITTON, 
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Fripay, Fesruary 1, 1895. 


CONTENTS: 
Proceedings of the American Physiological Society : 
WARREN P. LoMBARD, Secretary ............ 113 
An Inherent Error in the Views of Galton and Weis- 
mann on Variation: W.K. BROOKS.......... 121 
Current Notes on Anthropology (IIT.): D. G. BRIN- 
0 ons a5 ee oc Joc SSeteoeae 126 
Tehébychev: GEORGE BRUCE HALSTED ......... 129 
moventajie Literature — ......c0caccacccerescsces 131 


Poincaré’s Les oscillations électriques (Gir) 
M. I. Pupin. Ewing's The Steam Engine: 
R. H. Tuurston. Rudorff’s Chemical Analy- 
sis: EDWARD HART. 

Notes and News :— ......-.+2005 2 Se 137 
Paleobotany ; A Topographical Atlas ; Bibliog J- 
raphy of American Botany ; General. 

Scientific Journals: ... 

New Books ..... Bile aniei<i~ ne Rate wisl d's 'o\s.0/e/0 140 


seen eee 


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McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

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should be sent to the Publisher of SCIENCE, 41 East 49th St., 
New York, or Lancaster, Pa. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHYSIOLO- 
GICAL SOCIETY. 


The American Physiological Society held 
its Seventh Annual Meeting in Baltimore, 
Md., December 27th and 28th, 1894. The 
mornings were devoted to the reading of 
papers, and the afternoons to demonstra- 
tions and to visiting the laboratories of 
Johns Hopkins University. The success of 
the meeting was largely due to the hospi- 
tality of Johns Hopkins University, the 
University Club and friends of the Society 
residing in Baltimore. 


ELECTION OF NEW MEMBERS. 

Dr. A. C. Aszor, First Assistant at the 
Laboratory of Hygiene, University of Penn- 
sylvania. 

Dr. G. Cart Huser, Assistant Professor 
of Histology and Embryology at the Uni- 
versity of Michigan. 

Dr. P. A. LEVENE, of New York City. 

Dr. Franz Prarr, of Boston. 

ELECTION OF THE COUNCIL FOR 1894-95. 

H. P. Bownrrcu, President. 

R. H. Carrrenden. 

W. H. Howe t. 

F. S. Lee, Secretary and Treasurer. 

W. P. Lomparp. 

Reading of Papers and Demonstrations 
by Invited Guests and Members of the So- 
ciety. 

On the Occurrence of Diethyl Sulphide in the 
Urine of the Dog, with a Demonstration of 
Reaction for the Detection of Alkylsulphides 
of the Series (CyHon +1) 9S. etd. ABR. 
Dr. Abel demonstrated in a series of re- 

actions, many of them new, that the vola- 

tile, odoriferous compound that is liberated 
when dog’s urine is treated with alka- 
lies is ethyl sulphide (C)H;)25, and also 
that the organic sulphides of the series 

(CyHon+1)2S may readily be detected, 

wherever found, with the help of his reac- 

tions. 

On the Use of the Trichloride of Acetonie Acid 
as Anesthetic for the Laboratory, with Some 


114 
Account of its Fate. J. J. ApEn and T. B. 
ALDRICH. 

Drs. Abel and Aldrich gave an experi- 
mental demonstration of the use of the 
solid trichloride of acetonic acid of Will- 
gerodt, the so-called acetone chloroform, as 
an anesthetic for the laboratory, with an 
account of its physiological action and of 
its fate, from a chemical point of view, in 
the economy. 

Demonstration of Instances of Experimental 
Cachexia Tyreopriva in Dogs. J. J. ABEL 
and A. C. CRAWFORD. 

Drs. Abel and Crawford showed a number 
of dogs whose thyroid glands had been re- 
moved. They also gave an account of their 
results in treating the diseased conditions 
thus induced, and outlined the methods and 
aims of a research on the functions of the 
thyroid gland. 

Equilibrium in the Crustacea. 
(Introduced by F. 8S. Les.) 
Dr. Clark stated that he had studied two 

kinds of crabs, the ‘ Fiddler,’ Gelasimus 

pugilator (atr.), and the ‘Lady,’ Platy- 
onichus ocellatus (Latr.). The former is an 
active runner, the latter an active swimmer. 

The movable eyestalks show marked com- 

pensating movements when the body is in- 

clined. The compensating positions are 
maintained without reaction so long as the 
inclination of the body continues. No com- 
pensating movements accompany turning 
around the vertical axis. The otocysts con- 
tain no otoliths. Removal of both anten- 
nules, inclusive of the otocysts, caused no 
abnormal position of the body and no forced 
movements, but was followed by a tendency 
of the ‘ Fiddler’ crab when attempting to 
run, and of the ‘ Lady’ crab when attempt- 
ing to swim, to roll over on to the back. A 
similar tendency has been observed by 
others in the crayfish and dogfish after re- 
moval of the otoliths. Removal of both an- 
tennules was followed by no abnormal posi- 
tion of eyestalks, but by marked diminution 


G. P. CrarK. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


of their compensating movements. Removal 
of otoliths from both ears of a dogfish is re- 
ported to be without effect on position of 
eyeballs, but to cause a loss of the mainte- 
nance of compensation which is observed in 
those rotations which involve inclination of 
the body. Compensating eye movements in 
the crab occur only in those planes in which 
in the dogfish the compensation is main- 
tained, and loss of corresponding structures 
in these animals tends to destroy compen- 
sation in the one and the maintenance of 
compensation in the other. In many cases 
it was found that a small amount of com- 
pensation remained after the ‘ Fiddler’ crab 
had lost both antennules ; if eyes were then 
covered with a thick black mixture it was 
completely stopped. 

Galen’s Technical Treatise wpon Practical 
Anatomy and Experimental Physiology. J. 
G. Curtis. 

Dr. Curtis spoke upon Galen’s technical 
treatise on practical anatomy and experi- 
mental physiology, usually cited as ‘De 
anatomicis adnuinistrationibus.’ 

This was written between A. D. 150 and 
200, and is the earliest existing technical 
treatise upon these subjects. 

The Greek text of Books I. to VIII., and 
of part of Book IX.,is extant in print, and 
also Latin translations of the same. 

The rest of the work, viz., the latter part 
of Book IX., and Books X. to XV., is 
inedited, and is contained only in two MSS. 
of an Arabic version of the 9th century, 
attributed to Honatyn Isn IsHax or to his 
nephew Hoxatcu. 

One of these two MSS. is at the Bodleian 
Library at Oxford. By the kindness of the 
authorities, Books IX. to XY. of this MS. 
have been photographed for Dr. Curtis, 
who is also, through the good offices of the 
late Dr. GREENHILL, of Hastings, England, 
in possession of an inedited MS. sketch of a 
translation of these books into French, by 
the late M. Gustave Duear. 


Fesruary 1, 1895.] 


Dr. Curtis proposes to edit, and to have 
published, a translation into English of the 
entire treatise, the Greek portion to be 
translated by himself, and the inedited 
Arabic portion by a collaborator not yet 
named. 

This English translation will be the first 
complete edition of the ‘epoch-making ’ 
Galenie work in question published in any 
language since the invention of printing. 
The Normal Defect of Vision in the Fovea. 

Mrs. C. L. Franxiry. (Introduced by 

H. P. Bownpircu.) 

K6nig’s announcement, in May, 1894, 
that the relative absorption by the visual 
purple of the different portions of the spec- 
trum is in very close coincidence with the 
relative brightness of the different portions 
of the spectrum, (1) for the totally color- 
blind, and (2) for the normal eye for faint 
light after adaptation (with the obvious in- 
ference therefrom that the vision of the to- 
tally color-blind and that of the normal eye 
in a faint light was conditioned upon the 
presence of the visual purple in the retina), 
made necessary some assumption to take 
account of the fact that in the fovea, which 
is the portion of the retina where vision is 
most acute, no visual purple has hitherto 
been found. Two assumptions were possi- 
ble, either that the cones (and hence the 
fovea) do contain visual purple, but that it 
is here of such an extremely decomposable 
character that it can never, no matter what 
precautions are used, be detected objec- 
tively ; or, that vision does actually not 
take place in the fovea under the above cir- 
cumstances (that is, for the totally color- 
blind and for the normal eye at such inten- 
sities as are visible only after adaptation). 
As Thad already made the prediction that 
total color-blindness consists in a non-de- 
velopment of the cones of the retina (Ztsch. 
f. Psych. wu. Phys. der Sinnesorgane, Bd. IV.) 
and also that the adaptation which renders 
vision possible after twenty minutes in a 


SCIENCE. 


115 


faint light is conditioned by the growth of 
the visual purple (Mind, N.S., IIL., p. 103), 
both predictions being naturally suggested 
by my theory of light-sensation, I was most 
anxious to put the latter assumption to the 
test. I therefore undertook to determine, 
in the dark rooms of Prof. Kénig’s labora- 
tory, the threshold for light-sensation for 
different parts of the retina and for different 
kinds of monochromatic light. 

The blindness of the fovea for faint light 
did not at once reveal itself; the act of 
fixation means holding the eye so that an 
image falls on the part of the retina best 
adapted for seeing it, and hence it would 
involve keeping the image out of the fovea 
in a faint light, if the fovea were really 
blind in a faint light. But after the total 
disappearance of the small bright object 
looked at had several times occurred by ac- 
cident, it became possible to execute the 
motion of the eye necessary to secure it at 
pleasure. It was then found that the simple 
devices of presenting a group of small 
bright objects to the eye of the observer 
was sufficient to demonstrate the ‘normal 
night-blindness of the fovea’ (as it may best 
be called) without any difficulty ; one or 
the other of them is sure to fall into the dark 
hole of the fovea by accident. 
by means of this arrangement of a number 


Tt was only 


of small bright spots that the total blindness 
of the totally color-blind boy in the fovea 
detected; he had, of course, 
his fovea in fixation. 


could be 
learned not to use 
Professor Kénig then proceeded to demon- 
strate the total blindness in the fovea of the 
normal eye to blue of about 470.* 

[These experiments upon the normal 
eye were exhibited.]—It was shown that 
Konig’s proof that the pigment-epithelium 


*Pyofessor v. Kries is said by Professor Gad to have 
shown that the experiments in question do not estab- 
lish the b/ue-blindness of the fovea ( Berichte der Na- 
turforschenden Gesellschaft zu Freiburg, UX., 2. 8. 61). 
I have not yet had access to this criticism. 


116 


is the only layer of the retina which is af- 

fected by red, yellow and green light is not 

wholly conclusive. The interpretation of 
the new facts and their bearing upon sey- 
eral theories of light sensation were dis- 
cussed. 

[This paper will appear in full in The 

Psychological Review for March, 1895.] 

The Influence of low Percentages of Alcohol 
upon the Growth of Yeast. C. F. Hopes. 
The influence of decomposition products 

upon cellular metabolism is a question of 

wide physiological interest and has in- 
creased in significance since the advance- 
ment of recent theories regarding autointox- 
ication. Do the decomposition substances 
of initial activity stimulate the cells to more 
‘active metabolism’? Aside from the gen- 
eral question of the physiological effect of 
aleohol upon cellular processes, the influ- 
ence of alcohol upon the cell which produces 
it would seem to be one of the best instances 
upon which to test the theory of autointox- 
ication. Yeast can grow in a saccharine 
solution until by the decomposition of su- 
gar it has brought the alcohol content of 
the liquid upto 14%: With a greater 
amount of alcohol no growth is possible. 
Fligge also states that at 12% growth is 
hindered. Experiments were made with ex- 
ceedingly attenuated pure cultures in large 
amounts of nutrient solution, containing 
from .01%, .1% up to 14 %. Counts were 
made as often as possible during the first 
three days. The general result up to the 
present is that yeast grows nearly twice as 
fast in pure solution as in 1% alcohol. 

An average of nine experiments thus far 

give the following figures representing pro- 

portional growth in the various cultures. 

Growth in: 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, alcohol. 

77, 45, 16, 1.5, 0.3, 0.11. 
Beyond 5% no growth appreciable by the 
method employed occurred within the three 
days. In cultures containing 0.1% and 

0.01% growth was considerably less than 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


in the normal solution ; but it is desirable to 

experiment further before giving the figures. 

As yet no evidence in favor of autointoxi- 

cation theories has been obtained. 

A Means of Recording Daily Activity of Ani- 
mals and the Influence upon it of Food and 
Alcohol. C. C. Stewart. (Introduced 
by C. F. Hopes.) 

Thus far the animals experimented on 
have been rats, mice and squirrels. They 
are kept in circular, easily rotated cages, so 
arranged that any motion of the animal 
rotates the cage, and by means of a tambour 
or levers this motion of the cage is recorded 
upon kymograph paper kept moving night 
and day. An electromagnetic circuit with 
a clock marks hours and minutes. We thus 
have the manner in which an animal di- 
vides his time between rest and activity 
recorded by himself. Rats and mice divide 
their days into about 12 hours rest and 12 
hours intermittent work during the night. 
During the work period, short intervals of 
activity, rarely exceeding an hour, are in- 
terrupted by almost equal periods of rest. 
The squirrel, in winter, works almost con- 
tinuously for from twenty minutes to two 
hours early in the morning, with sometimes 
a short interval of activity late in the even- 
ing, and rests nearly 22 hours in the day. 

Food has a most marked influence upon 
diurnal activity. In general the richer the 
diet in proteid, the greater the activity. Fat 
has the opposite effect, reducing the activity 
of mice from 6 to 8 hours’ actual work to a 
few minutes a day. To test the influence 
of alcohol on spontaneous activity, rats 
kept on dry corn were given instead of 
water alcohol of from 5% to 60%. During 
50 days of his treatment, no uniform effect 
of the alcohol could be demonstrated. All 
normal animals experimented on tended to 
work more minutes per day, when barome- 
trie pressure was high, and this must be 
taken into careful account in estimating the 
effect of any condition upon daily activity. 


FEBRUARY 1, 1895.] 


A Study of the Operative Treatment for Loss of 
Nerve Substance in Peripheral Nerves. G. 
Cart Huser. (Introduced by W. P. 
LomMBARD. ) 

The report covered the results obtained 
in 50 experiments on dogs, in which the 
various methods that might be employed in 
the surgical treatment of divided peripheral 
nerves, where there is loss of nerve sub- 
stance to the extent that an ordinary suture 
cannot be made, were tried. Segments va- 
rying in length from 5-8 em were removed 
from the ulnar and sciatie nerves of the 
dogs. In 26 experiments a portion of an- 
other nerve (usually the sciatic of a cat) 
was implanted between the resected ends 
of the nerve operated upon, and retained in 
place by means of sutures ; in 8 experiments 
the resected ends were united by means of 
decalcified bone tubes; in 7 they were 
united with a number of catgut threads; a 
flap from the peripheral end of the cen- 
tral stump was made in 7 experiments ; and 
grafting the central end of the peripheral 
portion of a resected nerve to an accompa- 
nying nerve trunk was tried twice. After 
carefully closing the wounds, the animals 
were allowed to live for periods varying 
from 2 to 182 days; before killing the ani- 
mals the nerves operated upon were tested 
as to their conductivity; they were then 
removed and prepared for histological ex- 
amination. 

1. In all experiments the peripheral por- 
tion of the divided nerve degenerated, as also 
4 em. of the distal end of the central stump. 

2. Regeneration was obtained after in- 
plantation of a nerve segment, tubular 
suture and’ suture @ distance with catgut 
threads. 

3. Regeneration was from the central 
end, buds given off from the central axis 
eylinders growing toward the periphery. 

4. The implanted substance serves only 
as a guide to the down growing axis. 

5. Regeneration takes place most rapidly 


. 


- . 


SCIENCE. 


117 


(120 to 130 days in dogs) after implanta- 

tion of a nerve segment. 

Demonstration of « New Gas Pump for the Ex- 
traction of Blood-Gases. G. T. Kemp. 

Dr. Kemp exhibited and explained the 
action of a new form of gas-pump. This 
pump is, except for slight modifications, a 
combination of the Sprengel pump with the 
Neeson and Bessel-Hagen additions to the 
Toepler pump. The large bulb is used in 
accordance with a suggestion of Pfliiger and 
is about the size of those in the large pumps 
used in the laboratory at Bonn. The pump 
is made in two halves for ease of transporta- 
tion. The vacuum space on each side of the 
bulb prevents the mereury from spitting 
back into the bulb, during the first few low- 
erings of the reservoir, as occurs in the Nee- 
son-Bessel-Hagen-Toepler pump. The ad- 
vantage of this form of pump over all pat- 
terns which have a 3-way stopeock at the top 
of the bulb, is that there is no danger of 
smashing the stopcock from the impact of the 
mercury, and the pump can be worked very 
much faster. No precaution has to be taken 
against raising the reservoir bulb too rap- 
idly. 

The Sprengel attachment can be made to 
work either separately or together with the 
other part of the pump. 

There is no stopcock which is not com- 
pletely under mercury seal, so that leakage 
is out of the question. 

The essential requisite of such a pump is 
to extract all the oxygen as soon as possible, 
certainly before the blood clots, and to keep 
the tension in the blood bulb from rising 
above 20 mm. of mereury, as this prevents 
the complete disassociation of the oxygen 
from the oxyhaemoglobin. When blood is 
drawn into the vacuum the oxygen is given 
off very rapidly, in a ‘puff,’ so to speak, 
and the carbon dioxide is given off more 
slowly and regularly. By having a large 
Hg bulb which can be filled and emptied 
rapidly, the exhaustion can easily be main- 


118 


tained so as to keep the tension below 20 
mm. of mercury, and after the oxygen is set 
free the Sprengel part is left working alone, 
and that carries off the CO»: as it is slowly 
evolved, without necessitating close atten- 
tion of the operator or the fatigue of raising 
and lowering the reservoir bulb of mercury. 
Further Experiments Upon Equilibrium in 

Fishes. F.S. En. 

Previous work of Dr. Lee has shown that 
the organs of the sense of equilibrium lie in 
the ear, the semicircular canals mediating 
sensations of movements in curves, the 
otolithic parts sensations of the resting 
body. Recent experiments prove that the 
‘otolithic parts are, moreover, Sensory organs 
for progressive movements, i. e., movements 
in a straight line. Hence the ear deals 
with all three groups of equilibrium sen- 
sations of which the living body is capable. 

Stimulation of the central end of the 
lateral nerve causes coordinated movements 
of the fins, analogous to those resulting 
from stimulation of the acoustic. This 
indicates that the organs of the lateral line 
are organs of equilibrium. 

All experiments to prove that fishes 
possess a sense of hearing have so far given 
only negative results. 

Equilibrium in the Ctenophora F.S. Lue. 

Dr. Lee reported the results of experi- 
ments made under his direction by Mr. J. C. 
Thompson on the equilibrium phenomena 
of the Ctenophora. The normal animal ex- 
hibits definite positions of rest and definite 
codrdinated movements. After removal 
of the otolith the resting positions are no 
longer maintained, and incoérdination in 
movement appears. Forced movements do 
not result. If the body be cutinto two parts, 
one with and one without the otolithic or- 
gan, the former maintains its equilibrium, 
he latter doest not. All attempts to dem- 
onstrate a sense of hearing failed. 

The two following papers, because of the 
lack of time, were read by title: 


SCIENCE. 


[N: S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


On changes of Structure in the Panereatie Cell 
corresponding with Functional Change. A. 
P. Maruews. (Introduced by F.S. Ln.) _ 

On the Existence of Secretory Nerves. A. P. 
Maruews. (Introduced by F. 8. Les.) 

On Cardio-oesophagogeal Movements. S. J. 
MELTZER. 

Dr. Meltzer has shown in a former paper 
that the outflow of arterial blood from, and 
the inflow of venous blood to,the thorax 
produce the cardiac movements which are 
obtainable from the pleuritic cavity as well 
from the trachea and the nose. In this 
paper he described the cardio-oesophageal 
movements arising from the same cause. 
He exhibited tracings which he obtained 
fourteen years ago from his own oesophagus, 
while studying the mechanism of degluti- 
tion. His recent studies were made on 
curarized dogs. By means of vagus inhibi- 
tion the beginning and the end of each car- 
diae cycle were made recognizable. Nearly 
all the curves have the character of a ‘nega- 
tive pulse’ and have no similarity either 
to a sphygmo- or cardiogram. The con- 
stant characteristic undulationse seen at 
the beginning of each cardiac cycle are 
due to the movements of the auricle, which 
are more marked in the posterior mediasti- 
num. 

Cortex of the Brain: (a) Localization; (b) 
Development of. T. W. Mitts. 

Dr. Mills undertook this research in eon- 
nection with a study of the psychic devel- 
opment of young animals. It became ne- 
cessary, however, as a precaution and guide 
in studying the functional development of 
cortical centres to make experiments on 
mature animals. While, during these ex- 
periments, most of the commonly accepted 
localization as set forth by Ferrier was veri- 
fied in a general way, the results did not all 
harmonize with those of this investigator. 
Attention was called to details in the corti- 
cal motor localization of the rabbit and 
pigeon more especially, which were at vari- 


Fesruary 1, 1895.] 


ance both positively and negatively with 

those announced by Ferrier. 

There had been found a great difference 
in the degree of cortical development of 
mammals not born blind as compared with 
those born with the eyes unopened; but as 
the work was not complete the author pre- 
ferred not to make many very definite state- 
ments at the present time. Cortical devel- 
opment and psychic development took place 
pari passu. 

The Active Principle of Rhus Toxicodendron 
and Rhus Venenata. FrANz Prarr. (In- 
troduced by H. P. Bownprrcu. ) 

Dr. Pfaff stated that his experiments had 
been made with the assistance of S. San- 
ford Orr. He said that it is the general 
opinion that Rh. tor. and Rh. ven. con- 
tain a volatile proximate principle, which 
causes the well-known dermatitis venenata. 
Maisch’s toxicodendric acid has been gen- 
erally accepted as the active poison. P. 
and O. could not believe that a very vola- 
tile substance is the cause of the trouble, 
as this would be contrary to the pharmacol- 
ogy of vegetable skin irritants. They iso- 
lated Maisch’s toxicodendrie acid in the 
form of the barium salt, and found it non- 
toxic. The same is true of a solution of 
the free acid in water. As the real active 
principle they found a non-volatile oil. This 
oil, when applied to the skin, causes the well- 
known eruption. Photographs demonstrat- 
ing the effect of the oil upon the human skin 
were shown. As preventive treatment P. 
and O. proposed a thorough washing with 
water, soap and brush, or, stiil better, a re- 
peated thorough washing with an alcoholic 
solution of lead acetate. The oil being sol- 
uble in alcohol, and forming a nearly insol- 
uble lead compound in alcohol, is thus best 
removed from the superficial skin. Further 
investigations will be undertaken, and an 
attempt made to classify Maisch’s toxico- 
dendric acid and the new poisonous oil, 
which seems to be of the kind called cardol, 


SCIENCE. 


119 


obtained from Anacardium occidentale. These 
two oils are, however, not identical. 
Inhibition Hypothesis in the Physiology of Res- 
W. T. Porter. 

Dr. Porter said that it is known that 
transverse division of the spinal cord be- 
tween the bulb and the phrenic nuclei 
causes fatal arrest of the respiratory move- 
ments of the trunk. If death be prevented 
for a time by artificial respiration, the re- 
flex powers of the cord gradually increase, 
and in the course of a few hours they may 
become so great that pinching the paws, 
blowing on the skin, suspending the artifi- 
cial respiration, etc., may cause extended 
muscular contractions, including contrac- 
tions of the respiratory muscles. 

Tt is claimed that these contractions of 
the respiratory muscles after the separation 
of the cord from the bulb are proof that the 
respiratory impulse for muscles of the trunk 
is not derived from respiratory cells in the 
bulb but originates in the spinal cord. 
Against this hypothesis of spinal respiration 
is urged the fatal arrest of the respiration 
of the trunk caused by separating the bulb 
from the cord. It is replied that section of 
the cord stimulates inhibitory fibres in the 
cord and thus suspends the action of the 
spinal respiratory cells. This inhibition, it 
is assumed, usually lasts throughout the 
period of observation; in some animals, 
however, after long artificial respiration, it 
is partially overcome, permitting the respi- 
ratory contractions mentioned above. 

The doctrine of prolonged inhibition of 
spinal respiration is easily overthrown by 
the following experiment. Hemisection of 
the cord usually arrests the contractions of 
the diaphragm on the side of the hemisec- 
tion. (Exceptions are explained by ‘ crossed 
respiration.’) This arrest is not an inhibi- 
tion, for the diaphragm on the side of the 
hemisection begins at once to contract when 
the opposite phrenic nerve is cut. Hence, 
hemisection of the cord between the bulb 


piration. 


120 


and the phrenic nuclei does not inhibit the 

the phrenic cells on the side of the section. 

It follows that two hemisections, com- 
pletely separating the cord from the bulb, 
do not inhibit the diaphragmatic respiration 
on their respective sides. The phrenic cells 
often send out no respiratory impulses af- 
ter such a section because they receive none 
from the bulb. The phrenic cells cannot 
themselves originate respiratory impulses. 
Hence, the respiratory impulse does not 
arise in the spinal cord. 
Demonstration—Hemisections of the Spinal Cord 

above the Phrenic Nuclei do not inhibit Tho- 

racic Respiration. W.'T. PorTER. 

Acuteness of Vision in St. Lowis Public School 
Children. W.'T. PortsEr. 

The Weight of Dark-haired and Fair-haired 
Girls. W.T. Porter. 

Exhibition of Some New Forms of Galvanometers 
Suitable for Physiological Use, With Remarks 
Upon the Same. Prof. H. A. Row1ianp, at 
the Physical Laboratory of Johns Hop- 
kins University. 

Professor Rowland exhibited two new 
forms of high resistance galvanometers. 
One was a modification of the Thompson 
galvanometer, but less expensive in con- 
struction, and possessed a greater delicacy ; 
the other was a modification of the Dar- 
sonval galvanometer, and was arranged 
with the observing telescope on a convenient 
wall support. It was shown that they were 
well adapted for laboratory use in Physio- 
logical work. 

Demonstration of an Apparatus for the Plethys- 
mographic Study of Odors, with Report of 
Results. T.E.Surexps. (Introduced by 
W. H. Howse t.) 

Mr. Shields exhibited his apparatus, and 
gave the following account of its use: 

1. It consists of a device for holding the 
arm firmly in place in the Plethysmograph. 
Two hard rubber clasps, one fitting the wrist 
and the other the arm above the elbow, are 
rigidly connected by two metal rods. The 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


latter of the clasps fits against the Ple- 
thysmograph under the rubber membrane, 
where it is held in place by two other rigidly 
connected clasps, one against it outside the 
rubber membrane, and the other against 
the flange of the Plethysmograph. 

2. A device for separating the pulse and 
vaso-motor curves. A short wide tube leads 
from the Plethysmograph to a vertical glass 
eylinder in which the water level can be 
made to register the pressure on the arm. 
Over the water is an air cushion connected 
with the tambour by a small tube through 
a piston movable in the cylinder. The 
motion of the piston controls the size and 
pressure of the air cushion. The lever of 
the tambour is made to move the point of 
an independently supported pen. <A long 
narrow tube leading from the Plethys- 
mograph dips into a test-tube of water 
swung from a delicate spiral spring. 
(Method described by Professor H. P. 
Bowditch.) A vertical thread from the 
bottom of the test-tube passes under a pulley, 
thence horizontally over a second pulley, 
and is held taut by a small weight. On its 
horizontal part is fastened a thin aluminum 
plate capable of holding a glass pen at right 
angle to the thread. The bulb of the pen 
is independently suspended by a vertical 
thread. The pendular motion due to the 
latter in the direction of the horizontal 
thread is so adjusted as to neutralize the — 
curvilinear motion of the pen arising from 
the sag in the horizontalthread. The point 
of the pen may thus be made to deseribe a 
straight horizontal line. The resistance to 
the motion of the water in the narrow tube 
is sufficient to destroy all but vaso-motor 
effects ; pulse effects are, in consequence, 
only felt through the wide tube. 

The odors are contained in a series of 
bottles. The turning of a stopeock, which 
sends the constant current of air through 
any particular odor-bottle, at the same time, 
by an electrical arrangement, marks the in- 


Fesruary 1, 1895.] 


stant, and opens the terminal end of the 
corresponding tube near the subject’s nose. 

A pneumograph records the respiration. 
The pulse, vaso-motor and _ respiratory 

curves, the signal and time records (in 
seconds) are all traced in ink on a horizontal 
kymograph. 
Explanation of Natural Immunity. 

M. STERNBERG. 

Dr. Sternberg, after a review of the experi- 
mental evidence relating to the cause of the 
‘natural immunity which exists among ani- 
mals against parasitic invasion by various 
pathogenic bacteria and by putrefactive 
microérganisms, said that the experimental 
evidence submitted, considered in connec- 
tion with the extensive literature relating 
to‘ phagocytosis,’ leads us to the conclusion 
that natural immunity is due toa germicidal 
substance present in the blood serum, which 
has its origin (chiefly at least) in the leuco- 
eytes, and is soluble only in an alkaline 
medium. And that local infection is usually 
resisted by an afflux of leucocytes to the 
point of invasion, but that phagocytosis is a 
factor of secondary importance in resisting 
parasitic invasion. 

Warren P. Lomparn, 
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. Secretary for 1894. 


GEORGE 


AN. INHERENT ERROR IN THE VIEWS OF GAL- 
TON AND WEISMANN ON VARIATION.* 
WEIsMANN’s name has become so inti- 
| mately associated with the doctrine of germ- 
inal continuity that he is often regarded as 
| its first advocate, although it is an old con- 
| ception which has found expression in many 
' writings. q 
Among others I myself stated it in the 
following words in a book printed in 1883, 
before the publication of Weismann’s first 
essay on inheritance. 
_ “The ovum, like other cells, is able to re- 
produce its like, and it not only gives rise, 


* A paper read, by invitation, at the meeting of the 
Society of Naturalists, in Baltimore, Dec. 27, 1894. 


SCIENCE. 


121 


during its development, to the divergent 
cells of the organism, but also to other cells 
like itself. The ovarian ova of the offspring 
are these latter cells or their direct unmodi- 
fied descendants.”’ 

After the appearance of Weismann’s es- 
says, and the revival of discussion on the 
views of Lamarck, I was much surprised 
to find my book referred to as a Lamarckian 
treatise, and my reason for quoting this pas- 
sage now is not to claim priority, but to 
show that, in 1883, I, like Weismann, attrib- 
uted inheritance to germinal continuity. 

I may take this occasion to say that I still 
regard inheritance as a corollary or outward 
expression of the continuity of living matter, 
although I am less confident than I was in 
1883 of the importance of the distinction 
between somatic and germinal cells. So 
much for the doctrine of germinal con- 
tinuity. 

Passing now to another topic, we find 
that the two most prominent writers on in- 
heritance, Wiesmann and Galton, base their 
views of variation on the assumption that, 
at each remote generation, the ancestors of 
a modern organism were innumerable, al- 
though a little reflection will show that this 
assumption is untenable. 

Weismann, at least in his earlier and sim- 
pler writings, finds the cause of variation in 
the recombination, by sexual reproduction, 
of the effects of the diversified influences 
which acted upon the innumerable protozoic 
ancestors of each modern metazoon. 

If it can be proved that these protozoic 
ancestors were not innumerable, but very, 
very few, and that these few were the com- 
mon ancestors of all the modern metazoa, 
his position is clearly untenable. 

Galton’s view of the cause of individual 
diversity is very similar to Weismann’s. 
He says: ‘It is not possible that more than 
one-half of the varieties and number of the 
parental elements, latent or personal, can 
on the average subsist in the offspring. 


122 


For if every variety contributed its repre- 
sentatives each child would on the average 
contain, actually or potentially, twice the 
variety and twice the number of the ele- 
ments, whatever they may be, that were pos- 
sessed at the same stage of its life by either 
of its parents, four times that of any of its 
grandparents, 1024 times as many as any 
of its ancestors in the tenth degree and so 
on.” 

As he holds that each offspring must 
therefore get rid, in some way, of one-half 
the variety transmitted from its ancestors, 
he finds an explanation of the diversity be- 
tween individuals in the diversity of the re- 
tained halves of their variety. 

Each person has two parents and four 
grandparents ; but even in a country like 
ours, which draws its people from all quar- 
ters of the earth, each of the eight grandpar- 
ents is not always a distinct person; for 
when the parents are cousins, this number is 
six, or five, or even four, instead of eight. 

Among more primitive people who stay 
at home generation after generation, and 
marry within the narrow circle of their 
neighbors, a person whose ancestors have 
transgressed none of our social laws may 
have a minimum ancestry of only four in 
each generation. 

The maximum ancestry and the minimum 
fixed by our customs are given for ten gen- 
erations in the two lines below. 
2—4—-8—16—-32-64-128-256—-512-1024=2046. 
2-4-4-4-4--4_4_4_4_4=38, 

Few persons who ean trace their ancestry 
back for ten generations are descended from 
1024 distinct persons in that generation, 
and in all old stable communities of simple 
folks the number is very much smaller. In 
the long run the number of ancestors in 
each generation is determined by the aver- 
age sexual environment, and it is a small 
and pretty constant number. 

All genealogy bears indirect evidence of 
this familiar fact which has not been ade- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


quately recognized by students of inheri- 
tance. 


I have made a computation from the his- 


tory of the people of a small island on our 
Atlantic coast. They lead a simple life, 
or have done so in the past, but most of the 
men have been sailors, and have ranged 
much farther in search of mates than agri- 
cultural people. I have selected three per- 
sons whose ancestry is recorded in detail 
for some seven or eight generations. These 
three persons have no parents or grandpar- 
ents of the same name, and they would not 
be popularly regarded as near relations, al- 
though two of their twelve grandparents 
were cousins. The generations are not 
quite parallel, and the period covered by 
eight in one line is covered in the two others 
by about seven, and it may be put at about 
74 for the three. 
maximum ancestry for one person is 382 or 
1146 for three persons. 

The names of 452 of them, or nearly half, 
are recorded, and these 452 named ances- 
tors are not 452 distinct persons, but only 
149; many of these in the remoter genera- 
tions being common ancestors of all three 
persons in many lines. If the unrecorded 
ancestors were interrelated in the same way 
as they would surely be in an old commu- 


In 74 generations the — 


nity, the total ancestry of the three persons — 
for 74 generations would be 378 persons — 


instead of 1146. 


Few persons know even the names of all — 
the living descendants of each of their sixty- — 
four ancestors of the sixth generation, — 


and marriage with one of them is a pure — 
chance, depending on the size of the circle — 


of acquaintance and the distance to which 
ancestors wandered. 


If a city like Baltimore, where the 


strangers to each one of us outnumber our 
acquaintances a thousand fold, could be 
quarantined against people from outside for 
a thousand years, each generation would be 
much like the present one so far as known 


3 


FEBRUARY 1, 1895.] 


relations are concerned, although at the end 
of the period the inhabitants would cer- 
tainly not be descended from the Baltimor- 
ians of our day, but from only a very few 
of them. Most of our lines would be ex- 
tinct, and the few which survived would 
include most of the Baltimorians of the year 
2900 among their descendants, who, while 
unconscious of their common origin, would 
be allied with each other by common de- 
scent from their virile and prolific ancestors 
of the year 1894. 

This is proved indirectly but conclusively 
by genealogical statistics, and while a thous- 
and years are but as yesterday in the his- 
tory of species, zodlogical considerations 
furnish evidence that allied animals at two 
successive geological periods must be re- 
lated like these successive generations of 
Baltimorians. Of all the individuals of a 
species which lived at a given period, very 
few would have descendants at a later per- 
iod, and these few would be the common 
ancestors of all the individuals which repre- 
sent the stock at the later period. 

The extinction of species is a familiar 
conception. The extinction of the lines of 
descent from individuals is no less real, 
and infinitely more significant in the study 
of inheritance. 

As we trace back the ancestral tree it 
divides into two branches for the parents, 
and again into four and eight for the grand- 
parents and great-grandparents, and so on 
for a few generations, but a change soon 
takes place. The student of family records 
may be permitted to picture genealogy as a 
tree whose branches become more and more 
numerous as we get farther and farther 
from the starting point; but this cannot be 
permitted to the zodlogist. 

On the contrary, we must admit that, on 
the average, the number of ancestors in each 
‘generation can never be greater than the 
number of individuals in the average sexual 
environment. It may be very much less, 


SCIENCE. 123 


however, since most of the individuals in 
each generation must fail to perpetuate 
their lines to remote descendants. 

Now no animal in a state of nature 
ranges so far as man in search of a mate, 
and the sexual environment of many plants 
and animals, such as the fishes in a brook 
or a pond, or the parasites in the intestine 
of a mammal, is very narrow. While new 
blood, no doubt, finds its way in from time 
to time, this is more than balanced by the 
extinction of genetic lines. Theseries of an- 
cestors of each modern organism is long be- 
yond measure, but the number of ancestors 
in each remote generation can never be very 
great, though it may be extremely small. 

The data of systematic zoélogy also force 
us to believe that the ancestry of all the 
individuals of a species has been identical, 
except for the slight divergence in the most 
recent part of their history. 

The zodlogist must picture the genealogy 
of a species not as a tree, but as a slender 
thread, of very few strands, a little frayed 
out at the near end, but of immeasurable 
length and so fine that the thickness is as 
nothing in comparison. The number of 
strands is fixed by, but is much smaller than, 
the average sexual environment. If we 
choose we may picture a fringe of loose ends 
all along the thread to represent the ancient 
animals which, having no descendants, are 
to us as if they had never been. Each of 
the strands at the near end is important, as 
a possible line of union between the thread 
of the past and that of the distant future. 

The gist of the whole matter is this, that 
we must picture this slender thread as com- 
mon to all the individuals of the species, 
whose divergence from each other is infini- 
tesimal compared with the ancestry they 
share in common. 

The branches of a human genealogical 
tree diverge for a few generations by geo- 
metrical progression, but we soon find traces 
of a change, and if the record were long 


124 


enough to have any evolutionary signifi- 
cance we should surely find all the mem- 
bers of a species descended from a few re- 
mote ancestors, and these few the common 
ancestors of all. If one metazoon is de- 
scended from pre-Cambrian unicellular an- 
cestors, the same unicellular individuals 
were the common ancestors of all the meta- 
zoa, and we may be confident that there 
were not very many of them in each gen- 
eration. It is quite possible that they were 
even so few as a single pair or even one. 

There is nothing very novel in all this. 
Galton has himself devoted an appendix to 
the mathematical study of the extinction of 
family names, although he and other writers 
on inheritance seem to forget it when they 
assume that the remote ancestors of two 
persons, A and B, were, like the parents, dis- 
tinct individuals, and that the offspring must 
have twice as much ancestry as either 
parent, and, therefore, twice as much va- 
riety, unless there is some way to cancel out 
half of it at each step. 

I called attention to the bearing of this 
convergence of ancestry on the problem of in- 
heritance in 1883, in words which still seem 
to be a clear statement, although the views 
on variation of both Galton and Weismann 
are based on the unfounded assumption 
that each sexual act brings together two to- 
tally dissimilar sets of factors, instead of fac- 
tors which are identical in innumerable 
features for each one in which they differ. 

My statement is as follows: ‘ In order to 
breed together, animals must be closely re- 
lated; they must belong to the same species 
or to two closely allied species. Since the 
individuals which belong to two closely re- 
lated species are the descendents of a com- 
mon and not very remote ancestral species, 
it is clear that almost the whole course of 
their evolution has been shared by them in 
common ; all their generic characters being 
inherited from this ancestor. Only the 
slight differences in minor points which dis- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


tinguish one species of a genus from another 
have been acquired since the two diverged, 
and not even all of these slight differences~ 
* * We know that the duration of even the 
most persistent species is only an infinites- 
imal part of the whole history of their eyo- 
lution, and it is clear that the common char- 
acteristics of two allied species must out- 
number, thousands of times, the differences 
between them. It follows that the parents 
of any possible hybrid must be alike in 
thousands of features for one in which they 
differ. * * Crossing simply results in 
the formation of a germ by the union of a 
male and a female element derived from 
two essentially similar parents, with at most 
only a few secondary and comparatively 
slight differences, all of which have been 
recently acquired.” 

I trust that you will not think me un- 
warranted in the assertion that due consid- 
eration of the substance of this extract might 
have saved us much unprofitable discussion 
of the causes of variation, for I hope I have 
made it clear that these must be sought in 
the modern world and not in the remote 
past; that, as I expressed it in 1883, ‘“ the 
occurrence of a variation is due to the direct 
action of external conditions, but its precise 
character is not.” 

I sought by these words to express the 
familiar fact that the stimulus under which 
a vital action takes place is one thing, 
while the character of the action itself is 
quite another thing. 

This fact seems, from its very simplicity, 
to slip out of the minds of naturalists, and I 
should like to improve this opportunity to 
approach it from another standpoint. 

We have been familiar for many years — 
with two views of the nature of the process — 
of development from the egg. 

One school of embryologists holds that the 
organism arises from the ege by virtue of 
its inherent potency; that the constitution 
which the germinal matter has inherited is 


FEBRUARY 1, 1895.] 


in some way an embodiment of all that is 
to be unfolded out of it; while the other 
school finds, in the stimulus which one part 
of the segmenting egg or of the growing 
organism exerts on other parts, the explan- 
ation of each successive step in the process 
of development. 

Advocates of these two views generally 
regard themselves as opponents, but is there 
any real antagonism ? 

We now have positive evidence enough 
for each view to convince me that both are 
true; that every change which takes place 
in the organism from the beginning of seg- 
mentation to the end of life is called forth 
by some external stimulus either within the 
body or without; and yet that the outcome 
of the whole process of development is what 
it is because it was all potential in the germ. 

The gun does not go off until the cap ex- 
plodes; but it hits the mark because it is 
aimed. 

While the distinction between the stimu- 
lus to a vital change and the nature of the 
change itself is obvious enough in simple 
eases, we may easily become confused and 
lose sight of it in handling complicated 
problems. 

A hen’s egg does not develop without the 
stimulus of heat, but the view that heat 
causes the chick is too grotesque for a sane 
mind. 

What interests us is not that it becomes 
a chick while a duck’s egg in the same nest 
becomes a duckling, but that the one grows 
into exquisite adjustment to the life of 
fowls, while the other becomes as admira- 
bly adapted for the life of ducks. 

Here the stimulus comes from the exter- 
nal world, but the case is just the same 
when it is internal. 

The well-known results of castration 
prove that the normal development of male 
animals is dependent on some stimulus 
which comes to the parts of the growing 
body from the reproductive organs, but who 


SCIENCE. 


125 


can believe that this is an adequate expla- 
nation of the short, sharp horns, the thick 
neck and the ferocity of the bull, or the 
bright colors and high courage of the cock ? 

The only explanation of the origin of these 
useful structures worth considering is that 
which attributes them to the retention by the 
germ of the effects of past ages of selection. 

We have no reason to take a different view 
when the result varies with the stimulus. 
Under one internal stimulus a bud becomes 
a jelly-fish, while under others it may be- 
come a hydranth, or a machopolyp or a blast- 
ostyle, but the problem we have to solve in 
this case as in others is the origin of a beauti- 
fully coérdinated organism, with the distinct- 
ive characters of its species, and with exquis- 
ite fitness for a life like that of its ancestors. 

I showed some years ago that a small 
crustacean, Alpheus heterochelis, develops 
from the egg according to one plan at Beau- 
fort in North Carolina, according to a sec- 
ond at Key West in Florida, while it has 
still a third life history at Nassau in the 
Bahama Islands, but no one can believe 
that the influences which cause this diver- 
sity have anything to do with the final out- 
come of the process. 

The case is exactly the same when a cell 
which normally gives rise to a half or a 
quarter of the body produces the whole un- 
der a different stimulus. 

All the machinery in a great industrial 
exposition may be started by a single elec- 
trie contact, but however much the discov- 
ery of the button may interest us, it helps 
us little to understand the result. 

So it is with living organism. External 
conditions press the button, but it takes all 
the inherited potency of living matter to do 
the rest. 

It is an error to believe that great know- 
ledge is needful for a clear grasp of first 
principles. Too often a great store of infor- 
mation is like riches, “it cannot be spared 
nor left behind, but it hindereth the march ; 


126 


yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or 
disturbeth the victory.” 

Students who are drifting on the sea of 
facts with which the modern laboratory has 
flooded us declare that the doctrine of adap- 
tation is antiquated and unscientific and 
pernicious. 

They tell us organisms have many prop- 
erties which are not adaptive, and that in 
many other cases we cannot tell whether 
a property is adaptive or not. Of course 
this is true. No one supposes that suscep- 
tibility to poisons, for example, is adaptive, 
and our knowledge of nature is incomplete 
beyond measure. 

They tell us, too, that many attempts to 
explain the uses of parts are fanciful and 
worthless. Unfortunately, this is true also, 
but the logic which makes it a basis for deny- 
ing the reality of adaptation is enough to 
call Paley from his grave. 

While protoplasm is the physical basis of 
life, the intellectual basis of biology is ad- 
justment. 

I should like to see hung on the walls of 
every laboratory Herbert Spencer’s defini- 
nition to the effect that life is not proto- 
plasm but adjustment, or the older teaching 
of the Father of Zodlogy that the essence of 
a living thing is not what it is made of nor 
what it does, but why it does it. 

Spencer has given us diagrams to prove 
that the vertebral column has become seg- 
mented by the strain of flexion, but Aristo- 
tle tells us that Empedocles and the ancients 
are in error in their attempts to account for 
the jointing of the backbone by the strain 
of flexion, for the thing to explain, he 
says, is not how it becomes jointed, but how 
the jointed backbone has become so beauti- 
fully adjusted to the conditions of life. 

“Ts there anything of which it may be 
said: See, this is new. It hath been al- 
ready in the old times which were before 
us.” W. K. Brooks. 

- JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY (II/.). 
THE EARLIEST ENGLISHMEN, 


Somn interesting studies as to the earliest — 
signs of human industry in England deserve 
a notice. ; 

The description by Professor Prestwich 
of some flint implements found by Mr. 


- Harrison in pre-glacial strata on the chalk 


plateau of Kent seems to have added an 
impetus to such researches. Mr. O. A. 
Shrubsole describes a series of those relics — 
from pre-glacial hill gravels in Berkshire, 
in the Journal of the Anthropolegical Insti- 
tute for August, 1894; and in the May 
number of the same journal, Mr. A. M. Bell 
replies with considerable force to the objec- 
tions which had been urged againstProfessor 
Prestwich’s reasonings ; vindicating for the 
Kent implements an antiquity beyond that 
of the formation of the present river valleys. 
A pleasantly written volume on the subject 
is one by Mr. Worthington G. Smith entitled, 
Man the Primeval Savage. He discovered 
a true palaeolithic workshop, or rather 
several of them, in undisturbed relations, 
near Dunstable, about thirty miles north of 
London. The heaps of chips and broken 
flints lay just as the primeval artist had left 
them, covered to many feet in depth by the 
washings from the boulder clay. MrSmith 
was able to collect the chips in a number of 
instances, and by fitting them together, 
reconstruct the original flint block from 
which the instrument had been formed; 
and then to make a cast of the size and 
shape of the tool represented by the cavity. 
This beautiful demonstration leaves nothing 
to be desired. He does not believe, how- 
ever, that either his finds or those of the 
others mentioned are pre-glacial. His book 
is agreeably written and well illustrated. 
(Published by E. Stanford, London.) 


THE TRIBES OF THE ‘GRAN CHACO.’ 


THe ‘Gran Chaco,’ or ‘ Great Hunting- 
ground,’ merits its name, for it extends 850 


Fesruary 1, 1895. ] 


miles in length by 350 in breadth, one vast 
forest and marsh, in the northern portion 
of the Argentine Republic. Much of it is 
unexplored and almost inaccessible. Its 
sparse human inhabitants are savage and 
wandering tribes, still in the stone age, shy 
and treacherous. Their linguistic classifi- 
cation presents extraordinary difficulties. 
Explorers have extended the same name to 
different stocks ; and applied diverse names 
to the same stock. 

An excellent monograph published in the 
Atti Della Societé Romana di Antropolo- 
gia by Guido Boggiani is helpful as far as 
it goes. It is entitled ‘I Ciamacoco.’ This 
is another form of Zamuco, the name of a 
tribe converted in the last century by the 
missionaries. But the modern is not a de- 
scendant of the ancient clan, scarcely any 
linguistic relative. The author presents an 
accurate vocabulary of about 250 words, 
and gives a full description of the primitive 
arts of the tribe, with 62 beautifully pre- 
pared illustrations. They still use the stone 
axe, the bow and arrow, feather and shell 
decorations, and other appurtenances of the 
pristine condition of culture. 

Another band, the Chunupies, of the 
southern Chaco, is the subject of an article 
by J. B. Ambrosetti, in the Anales de la 
Sociedad Scientifica Argentina for 1894. 
He gives a short vocabulary and an ethno- 
graphic description. 

Such work cannot be accomplished too 
soon, as these Chaco tribes are dying out 
with fearful rapidity, and probably half a 
century more will complete their extermi- 
nation. 


ARCH-EOLOGY AS A DEDUCTIVE SCIENCE. 


Wirury the last two years an interesting 
issue has arisen between two schools of 
archeologists, the one which knows just 
what man’s early activities yielded, the 
other which prefers to learn about them by 
studying what relics can be found, and con- 


SCIENCE. 


127 


fining conclusions to their obvious teach- 
ings. 

In America the former school is ably re- 
presented by Mr. W. H. Holmes and Mr. J. 
D. McGuire, of Washington. Mr. Holmes’ 
lines of thought are fully set forth in the 
Proceedings of the Chicago Congress of An- 
thropology, in an article entitled Natural 
History of Flaked Stone Implements. He 
maintains that an implement is to be stud- 
ied ‘as the biologist studies the living crea- 
ture;’ and he therefore classifies such re- 
mains into ‘species’ and ‘genera,’ speaks 
of their ‘lines of evolution,’ and even of 
their ‘ ancestral forms,’ and adds diagrams 
showing their genealogies. 

Mr. McGuire, who has published several 
interesting articles on the methods of chip- 
ping and rubbing stone, in the American An- 
thropologist, has become so thoroughly mas- 
ter of the situation in that connection that 
he more than intimates that European 
archeologists have blundered in drawing a 
distinction between the ‘rough stone age’ 
and the ‘ polished stone age;’ a position with 
which Mr. Holmes seems to sympathize. 
That neither of these learned writers has 
ever examined a European site, seems to 
them of light weight, as the ‘natural his- 
tory method ’ is sufficient. 

Those of a different way of thinking have 
not been silent. In this country such stu- 
dents as Prof. Henry W. Haynes, of Boston, 
Mr. H. C. Mercer, of Philadelphia, and Mr. 
Thomas Wilson, of Washington, all of 
whom are personally familiar with the old- 
est ‘stations’ on both continents, have con- 
demned as narrow and inapplicable the 
views of Messrs. Holmes and McGuire ; 
and in the American Naturalist, for De- 
cember, Mr. Charles 8. Read, of the British 
Museum, in an exhaustive article, 
forth the uncertainties which must attend 
conclusions based on studies limited to one 
field of research. In the same tone are 
several articles in recent issues of L’ An- 


sets 


128 


thropologie. Mr. McGuire returns to the 
charge in the January number of the Na- 
turalist, but hardly strengthens his position. 

The discussion is not yet terminated. 
‘Replies’ are announced; but at present, it 
must be said that the deductive and infer- 
ential method in archeology appears to be 
a dubious mode of procedure. 


THE VANNIC LANGUAGE. 


Mosr readers need not be told that the 
Vannic language means that which was 
once spoken in the region around Lake 
Van, in modern Armenia, by the people 
who called themselves Kaldi. 

They came into contact with the Assyri- 
ans about 885 B. C., and adopted from them 
the cuneiform writing, by means of which 
they preserved their records in their own 
tongue. These have been zealously studied 
and collected of recent years, but without 
positive results. Professor Sayce maintains 
that the Vannic was a Georgian dialect, and 
has published from it various translations. 
Last summer, before the French Academy, 
M. Oppert pronounced all these translations 
illusory, denied that we know a single 
word of the tongue, and laughed at the 
names of the kings so seriously put forth 
by Sayee. The latter, however, in the Jowr- 
nal of the Royal Asiatie Society for October 
last, prints a bilingual inscription in good 
Assyrian and Vannic, where the texts cor- 
respond almost line for line, and claims in 
a number of examples to have proved by 
this confrontation the correctness of his 
earlier translations. He acknowledges that 
our defective acquaintance with the As- 
syrian is a difficult obstacle to a complete 
rendering. 

The evidence that the Vannie was akin to 
the Georgian is, however, not increased by 
this bilingual text. It still remains more 
probable that it was either ancient Arme- 
nian, or some other long extinct Aryan 
dialect; possibly near to the Thracian, for 


SCIENCE. 


[N: S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


which there is a little evidence in the simi- 
larity of proper names. The point is one 
of considerable ethnographic importance. 


RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON CRANIOLOGY. 


Two important contributions on the Cra- 
niology of the South American Indians have 
recently appeared. 

The first is by Dr. Ten Kate on the skulls 
of the Araucanians of the Argentine Repub- 
lic. His material was 119 crania in the 
Museum of La Plata (where his paper was 
published). He confirms the statement 
quoted in my American Race, p. 324, that 
these Indians are markedly brachycephalic, 
96 out of the 119 having a cephalic index 
above 80. The proportion of artificially de- 
formed specimens is large, numbering about 
82 per cent. They present quite diverse 
varieties of deformation. 

Two series from Southern Argentina, in 
the valley of the Rio Negro, are described 
with his customary minuteness by Dr. R. 
Virchow in the Proceedings of the Berlin 
Anthropological Society for 1894, pp. 386— 
408. One series was from the base of the 
Cordillera, and evidently was of Araucanian 
origin; the other, from near the Atlantic 
coast, presented marked dolichocephaly and 
probably came from Tzoneca burials. In 
this article Dr. Virchow incorporates some 
instructive observations on artificial cranial 
deformities in America generally, making a 
useful appendix to his remarks on that sub- 
ject in his Crania Ethnica Americana. 

The Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 
No. 969, just issued, is a translation of The 
Varieties of the Human Species by Giu- 
seppe Sergi, Professor of Anthropology in 
the University of Rome. His method of 
classification is based upon the theories 
of craniology of which he himself is the 
author. Instead of multiplying, ad injfini- 
tum, the measurements of the skull as so 
many craniologists affect, he classifies ac- 
cording to broad outlines of cranial shape, 


FEBRUARY 1, 1895.] 


believing that such are far more perma- 
nent and therefore more racial than the 
minor variations which have engaged the at- 
tention of others. His arguments are drawn 
from a conscientious study of ample series 
from various quarters of the globe, and 
though some of his refinements may not be 
sufficiently established, the general princi- 
ples he advocates merit the careful consid- 
eration of cranial specialists, as containing 
some new and certainly correct observations. 
A short prefatory note by myself introduces 
the author to the American public. 


THE ARYAN CRADLE-LAND. 


Ir anybody thinks that the question 
whether the primitive Aryan horde lived in 
Europe or Asia has been settled, he is mis- 
taken. Two publications of late date show 
that the defenders of the old theory of their 
central Asian origin are nowise lacking in 
vigorous argument. 

Prof. August Boltz, of Darmstadt, in a 
pamplet Das Vedavolk in seinen Gesamtver- 
hiltnissen, has worked out the problem of 
the origin and earliest migrations of the 
Aryans quite to his own satisfaction. He 
adds two maps, on which the reader can 
trace very clearly how they began in the 
great Tarim basin and about Lob Nor, and 
journeyed westward across the Pamir pla- 
teau, on the western slope of which they di- 
verged, the Celtic stem wandering north- 
west into Europe north of the Black Sea; 
the Greek, Latin, Etruscan and Slavic 
branches by way of the Hellespont and the 
islands; the Iranian group remaining in 
Persia, while the Veda-folk or Indo-Aryans, 
ascended the mighty passes of the Hindu 
Kusch and Karakorum ranges to reach the 
fertile valleys to the south. These are 
pretty plans, but we look in vain for a sub- 
stantial support to them. 

Turning to Europe, M. De Nadaillaec’s 
admirable summary of the results of the in- 
vestigations in the lake-dwelling of that 


SCIENCE. 


129 


continent (in a contribution to the Revue 
des Questions Scientifiques for October last, en- 
titled Les Populations Lacustres de ’ Europe) 
lifts the veil as far as at present possible on 
European culture in neolithic times—those 
times when the Aryan stock began its wide 
wanderings. The writer inclines to their 
Asian origin; but with his customary frank- 
ness he acknowledges that nowhere in the 
debris of these ancient dwellings has there a 
single positive sign of Asiatic art been dis- 
covered, nor any relic such as we might 
suppose even a savage tribe would carry 
from its pristine home. Until down to a late 
period of prehistoric time, European culture 
seems to have been indigenous. For a 
clear and accurate summary of what it was 
among the lake-dwellers, the student would 
do well to peruse the article referred to. 
D. G. Brixton. 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


TCHEBYCHEV.* 

Or Russian mathematicians, second only 
to Lobachévsky should be ranked Pafnutij 
Lyovitsch Tchébychey. 

Born in Russia in 1821 and formerly 
professor at the University at St. Petersburg, 
he reached deservedly the very highest 
scientific honors, being privy councillor, 
the representative of applied mathematics 
in the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, 
in 1860 made member of the famous Section 
I.-Géométrie, of the French Académie des 
Sciences, and afterward Associé ¢tranger, 
the highest honor attainable by a foreigner. 

His best known work is the justly cele- 
brated Mémoire sur les nombres premiers, 
Académie Impériale de Saint Pétersbourg, 
(1850), where he established the existence 
of limits within which the sum of the log- 
arithms of the primes inferior to a given 
number must be comprised. This memoir 
is given in Liouville’s Journal, 1852, pp. 366 
-390. 


* Deceased December 8, 1894. 


130 


Sylvester afterward contracted Tchéby- 
chev’s limits ; but the original paper remains 
highly remarkable, especially as it depends 
on very elementary considerations. 

In this respect it is in striking contrast 
to the equally marvelous paper of the la- 
mented Riemann, Ueber die Anzahl der 
Primzahlen unter einer Glegegebenen Grosse 
presented to the Berlin Academia in 1859. 
Techébychev had in 1848 presented a paper 
with this very title to the St. Petersburg 
Academie; Sur la totalité des nombres pre- 
miers inferieurs & une limite doninée. (Giv- 
en in Liouville’s Journal, 1852, pp. 341—- 
365.) 

Riemann speaks of the interest long be- 
stowed on this subject by Gauss and Di- 
richlet, but makes no mention of Tchéby- 
chevy. However, Sylvester speaks of ‘his 
usual success in overcoming difficulties in- 
superable to the rest of the world.’ 

But though best known for his work in 
the most abstract part of mathematics, in 
reality Tchébychey was of an eminently 
practical turn of mind. 

Thus it was his work, Theorie des mechan- 
ismes connus sous le nom de parallélogrammes 
(Mémoirs des savants étrangers, Tom. 
VII.), which led him to the elaborate dis- 
sertation Sur les questions de minima qui se 
rattachent a la représentation approximate des 
fonctions, 91 quarto pages in Mémoirs de 1’ 
Académie Impériale des Sciences de Saint 
Pétersbourg, 1858. While the variable «x 
remains in the vicinity of one same value 
we can represent with the greatest possible 
approximation any function f (x), of given 
form, by the principles of the differential 
calculus, But this is not the case if the va- 
riable « is only required to remain within 
limits more or less extended. The essen- 
tially different methods demanded by this 
case, which is just. the one met in practice, 
are developed in this memoir. 

The same line of thought led to his con- 
nection with a subject which has since found 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


a place even in elementary text-books, 
namely rectilineal motion by linkage. 

He invented a three-bar linkage, which is 
called Tehébychev’s parallel motion, and 
gives an extraordinarily close approxima- 
tion to exact rectilineal motion ; so much 
so that in a piece of apparatus exhibited by 
him in the London Loan Collection of Scien- 
tific Apparatus, a plane supported on a 
combination of two of his parallel motion 
linkages seemed to have a strictly horizon- 
tal movement, though its variation was 
double that of the tracer in the simple par- 
allel motion. 

Tchébychey long occupied himself with 
attempting to solve the problem of produc- 
ing exact rectilineal motion by linkage, un- 
til he became convinced that it was mmpos- 
sible and even strove long to find a proof of 
that impossibility. What must have been 
his astonishment then, when a freshman 
student of his own class, named Lipkin, 
showed him the long sought conversion of 
circular into straight motion. Tchébychev 
brought Lipkin’s name before the Russian 
government, and secured for him a substan- 
tial reward for his supposed original dis- 
covery. 

And perhaps it was independent, but it 
had been found several years previously by 
a French lieutenant of engineers, Peaucel- 
lier, and first published by him in the form 
of a question in the Annales de Mathema- 
tique in 1864. When Tchébychey was on 
a visit to London, Sylvester inquired after 
the progress of his proof of the impossibility 
of exact parallel motion, when the Russian 
announced its double discovery and made a 
drawing of the cell and mounting. This 
Sylvester happened to show to Manuel Gar- 
cia, inventor of the laryngoscope, and the 
next day received from him a model con- 
structed of pieces of wood fastened with 
nails as pivots, which, rough as it was, 
worked perfectly. Sylvester exhibited this 
to the Philosophical Club of the Royal So- 


Fesruary 1, 1895. ] 


ciety and in the Athenzeum Club, where it 
delighted Sir Wm. Thomson, now Lord 
Kelvin, and led to the extraordinary lecture 
On Recent Discoveries in Mechanical Conver- 
sion of Motion, delivered by Sylvester before 
the Royal Institution on January 23, 1874. 
This in turn led to Kempe’s remarkable de- 
velopment of the subject, and to Hart’s dis- 
covery of a five-bar linkage which does the 
same work as Peaucellier’s of seven. 

Henceforth Peaucellier’s Cell and Hart’s 
Contraparallelogram will take their place in 
our text-books of geometry, and straight 
lines can be drawn without begging the 
question by assuming first a straight edge 
or ruler as does Euclid. 

Thus Kempe’s charming book, ‘ How to 
Draw a Straight Line, is a direct outcome 
of Tehébychev’s sketch for Sylvester. As 
might perhaps have been expected, the im- 
mortal Lobachévsky found in his compatriot 
a devoted admirer. Not only was Tchéby- 
chey an active member of the committee of 
the Lobachévsky fund, but he took the 
deepest interest in all connected with the 
spread of the profound ideas typified in the 
non-Euclidean geometry. Knowing this, 
Vasiliev in his last letter asked that a copy 
of my translation of his address on Loba- 
chévsky be forwarded to the great man. 
His active participation in scientific assem- 
blies is also worthy of note ; for example, at 
the ‘ Congrés de I’ association frangaise pour 
l’avancement des sciences, 4 Lyon,’ he read 
two interesting papers, Sur les valeurs limites 
des intégrales, and Sur les quadratures, after- 
wards published in Liowville’s Journal. 


GrorGE Bruce HAtstep. 
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 
Les Oscillations Electriques. HH. Poincare. 
(CONCLUDED. ) 
Propagation of Electrical Oscillations Through 
Air—tThe velocity of propagation of electro- 
magnetic induction through dielectrics of- 


SCIENCE. 


fered the first experimental test of supe- 
riority of the Faraday-Maxwell theory over 
the older theories. According to these that 
velocity should be infinite ; according to the 
Faraday-Maxwell view of electromagnetic 
phenomena it should be the same as that of 
light. Poincaré reviews carefully all the 
experimental evidences bearing upon this 
point. Hertz’s experiments in Carlsruhe 
are first discussed and his early failures in 
arriving at a satisfactory result are pointed 
out. Two methods employed in these 
measurements by Hertz at Carlsruhe and at 
Bonn are described briefly. One of these 
consisted in measuring by means of a reso- 
nator the difference of phase between two 
waves sent forth by the same oscillator, one 
wave along a conducting wire and the other 
through the dielectric in the vicinity of the 
wire. The other method consisted in meas- 
uring what Hertz considered the wave 
length of stationary electric waves in air 
formed by the interference between the di- 
rect waves sent forth by an oscillator and 
the waves reflected by a large flat mirror 
consisting of a metal sheet 2 meters wide 
and 4 meters high. In all these experiments 
the velocity of propagation along the wire 
seemed to come out considerably different 
from and generally less than that in air. 
But the methods were open to several critic- 
isms. In the first place, the hall in which 
these experiments were carried out was too 
small for the wave lengths employed ; sec- 
ondly, the influence of the waves reflected 
from the walls was entirely neglected ; 
thirdly, the dimensions of the reflecting 
mirror were not large enough in comparison 
to the wave length to prevent errors of ob- 
servation due to the misleading influence of 
diffraction phenomena. All these objections 
were in a measure overcome in the earliest 
experiments of Sarasin and de la Rive (C. 
R. t. CX. p. 72). In these experiments the 
methods of Hertz were employed, but they 
were performed in a large hall, with a large 


132 


mirror and with smaller resonators. The re- 
sults improved with the increase of the di- 
mensions of the mirror and the diminution 
of the size of the exploring resonators. In a 
subsequent series of experiments (C. R. 
CXX., p. 688) carried out in a very large 
hall with a mirror 8 meters high and 16 me- 
ters wide and employing circular resonators 
of 50 and 75 centimeters in diameter these 
investigators obtained completely satisfac- 
tory results, proving beyond all reasonable 
doubt that the velocity of propagation of 
electromagnetic waves through dielectrics 
is the same as along conducting wires and 
equal to the velocity of light. The sources 
of error in Hertz’s experiments were clearly 
demonstrated by these experiments, for no 
matter how large were the hall and the 
mirror a sufficient increase in the dimen- 
sions of the exploring resonators would al- 
ways give misleading results, similar to 
those obtained by Hertz. 

But among the many encouraging results 
obtained by Sarasin and de la Rive there is 
one result which causes much anxiety to 
the mathematical physicist. It is the 
serious disagreement between the theo- 
retically calculated period of the resonator 
and that determined experimentally by the 
illustrious physicists of Geneva. In an ex- 
ceedingly interesting mathematical discus- 
sion of the functions of the resonator 
Poincaré shows that the wave length of the 
fundamental vibration can differ but little 
from twice the circumference of the re- 
sonator, whereas Sarasin and de la Rive 
found it to be equal to eight times the di- 
ameter. The cause of this disagreement 
must be explained by the theory, but how ? 
Poincaré gives no definite answer to this 
question. Many valuable suggestions are 
thrown out, however, and the subject is 
then dismissed after showing by a reference 
to Blondlot’s and Bjerkness’ experiments 
that the theory of the resonator just given 
is correct in its main features. No other 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 5. 


theory of the resonator has been given since 
that given by Hertz, and Poincaré’s discus- 
sion contains many valuable additions to 
the rough outline of the subject sketched 
out by Hertz. In this connection the re- 
viewer ventures to refer to a paper by 
Professor P. Drude (Zum Studium des Elee- 
trischen Resonators, Wied. Ann. Noy. 1894). 

Reflection and Absorption of Hertzian Waves. 
—Resonator and mirror form the essential 
instruments in every method of studying 
electrical waves in the dielectric. The 
phenomena of reflection and absorption of 
these waves deserve, therefore, careful an- 
alysis. To these Poincaré devotes his at- 
tention now. The case of orthogonal in- 
cidence upon a plane metal mirror is first 
discussed. It is shown that the penetration 
of the wave into the metal is inversely pro- 
portional to the square root of the product 
of conductivity and permeability of the 
metal and directly proportional to the square 
root of the wave length. For instance, a 
wave of a periodicity of 50 millions per 
second, which is the ordinary Hertzian 
frequency, will be reduced to nearly one- 
third of its initial intensity at a distance of 
sy mm. below the surface of a mirror of 
copper. The relation, however, which 
Poincaré obtains between the penetrability 
of the wave and the wave length, the con- 
ductivity, permeability, and specific induct- 
ive capacity of the metal does not hold good 
for frequencies as high as those of light, 
for on the one hand it gives by approxi- 
mation a negative value for the specific in- 
ductive capacity of all metals, and on the 
other hand it gives a conductivity 300 to 
400 times smaller than that obtained by 
ordinary resistance measurements. The 
same relations hold good for oblique reflec- 
tion. It is interesting to note that if, as 
Cauchy believes, the fundamental equations 
of Fresnel (slightly modified) hold good for 
metallic reflection then a retardation in 
phase equal to half a period takes place at 


FEBRUARY 1, 1895.] 


the reflecting surface when the electric force 
of the incident wave is normal to the plane 
of incidence; no retardation takes place if 
this electrical force is in the plane of inci- 
dence. The extinction of the wave in its 
passage through the metal develops heat 
and Poincaré calculates the rate at which 
the heat is developed by a given current, 
obtaining the interesting result that it is 
proportional to the square root of the 
product of frequency, specific resistance and 
permeability. The results of these consider- 
ations are now compared to experiment. 
The most important experiments bearing 
upon this part of the theory are those of 
Bjerkness (l.c.). A circular resonator 
having a small plate condenser interposed 
in place of the spark gap was employed. 
Between these plates a small aluminum 
sheet was suspended and measured by its 
deflection the mean square of the potential 
difference between the plates. The oscil- 
lator was gradually tuned and the resonance 
effect in the resonator measured by the 
deflection of the aluminum sheet. Six re- 
sonators of the same dimensions but of 
different material were investigated. The 
resonance curve of copper was highest, then 
followed brass, silver, platinum, nickel and 
iron, in the same order as required by theory. 
The resonator decrement of iron, for in- 
stance, was nine times and that of platinum 
twice as large as that of copper. To meas- 
ure the depth of penetration these materials 
were deposited electrolytically, say iron on 
& copper resonator, or vice versa, and the 
resonator effect measured for the various 
thicknesses of the deposit. Results agreeing 
very fairly with the theory were obtained. 

Propagation of Electrical Waves through Die- 
lectrics other than Air.—Another crucial test of 
the correctness of the Faraday-Maxwell the- 
ory is furnished by the well known relation 
that the specific inductive capacity of a di- 
electric is equal to the square of its index 
of refraction. This relation is an immedi- 


SCIENCE. 


133 


ate inference from the new electromagnetic 
theory. Since the index of refraction of a 
substance is equal to the ratio of the ve- 
locity of propagation in vacuum to that in 
the substance it follows that the velocity of 
propagation of a Hertzian wave in dielec- 
trics having a specific inductive capacity 
larger than unity should be smaller than in 
air. This relation was tested by Blondlot 
in the experiments cited above by immers- 
ing both the conducting wire and the reso- 
nator in a liquid dielectric and measuring 
the wave length. Another method based 
upon the same principle was that employed 
by Rubens & Arons (Wied. Ann. 40 p. 585). 
The neutral point of a rectangular resonator 
was connected directly to one side of the 
spark-gap of the oscillator. No spark was 
then observed in the spark-gap of the resona- 
tor. If, however, the balance of the resona- 
tor was now disturbed by inserting on one 
side of it a certain length of wire immersed 
in a dielectric the spark appeared. The 
balance was again restored by inserting a 
sufficient length of wire in the other side of 
the resonator. The ratio of these two 
lengths of wire measured the ratio of the 
velocities of propagation in air and in the 
dielectric. 

Another method, first employed by J. J. 
Thomson (Phil. Mag. 30, p. 129), was based 
on the relation which exists between the 
capacity of a plate condenser and the di- 
electric constant of the insulator separating 
its plates. The period of an oscillator or 
resonator will vary with the dielectric be- 
tween the condenser plates. Thomson mea- 
sured the period of an oscillator for vari- 
ous dielectrics placed between its condenser 
plates and calculated from it the specific 
inductive capacity. Several other electro- 
magnetic methods are described briefly by 
Poincaré, and then the statical methods, be- 
longing most of them to the pre-Hertzian 
epoch, are passed in quick review. Finally 
the experimental results are codrdinated 


134 


and briefly discussed. In a large number 
of cases Maxwell’s relation is confirmed ; 
but, again, the cases are numerous in which 
the agreement between theory and experi- 
ment is far from satisfactory; this is es- 
pecially true of dielectrics showing traces 
of conductivity and large electric absorp- 
tion, and even more true of electrolytes. 
This part of Poincaré’s work is rather in- 
complete, probably because it offers fewer 
opportunities to a mathematical physicist 
than any other part of Maxwell’s electro- 
magnetic theory. The most serious critic- 
ism, perhaps, that may be brought against 
it is its omission of some of the most im- 
portant investigations on dielectric con- 
stants, as, for instance, the investigations of 
Boltzmann. Again, not a single word is 
said concerning the influence which the 
study of the dielectric properties of sub- 
stances had upon Faraday and Maxwell and 
how much it had contributed to the forma- 
tion of their electromagnetic theory. 

The reflection of electrical waves from the 
surface of a dielectric is taken up and it is 
shown by a reference to analogous phe- 
nomena in optics why reflection cannot occur 
when the thickness of a dielectric plate is 
small in comparison to the wave length of 
an electrical wave. Trouton’s experiments 
(Nature, Vol. 39, p. 391) form the basis of 
this discussion. 

The experimental evidence furnished by 
the study of the reflection of electrical waves 
is cited which supports the view that the 
plane of polarization as defined in optics is 
perpendicular to the direction of the elec- 
trical force in the wave-front. 

A very interesting experimental investi- 
gation published by Klemencic (Wiener 
Sitzungsber, 19. Feb., 1891) is next de- 
scribed. It treats of wave reflection by di- 
electrics. The dielectric experimented with 
was a slab of sulphur 120 em. long, 80 em. 
wide and 7 cm. thick. The wave length 
employed was 60 em. A rectilinear oscil- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


lator placed in the axis of a cylindrical para- 
bolic mirror furnished the plane waves. The 
reflected and refracted waves were studied 
by means of thermoelectric couples attached 
to rectilinear oscillators placed in the axis 
of parabolic mirrors similar to the one used 
in connection with oscillator. There was a 
reflection at every angle of incidence when 
the direction of oscillation of the electrical 
force was perpendicular to the plane of in- 
cidence. But when it was parallel to it then 
there was an angle of incidence at which no 
reflection occurred. Fresnel’s fundamental 
formule, however, were not quite satisfac- 
torily verified. Poincaré ascribes it to the 
insufficient thickness of the slab. Klemen- 
cic found also that the energy of the inci- 
dent wave was smaller than the sum of the 
energies of the reflected and refracted 
wave, a result which he believed to be due 
to the presence of diffraction. 

Conductors in Motion in an Electromagnetic 
Field.—The last chapter gives the essential 
features of Hertz’s essay: On the funda- 
mental equations of the electromagnetic 
field for conductors in motion. 

Poincaré considers first the electromotive 
force induced in a cireuit which is moving 
through a variable electromagnetic field. 
He proceeds as follows: Consider a surface 
formed by the circuit under consideration. 
Let it move with the circuit. Consider two 
consecutive positions of this surface, the 
time of passage from the first to the second 
position being infinitely short, the velocity 
of motion being finite. Consider now the 
space bounded by the initial and the final 
position of the surface and by the ring- 
shaped surface whose boundary is the 
initial and the final position of the circuit. 
The total magnetic flux through this surface 
is according to well known relations pro- 
portional to the total amount of what Hertz 
and Poincaré call true magnetism included in 
the bounded surface. The total induced 
electromotive force being equal to the total 


FEBRUARY 1, 1895.] 


rate of variation of the magnetic flux 
through the circuit the last relation leads to 
the following final result : The total electro- 
motive force induced in an infinitely small 
circuit which moves through a variable 
electromagnetic field is composed of three 
parts. First, the electromotive force due 
to rate or variation of the magnetic flux 
through the circuit and produced by the 
time variation of the field itself. Second, 
the electromotive force due to the rate of 
variation of the magnetic flux through the 
circuit produced by the motion of the circuit. 
The third component of the induced electro- 
motive force can be deseribed as follows: 
Suppose that permanent magnetic charges 
are distributed in any way whatsoever 
throughout the field. There is then a 
transference of magnetic matter through 
the moving circuit. We may call it the 
magnetic convection current, following a 
suggestion of Hertz (Unters. ueb. d. Aus- 
br. der el. Kraft, p. 265). This magnetic 
convection current is equal to the quantity 
of magnetic matter contained in the volume 
traced out per unit of time by the moving 
circuit, and is proportional to the third 
component of the induced electromotive 
force. This component does not appear in 
Maxwell’s theory, so that the Hertzian 
equations seem to be more complete than 
those of Maxwell. 

Poincaré recognizes in this quite a differ- 
ence between Maxvwell’s presentation of the 
electromagnetic theory and that of Hertz ; 
but this difference will evidently exist only 
if it is proved that a distribution of perm- 
nent magnetism, whose induction flux over 
a closed surface is a constant, different from 
zero, can exist. The physical meaning of 
such a distribution is far from being clear, 
and Poincaré might have well devoted more 
attention to the elucidation of this perplex- 
‘ing feature of the Hertzian equations. On 
this point the student will do well to consult 
Boltzmann (Vorles. iiber Maxwell’s Theorie 


SCIENCE. 


135 


d. Elec. & d. Lichtes, IT. Theil, IX. Vorles.). 

The second group of equations refers to 
the magnetomotive force induced in a circuit 
which is changing its position with respect 
to a field of given distribution of electrical 
force and it is shown that the total magneto- 
motive force induced in an infinitely small 
circuit in motion is composed of four compon- 
ents. The first component is proportional 
to the rate of change of the flux of electric in- 
duction which constitutes the conduction 
current. The second component is propor- 
tional to the rate of change of the flux of elec- 
tric induction which constitutes the displace- 
ment current. The third component is pro- 
portional to the rate of change of the electric 
flux due to the motion of the circuit, and 
the fourth component is proportional to the 
convection current of permanent electro- 
static charges, corresponding to what was 
called above the convection current of perm- 
anent magnetism. There is, however, no 
difficulty of conceiving a permanent electri- 
fication of the dielectric such that the total 
flux of its induction through a closed surface 
should be different from zero, and, therefore, 
the magnetomotive force induced by an elec- 
trical convection current is a priori evident 
as soon as the correctness of the fundamental 
assumptions in the Faraday-Maxwell theory 
isadmitted. There is no difference between 
this second group of equations and those 
given by Maxwell. 

It is pointed out that the existence of the 
third component was verified by Rowland’s 
experiments (Pogg. Ann. 158, p. 487), 
and the existence of the fourth component 
by the experiments of Roentgen (Wied. 
Ann. 35, p. 264). The magnetomotive force 
due to displacement currents was, of course, 
first pointed out by the experiments of 
Hertz. 

Next follows a beautiful mathematical 
discussion of the mechanical forces acting 
upon a body which is moving through an 
electromagnetic field. The following types 


136 


of forces. are passed in quick review: 1. 
An ordinary magnetic force due to the pres- 
ence of permanent magnetism. 2. Ordi- 
nary electrostatic force due to the presence of 
electrostatic charges. 3. Electromagnetic 
force consisting of four distinct components. 
One component is the electromagnetic ac- 
tion of the field upon conduction currents. 
The second component is the electromag- 
netic action of the field upon the displace- 
ment currents. The third component cor- 
responds to the electromagnetic action of 
the field upon the currents observed by 
Rowland and Roentgen. The fourth type 
of force is that between a variable current 
and the electrical reactions set up in the 
field by its variation. All these forces ex- 
cept the last have been observed experi- 
mentally. The last one is too feeble to be 
detected by any of the known experimental 
methods. 

The work is, unfortunately, marred by 
quite a number of typographical errors. 
Some of them occur in the midst of important 
andrather difficult mathematical operations 
and will undoubtedly be a source of con- 
siderable perplexity to the younger students 
for whom, especially, this work is intended. 

The reviewer is of the opinion that he 
will reécho the sentiment of every lover 
of the Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic 
theory when he states that this, the latest, 
contribution of the brilliant French mathe- 
matician will be a welcome guide to every- 
one who wishes to keep in close contact 
with the latest advances of the electro- 
magnetic theory. 

M. I. Puri. 

COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 

The Steam Engine and Other Heat Engines. 
By J. A. Ewre, Professor of Mechanism 
and Applied Mechanics in the University 
of Cambridge. Cambridge University 
Press; New York, Macmillan & Co. 1894. 
8vo., pp. xiv+400. Price, $38.75. 


Professor Ewing, in his article on the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


steam engine in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 
gave good measure to his ability and knowl- 
edge of the subject by the production of a~ 
treatise in which, for the first time, a system- 
atic and fairly complete discussion was 
attempted of the theory of the real steam 
engine, as distinguished from the purely 
Thermodynamic Theory of the Ideal Heat 
Engine, which only had previously been 
presented by writers on that wonderful 
machine. Clark and Hirn and Iserwood 
had cleverly shown the wide discrepancy 
between the ideal and the real engine, and 
Cotterill had discussed with elegance and 
clearness the extra thermodynamic losses of 
the machine ; but Ewing brought together, 
for the first time, and in such form as to 
make his discussion useful, to theorist and 
‘practical man’ and professional engineer 
alike, in the study of existing engines and 
in the attempt to improve upon them by 
scientifically accurate designing and con- 
struction. His article was a condensed, 
but complete, exposition to its date, of 
scientific and practical knowledge of the 
methods of economical production of heat 
in the boiler, and of the economical thermo- 
dynamic utilization of the energy thus made 
available at the engine, with exact accounts 
of the various methods of waste of thermal 
and of dynamic energy. Had its author 
written nothing else, this article would have 
sufficed to give him a full share of fame. 
His new treatise on the steam engine, now 
issued in book form, is based upon his earlier 
discussion, but is entirely rewritten to give 
it a shape better adapted to its present pur- 
pose, and to permit the introduction of new 
matter. ‘The endeavor has been, through- 
out, to make evident the bearing of theory 
on practical issues.”” Some space is devoted 
to experimental work and the discussion of 
facts and data revealed by it. In so con- 
densed a work it would have been impos- 
sible to introduce as complete a study of 
pure thermodynamics as may be found in 


FEBRUARY 1, 1895.] 


Wood or Peabody, as full treatment of the 
extra-thermodynamic wastes as in Cotterill, 
or of experimental methods as in Carpenter ; 
but the book exhibits much of that rarest of 
talents, ability to condense, and, for an 
_ abridged work, maintains an extraordinarily 
high standard of scientific quality. The 
discussion of the ‘ entropy-temperature ’ di- 
~ agram of Professor J. Willard Gibbs, which 
is only now, after many years, finding its 
_ place in the treatment of the heat motors, 
is the fullest and most satisfactory yet pro- 
duced, not even excepting the work of its 
first trans-Atlantic advocate, Mr. J. Mac- 
farlane Gray. This method of graphical 
treatment is gradually finding its place, and 

a very useful one, in the discussion of ther- 

modynamic machines. Following Wood 

and Peabody, and later writers, this author 
has adopted, in all his own computations, 
the value, 778, for the thermodynamic equiv- 
alent obtained by Rowland. It may prob- 
ably be safely asserted that this value is now 
universally accepted. 

The unavoidable brevity with which all 
topics are treated in so small a space gives 
the reader occasion, frequently, to wish that 
the volume had been doubled in size, and 
fuller discussion and more of result thus 
secured ; but the book takes its place, among 
the many other treatises on the steam 
engine, as meeting a need that is being con- 
tinually felt more and more by engineers, 
and which is not as well supplied by any 
other of the existing abridged discussions of 
the theory of the machine. It is well up to 
date in its practical aspects, as well as in 
the van on its purely scientific side. 

R. H. Tuurston. 

CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 

An Introduction to Chemical Analysis for Be- 
ginners.—F rom the Sixth German Edition 
of Dr. Fr. Ruporrr.—Translated by 
Cuas. B. Greson and F. Menzev.—Chi- 
cago, The W. J. Keener Co. 8 vo.,96 pp. 
Price $1.00 


. 


—& 


SCIENCE. 137 


This book is divided into two parts: Part 
I, Reactions; and Part II, Systematic Course 
of Qualitative Analysis. Metallic copper is 
the first substance examined, and then fol- 
low copper, zine, zinc chloride, manganous 
sulphate, iron, lead, etec., in the order named. 
A careful examination of this part fails to 
detect any great novelty either of matter or 
arrangement. In Part II the metals are 
grouped under the familiar group reagents 
except that lead, mercury and silver are 
placed along with those precipitated by hy- 
drogen sulfid and not, as is usual, separated 
under hydrochloric acid as group reagent. 
The scheme of analysis is well conceived, 
but offers little of novelty. The explana- 
tions and notes have been carefully adjusted 
to meet the needs of the student and are a 
valuable feature. The translation is, how- 
ever, a very slovenly piece of work, and the 
nomenclature is especially bad. For exam- 
ple, on page 72, we find‘ammonie’ sulfid 
written Am»S, and lower down we have 
NH,OH. Why the authors deny to bis- 
muth cobalt and nickel the ic terminations 
which they give to nearly all the other 
metallic salts is not apparent. Several very 
awkward sentences occur. For example, in 
the introduction, ‘‘ We have made a few ad- 
ditions calculated to assist the medical and 
dental student who suffers mainly the dis- 
advantage of being unable to devote but a 
small part of his time to chemical studies.” 

The mechanical execution of the book is 
pretty good. There is no index. 

Epwarp Harr. 

LAFAYETTE COLLEGE. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
PALEOBOTANY. 

A LARGE collection of fossil plants made by 
Professor W. P. Jenny in the Cretaceous 
rim of the Black Hills during the past field 
season has just been opened at the National 
Museum and proves to be of the highest 
interest to paleontology. It was made under 


138 


unusual difficulties and in the pure love of 
science in connection with Professor Jen_ 
ney’s work as a mining expert in the Black 
Hills. All the material comes from the 
lower portion of what was regarded by 
Professor Newton as the Dakota group ; 
most of it from nearly the same horizon as 
that from which the gigantic cycadean 
trunks now so well known and the small 
collection of plants made by Jenney and 
Ward in September, 1893, were obtained 
(see Journal of Geology for April-May, 1894, 
Vol. IL., No..3, pp. 250-266). The collec- 
tion has not yet been systematically worked 
up, but a casual examination of it shows that 
the plants have no relation to the true Da- 
Kota group, but are certainly as old as Lower 
Cretaceous and are probably of Kootanie 
age. The genera Gileichenia, Cladophlebis, Za- 
mites, Athrotaxopsis, and many others char- 
acteristic of the Kootanie, the Trinity and 
the Potomac formations are represented, 
while no dicotyledonous leaves occur. Upon 
the whole they may be considered as a com- 
plete confirmation of the conclusion previ- 
ously reached that the Dakota group of 
Newton must be subdivided and that a 
large portion of it belongs to the Lower Cre- 
taceous. Professor Jenney is able to sepa- 
rate it into five distinet horizons, only the 
uppermost of which belongs to the Dakota 
of Meek and Hayden, between which and 
the underlying beds he finds an uncon- 
formity. 


Mr. Lester F. Warp delivered two lec- 
tures on Jan. 8 and 10 before the Peabody 
Institute of Baltimore, on the Vegetation of 
the Ancient World, illustrated by over fifty lan- 
tern views. These were arranged in such a 
manner as to pass in review in their ascend- 
ing geological order all the fossil floras 
known from the Silurian to the Pleistocene. 
The greater part of the illustrations were 
drawn from American material, and all the 
great plant bearing horizons of North Amer- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


ica were represented by groups of typical 
and characteristic forms. Special attention 
was given to the wonderful fossil forests of 
this country, and especially of the National 
Yellowstone Park. The fossil flora of the 
Potomac formation, and particularly that of 
the State of Maryland and the City of Bal- 
timore, were duly emphasized. Interspersed 
with these more scientific illustrations there 
were thrown on the screen a number of the 
magnificient ideal landscapes conceived and 
executed by the great scientific artists, 
Unger, Heer, Saporta and Dawson. The 
lectures were well adapted to give to the 
general public a systematic and compre- 
hensive view of the forms of plant life that 
have inhabited the earth and especially 
those that have flourished in America 
throughout the past ages of geological 
time. 
A TOPOGRAPHICAL ATLAS. 

Tue Director of the United States Geo- 
logical Survey has recently submitted to 
the Secretary of the Interior an amendment 
to the ‘ Sundry Civil Bill,’ now before Con- 
gress, authorizing the printing and distri- 
bution of an atlas of ten topographical map- — 
sheets to the schools, academies and colleges 
of the country, the proposed atlas to contain 
illustrations of the various types of topo- 
graphical form observed in the country, and 
to be accompanied by an explanatory bul- 
letin which will serve as a primer of topog- 
raphy for school use. 

If the amendment is carried, and the at- 
las meets the approval of teachers, it is pro- 
posed to distribute additional series in later 
years. Those who are interested in the ad- 
vance of geography in the schools cannot 
do better than promptly to address their 
Congressman, asking for support of this ex- 
cellent proposition. It is in effect an econ- 
omical measure, for it will at a moderate 
cost give a wide and novel use to a large 
amount of material that has been gathered 
at great expense, and that is now stored 


_ Fepruary 1, 1895.] 


in the office of the Geological Survey, 
awaiting a limited distribution some years 
hence. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN BOTANY. 


Tue Bibliography Committee of American 
botanists has just completed its first year of 
organized work in the production of an 
author catalogue of papers relating to 
American Botany. This has been printed 

in the monthly issues of the Bulletin of the 
Torrey Botanical Club and then reprinted on 
library cards by the Cambridge Botanical 
Supply Co. The editors have endeavored 
to make the record as complete as possible 
and if includes 575 titles. The commit- 
_ tee and the editors earnestly request that 
their attention be called to omissions and 
that all interested aid in insuring complete- 
“ness. 

Foreign botanists are particularly re- 
quested to call our attention to any of their 
writings which refer to American plants. 
Communications may be addressed to the 
Editor of the Torrey Botanical Club, Co- 
lumbia College, New York City. 


GENERAL. 


On January 10th, Dr. George M. Dawson, 
©. M. G., F. R. S., was appointed Director 
of the Geological Survey of Canada, suc- 
ceeding Dr. Selwyn, retired. 


Tue next annual meeting of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science 
will be held at Ipswich, commencing on 
Wednesday, September 11th. Sir Douglas 
Galton is President-elect. 


Accorprxe to the daily papers a party 
composed of Prof. Charles E. Hite, Alfred 
©. Harrison, Jr., Henry C. Walsh and Dr. 
J. Donnell McDonald sailed on Wednesday 
to Central America with a view to obtaining 
natural history and archeological col- 
lections. The expedition is under the au- 
spices of the biological department of the 
University of Pennsylvania. 


hd 
~ 


SCIENCE. 


139 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
AMERICAN CHEMICAL JOURNAL, JAN. 


Contributions from the Laboratory of General 
Chemistry, University of Michigan :—(1) On 
the Action of Chlorcarbonie Ester on Sodium 
Acetone: By Paut C. Freer. (2) The 
Action of Metals on Nitric Acid: By GrorcE 
O. Hietry. (3) An Introductory Study of 
the Influence of the Substitution of Halogens 
in Acids, upon the Rate and Limit of Ester- 
ification: By D. M. Licuty. (4) On the 
Action of Sodium on the Esters of Aconitic 
and Citric Acids. Preliminary Notice, by 
Paux C. FREER. 

The Combination of Sulphur with Iodine: By 
C. E. LInEBARGER. 

Contributions from the Chemical Laboratories 
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology :— 
An Investigation of the Twitchell Method for 
the Determination of Rosin in Soap: By 
Tuomas Evans and I. E. Brac. 

A Laboratory Method for the Preparation of 
Potassium Fericyanide: By M.S. WALKER. 
Reviews. 


THE PHYSICAL REVIEWS, JAN.—FEB. 


The Apparent Forces between Fine Solid Par- 
ticles Totally Immersed in Liquids—I: W. 
J. A. Briss. 

The Distribution of Energy in the Spectrum of 
the Glow-lamp: Epwarp L. NicHots. 

The Influence of Heat and the Electric Current 
upon Young’s Modulus for a Piano Wire: 
Mary C. Noyes. 

Minor Contributions: (1) On Magnetic Poten- 
tial: FREDERICK BeDELL. (2) A Method 
for the Study of Transmission Spectra in the 
Ultra-violet: Ernest Nicnors. (3) The 
Photography of Manometric Flames: Wiu.- 
LIAM HALLOcK. 


THE AMERICAN NATURALIST, JAN. 
Birds of New Guinea: Grorcr 8. Mean. 
Leuciscus Balteatus (Richardson), A Study in 

Variation: Cart H. E1ig@enmMann. 


140 


On the Evolution of the Art of Working in Stone : 
J. D. McGurreE. 

Recent Books and Pamphlets; Recent Literature. 
General Notes: Mineralogy. Petrography. 
Geography and Travels. Botany. Zoology. 
Embryology. Entomology. Psychology. Ar- 
cheology and Ethnology. Microscopy. 

Scientific News. 

THE BOTANICAL GAZETTE, JAN, 

Undescribed Plants from Guatemala and other 
Central American Republics, XIV. (With 

_ plates I-III.) Joun DonneLi SMitTH. 

Notes from my Herbarium: WaAutER DEANE. 

The crystallization of cellulose. Duncan S. 
JOHNSON. 

Noteworthy anatomical and physiological re- 
searches. 

Briefer Articles; Editorial; Current Intera- 
ture; Open Letters ; Notes and News. 

THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, JAN. 


Stone Art in America: By J. W. POWELL. 

The Huacos of Chira Valley, Peru: By SAMUEL 
MarHEwson Scorr. 

Caste in India: By J. H. Porver. 

Miemae Customs and Traditions: By Srans- 
BURY HAGER. 

The Writings of Padre Andres de Olmos in the 

Languages of Mexico: By JAmus C. PILuine. 

Chinese Origin of Playing Cards: By W. H. 
WILKINSON. 

Col. Garrick Mallery, U. S. A.; an Obituary: 
By Roserr FLETCHER. 

Book Notices ; Notes and News ; Bibliography of 
Anthropologie Literature. 


NEW BOOKS. 


A Teat-book of Organic Chemistry. A. BERNTH- 
SEN. Translated by Grorce McGowan. 
London, Blackie & Sons; New York, D. 
Van Nostrand. 1894. Pp.x ix+596. $2.50. 

A Text-book of Mechanics and Hydrostatics. 
HeErBert Hancock. New York, D. Van 
Nostrand. 1894. Pp.v+408. $1.75. 

A Treatise of Industrial Photometry with Special 
Application to Electric Lighting. A. PAtaz. 


SCIENCE. 


Translated from the French by GEroreE 
W. Parrerson, Jr., and Merits Rowiey 
Parrerson. New York, D. Van Nost= 
rand ; London, Sampson Low, Marston & 
Co. Limited. 1894. Pp. vii+ 322. $4.00. 

Proceedings of the International Electrical Con- 
gress held in the City of Chicago, August 21st 
to 25th, 1893. New York, American In- 
stitute of Electrical Engineers. 1894. Pp. 
xxiv + 487. : 

The Life and Writings of Rafinesque. Ricu- 
ARD Exisworra Cart. Louisville, Ky., 
Filson Club Publications, X. Quarto, 
pp. Xi + 227. 

History of Higher Education in Rhode Island. 
Wriram Stowe Torman. Washington, 
Government Printing Office. 1894. Pp. 
210. 


The Birds of Eastern Pennsylvania and New — 


Jersey. WirmerR Stone. Philadelphia, 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 5. 


Delaware Valley Ornithological Club. 


1894. Pp. vit 185. 


An Illustrated Dictionary of Medicine, Biology — 


and Allied Sciences. GEORGE M. Gouxp. 
Philadelphia, P. Blackiston & Sons. 
1894. xv +1633. 

Municipal Government in Great Britain. At- 
BERT SuHAaw. New York, The Century 
Co. Pp. 385. $2. 


Hine Discussion der Krafte der Chemaschen Dy-— 
Lupwic STETTENHEIMER. Frank- — 


namak. 
fort, H. Bechhold. 1895. Pp. 85. M. 6. 

On the Origin of Language and The Logos 
Theory. Lupwie Norms. 
Court Publishing Co. 1895. 
cents. 

Geological Survey of Alabama. 
LEN SMITH. 
Brown Printing Co. 1894. xxiv + 759; 
also Geological Map of Alabama. 

Freytag’s Technique of the Drama. Trans- 
lated by Extas J. MacEwan. Chicago, 8. 
C. Griggs & Co. 1895. Pp. ix+ 366. 

Social Growth and Stability. D. OSTRANDER. 
Chicago, 8. C. Griggs & Co. 1895. Pp. 
191. $1. 


Pp.57. 15 


EUGENE AL- 


Chicago, Open — 


Montgomery, Alabama, The — 


po Cle NCE. 


NEw SERIES. 
Vou. I, No.6. 


. 


Fripay, Fesruary 8, 1895. 


SINGLE COPIES, 15 CTs. 
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GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


PHYSICS. 


ABHANDLUNGEN, physikalische, der konigl, Aka- 
demie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. 4°. Mit. 1 Taf. 
Mk. 10. 


Bors, Dr. H. pu. Magnetische Kreise, deren The- 
rie und Anwendung. Mit 94in den Text gedruck- 
ten Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Gebunden. Mk. 10. 


CHRISTIANSEN, Pror. Dr. C., Elemente der theo- 
retischen Physik. Deutsch v. Dr. Joh. Miller. Mit 
e. Vorwort v. Prof. Dr. E. Wiedemann. gr. 8°. Mk. 
10. 

Drupeg, P. Physik des Aethers auf elektromag- 
netischer Grundlage. 8°. Mit 66 Abbildgn. Mk. 14. 
_ FOppt, Prof. Dr. A., Einfiithrung in die Maxwell- 
‘sche Theorie der Elektricitiit. Mit. e. Einleit. Ab- 
_sehnitte iiber das Rechnen m. Vectorgréssen in der 

Physik. gr. 8°. Mk. 10. 
_ GARNAULT, E. Mécanique, physique et chimie. 
Paris, 1894. 8°. Avec. 325 fig. 8 fr. 

Kory, Dr. ArntHuR. Eine Theorie der Gravita- 
tion und der elektrischen Erscheinungen auf Grund- 
lage der Hydrodynamik. Zweiter Teil: Elektrody- 
namik. Erster Abschnitt. Theorie des permanenten 
a eames und der konstanten elektrischen Stréme. 
gr. 8°. Mk. 3. 


_ Weper. Sechster Band. Mechanik der mensch- 
lichen Gehwerkzeuge. Besorgt durch Friedrich Mer- 


kel und Otto Fischer. Mit 17 Tafeln und in den Text 
gedruckten Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Mk, 16. 

WEBER’s WERKE, WILHELM. Herausgegeben von 
der Koniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu 
Géttingen. Vierter Band Galvanismus und Elektro- 

ik. Zweiter Teil. Besorgt durch Heinrich 
eber. Mit 4 Tafeln und in den Text gedruckten 
Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Mk. 16. 

WIEDEMANN, Gustav. Die Lehre der Elektriz- 
itt. Zweite umgearbeitete und vermehrte Auflage. 
Zugleich als vierte Auflage der Lehre vom Galvanis- 
mus und Elektromagnetismus. Zweiter Band. Mit 
163 Holzschnitten und einer Tafel. gr. 8°, Mk. 28. 


CHEMISTRY. 


BIECHELE, Dr. Max., Pharmaceutische Uebungs- 
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_ Busarp Dr. ALFons, und Dr, EpuARD BATER. 
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ERLENMEYER’S, E., Lehrbuch der organischen 
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Begonnen von Rch. Meyer fortgesetzt von H. Gold- 
schmidt, weiter fortgefiihrt von K. v. Buchka. I. Bd. 
8 Lfg. Mk. 6. 


GEISSLER, Dk. EWALD. Grundriss der pharma- 
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Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Mit 37 
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2896. GIRARD, C., et. A. DUPRE. Analyse des 
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tions. 8°. 32 fr. 50c. 

GLUCKSMANN, Karu. Kritische Studien im Be- 
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HANDWORTERBUCH DER CHEMIE, herausgegeben 
von A. Ladenburg. XII. Bd. 8°. Mit Holzschn. S. 
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JacquoT, E. et Witm, Les Eaux minérales de la 
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J AHRESBERICHT iiber die Leistungen der chemisch- 
en Technologiem. besond. Beriicksicht. der Gewerbe- 
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R. v. Wagner. Fortgesetz v. Dr. Ferd. Fischer. 39. 
od. neue Folge. 24 Jahrg. gr. 8°. M. 200 Abbildgn. 
| Mk. 24. 

CECHSNER DE CONNICK. 
ique. 2vol. 8° Fr.20. 

OstWALD, W. Die wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen 
der analytischen Chemie. 8°. Mk. 4. 

OstWwaLp, W. Elektrochemie. Ihre Geschichte 
und Lehre. 3. u. 4. Lfg. 8°. Mit Abbildgn. 4 Mk. 2. 

RICHTER’s, V. v., Chemie der Kohlenstoffverbin- 
dungen od. organische Chemie. 7. Aufl, Neubearb. 
v. Prof. Dr. R. Anschiitz. (In 2 Bdn.) 1, Bd. Die 
Chemie der Fettkérper. 8°. Holschn, Mk. 10. 

SCHNELLER, K. Reactionen und Reagentien. Ein 
Handbuch fiir Aerzte, Analytiker, Apotheker und 
Chemiker. I. Bd. 8°. Mk. 6. 

ZIRKEL, PROF. DR. FERDINAND. 
Petrographie. 
lage. Zweiter Band. 


Cours de chimie organ- 


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MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, 


SCIENCE. 


EpiTor1aL ComMITTEE : S. Newcoms, Mathematics ; R. S. Woopwarp, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, As- 


tronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; 


IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 


JosEPH LE ConTE, Geology; W. M. DAvis, Physiography; O. C. MArsu, Paleontology; W. K. 
Brooks, Invertebrate Zodlogy ; C. HART MERRIAM, Vertebrate Zodlogy ; N. L. Brrrron, 
Botany ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, General Biology ; H. P. Bowpircu, Physiology ; 

J. S. Brutrnes, Hygiene ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; 


DANIEL G. BRINTON, J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Fripay, Fesrvuary 8, 1895. 


; CONTENTS: 
An Historical Survey of the Science of Mechanics : 
5. WOODWARD ..........c00 Rileiec ees cles 141 
The Five Books of History: J. W. POWELL....-. 157 
Unity of Nomenclature in Zoology and Botany: 
C. HART MERRIAM........ 22 peed Meee 161 
Scientific Literature :—...... SoMa ple aie’ sits = 162 


Can an Organism without a Mother be Born 
from an Egg? W.K. B. Schorlemmer’s Rise 
and Development of Organie Chemistry : EDGAR 


F. SMIvTH. 

Notes and News :— ........0.. 2) AE ESS .-164 
Hygiene; Physics; Anatomy; Carnivorous 
Plants ; Toads on the Seashore ; General. 

Societies and Academies :—....... Deep ea calc <2 166 


New York Academy of Sciences, Section of Bi- 

ology ; Biological Society of Washington. 
Scientific Journals 
0 0) ee oo ooaade Seedees - -168 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the poneble editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N 

Subscriptions (five dollars annually yand advertisements 
should be sent to the Publisher of SCIENCE, 41 East 49th St., 
New York, or Lancaster, Pa. 


AN HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE SCIENCE OF 


MECHANICS.* 
Our age is at once the age of excessive 
specialization and the age of excessive popu- 
larization of science. Every smallest field 


of scientific activity has its gleaners and 


classifiers and builders of technical termin- 
ology. The workers in each field proceed, 
as a rule, without much regard to the inter- 


*Address delivered by Professor R. 8S. Woodward, 
ata meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, 
November 26, 1894. 


ests ea pears of the workers in adjoining 
fields, and it may easily happen that the 
precise and lucid, if not romantic, literature 
current in one field will be well-nigh unin- 
telligible in another. So far, indeed, has 
this specialization gone that the various 
classes of specialists have but little common 
ground on which to meet, and it is some- 
times difficult, if not impossible, for them to 
dwell together in peace and harmony. In 
a general scientific assembly, for example, 
the naturalists feel great uneasiness in lis- 
tening to a paper from a mathematician or 
physicist, while the latter are almost certain 
to seek relief in the open air from the de- 
pression induced in them by the wealth of 
terminology essential to the description of a 
new species. The general public, on the 
other hand, busy though it be with multi- 
farious affairs, is quick to appreciate the re- 
sults of science and eager to know how they 
have been attained. To meet this legiti- 
mate demand for information, scientific and 
pseudo-scientific men have given us a flood 
of popular literature explaining almost ev- 
ery discovery, principle, theory, and specula- 
tion known to scientific thought. Nay more, 
and worse, this popularization has gone so 
far that many have come to think that 
the royal road to learning has been found ; 
that it is only necessary, in fact, to acquire 
a little of the technical terminology, to read 
a few books, and to witness a few pyrotecli- 
nic experiments to come into possession of 


142 


sound knowledge. Thus we hear of uni- 
versity courses in science carried on by cor- 
respondence and completed in a few weeks 
ora few months. The professional popular- 
izer has been developed. He expounds sci- 
ence from the platform and through the 
the press; and there is no subject so ab- 
struse as to deter him from producing a 
treatise on it in sixty days. Verily, it may 
be said, whosoever hungers for the bread 
of science may find an abundance ready 
made; but out of this abundance few are 
able to select the real staff of scientific life. 

As a worker in one of the narrow fields of 
scientific thought, I find myself in diffi- 
culties to-night in seeking to say something 
which may be at the same time interesting 
and instructive concerning a science which 
is more than twenty centuries old, but which 
has rarely if ever attracted much popular 
attention. How to steer clear of the rocks 
of obtrusive technicality, on the one hand, 
and of the shoals of popularization on the 
other, is, you will no doubt agree with me, 
a rather appalling task. Moreover, there 
are special reasons why you might expect 
the science of mechanies to be the driest if 
not the dullest of subjects for a popular 
discourse. One reason lies in the fact that 
those who, from accident or force of cireum- 
stances, find themselves obliged to pursue 
‘the study of mechanics seriously for a few 
months in college, are wont to celebrate the 
completion of such study by making this 
science the subject of mock funeral rites or 
“by relegating it to the bonfires of oblivion. 
‘Another reason finds expression in a very 
common notion, even among highly edu- 
cated people, that the mathematico-physical 
sciences are like so many highly perfected 
mills whose remorseless and monotonous 
grinding soon converts their operators into 
mere automatons destitute of every human 
sentiment and deaf to every human song. 
In explanation of this notion, at a conyen- 
tion of professional educators held in this 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 6. 


city about a year ago, a distinguished 
college president said with appropriate 
solemnity :—‘‘The line AB cuts the line CD 
at right angles. Who ever shed tears over 
such a proposition as that?’’ he went on; 
and after the applause which followed had 
subsided he added, ‘‘ and who ever laughed 
at such a proposition before ? ”’ 

Notwithstanding these unfavorable au- 
Spices and the profound embarrassment 
they entail, I have ventured to invite your 
attention for the hour to some of the salient 
features of mechanical science, and to the 
element of human nature which is indisso- 
lubly connected with this as with every de- 
partment of orderly knowledge; believing 
that neither the cold facts of the science nor 
the hard reasoning of its expounders can 
be devoid of interest when recounted in ‘our 
vernacular. 

In our search for the beginnings of a 
science we look always for the person who 
first formulated one or more of its principles 
in a way intelligible to his fellow men. 
The law of progress admonishes us that 
such a person is not necessarily or generally 
the sole discoverer, for ideas grow by slow 


—_— 


eas! 


accretions and become susceptible of clear — 


statement only after being entertained in 
many minds. But of the many who think 
of the laws of nature few reach the high 
plane of generalization, and it thus happens 
that the duly accredited originators of any 
science are usually small in number and 
seattered through a long lapse of time. 
The name which deserves first mention in 


the history of mechanics is that of Archi- — 


medes. 
the science of mechanics, but he was also 
the first theoretical engineer. Indeed, he 
may be said to have laid the foundation for 
mechanics and engineering so securely with 
the cement of sound mathematics that its 
stability has sufficed for the weighty super- 
structure reared during the succeeding 
twenty centuries. He knew how to weigh 


He was not only the founder of © 


FresRuARY 8, 1895.] 


and to measure and hew to work out the 
numerical relations of things ; and it is a sin- 
gular fact, that in an age when fancy ran riot 
and when men were able to put together 
fine phrases without troubling themselves 
~ much with the ideas which ought to accom- 
pany their words, that Archimedes should 
have concentrated his attention on such un- 
poetic things as the principle of the hand- 
spike and the crowbar, and the laws of hy- 
_ drostatics. His appreciation of the doctrine 
of the handspike and crowbar, or of the 
lever as it is technically called, was worthy 
of its far-reaching consequences; and the 
saying attributed to him—* Give me a ful- 
erum on which to rest and I will move the 
 earth”’—is a favorite though commonly 
ill-understood popular expression of his 
most important contribution to mechanical 
Science. 

For whatever purpose we read history, 
we are continually reminded that the ab- 
sorbing occupation of humanity has been 
fighting one another. The thirst for blood 
and butchery has always been, and we fear 
still is, greater than the thirst for knowledge. 
‘Thus it was in the days of Archimedes ; and 
although deyoted to those abstract studies 
which engender no malice toward men, he 
served his king and country by building 
engines of destruction, and perished finally 
at the hands of a Roman soldier in the mas- 
sacre which followed the fall of Syracuse. 

The slowness of the growth of ideas and 
the blight upon scientific thought which fol- 
lowed the decay of the Grecian and Roman 
civilizations are forcibly brought to mind by 
the fact that scarcely an increment to me- 
chanical science was attained during the 
eighteen hundred years which elapsed be- 
tween the epoch of Archimedes and the 
epoch of Galileo. But, as if in compensa- 
tion for this long period of darkness, the 
torch of science relighted by Galileo has 
burned on with increasing intensity until 
now its radiance illumes almost every 


& 
:” & 


SCIENCE. 


143 


thought and action of our daily life. The 
fame of Galileo in the popular mind rests 
chiefly on his invention of the telescope and 
on his battle with the Church in the field of 
astronomy. But he was able to see things 
at short as well as at long range; and his 
observations on the vibrating chandelier in 
the cathedral at Pisa and on the laws of 
falling bodies must be rated as of much 
higher value than his discovery of the satel- 
lites of Jupiter. The peculiar merit of those 
observations lay in the fact that they led 
him to correct notions of the properties of 
moving masses, and of the behavior of mat- 
ter under the action of force. Archimedes 
had dealt with matter in a state of relative 
rest, or with statics only. Galileo rose to 
the higher concept of matter in motion, and 
founded that branch of mechanics now 
known as dynamics. 

It seems strange at first thought when we 
look back through the light of modern an- 
alysis on these advances that they should 
have been so slowly achieved and still more 
slowly accepted and utilized. We must re- 
member, however, that the elaboration of 
the principles which Galileo added to our 
science involved the removal of much scho- 
lastic rubbish. It was essential first of all 
to establish the validity of precise and 
correct observation. He had to recognize 
that in studying the laws of falling bodies 
the most important question was not why 
they fall but how they fall. In doing this 
he set an example which has ever since 
been followed with success in the investi- 
gation of the phenomena of nature. Con- 
sidering the times in which he lived, the 
amount of work he accomplished is little 
short of prodigious. For besides his capital 
contributions to mechanics and astronomy, 
he was the founder of our modern engineer- 
ing science of the strength and resistance of 
materials, a science which has recently 
grown into a great department of mechanics 
under the title of the mathematical theory of 


144 


elasticity. Thus, like Archimedes, he ad- 
ded to the practical side of science ; indeed, 
a rude woodcut in one of his discourses, 
showing a beam built into a stone wall and 
loaded with a weight at the free end, proves 
that he had no scorn for common things and 
gives the key to a long line of subsequent 
researches. He was also the inventor of 
the thermometer, the hydrostatic balance, 
and the proportional dividers, all of which 
instruments are still in use; and for the 
edification of those who think the pursuit 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 6. 


ever have been written about such a com- 
monplace mechanism. But true it is that 
Huyghens, taking up Galileo’s discovery of 
the near isochronism of the swinging chande- 
lier, not only produced a working pendulum 
clock, but also a great theory of it. The 
introduction of this instrument for the exact 
measurement of time made the subsequent 
progress of astronomy possible, while his 
theory of the oscillating pendulum has been 
justly called the true prelude to Newton’s 
Principia. The laws of vibration indeed ~ 


play a wonderfully important role in the 
science of mechanics, and it may be said — 
that he who understands the doctrine of the 
pendulum in all its phases has in his posses- — 


of his favorite studies leaves no room for the 
play of the fancy, it should be mentioned 
that he found time to give popular lectures 
on the site and dimensions of Dante’s 


Inferno. 

Although it is an axiom of modern phil- 
osophy that coincidence of events is no ade- 
quate evidence of their connection, yet there 

eems to be an innate tendency of the mind 
to anticipate a relation between nearly si- 
multaneous occurrences and to attach much 
importance to them when they are historic- 
ally allied. It is one of the curious coinci- 
dences in the history of the founders of me- 
chanies that the year of Galileo’s death is 
also the year of Newton’s birth. Thus it 
might seem that Nature took care that 
Galileo should have a fitting successor. 

During the interval of nearly a hundred 
years which elapsed between the epoch of 
Galileo and the period of Newton’s activity, 
not a few philosophers added to the growth 
of mechanical science. Most conspicuous 
among these was Huyghens, who distin- 
guished himself as a mathematician, astron- 
omer, mechanician, and physicist. Of his 
varied and valuable contributions to these 
departments of knowledge, what. would 
strike the general reader as least worthy of 
attention was really of the highest import- 
ance. Nothing is commoner now than the 
pendulum clock. The town clock and Grand- 
father’s clock are so proverbial that few 
would suppose that a grand treatise could 


sion the key to the secrets of nearly every — 
mechanical system from the common clock } 
to the steam engine, and from the steam ~ 
engine to the solar system. Well may we 1 
retain the euphonious title of Horologium i 
Oscillatorium for this important memoir of — 
Huyghens. 


Chaucer— i 


‘‘Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill 
The spacious times of great Elizabeth j 
With sounds that echo still,”’ } 
has been called the Father of English litera-— 
ture. Ina broader sense, because not lim- 
ited by language, we may regard Newton as 
the Father of Natural Philosophy. 

It was the happy lot of Newton to attain” 
these brilliant achievements. First and 
greatest of these was the well nigh perfect 
statement of the laws of dynamics ; the sec- 
ond was the discovery of the law of gravi- 
tation ; and the third was the invention of 
a calculus required to develop the conse- 
quences of the other two. As we haye 
seen, however, the laws of matter and mo- 
tion were not unknown to the predecessors 
and contemporaries of Newton. Galileo, in 
fact, discovered the first two, and the third 
in one form or another was known to Hooke, 
Huyghens and others ; but it was the pecu- 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895. ] 


liar work of Newton to state these laws so 
elearly and fully that the lapse of two cen- 
turies has suggested little, if any, improve- 
ment. 

- What, then, are these laws, you may en- 
quire? Let me turn them into the vernacu- 
lar. The first two assert that matter never 
starts off on a journey without solicitation ; 
having once started it never changes its 
speed or direction unless forced to do so; 
when put to this extremity, it shows perfect 
impartiality to every deflecting force ; and 
finally, it never stops unless arrested. Add 
to these the obvious fact that action and re- 
action are equal and opposite, and we have 
a body of doctrine which, simple as it may 
seem, appears to be coextensive with the 
material universe. It must be admitted, of 
course, that a mere comprehension of these 
laws does not suffice to make a mechani- 
cian. Between these stepping stones and 
the table-land from which Newton looked 
out on the order of nature there is a long 
and steep ascent; but whoso would scale 
the heights must go by way of these step- 
ping stones. 

The law of gravitation, though commonly 
considered the greatest of Newton’s achieve- 
ments, is, in reality, far less worthy of dis- 
tinction than his foundation for mechanics. 
Its chief merit lay in the clear perception 
of the application of the law to the smallest 
particles of matter, for the mere notion of 
gravitation between finite masses was fa- 
miliar to his contemporaries ; in fact, accord- 
ing to Newton’s own statement, the law of 
inverse squares as applicable to such masses 
was within the reach of any mathematician 
some years before the publication of the 
Principia. 

A matter of the greatest importance in 
the history of Newton’s work relates not so 
much to the substance as to the form of it. 
It is now known that the grand results 
brought out in his Principia were reached 
chiefly by means of his calculus, or fluxions, 


a 


SCIENCE. 


145 


as he called it, a contribution to science 
hardly less important than either of his 
others. But the fashion of his day did not 
favor reasoning by means of infinitesimals, 
those mysterious increments and decre- 
ments which the learned and eloquent Bish- 
op Berkeley a half century later called 
‘the ghosts of departed quantities.’ The 
fashion, or rather prejudice, of Newton’s 
day was strongly in favor of geometrical 
reasoning; and it would seem that he 
felt constrained to translate the results to 
which his calculus led him into geometrical 
language. It was desirable, he thought, 
that the system of the heavens should be 
founded on good geometry. Subsequent 
history shows that this course was an ill- 
judged one. The geometrical method of 
the Principia renders it cumbersome, prolix, 
and on the whole rather repulsive to the 
modern reader; and the only justification 
which appears at all adequate for the ex- 
elusive adoption of this method, lies in the 
fact that his fellow countrymen would not 
have readily appreciated the more elegant 
and vastly more comprehensive analytical 
method. The result was very unfavorable 
to the growth of mechanical science in his 
own country. The seed he sowed took root 
on the continent and has ever since grown 
best in French and German soil. Accord- 
ing to Prof. Glaisher, in an address deliv- 
ered by him at the celebration of the 200th 
anniversary of the publication of Newton’s 
great work, ‘the geometrical form of the 
Principia exercised a disastrous influence 
over mathematical studies at Cambridge 
University for nearly a century and a half, 
by giving rise to a mistaken idea of the re- 
lative power of analytical and geometrical 
processes.”’ 

Readers of English mathematical text 
books and treatises can hardly fail to notice 
that the bias they show for geometrical 
methods, and especially for the formal, 
Euclidean mode of presentation, in which 


146 


the procession of ideas too frequently con- 
sists of formidable groups of painfully ac- 
eurate and technical paragraphs labelled 
Proposition, CoRoLLARY and ScHOLIUM. 
This formalism leads to a strained and un- 
attractive literary style, which frequently 
degenerates into intolerable complexity and 
obscurity. It is against this sort of ‘logic- 
chopping’ that most minds rebel, against 
this excessive attention to the husks rather 
than to the kernel of the subject. Another 
and equally serious result of the apotheosis 
of pure geometry is the tendency to magnify 
the importance of ideal problems and the 
work of problem solving. The exclusive 
pursuit of such aimless puzzles constitutes 
the platitude of mathematical research, 
though it often happens that the devotees 
to this species of work are mistaken for 
mathematicians and natural philosophers. 

It is not specially difficult in our day to 
understand how a mind of Newton’s capac- 
ity should achieve so many important re- 
sults. The simple fact is that he possessed 
just such powers of observation and reflec- 
tion as were needed to correlate the facts 
his predecessors and contemporaries had 
collected; and the most instructive lesson 
of his life to us is the success which attended 
the industrious application of those powers. 
But, on the other hand, it cannot be said 
that the circumstances of his life were very 
propitious for his work, or that he availed 
himself to the fullest extent of his opportu- 
nities. His favorite studies were, in fact, 
pursued somewhat fitfully, and not always 
with a just appreciation of their merits. 
Possessing to a painful degree that modesty 
which is born of a knowledge of things, he 
shrunk from the controversy into which his 
discoveries drew him; and it appears prob- 
able that his Principia would never have 
been written had not his friend Halley 
urged him on to the marvelous feat which 
brought out that masterpiece in less than 
two years’ time.. The demand for works on 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I: No. 62 


natural philosophy in his day and the ap- 
preciation of the public for natural philoso- 
phers may be inferred from the fact that _ 
neither Newton nor the Royal Society of 
London, to which his great work was dedi- 
cated, was able to furnish the funds essential 
to print an edition of 250 copies. The en- 
tire expense of this first edition was born by 
Halley, who may thus be justly called the 
discoverer of his more famous fellow- 
countryman. Insuch hard times and under 
such depressing circumstances, it is not 
strange that Newton should have sought 
and obtained a position in the public service; 
though it seems a pity that one of the great- 
est of philosophers, one who said his head 
never ached except when studying the 
mechanics of the motions of the moon, 
should have busied himself during his 
declining years with the dreary details of 
fiscal business as master of the mint. 

The period of about a hundred years 
which followed the epoch of the culmina- 
tion of Newton’s activity is remarkable for 
the diversity of mechanical problems to 
which mathematicians devoted their atten- 
tion. The discoveries of Newton comprised 
and superseded the discoveries of Coperni- 
cus and Kepler. The sun with his planets 
and the planets with their satellites became 
grand mechanical systems under the law of 
gravitation. But a crowd of additional 
consequences of this law demanded serious 
study and prolonged observation. Newton 
had seen that the gravitation and rotation 
of the earth ought to make it flattened at 
the poles. To test this question it was es- 
sential to devise ways and means for measur- 
ing the size and shape of the earth. Out of 
this necessity grew the science of geodesy. 
Maupertius and Clairaut had to be sent to 
Lapland, and Bouguer and La Condamine 
to Peru to measure ares of meridian before 
definite ideas of the figure and dimensions. 
of our planet were attained. The preces- 
sion of the equinoxes had been discovered 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895.] 


by Hipparchus. The, law of gravitation 
supplied a reason for this phenomenon ; 
but to understand it fully the properties of 
rotating bodies had to be elaborately stud- 
ied by Euler and d’Alembert. Observa- 
tional astronomy began far earlier than the 
era of Hipparchus; but precise observa- 
tional astronomy was not possible before 
Huyghens’ invention of the pendulum clock 
and before Newton’s law led the way to 
separating the motions of the earth from 
those proper to the stars and to light. 

The earlier part of the period in question 
was also characterized by the variety of 
special processes used in the applications of 
mechanics. This peculiarity is due partly 
to the fact that the great method of investi- 
gation now known as the differential and 
integral calculus was not duly understood 
and appreciated. Newton, as we have seen, 
devised and used this method under the 
name of fluxions, but dared not bring it into 
prominence in his Principia. Independently 
of, though a little later than Newton, 
Leibnitz discovered substantially the same 
method. Priority of publication of the 
method by Leibnitz led to one of the most 
remarkable and bitter controversies in the 
history of science; proving amongst other 
things that scientific men are no better than 
other folks, and giving color to Benjamin 
Franklin’s allegation that mathematicians 
are prone to be conscientiously contentious. 
But this war of words, in which personal 
and national prejudice figured shamefully 
enough, did not long disturb the minds of 
continental mathematicians. The Leib- 
nitzian form of the calculus, by reason of its 
intrinsic merits, came into generaluse. The 
Bernoullis, Euler, Clairaut, and d’Alembert, 
who were the leading mathematicians of the 
time, adopted the calculus as their instru- 
ment of research and paved the way to the 
age of extraordinary generalizations which 
began nearthe end of the eighteenth century. 

The variety of problems considered and 


* 


© 


z 


SCIENCE. 


147 


the diversity of methods employed during 
this period served to call attention to the 
need of more comprehensive mechanical 
principles. Before the publication of 
d’Alembert’s treatise on dynamics in 1743, 
each problem had been considered by itself, 
and although many important results were 
attained, the principles employed did not 
appear to have any close connection with 
one another. There was thus an oppor- 
tunity for rival schools of mechanicians, and 
they fell into the habit of challenging one 
another with what would now be ealled prize 
problems. The first step toward a unifica- 
tion of principles and processes was made 
by d’Alembert in the treatise just mentioned. 
This treatise announced and illustrated a 
principle, since known as d’Alembert’s prin- 
ciple, which put an end to rivalry by show- 
ing how all problems in dynamics can be 
referred to the laws of statics. By the aid 
of this principle, d’Alembert showed how to 
solve mechanically not only the splendid 
problem of the precession of the equinoxes, 
but also that more recondite question of the 
nutation of the earth’s axis. The fact of 
nutation had been discovered a year and a 
half earlier by the astronomer Bradley ; but 
d’Alembert’s explanation of this fact, ac- 
cording to Laplace, is not less remarkable 
in the history of mechanics than Bradley’s 
discovery in the annals of astronomy. 

The work of the devotees to mechanies in 
the times of which we speak is not gener- 
ally fully appreciated. Their fame is, in- 
deed, eclipsed by that of Newton and by 
that of their immediate successors. But 
their contributions were important and sub- 
stantial. Clairaut gave us the first mathe- 
matical treatise on the figure of the earth ; 
while his colleague, Maupertius, in the 
famous Lapland expedition, announced the 
the principle of ‘least action’ and the ‘law 
of repose,’ both of which have proved fruit- 
ful in later times. The Bernoullis, a most 
distinguished family of mathematicians, of 


148 


whom John the first and his three sons 
were then active, worked in all fields of ma- 
thematical research, and rendered especially 
good service in extending the theory of elas- 
ticity founded by Galileo. The industrious 
Euler, a pupil of John Bernoulli, and a com- 
panion of his sons, enriched analysis in 
every direction, gave for the first time the 
correct theory of rotating bodies, and wrote 
on almost every question in the mathema- 
ties, physics, and astronomy of his day. It 
is estimated that his memoirs if fully print- 
ed would fill sixty to eighty quarto volumes. 
Not the least noteworthy of his works are 
his Letters to a German Princess, giving a 
popular account of the principles of me- 
chanics, optics, acoustics, and astronomy. 

Notwithstanding the broad foundation 
for mechanics laid by Newton in his Prin- 
cipia, and notwithstanding the indefatigable 
labors of Clairaut, d’Alembert, the Ber- 
noullis,and Euler, there was near the end 
of the eighteenth century no comprehensive 
treatise on the science. Its leading prin- 
ciples and methods were fairly well known, 
but scattered through many works, and pre- 
sented from divers points of view. It re- 
mained for Lagrange to unite them into 
one harmonious system. Mechanics had 
not yet freed itself from the restrictions of 
geometry, though progress since Newton’s 
time had been constantly toward analytical 
as distinguished from geometrical methods. 
The emancipation came with Lagrange’s 
Mécanique Analytique, published one hundred 
and one years after the Principia. How 
completely the geometrical method was sup- 
planted by the analytical, at the hands of 
Lagrange, may be inferred from a para- 
graph in the advertisement to his Mécanique 
Analytique. ‘One will find” he says, “no 
diagrams in this work. The methods I ex- 
pose require neither geometrical construc- 
tion nor geometrical reasoning, but only al- 
gebraical operations subjected to a regular 
and uniform procedure.” 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 6. 


From a philosophical and historical point 
of view this characteristic feature of the 
Mécanique Analytique is of the greatest im-~ 
portance. The mere statement of the fact, 
however, conveys no adequate idea of the 
immense value of Lagrange’s treatise. The 
value of his work consists in the exposition 
of a general method by which every me- 
chanical question may be stated in a single 
algebraic equation. The entire history of 
any mechanical system, as for example, the 
solar system, may thus be condensed into a 
single sentence ; and its detailed interpreta- 
tion becomes simply a question of algebra. 
No one who has not tried to cope with the 
difficulties presented by almost any mechan- 
ical problem can form a just appreciation of 
the great utility of such a labor-saving and 
thought-saving device. It has been well 
called ‘a stupendous contribution to the 
economy of thought.’ But Lagrange did 
more than this for the science of mechanies. 
He not only perfected a unique and com- 
prehensive method, and showed how to ap- 
ply it to many of the most important and rec- 
ondite problems of his day, but he was the 
first to draw sharply the line of demarcation 
between physics and metaphysics. The me- 
chanical ideas of Descartes, Leibnitz, Mau- 
pertius, and even of Euler, had proved to 
be more or less hazy and unfruitful from a 
failure to separate those two distinct re- 
gions of thought. Lagrange put an end to 
this confusion, for no serious attempt has 
since been made to derive the laws of me- 
chanics from a metaphysical basis. 

The age which witnessed the culmination 
of the splendid generalization of Lagrange 
in his Mécanique Analytique was also the age 
in which Newton’s law of gravitation re- 
ceived its verification, and the age in which 
the foundations of the modern science of 
mathematical physics were laid. Lagrange 
himself is closely identified with these two 
important events in the history of me- 
chanics ; but the names which outshine all 


+ 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895.] 


others are those of Laplace and Poisson. 

Tt was the life-work of Laplace to deduce 
the consequences of the law of gravitation 
as applied tothe solar system. No problem 
of equal magnitude has ever been attacked 
and treated single-handed with such con- 
summate skill and success as shown by La- 
place in his Mécanique Céleste. The five vol- 
umes of this work, together with the popular 
exposition contained in his Systeme du Monde, 


- eonstitute, I think, the greatest systematic 


s 


treatise ever written. Think, fora moment, 
of the mental equipment essential to begin 
such an investigation. Copernicus and 
Kepler had discovered by observation the 
salient features of the motions of the planets 
about the sun. Newton showed that these 
features were immediately and easily de- 
rived results of the law of gravitation. But 
these were the salient features only. Had 
our planet been the sole one of the system, 
had it been moonless and devoid of rotation, 
the task of Laplace would have been easy. 
But instead of a single planet, there is a 
erowd of them, each rotating on its axis 
while traveling about the sun, and most of 
them accompanied by lunar attendants. 
When this array of facts is considered, the 
simple law of gravitation leads to great 
complication. The motion of our planet at 
any time depends not only on its position 
relatively to the sun, but on its position 
relatively to the neighboring planets. Our 
moon also plays an important réle in the 
motions of the earth. By reason of these 
interactions the earth’s axis of rotation, 
which is the principle line of reference 
for astronomical observations, pursues a de- 
vious course in the heavens. Add to these 
difficulties those arising from the facts that 
our planet is surrounded by an atmosphere 
which prevents us from observing our true 
relative position, and that light travels with 
a finite though great speed, and the mag- 
nitude of the task Laplace set for himself 
is in some degree apparent. A complete 


SCIENCE. 


149 


mastery of every branch of the mathematics 
and physics of his day and a capacity to en- 
large the boundaries of either were the in- 
dispensable prerequisites, which, supple- 
mented by a boundless genius for industry, 
enabled him to make, dynamical astronomy 
the most perfect of the applied sciences. 
His conception of the magnitude and im- 
portance of the work he undertook is clearly 
but modestly set forth in the preface to the 
Mécanique Céleste. ‘‘ Astronomy,”’ he says, 
“considered in the most general manner isa 
grand problem of mechanics, whose solution 
depends on the precision of observations and 
on the perfection of mathematical analysis. 
It is extremely desirable to avoid all em- 
piricism in our treatment of this problem 
and to draw on observation for indispensable 
data only. The present work is destined to 
accomplish, as far as I am able, this inter- 
esting object. I trust that, in consideration 
of the difficulties of the subject, mathema- 
ticians and astronomers will receive the 
work with indulgence.”’ 

Not less important than the contributions 
of Lagrange and Laplace to pure mechanics 
and dynamical astronomy were the volumi- 
nous and luminous writings of Poisson dur- 
ing the same period. Equally at home with 
Lagrange and Laplace in their favorite re- 
searches, many of which he corrected and 
extended, he explored the additional fields 
of heat, light, elasticity, electricity, and mag- 
netism. To his penetrating insight into 
these abstruse subjects and to the wealth of 
analytical resources he developed are due 
more than to any other single source the 
subsequent developments of mathematical 
physics, by which is meant the application 
of mechanics to physical questions. His 
discoveries and researches are scarcely less 
brilliant than those of his two eminent con- 
temporaries, while he outstripped both of 
them in his range and grasp of mathematical 
and physical principles. Moreover, he 
was the prince of expositors of mathematical 


150 


subjects. His memoirs (of which there 


are more than 150) must even now be 


classed amongst the best models of scientific 
exposition. 

Ttis a striking series of facts that the three 
most eminent workers in our science during 
the period in question, a period extending, 
say, from 1775 to 1825, were all Frenchmen, 
that they were warm personal friends, and 
that they all resided, in their later years at 
least, at Paris. Still more striking is the 
fact that this period of extraordinary devel- 
opment in mechanical science was coinci- 
dent with a period of most profound social 
agitation with Frenchmen in general and 
with Parisians in particular. How was it 
possible to pursue abstract theories of matter 
and motion, how was it possible to con- 
template the grandeur of the celestial uni- 
verse at a time when the heads of states- 
men and philosophers were falling into the 
waste basket, not before the metaphorical 
axe of changing ministers, but before the 
whetted blade of the guillotine? Tocque- 
ville, in his Democracy in America, has 
warned us against the depressing effect on 
abstract thought of the incessant attrition 
of American life. Why did not the stormy 
times of the French Revolution check the 
current of scientific progress? The answer 
to these questions is to be found, I think, 
in the fortunate circumstance that French- 
men and the French government, whatever 
may have been their shortcomings in other 
respects, have developed a higher apprecia- 
tion for science and scientific men than any 
other nationality. However they may have 
fallen out as a people on questions of religion 
and polities, they have maintained a high 
regard for scientific thought. It was his 
admirable devotion to celestial mechanics 
that saved Laplace from disgrace, or a worse 
fate, at the hands of his fellow-countrymen. 
Even the sorry figure he cut during his brief 
career as Minister of the Interior, into the 
business of which he introduced the ‘ spirit 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 6. 


of the infinitesimals,’ as the future emperor 
said, did not deprive him of favors due to a 
man of science. 

The personal characteristics and the inti- 
mate friendship and association of Lagrange, 
Laplace, and Poisson are amongst the most 
attractive features of their lives, and worthy 
of a brief digression. 

Lagrange was of French descent, though 
he was born at Turin and became famous 
before taking up a residence at the focus of 
French civilization. While yet a youth, 
the ample means of his family were lost in 
commercial speculation; and to this early 
lesson of adversity is due, probably, the de- 
termination of his career, for he was wont 
to say that had he been rich he might never 
have pursued mathematical studies. Like 
most mathematicians of distinction, he 
seems to have owed much less to scholastic 
instruction than to his own efforts and in- 
dustry. At the age of eighteen he was ap- 
pointed professor of mathematics at the 
royal school of artillery at Turin; and at 
nineteen he was in correspondence with 
Euler concerning isoperimetrical problems, 
which ultimately led to his perfection of that 
highest branch of pure mathematics, the 
eaculus of variations. At twenty-two he 
was one of the founders of a society which 
afterwards became famous as the Turin 
Academy of Sciences. At the early age of 
thirty he was called to the post of director 
of the mathematical department of the Ber- 
lin Academy of Sciences as the successor of 
the distinguished Euler. Here he remained 
for twenty years’ working with marvelous 
industry and success. About the time of 
the appearance of his great work on analy- 
tical mechanics in 1788, he removed to Paris 
at the instance of the French court, which 
made him a ‘veteran pensioner’ and re- 
ceived him with the most flattering honors. 
He lived through the stormy period of the 
Revolution, winning additional favors and 
distinctions from the French government, 


— 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895.] 


and closing his remarkable career at the 
ripe age of seventy-seven. 

Little seems to be known of the ancestry 
and early life of Laplace. It appears, how- 
ever, that he was the son of a farmer and 
that he had achieved some local distinction 
as a teacher of mathematics at the age of 
eighteen, when he went up to Paris with 
such letters of recommendation as he could 
get, and applied for a position in the govern- 
ment schools. He appealed to d’Alembert, 
who was then the leading mathematician at 
the French capital, but d’Alembert, it is 
said, gave no heed to either the application 
or the recommendations of the aspirant for 
office. Thereupon the unknown Laplace 
wrote the great geometer a letter on the 
principles of mechanics which brought an 
immediate reply. ‘“‘ You needed no intro- 
duction or recommendation,”’ said d’Alem- 
bert, “you have recommended yourself ; 
my support is your due.”’” Through the in- 
fluence of d’Alembert, Laplace was soon 
given a professorship of mathematics in the 
military school of Paris, and his scientific 
eareer was thus begun. He was not yet 
twenty-five years of age when he made one 
of the most important advances in the his- 
tory of dynamical astronomy toward the 
solution of the grand problem of the stability 
of the solar system. By this step he became 
at once the peer of his older and eminent 
contemporaries, Euler, d’Alembert, and La- 
grange. From this time on until his death 
in 1827, his indefatigable labors and pene- 
trating insight brought to light a continuous 
series of brilliant discoveries. The history 
of dynamical astronomy, indeed, for the half 
eentury ending with 1825, is essentially the 
history ofthe work of Laplace as recorded in 
his Mécanique Céleste. A persistent and lofty 
enthusiasm for the system of the world is dis- 
played in all his works; his latest writings 
even being no less inspiring than his earli- 
est. His zeal recognized no bounds. “He 
would have completed the science of the 


SCIENCE. 


151 


skies,” says Fourier, “ had that science been 
capable of completion.’’ He died at the age 
of seventy-eight, and his last words were 
worthy of the philosopher he was. ‘“ What 
we know is very little; what we are ignor- 
ant of is immense.” 

Poisson, the youngest of this famous trio, 
was forty-five years younger than Lagrange 
and thirty-two years younger than La- 
place. He was born of humble parent- 
age at Pithiviers, in 1781, his father at 
that time being a petty government official. 
While yet an infant, Poisson was con- 
fided to the care of a neighboring peasant- 
woman, at whose hands he received rather 
startling treatment for one who was des- 
tined to become famous in the annals of 
science. Poisson relates that his father 
came one day to see how his son was 
getting on, and was horrified to find that the 
peasant-nurse had gone to the fields, leaving 
the child suspended from the ceiling by a 
small cord at a height just sufficient to se- 
cure immunity from the teeth of the swine 
which, it seems, had free access to the 
house. In relating this novel incident in 
his early life, Poisson used to say that “a 
gymnastic effort carried me incessantly 
from one side of the vertical to the other; 
and it was thus, in my tenderest infancy, 
that I made my prelude to those studies of 
the pendulum that were to occupy me so 
much in my mature age.” 

As the youth grew up, receiving the bare 
elements of education from his father, the 
question was raised in his family as to what 
calling he should follow. It was suggested 
that he should become a notary, but the 
better judgment of the family councils de- 
cided that the business of a notary required 
too much intellectual capacity for the young 
man, and it was therefore determined to 
make a surgeon of him. He was appren- 
ticed to an uncle who practiced the art of 
blood-letting and blistering of that day, 
and who set the beginner at work pricking 


152 


cabbage leaves with a lancet. How he got 
on at surgery, Poisson himself relates best: 
“One day my uncle sent me,” he says, ‘‘ to 
put a blister on the arm of a sick child; 
the next day when I presented myself to 
remove the apparatus, I found the child 
dead. This event, very common, they say, 
made a profound impression upon me; and 
I declared at once that I would never be- 
come a physician.” 

He returned to his home, where, soon 
afterwards, an accidental circumstance re- 
vealed the true bent of his mind. His 
father, being still a government officer, re- 
ceived a copy of the Journal de V’ Ecole Poly- 
technique. The son read it, and was able, 
unaided, to understand some of its contents. 
He was encouraged to study and soon went 
to the school of Fontainebleau. Here he 
was fortunate in finding a good and sympa- 
thetic teacher in one M. Billy, who took 
a warm interest in, and formed a life-long 
attachment for, his pupil. 

At the age of seventeen Poisson went to 
Paris to enter the Ecole Polytechnique. His 
genius soon disclosed itself, and at the end of 
his first year he was excused from the re- 
quirements of the set curriculum and al- 
lowed freedom of choice in his studies. Be- 
fore he had been at the school two years, or 
before he was twenty years of age, he pub- 
lished two memoirs which attracted the 
attention of mathematicians, and led to his 
speedy entrance into Parisian scientific 
society, whose leaders at that time were La- 
grange and Laplace. They were quick to 


recognize and appreciate Poisson’s ability, 


and it was doubtless through their good 
offices that Poisson was appointed to a pro- 
fessorship at the Ecole Polytechnique, where he 
succeeded the distinguished Fourier in 1806. 
From this time to the end of his life in 1840, 
Poisson was connected with the educational 
system of France. As a scientific investiga- 
tor his untiring patience, industry, and suc- 
cess have been equalled only by those of 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 6. 


Euler, Lagrange, and Laplace. ‘ Life,” he 
was wont to say, ‘‘ is good for two purposes 
only: to invent mathematics and to expound 
them.” 

One of the best estimates of the character 
and scope of Poisson’s work may be inferred 
from the esteem in which he was held by 
Lagrange and Laplace. They treated him 
with the greatest consideration ; and that 
Lagrange considered him a worthy succes- 
sor in the footsteps of the most eminent of 
mechanicians is shown by the following in- 
cident related by Arago: ‘‘I am old,” said 
Lagrange to Poisson one day; “ during my 
long intervals of sleeplessness I divert my- 
self by making numerical calculations. 
Keep this one ; it may interest you. Huy- 
ghens was 13 years older than Newton; I 
am 13 years older than Laplace ; d’Alem- 
bert was 32 years older than Laplace ; La- 
place is 32 years older than you.” Arago 
remarks that no more delicate way could 
be conceived of intimating to Poisson his ad- 
mission to the inner circle of the fraternity 
of mathematical genius. 

The dazzling spendor of the achieve- 
ments in dynamical astronomy during the 
epoch of Laplace not only diverted atten- 
tion from other applications of mechanical 
science, but it would seem also to have led 
to an underestimate of the importance of 
such applications. Thus the work of Fou- 
rier and Poisson in the theory of heat, and 
that of Fresnel and Green in the theory of 
light, were not duly appreciated by contem- 
porary philosophers. All eyes were turned 
towards the heavens. The permanence of 
the solar system and the dangers of en- 
counters with comets were more important 
questions than those presented by pheno- 
mena close at hand. For nearly a quarter 
of a century after the epoch of Laplace, 
comparatively little progress was made in 
the fundamental ideas of our science, though 
its machinery received many important ac- 
cessions, especially from Green and Gauss. 


— 
— 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895.] 


About 1850, however, the accumulating 
data of experimental philosophers and the 
reflections of a number of theorists led to 
the announcement of the principle of the 
conservation of energy, a doctine which is 
now held to be the highest generalization of 
mechanical science. This doctrine asserts 
that the total energy of any mechanical sys- 
tem is a quantity which can neither be in- 
ereased nor dimished by any mutual action 
of the parts of the system, though it may 
be converted into any one of the forms of 
which energy is susceptible. Thus, the 
solar system, supposing it to be isolated 
from all other systems of the universe, 
contains a definite amount of energy, and 
whatever may have been or may be the 
vicissitudes of the sun and planets, that 
quantity of energy was and will be the 
same. 

But what, in common parlance, some one 
may properly enquire, is energy in a me- 
chanical sense? The answer to this question 
is not difficult. If we raise a weight, as, 
for example, an elevator car above the sur- 
face of the earth, work must be done. On 
the other hand, if it be elevated and its cable 
be cut, the car will fall back to the earth 
and do work of destruction in its fall. The 
work stored up in raising the car to a given 
height is called energy of position, or poten- 
tial energy. The work the car can do by 
reason of its fall is called energy of motion, 
or kinetic energy. If a strict account of 
the expenditure is kept in this case, it is 
found that the sum of the energies of posi- 
tion and motion at any instant is constant. 
Similarly, it-was found by Count Rumford 
and Joule that in boring cannon and in agi- 
tating liquids heat is produced, and that if 
in these cases accurate record is kept, the 
amount of heat developed bears a definite 
ratio to the amount of energy expended. 
Thus heat is brought into the category of 
energy, hot bodies being such, as we now 
think, by reason of the more or less furious 


SCIENCE. 


153 


agitation, or kinetic energy, of their ulti- 
mate particles. 

The law of the conservation of energy, 
then, is a simple statement of Nature’s 
balance-sheet with respect to material sys- 
tems. The capital invested remains always 
the same, however diversified may be the 
investments. A part may be entered as 
potential energy; a part as kinetic energy; 
a part as heat; etc., but when properly ad- 
ded together, their sum is constant. Broadly 
speaking, it is believed that the various 
forms of energy may be comprised in two 
categories: the energy of position, or poten- 
tial energy, and the energy of motion, or 
kinetic energy. 

It is interesting to note in connection 
with the history of this doctrine that the 
ideas which led up to it go back certainly to 
the time of Newton and Leibnitz. The 
conservation of matter is, indeed, a funda- 
mental concept of mechanics; but the earlier 
philosophers, from Newton and Leibnitz 
down, were acquainted with the conserva- 
tion of momentum and energy in a variety 
of special cases. And it is probable that 
our modern science Owes something to the 
metaphysical notions of Descartes, Mauper- 
tius and others, who held that Nature per- 
forms her operations in the most economical 
ways and is, on the whole, conservative. 

It appears not a little remarkable that 
this important doctrine eluded the insight 
of Lagrange and Laplace. Lagrange, espec- 
ially, was so near to it that he supplied 
nearly all the analytical machinery essential 
to put it into practical use. Indeed, that 
machinery meets a much higher demand. 
It not only enables us to express and in- 
terpret the properties of systems which are 
obviously mechanical, but it shows clearly 
what must be the characteristic features of 
a mechanical explanation of any phenom- 
enon. Thus, in the direct application of the 
doctrine of energy to a mechanical system, 
we express the kinetie energy in terms of 


154 


the masses involved, their codrdinates of 
position, and the time from any assumed 
epoch ; while the potential energy is ex- 
pressed in terms of the masses and their 
relative positions, irrespectively of the time. 
From the expressions for these two parts of 
the energy, all of the properties of the system 
can be derived by means of the Lagrangian 
machinery. In the case of most phenomena 
it is impossible to observe more than a very 
limited number of the circumstances of 
motion; such as, for example, the codrdi- 
nates of one or more of the masses at definite 
epochs, the rates of variation of those cooér- 
dinates, etc.; but if we can express the two 
parts of the energy, and if the derived cir- 
cumstances agree with the observed circum- 
stances, the mechanical explanation is re- 
garded as complete. On the other hand, a. 
phenomenon may not be clearly or obviously 
mechanical, and it becomes important in 
many cases to learn whether it is susceptible 
of mechanical explanation. The criterion 
supplied by the Lagrangian machinery is 
this: If the phenomenon can be defined by 
two expressions or functions having the 
properties of kinetic and potential energy, a 
system of masses with appropriate positions 
may be found to satisfy those functions and 
hence explain the phenomenon mechani- 
eally. 

The law of the conservation of energy, 
then, affords a very comprehensive view of 
mechanical phenomena ; and when we add 
that this law is believed to be coextensive 
with the material universe, one can see why 
it should have played so important a rdéle 
in the recent developments of mechanical 
science. Along with the growth and appli- 
tion of this law has come a degree of per- 
fection in the technical terminology of me- 
chanics surpassing that of most other sci- 
ences. The terms mass, force, energy, 
power, etc., as now used in mechanics, pos- 
sess a precision of meaning which, strange 
as it may seem, was largely wanting in 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. I. No. 6: 


them, thirty to fifty years ago. Nothing il- 
lustrates this fact more forcibly than titles 
to some of the important papers published 
during the past half century. Thus, the 
great memoir published in 1847 by Helm- 
holtz on what we now call the conservation 
of energy was entitled ‘The Conservation 
of Force.’ In 1854 Prof. Thomson, now 
Lord Kelvin, published an interesting and 
important ‘ Note on the possible density of 
the luminiferous medium, and on the me- 
chanical value of a cubie mile of sunlight.’ 
We should now render the ‘mechanical 
value of a cubic mile of sunlight’ as mean- 
ing the energy of a cubic mile of the ether 
due to the action of the sun. About thirty 
years ago the late Professor Tyndall pub- 
lished his capital work on ‘ Heat Consid- 
ered as a Mode of Motion.’ We must now 
translate this into Heat a Mode of Energy. 
There was, thus, in the writings of experts 
of a half century or less ago, much obseure 
phraseology, while the literature of less 
careful authors was often provokingly am- 
biguous. The word force, for example, in 
a number of treatises published since 1850, 
has been used to denote the three radically 
different things we now call stress, impulse 
and energy. 

To the development of the law of energy, 
and its applications in electricity and mag- 
netism especially, are due also an important 
fixation of our ideas with respect to the 
units and the dimensions of units which 
enter into mechanical quantities. Less than 
a quarter of a century ago our science was 
in a certain sense restricted by its terrestrial 
moorings. Sostrong, indeed, had been the 
influence of our earthly abode that only 
experts like Lagrange, Laplace, and Poisson 
would have known how to formulate a 
treatise suitable for instruction in any other 
part of the universe. Thanks to the half 
forgotten labors of Fourier and Gauss, how- 
ever, when it became essential to state the 
laws of mechanics in a way readily appli- 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895.] 


eable to phenomena wherever the investi- 
gator may be, the restrictions of terrestrial 
attraction were easily removed. By the 
introduction of the so-called absolute 
systems of units, one form of which is known 
as the C. G. S. system, a great step in ad- 
vance was made. It is no exaggeration, in 
fact, to assert that one properly educated in 
the mechanics of our day and planet would 
be as well fitted to investigate mechanical 
phenomena on the companion of Sirius, as 
on our diminutive member of the solar 
system. 

The rigorous definiteness of terminology, 
and the application of the C. G. S. system 
of units in mechanics, are humorously set 
forth in a little poem published over the 
signature ‘dp dt’ about twenty years ago 
in the journal Nature. It is now known to 
have been written by Clerk-Maxwell. This 
poem purports to give an account of certain 
lectures on the C. G.S. system delivered to 
women by one Professor Dr. Chrschtschono- 
vitsch. The author figures as one of the 
auditors, and her lamentations and criti- 
cism run as follows : 


Prim Doctor of Philosophy 
From academic Heidelberg! 
Your sum of vital energy 
Is not the millionth of an erg. 
Your liveliest motion might be reckoned 
At one tenth-metre * in a second. 


“The air,’’ you said, in language fine 
Which scientific thought expresses— 

“The air’’ (which with a megadyne 
On each square centimetre presses) — 

The air, and I may add; the ocean, 

Are naught but molecules in motion.’’ 


Atoms, you told me, were discrete, 
Than you they could not be discreter, 

Who knows how many millions meet 
Within a cubic millimetre; 

They clash together as they fly, 
But you! you dare not tell me why. 


Then, when, in tuning my guitar, 
The intervals would not come right, 


One-tenth metre = 1 metre x 10°*°. 


SCIENCE. 


155 


“This string,’’ you said, ‘is strained too far, 
’Tis forty dynes, at least, too tight.’’ 
And then you told me, as I sang, 
What over-tones were in my clang. 
You gabbled on, but every phrase 
Was stiff with scientific shoddy; 
The only song you deigned to praise 
Was ‘‘Gin a body meet a body;’’ 
And even there, you said, collision 
Was not described with due precision. 
“In the invariable plane,’’ 
You told me, “‘lay the impulsive couple;’’ 
You seized my hand, you gave me pain, 
By torsion of a wrist too supple. 
You told me what that wrench would do; 
‘Twould set me twisting round a screw.” 
Were every hair of every tress 
Which you, no doubt, imagine mine, 
Drawn towards you with its breaking stress, 
A stress, say, of a megadyne, 
That tension I would sooner suffer 
Than meet again with such a duffer! 


Our survey of the development of me- 
chanical science is thus brought down to 
the present time. But no account of prog- 
ress can be complete without some allusions 
to the grand problems which are now occu- 
pying the attention of mechanicians. It is 
hardly necessary to say that these are the 
problems presented by the phenomena of 
heat, light, electricity, and magnetism, or, 
in short, the phenomena of that unseen 
medium we call the ether. Just as the 
problems presented by the solar system were 
the absorbing questions in mechanics at the 
close of the 18th century, so are the prob- 
lems presented by the ether the engrossing 
questions at the close of the 19th century. 

In approaching this subject, whether for 
the present purpose of popular exposition, 
or for the higher. purpose of investigation, 
one must confess to a difficulty, apparent at 
least, which might be raised by any hard 
headed reasoner. It might be asked, for 
example, by what right we speak of the 
ether as a medium, when nobody has ever 
seen any such thing? May we not be 
merely juggling with mathematical symbols 


156 


which stand for no reality? In answer to 
such questions we should have to admit that 
most of our evidence is what would be called 
indirect, or circumstantial. Nevertheless, 
we could maintain that the evidence of 
things unseen may be very strong, and that 
it is nowhere stronger than in the domain 
of the mechanics of the ether. It seems es- 
sential, therefore, to recall, briefly, the 
salient features of this evidence. 

In the first place, it is known that light 
travels through the celestial regions with a 
definite speed of about 186,000 miles a sec- 
ond. Induction from a wide variety of ob- 
servations leads also to the conclusion that 
heat travels with the same speed, and that 
it and light are, in fact, only different aspects 
of the same phenomenon. Year in and 
year out our astronomical tables proceed on 
the assumption that eight minutes and 
seventeen seconds after the sun has risen 
above the plane of our horizon, we may per- 
ceive his light and feel the glow of his heat. 
The earth is traveling in its orbit around the 
sun at the rate of about eighteen miles in a 
second, a fact which, taken in connection 
with the speed of propagation of light, 
makes the apparent position of a star a lit- 
tle different from its real position. This is 
the beatiful phenomenon of aberration dis- 
covered by the astronomer Bradley more 
than two generations ago. The impressive 
feature of the phenomenon lies in the fact 
that it is always the same, due allowance 
being made for the speed and direction of 
the earth’s motion. Thus we are forced to 
the conclusion that the velocity of light in 
the stellar spaces is the same, regardless of 
the source and direction of a luminous ray. 
The step from this conclusion to the con- 
ception that light is propagated by means of 
some sort of an elastic medium is easy and 
natural, and experience with gross matter, 
like water and air, leads quickly to the sug- 
gestion that vibration of such a medium 
must be the mode of propagation. A crowd 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 6. 


of readily observable facts of reflection, re- 
fraction, and diffraction confirms the sug- 
gestion and dignifies it with the title hypo- 
thesis, and finally we are led to accept the 
undulatory theory of light, and to speak as 
confidently of the luminiferous ether as of 
any visible matter. Indeed, Lord Kelvin 
asserted, a few years ago, that we know 
more of the ether than we do of shoe- 
maker’s wax. Certian it is that the labors 
of Fresnel, Green, Cauchy and their suc- 
cessors have given us a splendid develop- 
ment of this mechanical theory of light. 
But, alas! they do not enable us to express 
in common: parlance a very definite idea of 
the medium. No one, it is safe to say, 
would undertake with any degree of confi- 
dence to predict how a portion of the ether, 
a cubic foot say, would look if isolated and 
rendered visible. It might appear like a 
very tenuous and tremulous jelly. Its 
weight would certainly escape detection, for 
a bulk equal in volume with the earth would 
weigh somewhat less than one ounce. Argu- 
ing from the phenomena of light alone, it 
would be found to possess a slight rigidity, 
but whether it would prove compressible or 
incompressible we cannot say. 

But the strain on the imagination in try- 
ing to visualize the ether does not end here. 
Quite recently it has been rendered almost 


certain that new and still more complex 


properties must be attributed to this imyisi- 
ble but omnipresent medium. About thirty 
years ago, Maxwell, taking up the brilliant 
experimental researches of Faraday, sought 
to give mechanical expression to the phe- 
nomena of electricity and magnetism. The 
characteristic idea of Faraday and Maxwell 
concerning these phenomena was that their 
seat lies not so much in the electrified and 
magnetized bodies themselves as in some 
kind of medium surrounding and permea- 
ting them. The result of Maxwell’s labors 
was the publication, in 1873, of a grand but 
enigmatic treatise—egrand, because of its 


ae 


an 


~ idea is plain. 


ae) 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895.] 


thought-provoking qualities; enigmatic, be- 
eause no one has yet been able to say just 
what Maxwell’s views were The pursuit of 
his treatise is like a journey through a 
dreamland, wherein the travelers seem never 
to reach their destinations. But the leading 
It is that the medium is the 
‘important factor, and on the medium the 
attention must be riveted if we would seek 
a satisfactory explanation of electricity and 
magnetism. 

Faraday died twenty years before, and 
Maxwell nine years before, anything like 
erucial experiments decided in favor of their 
theory. The old theories of action at a 
distance, without the aid of an intervening 
medium, but with their fluids and positive 
and negative subtilties, died hard, if indeed 
they can be said to be quite dead yet. The 
recent investigations of Hertz and others, 
however, seem to render it practically 
certain that the Faraday-Maxwell concep- 
tion is the correct one, and that the medium 
in question can be no other than the medium 
of light and heat. 

Thus the multifarious phenomena of the 
four sciences of heat, light, electricity, and 
magnetism appear destined to become uni- 
fied as the mechanical properties of a uni- 
versal plenum. The present concentration 
of activity along this line of inquiry seems 
fraught with results of the greatest interest. 
We seem to be, in fact, on the eve of dis- 
coveries no less brilliant and important than 
those whose record has already adorned the 
history of mechanics. ‘Nevertheless, it may 
not be our good fortune to witness such ad- 
vances. The ether may prove intractable 
for a century or more. It is conceivable, at 
any rate, that the full comprehension of this 
medium lies beyond the present range even 
of that extra sense which the late Charles 
Darwin attributed to mathematicians. It 
may be essential, in fact, to first give atten- 
tion to visible and tangible substances, like 
shoemaker’s wax, before the mind will be 


SCIENCE. 


157 


prepared to visualize the hidden reality. 

But however this may be, mechanical sci- 
ence will remain worthy of the arduous la- 
bors of its devotees. The phenomena of 
matter and motion, though subject to few 
and simple laws, are infinitely varied and 
infinitely instructive. The knowledge of 
those phenomena already acquired gives as- 
surance, as Helmholtz said in these halls a 
year ago, that we possess the right method of 
investigation. We may therefore expect 
that a diligent application of this method 
will yield in the future a not less inspiring 
body of truth than that which has come 
down to us from Archimedes and his suc- 
cessors. R. S. Woopwarp. 

COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 

THE FIVE BOOKS OF HISTORY. 

In the study of the phenomena of history 
scientific men resort to five great classes of 
records. The science of geology seeks to 
discover the history of the earth—of the 
rocks of which it is composed and of the 
plants and animals which have lived from 
time to time. In this research the geolo- 
gist discovers that nature’s last chapter con- 
tains a story of mankind, for it is found that 
the bones of man and some of the works of 
his arts have been buried by natural agen- 
cies in the geologic formations. Sometimes 
these materials of history are buried in 
eave drift and in deposits derived from min- 
eral waters which drop from the ceilings or 
ooze from the crevices of the caves. In 
flowing away and evaporating, such waters 
leave behind certain mineral constituents, 
especially carbonate of lime, which, consoli- 
dating and crystallizing, accumulate over 
the floors and walls of the caves and form 
pavements of calcite and aragonite. From 
the waters dropping down from the ceilings 
stalactites are formed above and stalagmites 
below, in marble columns of great natural 
beauty. Under and within such formations 
the bones of men and vestiges of their arts 


158 


are sometimes discovered associated with 
the bones of animals, some of which are 
found to be of extinct species; but the 
relics of man are found in other formations. 
Altogether, the finds are not many. The 
geologic record of man we may call the 
Stone Book. It records but a meager tale ; 
the rock-leaved bible of geology has but a. 
postscript devoted to mankind, but in it are 
facts which prove to be of profound interest. 

Man was scattered widely over all the 
habitable earth in the early period of his 
development. The ‘Garden of Eden’ was 
walled with ice, so that man was not dis- 
persed to the poles, for the outer or polar 
lands were uninhabitable. Within these 
walls men were scattered far and wide, 
on the coasts of every sea, on the shores 
of every lake, and on the banks of 
every stream, for everywhere between the 
frigid zones the vestiges of primeval man 
are discovered. The ruins of his habita- 
tions are thus widely spread—in palefits 
erected over lakes, in habitations con- 
structed in every valley, in villages where 
men gathered by tribes, and in cities where 
they were gathered by nations. The ruins 
of his ancient dwelling places and the ves- 
tiges of his arts scattered over the lands 
are now esteemed of priceless value by 
the scientific historian. The ruins furnish 
much more material than the rocks for the 
ancient history of mankind. Stone imple- 
ments are found in great abundance over 
all the earth ; implements of bone, horn, 
shell and wood are in like manner widely 
dispersed. In ruins of habitations and 
vestiges of arts a story is told of develop- 
ing activities in all of the five great depart- 
ments of art, for by them we learn much of 
the industries, pleasures, speech as recorded 
in glyphs, institutions as illustrated by the 
paraphernalia of social organizations, and 
even of opinions as they are expressed in 
picture writings and ideographs. Let us 
eall this the Ruin Book. It is a strange 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 6. 


book, studied by aid of the pickaxe and the 
shovel. Sometimes’ habitations are found 
in ruins piled one over another, giving evi- 
dence of the occupancy of sites for many 
centuries during successive culture periods 
extending from ruder to higher life. 

In all ages birth and death have been 
abroad in the land. From the infant’s wail 
at birth to the mourner’s cry at death men 
are engaged in the five great activities. 
Primeval man learned to bury his dead, 
and as the swarming generations have come 
down from antiquity through fields of life 
whose sheaves were garnered by the sickles 
of death, the tombs have become the gran- 
aries of arts, to which the scientific historian 
resorts that he may discover the vestiges of 
the earlier humanities. Over all the earth 
these granaries are scattered in graves, 
mounds, catacombs, sepulchers and mauso- 
leums, and the whole habitable earth is a 
necropolis. Sometimes more than bones 
are found in the ancient tombs, for often 
they contain works of art. Primeval men 
were organized into tribes by bonds of affin- 
ity and consanguinity. The ownership of 
property was mainly in the tribe and in the 
clans and gentes, which were organized 
tribal units; hence property was chiefly 
communal in the clan or gens and in the 
tribe. But some articles of property be- 
longed to individuals, chiefly clothing and 
ornaments, though a few implements and 
utensils were owned by individual men and 
women. In order that controversy should 
not arise about the ownership of property 
of this character, it was a fundamental doc- 
trine of this early life that personal property 
should be inherited by the grave. With 
the dead person, therefore, were buried the 
clothing, ornaments, instruments and uten- 
sils which he possessed at his death. Grad- 
ually this institution became a sacred rite, 
as about it were thrown the sanctions of 
religion; and in this more highly developed — 
stage property belonging to the mourning 


FeBRUARY 8, 1895.] 


friends was sometimes added to the sacri- 
fice. This was especially the case when 
personages of great importance were buried. 
In connection with the rite a mythologic 
lore sprang up in many tribes by which 
special virtues were attributed to the sacri- 
fices as necessary to the happiness and 
prosperity of the dead on their journey to 


the spirit abode and for their welfare on 


_ their arrival in the land of the ghosts. 


In the burial of these works of art, rec- 
ords of the stage of culture to which they 
and their contemporaries had arrived were 
placed with the dead. Itis thus that the 
tombs become priceless relics of antiquity. 
Tn later times, when tribes had been organ- 
ized into nations and higher arts devel- 
oped, catacombs, sepulchers and mauso- 
leums were constructed, sometimes hewn in 
the rock. In the sarcophagi and in the 
chambers of death many vestiges of culture 
are found, and often inscriptions are discoy- 
ered, all of which are now of priceless value. 
Tt is thus that the tombs of the ancients 
constitute a book of history. Let us call it 
the Book of the Tombs. 

Tribes and nations are still scattered over 
the whole habitable earth, and the people 
who dwell on the continents and islands 
labor in many arts, sportin many pleasures, 
speak in many tongues, are governed by 
Many institutions, and entertain many and 
widely divergent opinions. In all of these 
forms of culture some peoples have passed 
beyond others on the five highways of life, 
s0 we are able to study peoples in various 
Stages of culture. No people have invented 
a culture at one great effort, but whatever 
arts they practice have been gradually ac- 
quired by effort extending from primeval 
topresenttime. The humanities discovered 
as existing in any tribe or nation constitute 
an epitome of the history of welfare, which 
has been developed by minute increments 
of progress through untold generations of 
effort. Their arts, then, have been inherited 


SCIENCE. 


159 


from generation to generation, while every 
generation has made its contribution to their 
development. The primeval arts of in- 
dustry, therefore, have not been lost, but 
have grown to something higher. 

In like manner, the pleasures in which a 
people primarily engaged far back in an- 
tiquity, when the habitable earth was first 
peopled by lowly tribes, still remain, trans- 
formed into a higher life of childish sports, 
athletic exercise, more beautiful decora- 
tions, more intellectual games, and more 
elaborate fine arts. There is thus an im- 
mortality of the arts of pleasure by inheri- 
tance from generation to generation. 

Speech is produced by generations of peo- 
ples. Words are lost in the air, but the 
meanings of words and the knowledge of 
their formation remain and are taught from 
generation to generation, so that even evan- 
escent oral language has perennial life. 

Institutions, which are devised to regu- 
late conduct, live on, and gradually develop 
as new conditions arise which demand new 
solutions. Old forms are inherited, but by 
minute increments they are transformed, as 
new concepts of justice are developed. 

So opinions have a personal existence by 
inheritance and a constant change by de- 
velopment as knowledge increases. 

I see the germ bursting from the acorn, 
with its stem and plumule of leaves; I see 
the plantlet bourgeoning from the earth ; I 
see the scion stretching its green arms into 
the air; I see the old oak with its great 
branches in a benediction of shade. Dis- 
covering oaklets in acorns, and mighty oaks 
with dead branches and dying trunks and 
multitudes of intermediate forms in every 
oak grove, I learn the history of the growth 
of oaks without watching the germs until 
they become dead trees. In like manner, 
all of the humanities may be studied in va- 
rious stages of growth by studying the for- 
est of tribes and nations scattered over the 
face of the earth. A host of men are en- 


1 60 
gaged in scientific research for the purpose 
of discovering the characteristics of the five 
great systems of humanities as they are 
represented in the daily life of peoples. 
This is found to be a book of many books, 
gathered into libraries of tribes and nations. 
Let us call this the Folk Book. 

Gradually man has developed written 
speech. He has learned to write his 
thoughts in glyphs of meaning on rocks, on 
bark, on the skins of animals, on tablets of 
stone and clay and on parchments made of 
many fibers. It is thus that we have tomes 
in written language which are gathered in 
libraries scattered over all the world of en- 
lightenment. 

In these books the opinions of mankind 
are gradaully collected, and the process has 
been going on since the dawn of civilization. 
The erroneous and the correct, the true and 
the false, have both been recorded, so that 
the books contain a strange mixture of 
truth and error. Yet when rightly read in 
the spirit of modern scientific criticism, 
they tell interesting stories and contain val- 
uable instruction. Scientific men do not 
appeal to history for the truths of science 
about the objective world. From the be- 
ginning of culture to the present time man 
has interpreted the external world some- 
times truthfully, sometimes erroneously. 
That which is true remains, that which is 
error dies. Yet ever in recording error 
something of value has been preserved, for 
these errors reveal the development of mind 
and exhibit the methods by which the facts 
of nature have been interpreted from time 
to time. 

But more; that which the writers of the 
books of the ages sought to teach is one 
thing; that which they unconsciously taught 
is another. In the telling of an event of 
history something more becomes a matter 
of record, for a statement may contain many 
facts, though the author purposely or uncon- 
sciously sought to propagate a lie. If we 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 6. 


read of an army sailing in a fleet of vessels 
to pursue a predatory war, the item of his- 
tory may be true or false, but unconsciously~ _ 
the writer in making his statement records 
many facts of value about the time in which 
he writes. He may truthfully explain arts, 
habits, customs or institutions. In all of 
these ancient writings something of value is 
stored. Many of the earlier writings are in 
poetic form, and in these and others the 
ostensible subject-matter may be mythical. 
Everywhere we find exclamatory and emo- 
tional passages informed with the mysticism 
and ignorance of the age, but these myths 
and mystical hymns and devout prayers re- 
veal to scientific criticism a world of mean- 
ing relating to the history of opinions. So 
the writings of antiquity are held to be of 
profound interest and importance when used 
in the proper manner. Science does not 
appeal to Aristotle as an authority on the 
constitution of the mind, for he supposed 
the brain to be a refrigerator for the blood, 
but it appeals to Aristotle’s ideas of the con- 
stitution of the mind for the purpose of ex- 
hibiting the state of thought to which he 
had arrived and of illustrating the evolution 
of philosophy. Science does not appeal to 
Homer as authority on the nature of the 
gods and the constitution of the earth as 
ruled by these gods, for he thought that the 
winds were kept in caves and transported 
in sacks, but from Homer it learns how the 
powers of nature were personified and how 
these personages as gods were supposed to 
take part in the affairs of mankind at the 
time Homer wrote. Science does not appeal 
to the novels of Plato for the purpose of dis- 
eovering the best forms of institutions, 
though he elaborated his opinions with lit- 
erary charm in ‘The Republic,’ but it does 
appeal to Plato to discover how the best 
minds of his age theoretically solved the 
problems of government in his time. Science 
does not appeal to the writings of Confucius 
or the Buddhistic scriptures for the purpose 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895. ] 


of discovering the true religion, but for the 
purpose of discovering the history of re- 
ligious opinions. If we use the writings of 
antiquity in this spirit the records of the 
past are of priceless value for the lessons of 
history which they teach. Let us call this 
the Scripture Book. 

_ Modern history resorts to the Stone Book, 
the Ruin Book, the Tomb Book, the Folk 
Book and the Scripture Book for the mate- 
rials to be used in discovering and formu- 
lating the development of the industries, 
pleasures, languages, institutions and opin- 
_ ions of mankind. 

The present generation has inherited all 
the labors of the past. The culture of the 
day is but a slight modification of the cul- 
ture of the last generation, and that was 
derived from the antecedent generation ; so 
all the generations have wrought for us, 
and our culture is the product of their 
labor and invention. Every generation 
has added its minute increment, and hence 
there has been progress. We cannot dis- 
sever our life from that of the past. We 
inherit its arts and improve them a little ; 
we inherit its pleasures and make but a 
slight change; we inherit its speech and 
improve our expression only to a slight de- 
gree; we inherit its institutions and mod- 
ify the forms of justice only in small par- 
ticulars, and we inherit its opinions and 
entertain new ideas only as we have discoy- 
ered a few new facts. So we are indebted 
to the dead for that which we are, and 
are governed by the dead in all our activi- 
ties. Yet the past is not a pall on the 
present, hiding the truth, but a search- 
light that may be turned on the future. 
The past is not a tyranny on the present, 
but an informing energy which evolves 
through us that the future may be im- 
proved. Science endeavors to guide the 
way by a study of the past and to conserve 
and direct our energies in a legitimate 
eourse of development. The past is the 


- 


‘ 


SCIENCE. 


161 


chart of the future ; if misread it is a false 
guide, if correctly read the way is clear. 
It is thus that the five volumes of the pilot 
book of life are of profound importance. 

J. W. Powe. 


WASHINGTON, D. C. 


UNITY OF NOMENCLATURE IN ZOOLOGY 
AND BOTANY. 

SysTeMAric biologists have reason to re- 
joice at the appearance of the completed 
list of ferns and flowering plants of north- 
eastern North America,* on which a com- 
mittee of leading botanists has been en- 
gaged for the past two or three years. Fol- 
lowing the example set by American orni- 
thologists in 1883, a number of prominent 
botanists determined to sink individual 
preferences for the sake of that much sought 
goal—uniformity and stability in the names 
of genera and species. In 1892, therefore, 
a committee was appointed by the Botani- 
eal Club of the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science, comprising N. 
L. Britton, J. M. Coulter, H. M. Rusby, W. 
A. Kellerman, F. V. Coville, Lucien M. Un- 
derwood and Lester F. Ward; and was after- 
ward increased by the addition of Edward 
L. Greene and William Trelease.; Although 
the De Candolle or Paris Code of 1867 is 
the alleged basis of departure, it is evident 
at a glance that nearly every important 
rule is borrowed direct from the American 
Ornithologists’ Union Code of Nomencla- 


* List of Pteridophyta and Spermatophyta growing 
without cultivation in Northeastern North America. 
Prepared by a Committee of the Botanical Club, 
American Association for the Advancement of Science. 
(From Memoirs Torrey Botanical Club.) New York. 
1893-1894. [Also issued in dated signatures, as pub- 
lished, during 1883 and 1884. ] 


+In addition to the members of the committee the 
following botanists have contributed special parts to 
the ‘List’: L. H. Bailey, T. H. Kearney, Jr., Thom- 
as Morong, F. Lamson-Seribner, John K. Small, J. 
G. Smith and Wm. E. Wheelock. 


162 


ture, published in 1886. The latter code 
has been already adopted, not only by orni- 
thologists, but also by leading mammalo- 
gists, paleontologists, herpetologists and 
ichthyologists, and its essential features 
have been accepted by many prominent en- 
tomologists and other writers on inverte- 
brates. It is a matter for special congratu- 
lation, therefore, that the botanists have 
‘fallen into line’ so that, for the first time, 
the naturalists of a great continent are in 
substantial accord on the main points in- 
volved in the nomenclature of genera and 
species. Better still, the agreement is by 
no means confined to America, for many 
of the more progressive naturalists of the 
Old World have already accepted the same 
guiding principles. 

These principles, as applied in the work 
under consideration, may be briefly stated 
as follows: (1) Priority of publication the 
fundamental principle of nomenclature ; 
(2) Botanical nomenclature to begin with 
1753, the date of the first edition of Linne- 
us’s Species Plantarum; (3) Original specific 
name to be retained without regard to ge- 
nericname ; (4) A name once a synonym al- 
ways asynonym; (5) Original name re- 
tained ‘whether published as species, sub- 
Species or variety’; (6) Varieties [sub- 
species] written as trinomials; (7) Double 
citation of authorities. 

The well printed volume is not wholly 
above criticism. One is surprised to find 
that the original spelling of generic names 
has been violated—as Buettneria tor Butne- 
ria (p. 163), Gileditschia for Giledetsia (p. 
192), and so on. The retention of capitals 
in certain specific names is also to be regret- 
ted. A word of explanation respecting the 
Synonymy, and alsoa more explicit state- 
ment as to the exact scope of the ‘List’, 
would have been acceptable. But these 
matters are trivial compared with the obvi- 
ous merits of the work. 

C. Hart Merriam. 


SCIENCE. 


[N: S. Vou. I. No. 6. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 


CAN AN ORGANISM “WITHOUT A MOTHER BE 
BORN FROM AN EGG? 


1. Hin geschlechtliche erzeugter Organismus 
ohne miitterliche Higenschaften.—BOoVvERT.— 


= 


Berichte d. Gesellsch. f. Morph. u. Phys. 


za Munchen, 1889. 


2. Giebt es geschlechtliche erzeugte Organismen 
ohne miitterliche Eigenschaften.—SEELIGER. 
—Arch. f. Entwickelungsmechanie, I., 2, 
1894. 

In 1889 Boveri gave an account of cer- 
tain experiments which seemed to him to 
prove that adenucleated fragment of the 
ege of one species of sea-urchin may be 
fertilized by a spermetazoon from another 
species, and that it develops into a larva 
with none of the characteristics of the spe- 
cies which supplied the egg, but exactly 
like, though smaller than, the normal lar- 
vee of the species which supplied the sper- 
metazoon. He believes that his experi- 
ments demonstrate the law that the nu- 
cleus alone is the bearer of hereditary quali- 
ties ; that with the removal of the mater- 
nal nucleus are removed at the same time 
the maternal hereditary tendencies of the 
egg, and that while the maternal proto- 
plasm furnishes a large share of the mate- 
rial for the production of the new organism, 
it is without influence on the form of this 
organism. 

This paper was welcomed with great en- 
thusiasm as a contribution of the utmost 
value to the solution of the problem of in- 
heritance, although careful study of it, or 
of the translation which was published in 
the American Naturalist for March, 1893, 
will show that Boveri’s evidence for his be- 
lief is not direct but very circumstantial. 

Seeliger has repeated Boveri’s experi- 
ments with great care, and on a much more 
extensive scale, and he shows that the im- 
direct evidence, upon which Boveri bases his 
belief that the larve in question were born 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895. } 


from denucleated eggs or fragments of 
eggs, is fallacious. Seeliger also brings for- 
ward positive or direct evidence to show 
that Boveri’s generalization is an error. 
WWisHKe. SB: 


The Rise and Development of Organic Chem- 
istry, by CARL ScHoRLEMMER,~ LL. D., F. 
R. S§., revised and edited by Arruur 
SmirHELts, B. Sc., Prof. Chemistry in 
Yorkshire College, Leeds, Victoria Univ. 
Maemillan & Co., New York. Pp. 280. 
Price $1.60. 

The first edition of the late Professor 
ei emmer’ s history of organic chemistry 
made its appearance in 1879. Until the 
publication of the present volume no revis- 
ion appeared, although a German edition, 
carefully edited, was printed in 1889, It 
was while Schorlemmer was engaged in the 
preparation of this second English edition 
that death overtook him, and his unfinished 
task fell into the hands.of Professor Smith- 
ells, who has ably completed it. 

A brief but exceedingly interesting bio- 
graphical sketch of Schorlemmer precedes 
the real subject-matter of the book. From 
this we gather that the researches which 
made the author famous were first begun 
in 1861, as a result of the study of oils 
obtained from cannel coal. From them 
were isolated the aliphatic hydrocarbons. 
A large field was opened up in this study 
of the paraffins, and Schorlemmer’s results 
were of great importance in the development 
of organic chemistry. 

In the first chapter considerable space is 
devoted to the discussion of the origin of the 
word chemistry; attention is directed to the 
earliest attempts at classification; the labors 
of Lemery, Stahl, Scheele, Lavoisier, 
Berzelius and Gmelin are fully reviewed, 
while a concise account of the aetherin theory 
closes the chapter. 

_ In the second chapter attention is given 

to Berzelius’ attempt to emphasize the dif- 


SCIENCE. 


163 


ference between organic and inorganic 
bodies as pointed out by Gmelin ; the syn- 
thesis of urea by Wohler, which created such 
a high degree of excitement in the chemical 
world; and the beginnings of the contro- 
versy which was waged between Dumas, 
Liebig and Berzelius. The presentation of 
the substitution theory and the attacks to 
which it in turn was subjected are fully and 
clearly narrated. 

From time to time the story is interrupted. 
Thus, in the fifth chapter, the author brings 
together the various definitions of organic 
chemistry. The early definition of Liebig, 
viz.: that organic chemistry is the chemistry 
of the compound radicals, was shown to be 
inadequate through the efforts of Williamson 
and Odling, who demonstrated the existence 
of the same in inorganie compounds. As 
carbon was recognized as the element 
common to all organic bodies organie chem- 
istry might, even in the early days, have 
been defined as the chemistry of the carbon 
compounds, or of radicals containing carbon, 
had it not been that compounds like carbon 
monoxide, phosgene, carbon disulphide and 
the carbon chlorides were not produced in 
the organism. In 1848 Gmelin, believing 
that he had found a boundary line, wrote, 
‘hence organic compounds are all primary com- 
pounds containing more than one atom of 
carbon,’ This definition no longer sufficed 
after the chemical world accepted Gerhardt’s 
atomic weights. In 1851 Kekulé, recog- 
nizing the difficulties in the way of a simple, 
satifactory recorded himself in 
these words, “ organic chemistry is the chem- 
istry of the carbon compounds.”” He held it 
to be a special part of pure chemistry, but 
because of the great number and importance 
of the carbon compounds believed that it 
should be separately treated. Erlenmeyer 
wrote ‘their study requires in many respects 
peculiar methods of investigation, different 
from those employed in the study of the 
compounds of other elements, and thus the 


definition, 


164 


necessity for a division of labor has also 
made itself apparent in the interest of scien- 
tific research.”’ Butlerow gave as his opinion 
that organic chemistry must be defined as 
the chemistry of the carbon compounds. 
After giving place to the definitions of the 
earlier writers Schorlemmer defines ‘ organic 
chemistry as the chemistry of the hydro- 
earbons and their derivatives.’ He, how- 
ever, recognized that it did not place a sharp 
boundary line between the inorganic and 
organic fields. 

In the remaining chapters the further 
development of the organic field is traced 
with great care. The different views in re- 
gard to the constitution of benzene, the ar- 
rangement of atoms in space, geometrical 
isomerism, various striking syntheses in 
both the paraffin and aromatic series are 
clearly presented. In regard to the great 
revolution produced in calico-printing and 
in the manufacture of madder preparations 
by the synthesis of alizarin by Graebe and 
Liebermann, Schorlemmer writes ‘‘ madder 
finds to-day only a very limited application 
in dyeing of wool. Twenty years ago the 
annual yield of madder was about 500,000 
tons when a friend of the author 
asked to see the madder plantations at 
Avignon he was told ‘it is no longer grown, 
as it is now made by machinery.’ ” 

The book closes with a chapter upon the 
unsolved problems. ‘If to-day we cannot 
make morphine, quinine, and similar bodies 
artificially, the time is near at hand... . If 
we cannot make quinine we have already 
found a partial substitute in antipyrine.”’ 
Yes, in the language of Schorlemmer “ or- 
ganic chemistry advances with giants’ steps. 
About fifty years ago only twelve hydrocar- 
bons were known, and twelve years ago 
this number had increased to about 200. 
To-day we are acquainted with more than 
400, and many of them, as well as their de- 
rivatives, have been carefully studied.” 

The little volume from which we have 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Voz. I. No. 6. 


quoted is well constructed and replete with 
information for the student of chemistry. 
Its careful study will be well repaid. The _ 
editor and publishers deserve much credit 
for again presenting such a valuable work, 

Epear F. Suirg, 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 

MILK IN ITS RELATIONS TO DIPHTHERIA. 

Viapmirow, in the Second Part, Vol. 
III., of the Archives des Sciences Biologiques 
publices par L’ Institut Impérial de médecine 
Expérimentale, St. Petersburg, page 84, gives 
the results of some researches made by him 
in Nencki’s laboratory on the effects of the 
diphtheria bacillus upon cows, and especially 
as to the possibility of producing in the cow, 
by subcutaneous injections of this organism, 
a disease which would result in the infection 
of the milk by the same organism, so that 
such milk might become a carrier of the 
germs to those who_used it. 

Dr. Klein, of London, has reported, as the 
result of such hypodermic injections, the 
production of an eruption upon the udder 
of the cow, in which eruption the diphtheria 
bacillus was found to exist. 

These experiments were repeated by Dr. — 
Abbott, of Philadelphia ; but while he found 
that the injection produces disease, and even 
death, in the cow, there was no eruption in 
the udders, and no diphtheria bacillus in 
the milk. Vladimirow confirms the results 
obtained by Dr. Abbott. He found that if 
the diphtheria bacillus was introduced into 
the milk ducts of the teats upon one side of 
the udder of the cow, an inflammation was 
produced upon that side of the udder, and 
general fever occurred, which, in one case, 
produced death. The milk secreted by the 
injected half of the gland acquired a greenish 
tint, coagulated, contained pus, had an alka- 
line reaction, and contained less sugar and 
more albuminoids than the milk coming 
from the sound side of the gland. The di- 


ee eS ae ee. 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895.] 


minution in the quantity of sugar was due 
to the decomposition of this substance by 
the diphtheria bacillus, with the production 
of lactic acid. The diphtheria bacilli only 
remained alive in the udder for a short 
time—from four to five days—and their 
number steadily diminished. Subcutaneous 
injections of cultures of the diphtheria bacil- 
lus in the cow produced a serious fever, with 
loss of appetite, etc., but there was no irri- 
tation on the udder, the milk did not change 
in its appearance and contained neither diph- 
theria bacilli nor the toxins due to these. 


CONSUMPTION OF WINE AND BEER IN DIFFER- 
ENT COUNTRIES. 

Durine the years 1886-90 the mean an- 
nual consumption of wine, stated as num- 
ber of litres per head of population, was, 
in Spain, 115; in Greece, 109.5; in Bul- 
garia, 104.2; in Portugal, 95.6; in Italy, 
95.2; in France, 94.4; in Switzerland, 60.7; 
in Roumania, 51.6; in Servia, 35.0; in Ger- 
many, 5.7; in Belgium, 3.2; in Holland, 2.2; 
and in Great Britain and Ireland, 1.7. 

In 1890 average consumption of beer, 
stated as number of litres per head of popu- 
lation, was, in Belgium, 177.5; in Great 
Britain and Ireland, 136.2; in Germany, 
105.8; in Denmark, 102.9; in the United 
States, 58.0; in Switzerland, 40.0; in Nor- 
way, 37.5; in Holland, 34.6; in France, 
22.5; and in Italy, 0.9. (Bulletin del’ Inst. 
internat. de Statistique. VII. 2.° Sive. 1894. 
p- 309.) 
MAGNETIC WAVES. 

Ar a late meeting of the Mathematico- 
Physical Club in Cambridge, Mass., Profes- 
sor Dolbear showed that magnetic waves 
produced by the vibrations of a magnet 
making two thousand vibrations per second 
could easily be heard by listening to a mag- 
netic telephone held in the neighborhood 
without any employment of its coil. The 
inductive action of the waves upon the mag- 


_ net of the telephone being direct instead of 


SCIENCE. 


165 


being first transformed into an electric cur- 
rent as in the common way of using it. 
Two sympathetic tuning forks may, if mag- 
netized, react in the same way as they will 
from sound vibrations and one make the 
other vibrate through a thick wall, thus 
showing that such walls are transparent to 
magnetic waves. The reactions show that 
the periodic change of form due to vibra- 
tion changes the strength of the magnetic 
field at the same rate. A few turns of wire 
about the bend of a U magnet may have 
the ends fastened to a telephone circuit, 
when, if the magnet be struck so as to pro- 
duce a sound, it will give so loud a sound 
in the telephone as to probably surprise 
one who has not tried the experiment 
before. 
ANATOMY. 

Tue Bibliographie Anatomique begins its 
third year with the announcement of in- 
creased success. It is to be enlarged to 
make room for a greater number of original 
articles, and at the same time the subscrip- 
tion is to be raised from seven and a-half to 
ten frances. This excellent publication gives 
a current classified list of all anatomical ar- 
ticles published in French, and differs from 
other similar journals in adding brief re- 
sumés of all the more important articles. 
In practice it covers quite thoroughly the 
field of vertebrate morphology, and it may 
therefore be recommended for the support 
of American investigators. 

CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 

Proressor THoMAs MEEHAN, in an article 
on Darlingtonia Californica in the January 
issue of Meehan’s Monthly, notes that the 
so-called carnivorous plants are just as able 
to get their food from the earth as other 
plants do, and that the animal food which 
they undoubtedly consume through their 
foliage can only be looked upon as a gas- 
tronomic luxury in no way to be classed 
among the necessaries of life. 


166 


TOADS ON THE SEASHORE. 


Durine a vacation recently spent at Cape 
May, New Jersey, I was much interested in 
observing the habits of the toads on the 
seashore. Between the ‘board-walk’ and 
high-water mark is a narrow belt of un- 
even sand, dotted with tufts of beach-grass 
and raised here and there into miniature 
‘dunes.’ Here the toads congregate in 
considerable numbers, and as evening draws 
on they may be seen hopping about in quest 
of food. As they were not to be seen dur- 
ing the heat of the day, I became interested 
to know where they concealed themselves. 
A short search revealed their whereabouts. 
Like so many of the small animals of the 
contiguous waters, they bury themselves in 
the sand for concealment. Upon looking 
attentively over the surfaces of the little 
dunes, one saw here and there a pair of 
bright eyes, not unlike the sand in color 
and as fixed as gems in a rock. It was 
only necessary to touch the sand in the im- 
mediate vicinity of the eyes, when a toad 
would hop out and tumble clumsily over 
the hummocks in endeavors to escape. 

Whether the toads captured any prey 
while concealed in the sand I was unable 
to discover, but I should think it improb- 
able, as their mouths were usually beneath 
the surface and there would be little chance 
for them to shoot out their tongues. 

FREDERICK W. TRUE. 


GENERAL, 


PRoFessor ARTHUR CAYLEY, the eminent 
mathematician, died at Cambridge, England, 
on January 26, at the age of seventy-four. 


Joun 8S. Burpon-Sanperson, M. A., Fel- 
low of Magdalen College, and Waynflete 
Professor of Physiology, has been appointed 
Regius Professor of Medicine, at Oxford, in 
place of Sir Henry W. Acland, Bart., Christ 
Church, resigned. Professor Burdon-San- 
derson continues to direct the lectures and 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 6. 


practical instructions in the Department of 
Physiology, with the assistance of Dr. Hal- 
dane and Mr. Pembrey. 


Apprications for the table at the Biolog- 
ical Laboratory of Cold Spring Harbor, 
maintained by the American Association 
should be sent to Professor W. H. Conn, 
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., 
or to Professor F. W. Hooper, Brooklyn 
Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn, 
INF Ya: 


The Johns Hopkins University Circular for 
January consists of scientifie notes on work 
done at the University. It includes a 
reprint from the Journal of Geology of Pro- 
fessor Brooks’ paper, On the Origin of the 
Oldest Fossils and the Discovery of the Bottom 
of the Ocean, and a reprint from Natural 
Science of -a review of Professor Brooks’ 
monograph, The Genus Salpa. It also con- 
tains notes in chemistry, astronomy and 
botany. ; 


Tue French Minister of Education, M. 
Leygues, has opened the new buildings for 
the scientific departments of the Sorbonne. 


Tue list of books for sale issued by Ber- 
nard Quaritch in January includes many 
valuable works in natural history, especially 
in botany and ornithology. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
Biological Section : January 14, 1895. 
Notes on Neurological methods and ex- 

hibition of photo-micrographs. 

A paper on The Use of Formalin in Golgi’s 
method was read by Mr. O. 8. Strong. The 
writer found that formalin (40% solution of 
formaldehyde) may be used (instead of os- 
mic acid) mixed with potassium bichro- 
mate. Pieces of adult brain were placed 
in the following: Potassium bichromate 
(8£%-5%) 100 volumes + formalin 24 to 
5 vol. During several days or more the tis- 


FEBRUARY 8, 1895.] 


sue is transferred to the silver nitrate solu- 
tion (1%). Or the tissue after 1 to 2 days 
may be transferred from the above bichro- 
mate-formalin mixture to the following : 
Pot. bich. (5%) 2 vols. + formalin 1 vol. 
After 12 to 24 hours the tissue is put into 
silver solution. The advantages of this 
method are that it avoids the use of osmic 
acid and that the stage of hardening 
favorable for impregnation lasts longer than 
when the osmium-bichromate mixture is 
used and good results are consequently 
more certain. In other words, the forma- 
lin-bichromate does not overharden. In 
this respect it is also superior to the lithium 
bichromate method of the author (N. Y. 
‘Acad. of Se. Pro. vol. XIII., 1894). For 
embryonic tissue the formalin method is 
probably not equal to the osmium-bichro- 
mate method, possibly because it does not 
harden sufficiently. For such tissue lith- 
ium bichromate (which hardens more 
rapidly than potassium bichromate) had 
better be mixed with the formalin instead 
of potassium bichromate. While good results 
are obtainable, especially with advanced 
embryonic tissue, with either of the above, 
yet the author believes that for such tissue 
the osmium-bichromate method is probably 
in certain respects somewhat superior. 

A fuller account will be published later. 

Dr. Ira Van Gieson reported some pre- 
liminary observations on the action of for- 
malin as a fixative and preservative of the 
eentral nervous system for the ordinary his- 
tological staining methods ; solutions of for- 
malin, four, six and ten per cent. were used, 
followed by 95 per cent. aleohol and celloi- 
din embedding. Sections of the human cord, 
cerebellum and cortex prepared in this way 
gave very thorough fixation of the ganglion 
cell, neuroglia cells, and fine nerve fibres. 

Weigert’s haematoxylin method can be 
applied to such sections, and gives very 
good results for the plexus of fine fibres in 
the cortical and spinal grey matter. The 


e 


SCIENCE. 167 


myelin of the fine fibres is well preserved 
and gives the characteristic bluish black re- 
action with the Weigert haematoxylin stain, 
as in chrome hardened preparations. The 
background of the grey matter is especially 
clear and the fibres sharply delineated. 
The formalin hardened sections should be 
soaked in the neutral copper acetate solu- 
tion, diluted one-half with water, for 2 
hours, then thoroughly washed in water and 
immersed in the Weigert lithium-carbonate 
haematoxylin solution two to twelve hours. 
Weigert’s borax-prussiate of potassium so- 
lution is used for differentiation. The dif- 
ferentiation takes place rapidly and must be 
watched carefully. 

The formalin sections of the central 
nervous system may also be used for Rehm’s 
modification of Nissl’s method; but the 
staining of the chromatin and minute struc- 
ture of the nucleus and cytoplasm is not 
quite so sharply outlined as with absolute 
alcohol fixation. 

The duration of the hardening in formalin 
solutions has a very important and varying 
influence on the nerve fibers and ganglion 
cells with reference to the application of 
such methods as the Weigert and Nissl 
groups of stains. A further study to define 
the more exact limitations of formalin as a 
new histological preservative for the nervous 
system will be published later and the more 
exact periods of time in the hardening ne- 
cessary for different stains detailed. 

Mr. R. H. Cunningham, On the Sources of 
Illumination for Photo-Micrography, noted a 
practical mode of employing the are light 
with satisfactory results. 

Mr. C. F. Cox illustrated the Latest Theories 
of Diatom Structure, exhibiting lantern slides 
of Mr. T. F. Smith, of London. 

Dr. Edward Leaming projected a series 
of his micro-photographs of bacteria, fer- 
tilization processes of sea-urchin, 
peneustes, and Golgi preparations. 

Basurorpd Deran, Recording Secy. 


Toxo- 


168 


THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 
JAN. 26. 
Council meeting at 7:30 P. Mm. 
A New Ootton Enemy, brought over from Mea- 
co: Mr. L. O. Howarp. 
Anatomy of a Leaf-gall of Pinus virginianus : 
Mr. Toro. Hot. 
Abnormal Feet of Mammals: Mr. F. A. Lucas. 
The Mesozoic Flora of Portugal compared with 
that of the United States: Pror. Luster F. 
WARD. 
Freperic A. Lucas, Secretary. 
SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
THE ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, JAN. 


On the Conditions which Affect the Spectro-Pho- 
tography of the Sun: A. A. MicHEtson. 

Photographs of the Milky-Way: E. E. Bar- 
NARD. 

The Arc-Spectra of the Elements I. Boron and 
Berylium: H. A. Rowxianp and R. Tar- 

NALL. 

On Some Attempts to Photograph the Solar Co- 
rona Without an Eclipse, made at the Mount 
Etna Observatory: A. Ricco. 

Discovery of Variable Stars from their Photo- 
graphic Spectra: HK. C. P1IcKERING. 

Preliminary Table of Solar Spectrum Wave- 
Lengths I.: H. A. RowLann. 

Observations of Mars made in May and June, 
1894, with the Melbourne Great Telescope : 
Rk. L. J. Every. 

Recent Changes in the Spectrum of Nova 
Auriga : W. W. CAMPBELL. 

The Modern Spectroscope. X. General Consider- 
ations Respecting the Design of Astronomical 
Spectroscopes: F. LL. O. WADSWORTH. 

Minor Contributions and Notes. 

Reviews. 

Recent Publications. 


AMERICAN JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICS, JAN. 

Sur une transformation de mouvements: Par 
Pavut APPELL. 

Extrait Vune lettre adressée a M. Crag: Par 


M. Hermite, 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vox. I. No. 6. 


On the First and Seeond Logarithmic Deriva- 
tives of Hyperelliptic Functions: By OsKAR 
Bouza. 

Sur la definition de la limite dune fname 
Exercice de logique mathématique: Par G. 
PEANO. 

Theorems in the Calculus of Enlargement: By 
Emory McCuinrocxr. 


On Foucault's Pendulum: By A. 8. CHEssin, 


BULLETIN OF THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB, 
JAN. 


Family Nomenclature: Joun HenpiEy BARn- 
HART. 

A Revision of the North American Species of 
the Genus Cracea: AnnA Murray VAIL. 

A Revision of the Genus Scouleria with De- 
scription of one new Species: ExizABETH G. 
BRITTON. 

Studies in the Botany of the Southeastern United 
States—IUI.: Jonn K. SMALL. 

New Plants from Idaho: Lovurs F. HEnDER- 
SON. 

Buxbaumia Aphylla: Guo. G. KENNEDY. 

Herbert A. Young: Wm. P. Rice. 

Proceedings of the Club. 

Index to Recent Lnteratare Relating to American 
Botany. 


NEW BOOKS. 


The Factors in Organic Evolution: A Syllabus 
of a Course of Elementary Lectures. Davi 
Srarr Jorpon. Pp. 149. Ginn & Co. 
$1.50. 


The Geological and Natural History Survey of — 
Minnesota. N.H.WincuEett. Minneap- 
olis, Harrison & Smith. 1894. Pp. 210. 


Anatomy and Art. President’s address be- 
fore the Philosophical Society of Wash- 
ington. Rospert FLETCHER Wat 
1895. Pp. 24. 


Annual Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology of 
the Smithsonian Institution, 1890-1891. J, 
W. Powrtt. Washington, Government 
Printing Office. Pp. 742. ; 


’ 


— 


New SERIEs. 
VoL. I. No. 7. 


SINGLE Copres, 15 CTs. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00 


Fripay, Fresruary 15, 1895. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 
Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


PHYSICS. 


ABHANDLUNGEN, physikalische, der kénigl. Aka- 
demie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. 4°. Mit. 1 Taf. 
Mk. 10. 


Bois, Dr. H. pu. Magnetische Kreise, deren The- 
orie und Anwendung. Mit 94in den Text gedruck- 
ten Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Gebunden. Mk. 10. 


CHRISTIANSEN, Pror. DR. C., Elemente der theo- 
retischen Physik. Deutsch v. Dr. Joh. Miller. Mit 
e. Vorwort v. Prof. Dr. E. Wiedemann. gr. 8°. Mk. 
10. 


Drupe, P. Physik des Aethers auf elektromag- 
netischer Grundlage. 8°. Mit66 Abbildgn. Mk. 14. 


- Foppt, Prof. Dr. A., Einfiihrung in die Maxwell- 
*sche Theorie der Elektricitiit. Mit. e. Einleit. Ab- 
schnitte tiber das Rechnen m. Vectorgréssen in der 
Physik. gr. 8°. Mk. 10. 


GARNAULT, E. Mécanique, physique et chimie. 
Paris, 1894. 8°. Avec. 325 fig. 

Korn, Dr. ArtHuR. Eine Theorie der Gravita- 
tion und der elektrischen Erscheinungen auf Grund- 
lage der Hydrodynamik. Zweiter Teil: Elektrody- 
namik. Erster Abschnitt. Theorie des permanenten 
Magnetismus und der konstanten elektrischen Stréme. 
gr. 8°. Mk. 3. 

WEBER. Sechster Band. Mechanik der mensch- 
lichen Gehwerkzeuge. Besorgt durch Friedrich Mer- 
kel und Otto Fischer. Mit 17 Tafeln und in den Text 
gedruckten Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Mk. 16. 


WEBER’s WERKE, WILHELM. Herausgegeben von 
der Koniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu 

Ottingen. Vierter Band Galvanismus und Elektro- 
dynamik. Zweiter Teil. Besorgt durch Heinrich 
Weber. Mit 4 Tafeln und in den Text gedruckten 
Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Mk. 16. 
_ WIEDEMANN, Gustav. Die Lehre der Elektriz- 
itit. Zweite umgearbeitete und vermehrte Auflage. 
Zugleich als vierté Auflage der Lehre vom Galvanis- 
mus und Elektromagnetismus. Zweiter Band. Mit 
163 Holzschnitten und einer Tafel. gr. 8°. Mk. 28. 


CHEMISTRY. 
BIECHELE, Dr. Max., Pharmaceutische Uebungs- 
iiparate. Anleitung zur Darstellung, Erkennung, 
und stéchiometrischen Berechnung von of- 
fizinellen chemisch-pharmaceutischen Priiparaten. 8°. 
en. Mk. 6. 

BuJARD Dr. ALFoNs, und Dr. Epvarp BAIER. 
Hilfsbuch fiir Nahrungsmittelchemiker auf Grund- 


7 


lage der Vorschriften, betreffend die Priifung der 
Nahrungsmittelchemiker. Mit in den Text gedruck- 
ten Abbildungen. 8°. Gebunden. Mk. 8. 


ERLENMEYER’S, E., Lehrbuch der organischen 
Chemie. II. Thl. Die aromatischen Verbindungen. 
Begonnen von Rch. Meyer fortgesetzt von H. Gold- 
schmidt, weiter fortgefiihrt von K. vy. Buchka. I. Bd. 
8 Lig. Mk. 6. 


GEISSLER, DR. EWALp. Grundriss der pharma- 
ceutischen Massanalyse. Mit Beriicksichtigung ein- 
iger handelschemischen und hygienischen Analysen. 
Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Mit 37 
in den Text gedruckten Holzschnitten. 8°. Gebun- 
den. Mk. 4. 


2896. GIRARD, C., et. A. DupRE. Analyse des 
matiéres alimentaires et recherche de leurs falsifica- 
tions. 8° 32 fr. 50c. 

GLUCKSMANN, Karu. Kritische Studien im Be- 
reiche der Fundamentalanschauungen der theoretisch- 
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CONTENTS: 


The Influence of Certain Agents in Destroying the 
Vitality of the Typhoid and of the Colon Bacillus : 
JOHN 8. BILLINGS and ADELAIDE WARD PECK- 


MMNEENUIN AI clu 60s occ es. cclueteiitlesince ns nisecccs 169 
Current Notes on Physiography (I.): W. M. 
ol oc SAC CGSB GRRERBIGGS 6 oc 5-638 eadonda 174 
The Needs of Meteorology: CLEVELAND ABBE...181 
UMEIOROLONCE S— sss... ovale bibs wie thaccicces 182 
A Card Catalogue of Scientific Literature: HH. 
P. BowpiTcH. 
prosentaic TALENAIUTe — .. 0. scene se scevesecerees 186 


Organic Coloring Matters: TRA REMSEN. 
Thompson’s Electricity and Magnetism: TT. C. 
M. The Birds of Eastern Pennsylvania; Birds 
in the Museum of Natural History, New York 
City: C. HART MERRIAM. Russell’s Dairy 
Bacteriology: H.W.C. Botanical: ALBERT 
SCHNEIDER. : 
MMECE VOWS: S— 2.000. 0 cmoimtoecciecies sciecse 190 
The Thompson Prize ; Entomology; Cooling of 
Hospitals ; Pithecanthropus Erectus. 
Societies and Academies :—........e.eeeeeeeeeees 193 
New York Academy of Sciences, Section of Geol- 
ogy and Mineralogy. 


SEIS TOMINGIS soos ec cessicssehevepstoctvues 195 
UMATAM ia ciclais.e's cso 20s aipmigtlanian hii isis ese 196 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

Subseriptions (five dollars annually ) and advertisements 
should be sent to the Publisher of SCIENCE, 41 East 49th St., 
New York, or Lancaster, Pa. 


THE INFLUENCE OF CERTAIN AGENTS IN DE- 
STROYING THE VITALITY OF THE TY- 
PHOID AND OF THE COLON BACILLUS. 


Durine the last year a series of re- 
searches upon the influence of light, of 
desiccation, and of the products of certain 
micro-organisms upon the vitality of some 


of the pathogenic bacteria has been car- 
ried on in the Laboratory of Hygiene of the 
University of Pennsylvania, by Dr. Ade- 
laide W. Peckham, in accordance with a 
general scheme for such investigation pre- 
pared by Dr. Weir Mitchell and Dr. Bil- 
lings, the Director of the Laboratory, and 
with the aid of a grant from the Bache fund. 
A portion of the results obtained in this re- 
search has been communicated to the Na- 
tional Academy of Sciences at its meetings 
in April and in October, 1894 ; but as the 
volume of the Transactions of the Academy 
which will contain these papers will not be 
issued before next year, it has been thought 
best to publish some account of these ex- 
periments without further delay. 

That direct sunlight kills or stops the 
growth of certain bacteria has been known 
since 1877, when Downes and Blunt pre- 
sented to the Royal Society a report on 
“ Researches on the effects of light upon 
bacteria and other organisms.’** Since 
that date a number of papers on this subject 
have been published, the most important 
one in relation to the typhoid bacillus being 
that of Janowski in 1890.+ The first series 
of experiments by Dr. Peckham was made 
with the staphylococeus pyogenes aureus, the 
object being mainly to determine the best 
methods of investigation. 

* Proc. Roy. Soc. 1877, vol. 26, p. 488. 

+ Zur Biologie der Typhus Bacillen, Centralbl. f 
Bakteriol, etc., VIII., 1890, pp. 167, 193, 230, 262. 


170 


Photobacteriographs were made by Buch- 
ner’s method, namely, by placing a square 
of black paper, or of glass of different colors, 
upon the bottom of a plate containing in- 
oculated agar-agar during insolation; but 
although the protected portion was visible 
after fifteen minutes’ insolation and incuba- 
tion for twenty-four hours, and sharply de- 
fined after two hours’ insolation and incuba- 
tion as before, no accurate estimate could 
be made of the difference in the destruc- 
tive power of different periods of inso- 
lation. Successful photobacteriography re- 
quires inoculation of large quantities of 
bacteria, in order that the colonies may be 
set so closely together that a ground-glass 
appearance is produced; in which case 
counting of the colonies is practically im- 
possible. 

For this reason the following method was 
used for each of the three organisms, 
the staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, the bacillus 
coh cammunis and the bacillus typhi abdom- 
tnalis. 

To obtain an accurate measure of the 
effects produced by lights of different in- 
tensity or of different colors, it is necessary 
to ensure, as far as possible, that the bac- 
teria to be experimented on shall be uni- 
formly distributed in the culture media. 
Tubes containing each 10 ec. of bouillon 
were inoculated with one drop of a bouillon 
culture and then placed in an incubator for 
twenty-four hours. A small quantity of 
sterilized gravel was then added to the 
culture tube and it was thoroughly shaken, 
after which 10 cc. of a one-half per cent. 
salt solution was added and the culture 
drawn into a Nuttall’s dropping apparatus. 
From this, one-twentieth of 1 ec. of the 
bouillon culture was dropped into a tube of 
melted agar-agar, which was slowly and 
thoroughly agitated, and the contents were 
then poured into a Petri dish, carefully 
levelled on a levelling tripod over ice water. 
In the first method used the Petri dishes 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No.7. 


were found to be so uneven on the bottom 
that the layer of medium under the pro- 
tective square was often very thick or very ~ 
thinas compared with that about the cir- 
cumference of the plate, and, therefore, 
comparisons made between the centre and 
the circumference would be in almost every 
ease unreliable. To overcome this diffi- 
culty, just one-half of the plate was shaded 
with black paper or colored glass. 

The plates were then exposed to sunlight, 
bottom upwards, so as to allow the sun to 
shine as directly as possible on the inocu- 
lated agar-agar. At intervals of fifteen 
minutes a plate was removed and placed in 
the incubator. The temperature of the 
plates during insolation was always 
below 34° C. as shown by. a thermometer 
with a blackened bulb which was placed in 
the sun and the temperature noted every 
fifteen minutes. Sunny, still days were 
utilized for insolation, beginning at 10 A. m. 
during the months of October, November 
and December. After insolation, the plates, 
and also a non-insolated control plate were 
incubated for twenty-four hours. 

The colonies were counted in the follow- 
ing manner: A number 1 eye-piece was 
divided into fields (as done by Nuttall in 
counting tubercle bacilli), by introducing a 
disk of black cardboard which had a square 
opening divided into four parts by two hairs 
placed at right angles. This eye-piece and 
an objective of low power were used in 
counting. The percentage of germs de- 
stroyed by insolation was estimated from 
the mean of four counts taken on both the 
insolated and the protected halves of the 
plate. By this method an accurate state- 
ment can be made regarding the difference 
in protective power given by the different 
colors, not from simple observation, but by 
comparison of a definite number of colonies 
counted. 

The following table shows the compara- 
tive effect of the blue rays and of complete 


—_ - 


-Fxesruary 15, 1895.] 


shadows on the growth of the organisms ex- 
perimented on : 


ganism destroyed in 
the insolated half of 
the plate as com- 
pared with the pro- 
tected half. 


Number of minutes exposed Ro 15130145160 75 90!105'120 
/ (black paper.. 17 28 33 34.65.63 90) 98 
Typhoid Shaded with - | 

Ublue glass....) 71430822438) 85) 52 

( black paper.. 251525718388 97 99 
Colon ... Shaded with~ 

(blue glass.... 13 29 3235.56.59 60 52 

/ (black paper..|.. ../55.. 7272 80 90 
Aureus .. Shaded with- 


(blue glass...... 3834545141 48 50 


From this series of experiments the fol- 
lowing results were obtained : 

Insolation for fifteen minutes destroys to 
a slight extent each of the three organisms 
experimented upon. Two hours’ insolation 
destroys 98% of the germs and from three 
to six hours kills all. The colon bacillus is 
more easily destroyed by insolation than is 
the typhoid bacillus. Exposure to diffuse 
daylight, to gas light, or to the incandes- 
eent electric light produces little effect. 
Red, orange, yellow, and green light pro- 
duce little effect, during two hours’ insola- 
tion ; while the blue and violet rays kill 
nearly as rapidly and as certainly as full 
sunlight. Insolation from six to eight hours 
lessens the number of colonies under the 
protective square to a slight extent, for the 
colors red, orange, yellow and green. 

Plates were made in the same manner 
and exposed to diffused light for periods 
varying from fifteen minutes to two days. 
The exposure was made on clear sunny days 
in the light. part of a room. In this ex- 


_ periment the result was negative, the num- 


ber of colonies on the two sides of the plate 
being approximately the same. 

An ordinary gas-burner and an incandes- 
cent light were each used as the source of 
illumination. The plates were placed bot- 
tom-upwards in a dark room near the light 
used. Illumination for sixteen hours with 


} 
- 
ry 


SCIENCE. 


171 


gas produced no effect on the growth of the 
organism as shown by counting of the col- 
onies. 

Illumination for four and one-half hours 
with an incandescent light also gave nega- 
tive results. 

A series of experiments was made with 
tubes of bouillon inoculated with the differ- 
ent organisms and then enclosed in larger 
tubes containing fluids of different colors— 
red, orange, yellow and blue, which were 
exposed to sunlight with control tubes, one 
placed in water, and the other in a similar 
tube covered with black paper. The ma- 
terials wsed for making the colored solutions 
were corallin, chromate and bichromate of 
potassium, and methylene blue. From these 
tubes, plates were made, and the number of 
colonies counted. 

It was found that an increase in the num- 
ber of colonies continued to the eighteenth 
day, the number being greater in the colon 
and aureus cultures than in the typhoid. 
The colonies then began to decrease, and on 
the fifty-eighth day the plates contained but 
few colonies. In this experiment, as in the 
last, plates made from culture tubes placed 
in blue fluid showed fewer colonies. 

Since the presentation of the above re- 
sults, with details, charts and tables, to the 
National Academy, in April, 1894, Dr. Dieu- 
donné has published in the Arbeiten aus dem 
Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte, a paper on the 
effects of sunlight on bacteria, in which he 
reports results substantially the same, and 
obtained by almost the same methods as 
those of Dr. Peckham. 

Sunlight not only weakens or kills the 
typhoid and the colon bacillus, but it affects 
culture media so as to render them less 
capable of supporting the growth of these 
organisms. Dr. Peckham found that sterile 
bouillon insolated from one to ten days and 
then inoculated with the bacillus typhi ab- 
dominalis showed no diminution in the num- 
ber of colonies as compared with a control 


172 


plate made from a similar culture not so 
exposed. Twenty days insolation and then 
inoculation with the typhoid bacillus 
showed great decrease in the number of 
colonies on all the plates ; some of them were 
sterile. Insolation of forty days, and inoc- 
ulation in the same manner, gave very few 
colonies for each plate, probably the same 
as the number of germs introduced, 7. e., 
there had been no development. Bouillon 
insolated 50—60 days and inoculated gave 
sterile tubes. This insolated bouillon after 
inoculation and incubation remained per- 
fectly clear, and plates made after a week 
of incubation gave no more colonies than 
those made at the end of twenty-four hours. 
Its reaction was alkaline, but not intensely 
So. 

Insolated agar-agar—Of twenty-three tubes 
of agar-agar insolated twenty days, and 
then inoculated with the bacillus typhi ab- 
dominalis, all except one remained sterile, 
and neither the bacillus typhi abdominalis nor 
the bacillus coli communis grew when inocu- 
lated in stripes on these plates. Of seven 
tubes of agar-agar insolated forty days and 
then inoculated with the bacillus of typhoid, 
all remained sterile. On four of these plates 
mould appeared after some days. Of seven 
tubes of agar-agar insolated forty days and 
then inoculated and incubated as before, all 
remained sterile. 

Insolated gelatine.—Of ten gelatine tubes 
insolated forty days and then inoculated 
with the bacillus typhi abdominalis, six re- 
mained sterile, two contained a few colonies 
of bacillus typhi abdominalis, and two were 
contaminated. 

The insolated bouillon was then kept in 
diffuse daylight for forty days and again 
inoculated with the typhoid bacillus. Within 
twenty-four hours the tubes of bouillon be- 
tame turbid and plates made from them 
showed innumerable colonies. 

It is difficult to account for the effect of 
insolation on culture media. Roux in his 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vox. I. Nos 7 


experiments on anthrax found that insolae 
tion of bouillon for two or three howrs ren- 
dered it unsuitable for germination of the~ 
spores, but if the bacilli were introduced 
they would thrive. He attributes this alter- 
ation to some chemical change which the 
culture media undergo during the insolation. 
He found also that if the insolated media 
were kept in the dark or in diffuse daylight 
for a time, the original nutritive qualities 
were restored and germination of spores 
would take place. Geisler and Janowski 
observed the bactericidal properties of inso- 
lated media, but the latter could find no 
chemical alteration in such media. 

Percy Frankland in his chapter on action 
of light on micro-organisms* concludes from 
the results obtained by many investigators 
‘that the effect is due to a process of oxi- 
dation possibly brought about through the 
agency of ozone or peroxide of hydrogen, or 
both ; that all apparently direct low tem- 
perature oxidations require the presence of 
water. And inasmuch as the bactericidal 
action of light is unquestionably a case of 
low temperature oxidation, there is the 
strongest presumptive evidence, as well as 
weighty experimental evidence, that moist- 
ure, which practically means the possibility 
of the presence of peroxide of hydrogen or of 
some similar material, is essential for its 
manifestation.’+ Westbrook (‘Some of the 
effects of sunlight on tetanus cultures, 
Jour. of Pathol. & Bacteriol. IIT., Noy. 
1894, 71’) found that old broth cultures of 
the tetanus bacillus in an atmosphere of 
hydrogen were not in the least affected by 
exposure to sunlight, either in regard to 
their virulence or their rapidity of growth 
on reinoculation. When the same culture 
was sealed up in the presence of air, the 

*Micro-organisms in water, p. 390. 

{Gelatine, to which were added different amounts 
of the peroxide of hydrogen, was inoculated with the 
bacillus typhi abdominalis and poured into plates. 
Those plates in which more than one part of the 
peroxide to 5000 of gelatine was used, were sterile. 


. 


FEBRUARY 15, 1895. ] 


micro-organisms, were not only killed, but 
_ the material was completely harmless when 
inoculated into white mice. It was, how- 
ever, possible to obtain vigorous and viru- 
lent growths from cultures which had been 
made quite innocuous by the action of the 
sun. Oxygen was used up in the process. 
Under ordinary circumstances one might 
be tempted to explain the effect of sunlight 
in destroying bacteria by the drying of the 
organisms exposed to it, especially in the 
ease of those bacteria which do not form 
spores, but our experiments show that 
desiccation for months has little effect on 
the vitality of the typhoid or of the colon 
bacillus. To determine the influence of 
desiccation upon these organisms, and also 
upon the staphylococcus aureus, the following 
experiments were made: 
Bouillon cultures of the bacillus typhi ab- 


dominalis, the bacillus coli communis and the 


staphylococeus aureus were roughly dried on 
threads one centimetre long and then desic- 
eated, a portion being placed in a vacuum, 
another portion in a desiccator over sul- 
phurie acid, and a third in a closet; all 
were kept in the dark. The result of the 
desiccation under the three different condi- 
tions is as follows : 

Bacillus typhi abdominalis : 

Lived in a vacuum from December 30 
until July 24, or 207 days. In a desic- 
eator over sulphuric acid from January 
3 until July 24, or 213 days. 

Tn a closet from December 18 until July 

: 24, or 229 days. 

Bacillus coli communis : 

_ Lived in vacuum from November 29 to 
May 30, or 183 days. 

In a desiccator over sulphuric acid from 
January 3 until July 24, or 213 days. 

In a closet from December 30 until May 
80, or 152 days. 
hylococeus aureus : 

Lived in vacuum from November 29 until 
July 24, or 207 days. 


= 
* 


SCIENCE. 


173 


In a desiccator over sulphuric acid from 
October 25 until April 19, or 178 days. 

In a closet from February 13 until July 
24, or 162 days. 

It will be seen from these experiments 
that the organisms experimented on endure 
desiccation for five months, or more, with- 
out losing their vitality, and hence the slight 
evaporation which may have occurred in 
the insolation experiments, had probably no 
influence on the results. 

It is evident that sunshine must exercise 
considerable influence in destroying bacteria 
on the surface of soil, streets, ete., exposed 
to its influence, but its action is almost con- 
fined to the surface, as appears from the re- 
sults obtained by Esmarch in attempts to dis- 
infect bedding and clothing by this agency. 
While the light from an incandescent elec- 
tric lamp has little germicidal effect, that 
from a powerful are lamp produces effects 
similar to those of sunlight, and it has been 
proposed to use this means to disinfect the 
walls of infected rooms. The bacillus of 
tuberculosis appears to be more quickly de- 
stroyed by light than the typhoid or the 
colon bacillus, being killed by exposure to 
simple diffused daylight in about a week,* 
and this fact should be borne in mind in ad- 
vising measures to prevent the diffusion of 
this organism. 

The investigations upon the typhoid and 
the colon bacillus referred to in this paper, 
were undertaken as part of a general scheme 
of inquiry to ascertain the agencies which 
tend to detroy the typhoid bacillus when it 
is introduced into a source of water supply, 
as, for example, into a running stream. 
An important part of this investigation 
relates to the influence of the common 
water bacteria, or of their products, upon 
the vitality of the typhoid bacillus. 

This research was conducted as follows: 

* Ueber bacteriologische Forschung : Vortrag in der 


ersten allgem. Sitzung des X internationalen Con- 
gress, 1890. 


174 


1. Forty-five varieties of bacteria found 
in the water of the Schuylkill river were 
used in the first experiment. Cultures of 
each organism were made on agar-agar and. 
after attaining a luxuriant growth were 
sterilized, the reaction was taken, and the 
medium was again slanted. <A set of these 
tubes was inoculated with the bacillus typhi 
abdominalis and a second set with bacillus 
coli communis. 

The object of this research was to ascer- 
tain whether the two organisms would grow 
on media containing the products of the ac- 
tivity of water bacteria. The reaction was 
alkaline in every tube. The bacillus typhi 
abdominalis and the bacillus coli communis 
lived in every instance, some showing fairly 
luxuriant growths, while others were only 
transparent films. 

2. In the second experiment, thirty-nine 
varieties of the water bacteria used in the 
first experiment were inoculated into tubes 
each containing 10 ce. of sterilized tap-water 
and 5 drops of bouillon. Two sets of tubes 
were made as before, one being inoculated 
’ with the bacillus typhi abdominalis and the 
other with the bacillus coli communis. To 
ascertain whether the two organisms under 
consideration would multiply in the pres- 
ence of water bacteria, gelatine plates were 
made for twelve or more days. Both ba- 
eilli gave characteristic colonies with each 
of the water organisms, except two which 
had apparently an antagonistic effect upon 
their development. They were both mem- 
bers of the subtilis group. In other mem- 
bers of this group this peculiarity was ab- 
sent. 

The typhoid bacillus in several instances 
outlived its associate organism. In one 
instance a gelatine plate made from a tube 
of sterilized water inoculated with the ty- 
phoid bacillus and a water bacterium 160 
days previously gave characteristic colonies 
of the bacillus typhi abdominalis. - 

3. To meet the objection that might be 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 7, 


raised to the use of heat for the sterilization ; 
of the medium in which the water organ- 
isms had grown, the opinion having been ad-~ _ 
vanced that some products of growth are — 
either volatile or rendered inert by high tem- 
peratures, flasks each containing 70 ce. of 
bouillon were inoculated with water bacteria 
and incubated for from 15 to 20 days. The 
cultures were then filtered through porce- 
lain, the reaction was taken, and the filtrate 
was run into sterilized tubes which were 
inoculated with the bacillus typhi abdomi- 
nalis and the bacillus coli communis and then 
incubated. In each of the thirteen filtrates 
inoculated the bacilli grew and multiplied 
for at least four days. 

Joun §. Bruirves. 

ADELAIDE WARD PECKHAM. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY (I.). 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 7 

Ir is proposed to contribute to Scrmncr 
under the above title a series of notes and 
comments on recent investigations and cur- 
rent.literature concerning physiography, or 
physical geography in its modern form. A 
brief statement of the field to be covered 
may be appropriate at the outset. 

Following the plan introduced by Carl 
Ritter, and popularized in this country 
chiefly by Arnold Guyot, geography may be 
defined as the study of the earth in ts rela- 
tion to man. Some prefer to extend this 
relation to all forms of life. Physical geog- 
raphy may then be defined as the rational 
study of those features of the earth which 
must be understood in order to appreciate 
its relation to man. In deference to the 
opinions of the majority of the conference 
on geography, held in Chicago in Christmas 
week, 1892, physiography is taken as the 
name of this subject in its modern form, 
with particular reference to the rational 
study of the lands, where man dwells. De- 
scriptive geography is an empirical study 


Ne =< 


FEBRUARY 15, 1895.] 


that hardly deserves a place in modern 
teaching. Political geography is undiffer- 
entiated history. Commercial geography is 
the elementary phase of economics. The 
distribution of plants and animals leads the 
way to botany and zodélogy ; the chief value 
of this subject coming from the emphasis 
that it gives to those physical features and 
conditions of the earth that determine the 
distribution of life; when it is made a 
basis for the introduction of classification 
and terminology, it is misused, for these 
matters need deliberate study with a method 
and discipline of their own. The subjects 
of oceanography and meteorology involve 
considerations and disciplines so different 
in many respects from those which char- 
acterize the study of the lands that they 
fully deserve separate names and treatment ; 
but their teachings must be frequently drawn 
on for use in physiography. 

Contributions from many subjects, as- 
tronomy, physiology, botany, zodlogy, his- 
tory and economics, are merged into a single 
elementary study—geography—in the ear- 
lier school years ; all are expanded and sep- 
arately treated in later school years ; all de- 
serve to be treated over again afterwards in 
the broader way characteristic of college 
teaching ; and all include broad fields for in- 
vestigation in the university. 

Physiography being particularly directed 
to the study of the lands, must of necessity 
- in its higher researches give due considera- 
tion to the more minute featuresof land forms 
and their development—subjects which re- 
cent writers pame geomorphology and geo- 
morphogeny—for the sufficient reason that 
aclose understanding of the development 
of land forms greatly aids the observation, 
description and recognition of the forms 
themselves; and that the knowledge thus 
only to be gained of the forms of the land 
is essential as a preparation for the careful 
study of their relations to man and other 
inhabitants of the earth. 


. 


SCIENCE. 


175 


As thus explained, physiography is an 
outgrowth of geology ; and geology, especi- 
ally field geology, is a necessary prelimi- 
nary discipline both for those who would 
undertake the higher study of physiography 
and for those who would reduce it to the 
simplest form of expression for early school 
use. 


MEANING OF THE TERM, BASELEVEL. 


Sruvce the introduction of the term base- 
level by Powell twenty years ago, its use 
has become popular but unhappily its mean- 
ings have not been well defined. A sub- 
division of the work that the word has been 
made to do now seems desirable. It should 
be restricted rather closely to its original 
meanings, and newer terms should be em- 
ployed for its secondary meanings. Powell 
originally wrote: ‘‘ We may consider the 
level of the sea to bea grand base level, 
below which the dry lands cannot be eroded, 
but we may also have, for local and tempo- 
rary purposes other base levels of erosion, 
which are the beds of the principal streams 
which carry away the products of erosion.”’ 
(Colorado River of the West, 1875, 203.) 
By using a few qualifying adjectives, there 
need be no confusion between general, 
local and temporary baselevels. When 
unqualified, the general baselevel, or sea 
level, should be understood. 

When a region has been baselevelled 
(the verb being here made from the noun, 
after the ordinary English fashion), the 
surface thus produced is often spoken of as 
a ‘baselevel.’ For example, J. S. Diller 
writes: “It is evident that a general base- 
level of erosion must have originated ap- 
proximately at sea level. This is the only 
position in which a very extensive baselevel 
can originate. If we now find such a base- 
level at a considerable elevation above the 
sea, its position furnishes evidence that 
since the baselevel was formed the country 
has been uplifted.” (Chicago Journal of 


176 
Geology, II., 1894, 33.) Further on in the 
same article, he writes of the ‘ deformation 
of the baselevel.’ Although the writer has 
repeatedly made a similar use of the term, 
it now seems doubtful if it should be used 
so freely ; and some such word as peneplain 
might serve to replace this extension of the 
original meaning of baselevel. This is the 
more advisable, when it is considered how 
very seldom a region is reduced sensibly to 
baselevel; how generally a long eroded 
surface still retains some faint inequality of 
form which should be expressed in its name. 


GEOMORPHOLOGY OF THE SOUTHERN APPA- 
LACHIANS. 


Tue interpretation of the development of 
geographical features in accordance with 
the general theory of baselevelling has re- 
ceived two notable contributions during the 
past year. The first is by Hayes and Camp- 
bell on the Geomorphology of the Southern 
Appalachians ( Nat. Geogr. Magazine, VI., 
1894, 63). The authors recognize the wide- 
spread occurrence of more or less fully de- 
nuded peneplains at two levels, one of late 
Cretaceous, the other of late Tertiary date, 
thus extending the conclusions reached by 
others farther to the north. They then 
proceed to measure the amount of deform- 
ation that the peneplains have suffered by 
drawing contour lines upon them. It ap- 
pears very clearly that the axes of elevation 
along which these old lowlands have been 
arched up, coincide closely with the Appa- 
lachian axis; thus adding two more dates 
to the many others at which this line has 
been the scene of deformation. The tilting 
of the surface of the deformed peneplains is 
regarded as of importance in determining 
the capture and diversion of certain streams 
by their rivals; this principle being further 
illustrated by Campbell in a separaite article 
on ‘Tertiary changes in the drainage of 
southwestern Virginia’ (Amer. Journ. 
Science, XLVIII., 1894, 21). 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 7% 


GRADED RIVERS. 

A RIVER that ceased the active deepening 
of its valley is by various writers described 
as having reached its baselevel. Thus A. _ 
Winslow writes: ‘‘ The streams of the prai- 
rie country have, in large part, 
reached base level, anl are developing me- 
ander plains.” (Missouri Geol. Survey, 
VI., 1894, Lead and Zink deposits, 310.) 
H. Gannett figures a bit of the Great Plains 
of Colorado as ‘near base level,’ although 
the contour lines indicate altitudes of over 
4000 feet. (Monogr. XXII., U. 8. Geol. 
Survey, 1893, pl. viii.) Now it is true that 
streams which have ceased the active deep- 
ening of their valleys serve as local base- 
levels for their tributaries—as Powell’s ori- 
ginal definition stated ; but it seems unad- 
visable to speak of these streams as them- 
selves having reached baselevel; still less 
is the country which slopes down to them 
necessarily near ‘ baselevel.’ If the term is 
used in so general a sense as this, then an im- 
portant feature in the development of rivers 
will remain undistinguished by any special 
name, and the attention of readers will not 
be forcibly brought to it. It is well known 
that when a river has cut down its valley 
and reduced its velocity to such a value 
that its capacity to do work in transporting 
waste is just equal to the work that it has 
to do, any further change in the profile of 
the stream-channel can take place only as 
fast as a change in the amount of land-. 
waste offered to the streams shall allow. 
If the amount of waste slowly decreases, as- 
is commonly the case, the stream will slowly 
assume a flatter and flatter slope (except so 
far as the development of meanders may 
lengthen its course and thus retard the deep- 
ening of its valley). If am increase in the 
amount of waste takes place after equality 
of capacity and task is reached, as some- 
times happens, then the stream must ag- 
grade its valley for a time. If the climate 
of the region changes, a new slope may be 


FEBRUARY 15, 1895.] 


ealled for. Of two regions, similar in all 
respects except that one is made of resist- 
ant rocks, and the other of weak rocks, the 
first will develop a stronger relief during its 
mature dissection than the second. The 
Great Plains of the West are often referred 
to as a region of considerable elevation, in 
which, however, the rivers are unable to cut 


deep valleys on account of the rapid disin-— 


tegration of the tributary slopes, and the 

consequent necessity of maintaining steep- 
_ sloping channels in order that the streams 

may do their work of bearing the plentiful 
_ waste of the land to the sea. 

All this series of considerations is con- 
fused if it is said that a river which has es- 
tablished an equality between its capacity 
and its task is ‘at baselevel.’, From whatever 

_ profile of slope it began to work on, it has 

_ developed a profile of equilibrium, as certain 

_ French writers would phrase it; or, follow- 

_ ing a suggestion by G. K. Gilbert (Chicago 

Journal of Geology, II., 1894, 77), it has 

_ graded its slope; it is a graded river ; it is 
almost balanced between degrading and ag- 
grading its valley, and most of its activity 
may be given to lateral sapping. No better 
English term than ‘grade’ has been sug- 
gested for the expression of this important 
idea. 


GEOMORPHOGENY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, 


Tue second contribution to the general 
‘Subject alluded to above is by A. C. Lawson, 
in account of the Geomorphogeny of the 
coast of northern California (Bull. Dept. 
Geol., Univ. of Cala., I., 1894, 241-242), 
which students of this new-named subject 
will do well to consult. Although only the 
report of a rapid reconnoissance, the paper 
announces the determination of a well- 
marked, uplifted and dissected peneplain, 
in which a fully developed system of subse- 
quent drainage is exhibited on an extensive 
seale. The district is recommended to 
‘students as an inviting field for further in- 


SCIENCE. 


177 


vestigation. The author brings out the 
point that a constructional mass of resistant 
rocks will never at any stage of its denuda- 
tion yield a topography that may be reached 
at certain stages in the denudation of a mass 
of weaker rocks ; and he therefore suggests 
that in the accounts of topographic devel- 
opment, or geomorphogeny, a factor should 
be introduced indicative of the rate as well 
as of the stage of degradation of the region 
concerned. 


THE ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES OF BASE- 
LEVELLING, 


Tue results gained in the two papers 
mentioned above, and in many other similar 
articles, are based on the essential princi- 
ples of baselevelling: Any region must in 
time be reduced to a nearly featureless 
peneplain close to sea level; during the pro- 
gress of its denudation, the forms assumed 
follow a tolerably well defined sequence, de- 
pending chiefly on the structure of the 
wasting mass; the features and arrange- 
ment of the drainage lines are essentially 
systematic and not arbitrary in their de- 
velopment. A generally accepted corollary 
of these principles is that a surface of de- 
nudation, having faint relief and no control 
by structure, can be produced only close to 
its controlling baselevel; and that such a 
surface represents the peneplain stage, at- 
tained close to the end of the cycle of denu- 
dation in which it was developed. It is 
evident that if a plain of denudation can be 
produced at a considerable altitude above 
baselevel, and independent of structure, 
then the conclusions of various investiga- 
tors regarding land movements, based on 
the occurrence of elevated, warped or 
faulted peneplains, must be critically re- 
vised. It therefore behooves those who ac- 
cept and employ the doctrine of baselevel- 
ling to examine carefully any alternative 
hypothesis by which peneplains are ex- 
plained independently of baselevels, 


178 


THE GEOGRAPHICAL EDUCATION OF OUR 
TOPOGRAPHERS. 

Some engineers hold the opinion that it 
is not necessary for a topographer to have 
an understanding of the forms that he maps ; 
it is sufficient for him simply to record what 
he sees without knowing its meaning. If 
all topographers could sketch with minute 
accuracy, if they all worked on a large 
scale and without limitation of time, they 
might perhaps manage to get along without 
an appreciative knowledge of the subject of 
their sketching. But the topographers by 
whom our maps are made cannot as a rule 
sketch with minute accuracy ; and even if 
they could, their talent would be of little 
avail, for time could not be given to its use; 
moreover, maps of a scale large enough for 
minute accuracy are too expensive to un- 
dertake in so vast a country as ours. In 
many parts of the country the land is 
hardly worth as much per mile as it would 
cost to map it in an elaborate manner. 
Our maps must be made on a relatively 
moderate scale—seldom more than an inch 
to a mile; expensive detail cannot be per- 
mitted ; and very slow work must give way 
to methods that will give results more 
rapidly. A great deal of our topographical 
work must be done by rapid sketching be- 
tween measured points ; the sketching must 
always be generalized; and every thing 
that will promote the production of good 
results from rapid and generalized sketch- 
ing must be taught to the topographer. 

Looking at the subject in this practical 
manner, there can be no question that an 
appreciative understanding of topographi- 
cal features is of great value. Rapid work 
by a topographer who does not understand 
the country before him will produce an un- 
appreciative portrait. Generalizations by 
a surveyor who does not understand the 
relations of the forms that he generalizes 
will produce an unsuggestive and inaccur- 
atemap.. A good understanding of physio- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 7. 


graphy should therefore be regarded as an 
essential qualification of a topographer ; and 


schools of engineering should see to it that _— 


adequate teaching of this subject is pro- 
vided for their students. 


WINSLOW’S EXPLANATION OF THE MISSOURI 
PLAINS. 


Sucu an alternative hypothesis is offered 
by A. Winslow in his recent report on the 
lead_ and zine deposits of Missouri (Geol. 
Survey of Missouri, Vol. VI., 1894). He 
describes certain parts of southern Missouri 
as exhibiting broad expanses of nearly flat 
land. <A ‘prominent feature’ of the district 
is ‘the steepness of the hills adjacent to the 
stream valleys’ (p. 306). Another part 
of the same region is a dissected plateau of 
carboniferous strata, terminating eastward 
inan irregular escarpment. The even inter- 
stream uplands of both plain and plateau 
are not regarded as of constructional origin, 
for the region has long been above sealevel ; 
the possibility of either upland having once 
been a smooth peneplain of baselevel erosion 
is considered and rejected ; and the follow- 
ing hypothesis is offered in its stead: 
“These prairie and plateau plains are pri- 
marily due to the fact that the slope of the 
surfaces has always been and continues 
SSM, 5 6 6 « Consequently, the flow of the 
streams has been so sluggish that general 
atmospheric degradation has nearly kept 
pace with the corrasion of the streams and 
formation of the valleys. Asa result, the 
whole surface has been denuded simultane- 
ously. This condition is attributable, first, 
of course, to the gentleness of the original 
constructional slope; the horizontality of 
the stratification has helped to perpetuate 
Iso 6 8 ec Secondarily as a factor in the pro- 
duction of these surfaces, it is probable that, 
where streams have corraded so slowly, 
broad flood plains have been developed at 
different levels at different times. Thus 
many fiat stretches, which may be removed — 


FEBRUARY 15, 1895.] 


from the formative streams, are, perhaps, to 
be considered as of the nature of terraces 
marking the flood plains of a past stage of 
erosion” (p. 322, 323). Change of altitude 
of the region, or in other words, change of 
baselevel, is not referred to as essentially 
involved in the problem. 

The plateau surface, sloping to the west 
and terminating eastward in an escarpment 
Carboniferous strata, seems to depend on the 
greater resistance of these strata. It might 
be called a structural plain ; a stripped sur- 
face on which general denudation has hesi- 
tated by reason of the endurance of the ex- 
posed strata, although the streams have 
deeply trenched it. 

With the prairie plains the case is differ- 
ent, for much of their area “is underlain by 
coal measure rocks, which are readily acted 
on by sub-aerial agents of erosion” (p. 
323). If the streams of the region were not 
enclosed by steep-sided valleys, but wander- 
ed across the plains in channels hardly be- 
neath the general surface level, then it 
might be admitted that the whole surface 
would waste away about as fast as the 
streams degraded their courses. But as the 
streams are in well-enclosed valleys, it does 
not seem logical to admit that the inter- 
stream plains can have wasted as fast as the 
valley forces. If the streams of the region 
even now distinctly incise its surface, all 
the more strongly must they have done so 
before long continued denudation had re- 
duced its original altitude to its present 
altitude. The steep valley sides should 
long ago have been ravined, and the inter- 
stream plains should thus have been un- 
evenly dissected. If this process had been 
long in progress, the region might already 
have reached or passed through the stage of 
most varied relief—topographical maturity ; 
but it could not have attained an even sur- 
face distinctly above the level of its streams. 
Similarly, it does not seem admissible to 
Suppose that streams, which are now run- 


7 


SCIENCE. 179 


ning in rather narrow, steep-walled valleys, 
should ever, when still higher above base- 
level, have had broad flood-plained valleys, 
beneath which they have incised the narrow 
existing valleys, yet without being prompt- 
ed to this change of behavior by any change 
of altitude in the region. 

A decision as to the origin of these plains 
must be left to workers on the ground ; but 
opinionas to the sufficiency of the process 
suggested fortheir production may be formed 
by any one who has familiarized himself 
with the general principles of denudation 
here involved. Inthe writer’s mind Wins- 
low’s hypothesis does not invalidate the 
generally current principles of the base- 
leveling theory. 


GANNET?’S MANUAL OF TOPOGRAPHIC 
METHODS. 


THE general principle that the topo- 
grapher should be well trained in physio- 
graphy is strongly affirmed in Gannett’s 
Manual of Topographic Methods ( Monogr. 
XXITI., U.S. Geol. Survey, 1893, issued in 
1894). The volume contains a concise ac- 
count of the surveys thus far undertaken 
in the United States; an account of the 
map now in progress by the U.S. Geological 
Survey, this containing much of interest to 
the geographical reader; and a treatment 
of the more technical matters of astronom- 
ical determination of position, horizontal 
location, secondary triangulation, sketch- 
ing, and office work. In the chapter on 
sketching, there is an interesting discussion 
of the origin of topographic forms, with 
illustrations taken from various map 
sheets in the Survey office; this discussion 
being introduced ‘as an aid in the interpre- 
tation of the various topographic forms 
which present themselves’ to the topo- 
grapher. Here we read the sound state- 
ment that “itis in the matter of generaliza- 
tion that the judgment of the topographer 
is most severely tested. He must be able 


180 


to take a broad as well as a detailed view 
of the country; he must understand the 
meaning of its broad features, and then 
must be able to interpret details in the 
light of those features. Thus, and thus 
only, will he be competent to make just 
generalizations” (p. 107). 


THE UPLIFT OF THE EXISTING APPA- 
LACHIANS. 


THE origin of topographic forms has as yet 
received so small a share of attention from 
the greater number of field geologists and 
geographers, and the presentation of the 
problems involved has as yet gained so little 
attention from teachers in schools of higher 
grade that contributions to the subject from 
a man of Mr. Gannett’s experience and 
qualifications are of great value. Yet in 
certain parts it seems to the writer that his 
plan of presentation is open to criticism. He 
states first that topographic features origi- 
nate by uplift, by deposition and by erosion. 
Under the heading of uplift, he writes: 
‘The ridges and valleys of the Appalachian 
region are the result of uplifts, with numer- 
ous sharp folds and faults, which raised at 
various angles an alternation of hard and 
soft beds, from which erosion has since 
carved the existing alternations of ridge 
and valley” (p. 109). In spite of the 
qualifications of a preceding paragraph, to 
the effect that forms produced by uplift are 
during and since their rise greatly carved 
by erosion, the reader can hardly acquire a 
correct understanding of the facts concern- 
ing the Appalachian ridges and valleys from 
Gannett’s statement ; nor can he easily ac- 
quire from the Appalachians an idea of the 
nature of forms produced by uplift with 
folding and faulting. Such forms can be il- 
lustrated best by the selection of young 
topographic districts, on which erosion has 
as yet made little advance. Our western 
country possesses many and excellent ex- 
amples of this class. Furthermore, it is no 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 7. 


more allowable to describe the Appalachian 
ridges and valleys as the ‘result of uplifts, 
with numerous sharp folds and fault’ than~ 
it would be to associate the fiords of Labra- 
dor with the ancient deformation of the old 
rocks of that region. The Appalachian up- 
lifts with folds and faults have long ago been 
consumed ; the uplift from which the ex- 
isting ridges and valleys are carved was a 
broad arching of the region, without folding 
or faulting of perceptible measure. It is 
true that the up-arched mass possessed a 
structure given ages before by folding and 
faulting; but that more disorderly kind of 
uplift had little in common with the broad 
and even uplift of the region by which its 
present relief was initiated. The essay by 
Hayes and Campbell, already referred to, 
gives sufficient demonstration of this im- 
portant conclusion. 


A FRENCH OPINION. 


Tue following abstract from an essay en- 
titled ‘L’age des formes topographiques’ by 
A. de Lapparent, the eminent geologist 
(Revue des questions scientifiques, Oct., 
1894), expresses an opinion concerning the 
personnel of a topographic corps that is 
somewhat surprising as coming from France, 
where we had supposed that the propriety 
of the military control of official geographical 
work was unquestioned. De Lapparent 
writes in effect: The distraction of our 
professional geographers by the study of ar- 
bitrary political boundaries in the early part 
of this century would have been lessened if 
the work of detailed mapping had been left 
to men ready to interest themselves in the 
many questions provoked by the manifold 
forms of land relief. Unfortunately the re- 
verse was done in decreeing that carto- 
graphy should be exclusively a function of 
the department of war. Up to 1830 there 
was in France an excellent institution, that 
of the geographical engineers. Well pre- 
pared in the Ecole polytechnique, the 


FEBRUARY 15, 1895.] 


officers of this corps devoted themselves en- 
tirely to geodesy and topography. Thus 
occupied they came to have a lively appre- 
ciation of the relation between internal 
structure and external form. Truly, geology 
was at that time but little advanced, but this 
productive combination of two orders of 
studies must have been of mutual advan- 
tage, had not an always regrettable decision 
caused the suppression of the corps of geo- 
graphical engineers, and the transfer of their 
duties to the officers of the army staff. 
Certainly there was no lack of capacity 
among the latter, but it was nevertheless a 
capital mistake to entrust a service essen- 
tially civil, and even scientific, to military 
officers who could not devote themselves ex- 
elusively to it. Consequently, even though 
the maps have been well made, there has 
been a slow advance of what may be called 
appreciation of topographique form ((’ intel- 
ligence du terrain). Certain of the more 
sagacious geologists in vain showed how the 
meaning of topographic form is illuminated 
when it is studied in relation to internal 
structure ; the divorce of 1830 continued to 
exercise its unlucky influence, and all the 
more because other nations, following the 
example of France, have for the most part 
identified topographical work with that of 
the national defense. But a reaction has 
gradually set in, and to this none have con- 
tributed more effectively than the Ameri- 
eans ; and here the author goes on to pay a 
high tribute to the scientifie results of our 
western surveys. 

Accepting the correctness of the principles 
Stated by de Lapparent, it follows that our 
topographers can succeed in their great work 
only when imbued with a truly scientific 
Spirit. There is small likelihood of this 
spirit being generally attained so long as 

engineering schools give so little attention 
as at present to the study of the great sub- 
_ ject on which their topographic art is to be 
“exercised. For this reason, such works 


| 


SCIENCE. 


181 


as Gannett’s Manual are particularly wel- 


come. 
W. M. Davis. 


HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


THE NEEDS OF METEOROLOGY. 


To state a problem clearly is to contri- 
bute much towards its solution ; to realize 
one’s wants and make them known may 
bring the needed help; therefore I accept 
with pleasure an invitation to speak of the 
needs of meteorology. 

Considered as a source of climatological 
statistics bearing on every branch of human 
activity, on land and sea, meteorology has 
been handsomely supported for a century 
by all governments and scientific organiza- 
tions. This feature of our work is now 
carried on by the U. 8. Weather Bureau 
and the State Weather Services with in- 
creasing thoroughness from year to year. 

Considered as a system for the prediction 
of storms andweather for a day or two in ad- 
vance, meteorology has received enthusias- 
tic support by our own and all other nations, 
We are now doing about all that can be 
done by the mere utilization of the tele- 
graph and weather map and the cautious 
application of general average rules, but 
we are still powerless in the presence of 
any unusual movement of the atmosphere. 
Indeed, I do not see that even our West 
Indian hurricanes are predicted any better 
to-day than they were in my ‘ Probabilities’ 
of August, 1871. 

Meteorologists can neyer be satisfied 
until they have a deeper insight into the 
mechanics of the atmosphere. Something 
more is needed than the most perfect 
organization for observing, reporting and 
publishing the latest news from the 
atmosphere. It is not enough to know 
what the conditions have been and are, 
but we must know what they will be, and 
why so. We must have a deductive treatise 
on the laws governing the atmosphere as 


182 


complete and rigorous as the ‘Celestial 
Mechanics’ of La Place, and this will 
necessarily be a treatise on the application 
to the atmosphere of the general laws of 
force, or what is technically known as the 
dynamics and thermo-dynamics of gases 
and vapors. Sucha work cannot be written 
now, nor when written can it be studied 
successfully unless accompanied by an 
introductory ‘ Laboratory manual of physics 
and hydro-dynamics.’ 

But the preparation of this latter work 
demands appropriate laboratory arrange- 
ments. I will, therefore, invert the order 
and say that further progress in meteorology 
demands a laboratory and the consecration 
of the physicist and the mathematician 
to this science. Something like this was 
started in 1881, by General Hazen, in es- 
tablishing a ‘Study Room,’ but it was ruled 
out by the report of a committee of Con- 
gress, and since that day meteorology has 
more than ever looked to the universities 
for its higher development. The applica- 
tions of climatology to geology, physiogra- 
phy, hygiene, irrigation and other matters 
have been developed, but meteorology it- 
self, the most important and the most com- 
plex of all the physical sciences, still re- 
mains to be provided for. 

The crying need of this science is a home, 
a domicile, a meteorological laboratory, and 
full recognition as a course in university 
study. 5 

Without experimentation there is no true 
progress in the physical sciences. 


CLEVELAND ABBE. 
WASHINGTON. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
A CARD CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC LITERA- 
TURE. 

Epitor oF Scrence, Dear Sir: The efforts 
which students of the Natural Sciences are 
constantly making to provide themselves 
with more complete summaries of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Von. I. No. 7. 


literature of their various departments all 
testify to the existence of a wide-spread 
feeling of dissatisfaction with the existing 
methods of cataloguing scientific papers and 
reporting upon the results of scientific re- 
search. That this dissatisfaction is felt by 
none more keenly than by those engaged in 
the work is shown by the appeal made last 
spring by the Royal Society to various 
universities and learned societies for advice 
as to the feasibility of maintaining by in- 
ternational codperation a complete catalogue 
of current scientific literature. 

The following circular of the Society, to- 
gether with the reply of Harvard Univer- 
sity to the same, will doubtless be of inter- 
est to your readers, and by opening the col- 
umns of your journal to a discussion of the 
subject you will not fail to elicit valuable 
suggestions with regard to the details of the 
plan. ; 
In adopting the recommendations of the 
committee as printed below, the University 
Council voted ‘‘that the Secretary of the 
Council be instructed to transmit to the 
Royal Society a letter stating the opinion 
of this Council, that the expression ‘ scien- 
tific literature’ as used in the above recom- 
mendation ought to receive a very broad 
interpretation.” 

Yours very truly, 
H. P. Bowprreu. 


LETTER FROM THE SECRETARIES OF THE ROYAL 
SOCIETY. 


Tue Roya Socrery, ~ 

Burlington House, March 22, 1894. 

Sir: The Royal Society of London, as you 

are probably aware, has published nine 

quarto volumes of ‘The Catalogue of Scien- 

tific Papers,’ the first volume of the decade 
1874-83 having been issued last year. 

This Catalogue is limited to periodical 

scientific literature, 7. e., to papers published 

in the Transactions, ete., of Societies, and in 


‘Journals; it takes no account whatever of 


i 


~ 


7 


< 


Fesrvuary 15, 1895. ] 


monographs and independent books, how- 
ever important. The titles, moreover, are 
arranged solely according to authors’ names; 
and though the Society has long had under 
consideration the preparation of, and it is 
hoped may eventually issue, as a key to the 
volumes already published, a list in which 
the titles are arranged according to subject- 
matter, the Catalogue is still being prepared 
according to authors’ names. Further, 
though the Society has endeavored to in- 
elude the titles of all the scientific papers 
published in periodicals of acknowledged 
standing, the Catalogue is, even as regards 
periodical literature, confessedly incom- 
plete, owing to the omission of the titles of 
papers published in periodicals of little im- 
portance, or not easy of access. 

Owing to the great development of scien- 
tifie literature, the task of the Society in 
continuing the Catalogue, even in its pres- 
ent form, is rapidly increasing in difficulty. 
At the same time it is clear that the pro- 
gress of science would be greatly helped by, 
indeed, almost demands, the compilation of 
a Catalogue which should aim at complete- 
ness, and should contain the titles of scien- 
tifie publications, whether appearing in peri- 
odicals or independently. In such a Cata- 
logue the titles should be arranged not only 
according to authors’ names, but also ac- 
cording to subject-matter, the text of each 
paper and not the title only being consulted 
for the latter purpose. And the value of 
the Catalogue would be greatly enhanced 
by a rapid periodical issue, and by publica- 
tion in such a form that the portion which 
pertains to any particular branch of science 
might be obtained separately. 

It is needless to say that the preparation 
and publication of such a complete Cata- 
logue is far beyond the power and means of 


any single society. 


Led by the above considerations, the Pres- 


ident and Council of the Royal Society have 


appointed a committee to enquire into and 


SCIENCE. 


183 


report upon the feasibility of such a Cata- 
logue being compiled through international 
codperation. 

The committee are not as yet in a posi- 
tion to formulate any distinct plan by which 
such international codperation might be 
brought about ; but it may be useful even 
at the outset to make the following prelimi- 
nary suggestions :— 

The Catalogue should commence with 
papers published on or after January 1, 
1900. 

A central office or bureau should be estab- 
lished in some place to be hereafter chosen, 
and should be maintained by international 
contributions, either directly, that is by an- 
nual or other subsidies, or indirectly, that 
is by the guarantee to purchase a certain 
number of copies of the Catalogue. 

This office should be regularly supplied 
with all the information necessary for the 
construction of the Catalogue. This might 
be done either by all periodicals, mono- 
graphs, ete., being sent direct to the office 
to be catalogued there, or by various insti- 
tutions undertaking to send in portions of 
the Catalogue already prepared, or by both 
methods combined. 

At such an office arrangements might be 
made by which, in addition to preparing the 
Catalogue, scientific data might be tabulated 
as they came to hand in the papers supplied. 

The first step, however, is to ascertain 
whether any scheme of international codp- 
eration is feasible and desirable. The com- 
mittee accordingly is desirous of learning 
the views upon this subject of scientific 
bodies and of scientific men. 

We, therefore, venture to express the hope 
that you will be so good as, at some early 
opportunity, to bring the matter before the 
Harvard University and to make known to 
us, for the use of the committee, the con- 
clusions arrived at concerning it. 

Should the decision you report be in any 
way favorable to the scheme, may we fur- 


184 


ther ask you to communicate to us, for 
the use of the committee, any suggestions 
which you may think it desirable to make; as 
to the best methods of inaugurating a scheme; 
as to the constitution and means of main- 
tenance of the Central Office; as to the exact 
character of the work to be carried on there ; 
as to the language or languages in which 
the Catalogue should be published, and the 
like? 
We are, your obedient servants, 
(Signed ) M. Foster, Secretary R. S. 
RavyieieH, Secretary RL. S. 
J. Lister, Foreign Sec. R. S. 


REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE UNIVER- 
SITY COUNCIL APPOINTED TO CONSIDER THE 
COMMUNICATION OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY 
RELATING TO A CATALOGUE OF SCIEN- 
TIFIC PAPERS TO BE MADE BY IN- 
TERNATIONAL COOPERATION. 


To the University Council of Harvard Univer- 
sity :— 

The committee of the University Coun- 
cil, to whom was referred the accompany- 
ing circular of the Royal Society, respect- 
fully submits the following report: 

The committee finds itself fully in sym- 
pathy with the desire of the Royal Society 
to improve the methods of cataloguing 
scientific literature, and is distinctly of the 
opinion that the establishment of such a 
catalogue, to be compiled through interna- 
tional codperation, is both desirable and 
practicable. 

To determine in what way this result can 
be best attained, it will be well to consider 
what are the defects of existing methods, 
and what are the requirements which an 
improved system may be reasonably ex- 
pected to fill. 

Bibliographical catalogues and indexes are 
generally defective in one or two ways. 
Hither they present simply a list of titles 
which often convey an inadequate, and 
-sometimes a misleading idea of the contents 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 7. 


of the articles catalogued, or they appear, 
like the various annual reports, so long af- ~ 
ter the publication of the articles which are 
reported upon that they lose a great part of 
their value as guides to current literature. 
A third defect is common to all existing 
catalogues, viz., that of necessitating a ref- 
erence to a number of separate volumes 
whenever the literature of several years is 
to be sought for. 

It is evident that some form of card cata- 
logue can alone remedy these defects, so 
that the practical question is: How can a 
card catalogue of current scientific litera- 
ture be best established and maintained ? 
The requirements of such a catalogue may 
be stated as follows :-— 

1. It should appear promptly—if possi- 
ble, simultaneously with the book or article 
catalogued. 

2. It should furnish an accurate descrip- 
tion of the purport of the book or article. 

3. It should be readily accessible to ail 
persons interested in the literature cata- 
logued. j 

It seems probable that these requirements 
may best be met by the codperation of a 
central bureau with the various publishers 
and editors of scientific literature in issuing 
with each book and with each number of 
every periodical a set of cards of standard 
size and type, each card to exhibit for a 
book, or for a single article in a periodical :— 

1. The name of the author. 

2. The title of the book or article. 

3. The date, place, and house of publica- 
tion of the book, or the title, volume, and 
page of the periodical in which the article 
appears. 

4, A brief statement, not to exceed eight 
or ten lines, to be prepared by the author 
himself, setting forth the general purport of 
the book or article, so as to furnish the 
necessary data for cross references. 

Each card should be in duplicate to per- 
mit of arrangement according to subject or 


FEBRUARY 15, 1895.] 


author, or both if desired, and additional 
cards should be issued whenever the char- 
acter of the title necessitates cross refer- 
ences. A card when printed would present 
somewhat the following appearance: * 


Calderwood, Henry. Evolution and Man’s 
Place in Nature. Macmillan & Co., London and | 
New York. 1893. pp. 349. sm. 8°. 


SUMMALY F ------------ 


Gourlay, F. The Proteids of the Thyroid and | 
the Spleen. Journal of Physiology. 1894. Vol. | 
Xvi. p. 23-33. Plate II. 


The dimensions and texture of the card 
should be determined by careful comparison 
of the cards already in use in the principal 
libraries of the world. 

Space should be left at the top of the 
card for writing such words as may be de- 
sired for cross references, This could best 
be done by each person for himself, as there 
would necessarily be much difference of 
opinion as to the number and character of 
the cross references desired. Furthermore, 
subscribers of different nationalities would 
wish to catalogue the same subject under 
different headings, ¢. g., an article on the 
spleen would be catalogued by a French- 
‘man under rate and by a German under Milz. 


* The size is here reduced. 


SCIENCE. 


185 


If thought desirable, the type used in 
printing the cards could be kept set up till 
the end of the year, and then, by arranging 
the material according to subjects, an an- 
nual report in book form could readily be 
published. 

A central bureau charged with the work 
above outlined could very properly be es- 
tablished under the auspices of the Royal 
Society. In this central office subscriptions 
could be received from libraries and indi- 
viduals for the cards relating to the articles 
published in certain journals, or to the 
literature of certain departments of science, 
and the subscriber would thus receive, in 
weekly instalments, a complete card cata- 
logue of all the literature in his own line of 
work. The cards thus received could be 
arranged by each subscriber so as to form 
the sort of card catalogue best adapted to 
his own needs. 

Although in this scheme the greater part 
of the work, including the printing of the 
cards, would be done in a central office, yet 
the codperation of the publishers could not 
well be dispensed with, for from them must 
be obtained the summaries prepared by the 
authors, which form an essential feature of 
the scheme. No difficulty need be antici- 
pated in obtaining such summaries ; for it 
would be the interest of the writers to fur- 
nish them, and no one could prepare them 
so easily and correctly as the writers them- 
selves. 

A central office with this function would 
readily secure the codperation of libraries 
and learned societies throughout the world ; 
and to an undertaking thus endorsed the 
publishers of scientific literature would 
doubtless lend their aid, since they would 
find in it a means of advertising their busi- 
ness. The support of such an office could 
be provided for at the outset by international 
subscription ; but it would doubtless in a 
short time become self-supporting, since por- 
tions of the total catalogue would be needed 


186 


not only in every public library, but on the 
study table of every serious student in every 
department of science. 

The above report is submitted not as an 
elaborated plan, but as a suggestion of the 
end to which effort should be directed. 
Your committee would further express the 
hope that some plan may be put into oper- 
ation at an earlier date than the year 1900, 
the time suggested in the circular of the 
Royal Society. 

In accordance with the views above set 
forth the committee respectfully recom- 
mends the adoption by the University 
Council of the following votes:— 

1. That, in the opinion of the University 
Council, the establishment of a catalogue of 
scientific literature to be maintained 
through international codperation is both 
desirable and practicable. 

2. That a copy of this report be trans- 
mitted to the Royal Society as the sugges- 
tion of away in which this plan may be 
successfully carried out. 

3. That the Corporation be requested 
to contribute a suitable sum toward the 
earrying-out of this enterprise, provided the 
plan finally adopted by the Royal Society 
shall appear to the University Council to be 
practicable. 


HENRY P. BowpbircH, Professor of Physiology, 
Chairman. 

FREDERICK W. PurtNAM, Peabody Professor of Amer- 
ican Archeology and Ethnology. 

NATHANIEL S. SHALER, Professor of Geology. 

EDWARD C. PICKERING, Paine Professor of Practical 
Astronomy. 

JOHN TROWBRIDGE, Rumford Professor and Lecturer 
on the Application of Science to the Useful Arts. 

WILLIAM G. FARLOW, Professor of Cryptogamic Bo- 
tany. 

Henry B. Huu, Professor of Chemistry. 

EDWARD L. MARK, Hersey Professor of Anatomy. 

WILLIAM T. CouNCILMAN, Shattuck Professor of Path- 
ological Anatomy. 

IRA N. Houuis, Professor of Engineering. 

Hueo MUNSTERBERG, Professor of Experimental Psy- 
chology. 

WILLIAM F. Osaoon, Assistant Professor of Mathe- 
matics. 

JUNE, 1894. 


SCIENCE. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

Systematic Survey of the Organic Colouring Mat- 
ters. By Drs. G. Scuutrz and P. Junius. 
(Translated and edited, with extensive 
additions, by ArTHuR G. GREEN, F. I. C., 
F.C. S., Examiner in Coal-tar products 
to the City and Guilds of London Insti- 
tute.) London and New York, Mac- 
millan & Co. 1894. 4°, pp.. viii + 205. 
Price, $5.00. 

The industry of the organic coloring mat- 
ters has within a comparatively few years 
grown to enormous dimensions, and it is 
becoming difficult even for the specialist in 
organic chemistry to keep track of the new 
products. In this valuable book a carefully 
classified list is presented of 454 dye stufis 
which have been patented, and many of 
these are now in extensive use. All of them 
are derived indirectly from coal-tar. Under 
each dye we find the common name, together 
with other names sometimes used ; the scien- 
tific name; the empirical formula; the 
constitutional formula ; the method of pre- 
paration ; the year of discovery ; the name 
of the discoverer ; reference to the patents 
granted; behavior with reagents; shade 
and dyeing properties, and method of em- 
ployment. The original German edition is 
so well known, and it has acquired such a 
high reputation that any words of praise for 
the book would be superfluous. The trans- 
lator’s work seems to have been done with 
care, and he has not only furnished a trans- 
lation of the original, but brought the work 
up to date, that is to say, up to the date of 
publication, for it must be borne in mind 
that a book treating of organic coloring mat- 
ters bears to the general subject somewhat 
the relation that an instantaneous photo- 
graph bears to the rapidly moving object 
which it attempts to represent. 


The authors tell us that: ‘The average 


quantity of gas tar worked up per annum 
is given at 350,000 tons for England, and 


530,000 tons for the whole world, whilst the 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 7. 


~ 


. Fesrvuaky 15, 1895.] 


quantity of coke-oven tar, though constantly 
increasing, probably does not at present ex- 
ceed 50,000 tons. It may be expected, how- 
ever, that with the more general introduc- 


- tion of electricity for lighting purposes and 


“hydrocarbons.” 


the consequent diminution of the supply of 
gas tar, the coke-oven tar will eventually 
become the main source of our aromatic 
To this it should be added 
that the increasing use of ‘ water-gas,’ in 
this country at least, is decreasing the sup- 
ply of coal-tar, so that the time is certainly 
approaching when it will pay to collect the 
tar from the coke-ovens. 

The translator expresses the hope “ that 
this work will be found valuable not only 
to the technical chemist, but also to the 
dyer, analyst, merchant, patent agent, etc., 
and in fact to every one concerned with the 
production, handling, or use of the coal-tar 
colours.” His hope is undoubtedly well 
founded. He might have added the patent 
lawyers, many of whom have learned to 


_ rattle off their ‘ ortho,’ ‘meta,’ ‘ para’ with 


Low 


a facility that would put many a modest 

chemist to the blush. Ira ReMsSEN. 

Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnet- 
ism. Sytvanus P. Toompson. New York, 

Maemillan &Co. 1894. Pp.628. Price, 

$1.40. 

The first edition of this book appeared in 
1881. It at once became immensely popu- 
lar, and deservedly so, on both sides of the 
Atlantic. The author combined in a rare 
degree the three principal requisites for the 
preparation of a good text-book. He was 
himself a widely known scholar and investi- 
gator in the department of science specially 
treated ; he was more than ordinarily ac- 
complished in the art of exposition, and he 
was an experienced and successful teacher. 
His possession of these qualifications in un- 
diminished magnitude is evidenced in the 
preparation of this new edition now offered 
to the public, which is the original work in 
plan, but entirely revised and largely re- 


' 


SCIENCE. 


187 


written, with an enlargement of scope suffi- 
cient to embrace the important additions to 
the science which have been made during 
the past fifteen years. To enable this to be 
done without undesirable condensation, the 
size of the volume has been somewhat in- 
creased. Indeed, one of the larger merits 
of the plan of the book is to be found in the 
conscientious retention of the long known 
and well established principles and facts of 
the science, to neglect which for the newer 
and more novel developments is a tempta- 
tion to which too many authors of text-books 
in physical science have yielded. While 
retaining all essential ‘ fundamentals,’ Pro- 
fessor Thompson has found place for the 
presentation of all of the essentials of recent 
discovery, and while this has been done with 
conciseness it has also been done with that 
clearness and logical appropriateness for 
which the writings of this author are justly 
celebrated. The wonderful results of the 
study of alternating currents and alternating 
current machinery are well presented in this 
edition, as are recent advances in both theory 
and experiment due to Hertz, Fitzgerald, 
Boltzmann, Lodge and others. At the end 
is an excellent series of questions, classified 
as to the chapters of the books to which 
they refer, which cannot fail to add much 
to the value of the book in use, especially 
for those who study without an instructor. 
Tn fact, as an ‘all around’ elementary text- 
book in electricity and magnetism it will be 
difficult to find another in the English lan- 
guage that is superior or even equal to this. 
ALAN OE A Ie 

The Birds of Eastern Pennsylvania and New 

Jersey, prepared under the direction of the Del- 


aware Valley Ornithological Club. By Wrr- 
MER Stone. Philadelphia, 1894. 8°, pp. 
vii+185. 


Eastern Pennsylvania has long been a 
favorite field for lovers of birds. Audubon, 
Wilson, Nuttall, Cassin, Peale, Woodhouse, 
Gambel, Bonaparte, Heerman, Haldeman, 


188 


Ord, Baird and Trumbull may be numbered 
among the contributors to its ornithological 
literature. Aside from general works and 
special or local papers, three publications 
have been devoted to the birds of this 
particular area: (1) Barton’s Fragments of 
the Natural History of Pennsylvania; (2 ) 
Trumbull’s Birds of East Pennsylvania and 
New Jersey; (8) Witmer Stone’s Birds of 
Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Bar- 
ton’s ‘ Fragments’ is a rare folio printed in 
Philadelphia in 1799, and is something of a 
curiosity. Trumbull’s list is a carefully 
annotated and attractively illustrated cata- 
logue published in Glasgow, Scotland, in 
1869, and reprinted in America. Stone’s 
‘Birds of Eastern Pennsylvania and New 
Jersey’ is a large octavo published by the 
Delaware Valley Ornithological Club in De- 
cember, 1894. It is a thoroughly modern 
work, abounding in exact data and authori- 
ties, and based largely on the field observa- 
tions of Mr. Stone and other members of the 
Delaware Valley Ornithological Club—evi- 
dently a very active organization. It is 
divided into two principal parts: An essay 
on the Geographic Distribution and Migra- 
tion of Birds ; anda Systematic Annotated 
List of the Birds of theregion. To these 
are added a bibliography and an index. 
The chapter on Geographic Distribution is 
subdivided into general and local parts. 
The general part is weak, and in the refer- 
ences cited some of the more recent and im- 
portant papers are overlooked. The local 
part is excellent and gives ample evidence 
of Mr. Stone’s familiarity with the some- 
what diverse physical and faunal character- 
istics of the region. Some idea of its scope 
may be had from the headings: The Mari- 
time Marshes, the Pine Barrens, the Cedar 
Swamps, the Lowlands of Pennsylvania, the 
Delaware Valley, the Susquehanna Valley, 
the Interior Uplands, the Appalachian Dis- 
trict, the Alleghany and Pocono Mountains. 
This part is accompanied by a curious col- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 7. 


ored map which might be termed a physico- 
faunal map of Eastern Pennsylvania and 
New Jersey. 

The Canadian or Boreal element in the 
fauna is restricted in Pennsylvania to 
“the tops of the highest mountains and 
the elevated plateau region, where the deep 
hemlock forests, with their cool brooks and 
dense shade, still remain undisturbed. The 
passage from the Alleghanian to the Cana- 
dian zone is here,as a rule, remarkably 
distinct, as the more northern birds keep 
strictly to the virgin forest.’’ The settlement 
of the region has proved particularly des- 
tructive to the Canadian species. It is 
melancholy to be told that ‘‘ where the 
forest has been removed the Canadian spe- 
cies for the most part disappear, and judging 
from present indications, it would seem 
that this element in our fauna, which once 
undoubtedly extended over a much greater 
area than at present, may soon almost en- 
tirely disappear, as the lambermen year by 
year encroach upon the forest tracts.” 

The chapter on Bird Migration is full of 
interest and replete with new information 
respecting the region studied. 

In the Systematic part no less than 352 
species are recorded on good evidence as 
occurring within the area embraced by the 
catalogue. A new departure is here intro- 
duced which more pretentious works would 
do well to follow. Instead of the much 
abused term ‘ Habitat’ the ‘ Breeding range’ 
and ‘Winter range’ of each species are 
given. Mr. Stone is to be congratulated 
upon the distinction of being first to inaugu- 
rate this reform, which is bound to come into 
general use in the near future. Another im- 
provement that might be made in all lists of 
birds is the transfer of accidental stragglers 
from the body of the work to a special list at 
the end. Since such extra-limital species 
form no part of the proper fauna of a region, 
why should they be included among the reg- 
ular inhabitants? C. Harr Merrrram. 


FEBRUARY 15, 1895. ] 


Visitor’s Guide to the Local Collection of Birds 
in the Museum of Natural History, New 
York City. By Frank M. Coapman. 1894. 
8°, pp. 100. 15 cents. 

One of the best and most attractive local 


_ bird lists that has ever appeared in America 


has been recently issued from the American 


Museum of Natural History, New York. 


it is much more. 


While it bears the misleading title Visitor’s 
Guide, only a glance is necessary to see that 
It is in reality a compact 
treatise on the birds known to occur within 


_ 50 miles of the great metropolis. 


The author, Mr. Frank M. Chapman, pre- 


- faces the list proper by 12 pages of interest- 


ing and important matter respecting the 


physical and faunal aspects of the region, 
and the birds that are found there at differ- 
ent seasons. The area covered by the list 
is unusually rich in birds, no less than 348 


species being recorded as occurring within 
its limits. This richness, as stated by Mr. 


Chapman, is due in part to the circum- 
‘stance that two faunas—the Alleghanian (or 
eastern division of the Transition Zone) and 
Carolinian (or eastern division of the Upper 
Austral Zone) meet within its boundaries, 
and in part to the natural advantages of the 
region. ‘Our sea-coast, with its sandy 
beaches and shallow bays; our rivers, 
ereeks and ponds, with their surrounding 
grassy marshes ; our wooded hillsides and 
valleys ; our rolling uplands and fertile mea- 
dows, offer haunts suited to the wants of most 
birds. Again, our coast-line and the Hudson 
River Valley form natural highways of mi- 
gration regularly followed by birds in their 
journeys to and from their summer homes.” 
The paper is a model of its kind and 
should be in the hands of all interested in 
the birds of New York and vicinity. It is 
bountifully illustrated by euts of birds bor- 
rowed from Coues’ ‘Key,’ to which are added 
several full-page plates of groups in the 

American Museum. 

C. Harr Merriam. 


. 


'' 


SCIENCE. 


189 


Outline of Dairy Bacteriology. By H. L. 
RussELL, University of Wisconsin. Pub- 
lished in Wisconsin, 1894. 
Pp. vit186. 

There is no better indication of the rather 
remarkable advance that has been made in 
recent years in bacteriological matters not 
connected with diseases than the publica- 
tion of a text-book upon dairy bacteriology. 
That there should be demanded for classes 
in dairy schools a text-book describing the 
various phenomena connected with bacteria 
in their relation to dairy matters is rather 
surprising when we consider the fact that 
dairy bacteriology itself is the result of ex- 
periments of the last very few years. Prof. 
Russell has attempted in this little book of 
about 180 pages to give an outline of the 
present knowledge of the relation of bac- 
teria to milk and all its products. The 
book is designed originally for his classes 
in a dairy school, and is, as its title indi- 
cates, only an outline, not involving any 
critical scientific discussions. As an out- 
line, however, it is quite complete and the 
treatment is satisfactory. The book will 
be of use not only in dairy schools, but to 
all who are interested in matters connected 
with milk or butter supply. It will also be 
found useful to nurses and physicians who 
desire a knowledge of some of the recent 
discussions in connection with milk bac- 
teriology and its relations to diseases. 

Wiss 


Madison, 


The nature and distribution of attraction-spheres 
and centrosomes in vegetable cells—Joun H. 
ScHAFFNER. Bot. Gaz. Noy. 1894. 

The author studied centrosomes found in 
root tips of Allium cepa L., Vicia faba L., 
Tradescantia rosea L., also in the resting cells 
of the epidermis of Allium cepa bulb scales 
and in the walls of Lilium longiflorum ovaries. 
The usual methods for preparing and stain- 
ing the material were adopted. In addi- 
tion the author used a stain suggested by 


190 


Prof. Newcombe. It is called the iron- 
tannin-safranin stain and consists of the 
following solutions: 1,1% aq. sol. of fer- 
rous sulphate; 2,5% aq. sol. of tannic acid; 
3, alcoholic solutions of anilin-safranin; 4, 
aq. sol. of picro-nigrosin. The sections are 
placed for thirty to forty minutes in the 
iron solution, washed, then placed for the 
same period in the tannic acid solution; 
again washed and replaced for a few min- 
utes in the iron sol. After washing again 
they are placed in the safranin for thirty 
minutes; then fifteen minutes in the picro- 
nigrosin. This method is said to give good 
results. 
_ The special results of the investigations 
may be summarized as follows: (1.) Cen- 
trosomes and attraction spheres are present 
in non-reproductive as well as in reproduc- 
tive vegetable cells. (2.) In phanerogams 
there are two of these bodies for each resting 
nucleus. (8.) When the nucleus prepares 
to divide, one or both of the centrosomes 
migrate to take their position at the poles 
of the future spindle. (4.) Subsequently 
they immediately begin to divide. The 
division is complete in the prophase of the 
mother nucleus. (5.) After their migra- 
tion the spheres remain at the poles of the 
nuclear spindle and do not change their 
position until the beginning of the following 
division. (6.) Centrosomes are persistent. 
One plate and a list of thirty-three valu- 
able references accompany the article. 
ALBERT SCHNEIDER. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
THE ELIHU THOMSON PRIZE. 


THE Hlihu Thomson prize of 5,000 franes 
has been awarded to Dr. Arthur G. Web- 
ster, of Clark University, Worcester, Massa- 
chusetts. The history of this prize is, 
briefly, as follows :— 

In 1889 the City of Paris offered a series 
of prizes for the best ‘electric meters,’ it 
being required that certain conditions should 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 7. 


be satisfied, to be determined by an exact- 
ing practical test. The first prize, 5,000 
francs, was awarded to Professor Elihu 
Thomson, who submitted the well known 
Watt-meter devised by him. Wishing to 
encourage investigation of certain theoreti- 
cal questions Professor Thomson donated 
the prize for the establishment of a new 
competition, the subjects to be considered 
and the prize to be determined by a com- 
mittee which consisted of J. Carpentier, Hip- 
polyte Fontaine, Hospitalier, Mascart, A. 
Potier and Abdank-Abakanowicz. Four 
subjects for investigation and discussion 
were selected, and it was announced that 
competing memoirs must be submitted on 
or before September 15, 1893. Four me- 
moirs were submitted to the committee ; one 
of these was written in German, one in 
French and twoin English. The two latter, 
numbered respectively three and four, re- 
lated to the same subject, namely, the de- 
termination of the period of electric oscilla- 
tions. On examining the memoirs the com- 
mittee reported that it ‘considered memoir — 
number four to be worthy to receive the 
prize established by Professor Elihu Thom- 
son,’ and expressed the hope that the author 
will be encouraged to continue his beautiful 
researches. 

At the same time they express their re- 
gret that they have not available another 
prize of the same value which they would 
be glad to award to memoir number three. 
When their desire in this respect was made 
known, Professor Thomson and the French 
and English Thomson-Houston Electri¢ 
Companies joined in offering another 5,000 
frances, which was awarded to the author 
of memoir number three. On opening the 
sealed envelopes containing the authors’ 
names, it was found that memoir number 
four, for which the first prize had been 
awarded, was prepared by Dr. Webster, 
and number three was the joint product 
of Oliver Lodge and Glazebrook. 


Fesruary 15, 1895.] 


» The title of Dr. Webster’s memoir was 
‘An Experimental Determination of the 
Period of Electric Oscillations.’ 

He is to be congratulated upon so signal 
a success, and it is especially gratifying that 
an American should have come out in the 
lead in competition with the two distin- 
guished Englishmen who contested with 
him, and especially so as their work and 
his were upon the same subject. 


ENTOMOLOGY. 

Dr. McCook is to be warmly congratu- 
lated on the successful issue of the third and 
final volume of his ‘ American Spiders and 
their Spinning Work,’ which has appeared 
four years after the second volume. The 
author is more at home in his delineation of 
the outdoor world than in systematic work, 
with which this volume is mainly concerned, 
yet he has applied himself to this task with 
commendable zeal and success and describes 
123 species and 30 genera. Apparently (as 
the table of contents curiously shows) he 
had intended to carry his work beyond the 
‘orb weavers,’ but his courage or his time 
gave out as he saw his work grow to por- 
tentous dimensions. We have to thank 
him for thirty large and careful plates of 
spiders colored, besides a mass of structural 
details; they will greatly facilitate future 
study. The price of the complete work is 
now justly advanced to $50. Unhappily 
the title page is marked 1893, though the 
preface is dated in July, 1894, and the vol- 
ume was not issued until December, 1894. 


Mr. anp Mrs. PeckHam have given us 
(Trans. Wisc. Acad., X) a new series of 
their admirable experiments with spiders in 
@ paper on their visual powers and color 
sense ; they ‘“‘ prove conclusively that Atti- 
dae see their prey (which consists of small 
insects) when it is motionless, up to a dis- 
tance of five inches ; that they see insects in 
motion at much greater distances ; and that 
they see each other distinctly up to at least 


ae 


SCIENCE. 


191 


twelve inches’’; they are guided by sight 
rather than by smell. The experimenters 
are further ‘of the opinion that all the ex- 
periments taken together strongly indicate 
that spiders have the power of distinguish- 
ing colors.” 


Certainty the University of Califor- 
nia Entomological Society has done a 
unique thing in issuing from Berkeley, Cal., 
as a Californian journal of entomology 
©The Entomologists’ Daily Post Card’ at 
$2.00 a year. A card of regulation size 
and color is printed on both sides in clear 
type, leaving a meagre space for an ad- 
dress. The number before us contains an 
editorial on note taking, part of a list of 
species in Edwards’s last catalogue of but- 
terflies, and a portion of a tabular key to 
the genera of Nymphalidz. It is a curious 
venture. 


In a recent paper on the Siphonaptera 
(Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., XX VI., 312— 
355) Dr. A. S. Packard gives an excellent 
resumé of published observations on the 
embryology, postembryonic history and an- 
atomy and the adult structure of the fleas, 
adding new data from his own preparations 
and numerous figures. He is led to regard 
them as forming a distinct order standing 
nearer the Diptera than any other, but with 
many points of relationship to the Coleop- 
tera. 

HANSEN gives in English (Ent. tidskr.’ 
XYV., 65-89, pl. 2-3) an important paper on 
the structure and habits of Hemimerus, a 
Platypsylla-like insect infesting rats in 
Africa, and which had previously been 
studied only from dried material. Saussure 
in particular had published a long memoir 
upon it, founding upon it a new order 
Diploglossata from its possessing, as he 
thought, a second labium. Hansen shows 
that this does not exist (it is difficult to 
understand how the figures of Hansen and 
Saussure can have been taken from the same 


192 


kind of imsect) and he concludes that 
‘““Hemimerus belongs to the Orthoptera, 
constituting a separate family very closely 
allied to the Forficulina.” He shows from 
his dissections that the insect is viviparous, 
bringing forth one young at a time. 


THE COOLING OF HOSPITALS. 


Dr. Morritt Wyman, of Cambridge, Mas- 
sachusetts, has published in the Proceedings 
of the American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences, Vol. 30, page 482, an interesting 
paper giving the results ofsome experiments 
made in the Cambridge Hospital, in which 
the air admitted to the wards: in warm 
weather was cooled by passing it through 
pipes in which cold water was circulating, 
these pipes being the same as those used for 
warming the air in the winter by the cireu- 
lation of hot water. In one experiment the 
external temperature was at 83° F.; there 
was no wind and the patients were suffering 
from the heat. The temperature of the 
water as it entered the cooling pipes was 
57 to58 degrees. An electrical fan 36 inches 
in diameter, making five hundred revo- 
lutions a minute, forced about 10,200 cubic 
feet of the warm outer air through these 
pipes into the ward, which contained 21,000 
cubic feet. In an hour the air entering the 
ward was at 71° F., and the comfort of the 
patients was manifestly improved. But 
the cooling surfaces were not only the ten 
cooling coils of 80 square feet each, but also 
the four walls of the air chamber beneath 
the ward, being about 3,300 square feet of 
surface, and it is estimated that the cooling 
power of the coils was about one-tenth that 
of the walls. A month later the heat of 
the external atmosphere was greater and 
the fan was more constantly in motion; the 
temperature of the air chamber had in- 
creased, and that of the water had risen to 
70°. The quantity of water required for 
the circulation was large and expensive, and 


it was therefore shut off: But the same 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 7. 


amount of ventilation was continued, th® 
air passing through the air chamber. During 
the summer the ward temperature gradually 
rose until it differed but little from that of 
the open air. Nevertheless, the comfort 
given to the patients and nurses was im- 
mediate and decided, and there was a 
decided feeling of freshness and freedom 
of air. 

Dr. Wyman points out that we can do 
little towards lowering the temperature of 
the air in hot weather in the volumes re- 
quired for the ventilation of a hospital. It 
is a question of the rate of evaporation 
from the perspiring surface, which is goy- 
erned in a great measure by the velocity of 
the air coming in contact with that surface, 
and this isa factor which by art itis possible 
to control. If we try to cool the air before 
it enters the ward, it must be remembered 
that air absolutely humid, when brought 
into contact with warmer air also saturated, 
will cool the latter, which will approach 
dew-point, and if its moisture is condensed 
into visible vapor will give out heat. 
‘“‘ Evaporation consumes heat, condensation 
liberates heat.” “To give comfort during 
the excessive heats of summer the sick re- 
quire three or four times the air needed for 
satisfactory ventilation in winter. It re- 
quired 400,000 cubic feet an hour for our 
sixteen patients, and yet while this large 
quantity was passing through the ward it 
was only known, except at the registers, by 
the accompanying sense of freshness and 
pleasant coolness; it was never felt as a 
draught.” 

‘““The experience of the Cambridge hos- 
pital leads to these two conclusions : first, 
that fresh air directly from the open, in 
the quantity and. manner there supplied, 
can be made to give great comfort to 
the sick during the heats of summer; and, 
secondly, that previous cooling of the 
air so supplied is difficult and practically 
useless.” 


Fepruary 15, 1895. ] 


PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS. 
Prorrssor Mars has contributed to the 
February number of the American Journal 
_ of Science an account illustrated by plates of 
the discovery by Dubois described in Scr- 
ENCE (January 11) by Professor Brinton. 
_A writer in Nature (January 24) under the 
initials R. L. (Professor Lankaster) holds 
that the remains are human, the skull be- 
ing that of a microcephalous idiot. Profes- 
sor Marsh writes :— 

“ The brief review here given of the main 
facts relating to this discovery, together 
with the figures reproduced from the mem- 
oir, will afford the reader some idea of the 
importance of this latest addition to the 
known allies of primeval man, if not to his 
direct ancestry. Whatever light future re- 
searches may throw upon the affinities of 
this new form that left its remains in the 
_yoleanic deposits of Java during later Ter- 

tiary time, there can be no doubt that the 
‘discovery itself is an event equal in interest 
to that of the Neanderthal skull. 

“The man of the Neander valley remained 
without honor, even in his own country, for 
more thana quarter of a century, and was 
still doubted and reviled when his kinsmen, 
the men of Spy, came to his defense, and a 
new chapter was added to the early history 
of the human race. The ape-man of Java 
comes to light at a more fortunate time, 
when zeal for exploration is so great that 
the discovery of additional remains may be 
expected at no distant day. That still 
other intermediate forms will eventually be 
brought to light no one familiar with the 
Subject can doubt. Nearly twenty years 
ago, the writer of the present review placed 
on record his belief that such missing links 
existed, and should be looked for in the 
caves and later Tertiary of Africa, which he 
then regarded as the most promising field 
for exploration in the Old World. The 
first announcement, however, has come 
from the East, where large anthropoid apes 


} 


SCIENCE. 


193 


also survive, and where their ancestors were 
doubtless entombed under circumstances 
favorable to early discovery. The tropical 
regions of both Asia and Africa still offer 
most inviting fields to ambitious explorers.” 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 

Tue section of Geology and Mineralogy 
of the New York Academy of Sciences met 
on Monday evening, January 21, and lis- 
tened to a paper by Prof. R. 8. Woodward, 
of Columbia College, on the Condition of 
the Interior of the Earth, of which the fol- 
lowing is an abstract. The two envelopcs 
of the earth, the atmosphere and the ocean 
are important factors in the problem of the 
interior, and yet we know less of the condi- 
tion of the outer atmosphere than of the 
inner earth. The atmosphere’s shape we 
can calculate, with some approximation to 
the truth, as an oblate spheroid, whose polar 
radius is 5.4 times the earth’s radius, and 
whose equatorial radius is 7.6 times the lat- 
ter. This shape is determined by centri- 
fugal force and gravity. Its bulk is 310 
times that of the earth, but its mass is only 
one-millionth that of the latter. If we 
speak of the latter as 6642 x 10'* tons we 
can get some conception of the mass of the 
atmosphere, and of its extreme tenuity in 
the outer portions. 

Our inferences regarding the interior of 
the earth rest chiefly upon four facts, viz. 

1. Its shape and size, which are known 
with great accuracy. 

2. Its surface density, 2.6. 

3. Its mean density, 5.58, which is prob- 
ably accurate within two units in the 
second decimal place. 

4. The precession ratio ae in which C is 
the moment of inertia of the earth with re- 
spect to the polar axis, and A is the moment 
of inertia with respect to an equatorial axis. 

These facts limit the distribution of the 
earth’s mass. The density of the mass must 


194 


increase from the surface toward the center. 
Various laws of its increase have been pro- 
posed, of which that of Laplace seems to be 
on the whole the most plausible. 

It is important to appreciate that the 
strata rest upon one another substantially 
as if fluid, because the arch of the crust is 
so flat. The compressive stress on any 
portion considered as a keystone is 30 times 
the crushing strength of steel, and 500- 
1000 times that of granite and limestone, 
whence it follows that the earth is prac- 
tically in hydrostatic equilibrium. It also 
follows that the pressures in the interior 
are excessive, and that at the center the 
pressure is about 3,000,000 atmospheres. 
The earth is ‘solid,’ as the word is used 
by Lord Kelvin, that is, it has no cavities 
below a comparatively shallow depth. The 
explanations of the changes of latitude lately 
advanced and based on internal hollows in 
which loose matter rolls around are absurd. 
There is perfect continuity of matter, and 
there is only fluidity when for some local 
cause the pressure is somewhat relieved. 
As Major Dutton has shown, the trans- 
mission of vibrations from the centrum of 
the Charleston earthquake indicated a 
medium nearly as homogeneous as steel. 

Geologists have had to account for move- 
ments of the crust, such as subsidence, ele- 
vation, crumpling, folding, ete. Two ele- 
mentary forces are necessarily appealed to. 
The first is Gravity; the second that due to 
the Earth’s Internal Heat. The idea of the 
earlier geologists that the earth cooled and 
contracted and hence caused the disturb- 
ances has been mostly relied on as an ex- 
planation, but for the last ten or fifteen 
years it has been felt to be insufficient. The 
idea of Babbage and Herschel that loaded 
areas, or areas of sedimentation, sink and 
crumple up the adjacent areas as moun- 
tains, tending thus to renew and perpetuate 
regions of upheaval, has also had believers. 
This has had its best formulation in the re- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 7. 


cent doctrine called isostasy, which regards 
the earth as a body in essentially hydrosta- 
tic equilibrium, and as balancing inequali- 
ties of pressure by subterranean flow. The 
speaker regarded this doctrine, however, as 
insufficient in that it furnishes no start and 
tends to run rapidly down. We need secu- 
lar contraction to keep isostasy at work. 
The earth’s internal heat is the great store 
of energy available for this purpose. How 
to explain the earth’s internal heat is a 
hard and dark problem. The nebular hy- 
pothesis, first outlined in Leibnitz’s Proto- 
gea has been most widely believed. The 
critical stage in this method of development 
came when convection ceased and the sphere 
was all at the same temperature, the stage 
usually called consistentior status. Then 
came the formation of a crust and the be- 
ginning of geological phenomena as usually 
discussed. The speaker had reason to ques- 
tion the reliability of the nebular hypothe- 
sis and whether the earth had ever been 
gaseous, ete. An origin for the globe and an 
explanation of its heat are perhaps as well 
to be found in the collision of meteorie 
bodies. 

The time that has elapsed since the con- 
sistentior status has been an interesting sub- 
ject for computations, and widely varying 
estimates have been made. Lord Kelvin in 
1862, on very questionable data, placed the 
limits of geological phenomena at 20,000,- 
000—400,000,000 years in the past. On the 
same line, Tait estimated 10,000,000, but it 
was doubtless true that in England the 
weight of Kelvin’s authority had fettered 
geological thought in the last thirty years 
to too narrow limits of time, for no geolo- 
gist of eminence had questioned his results. 
Yet within a month Lord Kelvin has raised 
his upper limit to a possible 4,000,000,000. 
All must appreciate that if the data are un- 
reliable, the finest processes of mathematics 
will iced to no certain result. 

The speaker concluded that to socultl 


J Fesruary 15, 1895.] 


cooling must be attributed the principal 
motive foree. The main criticism raised 
against it is its insufficiency, but George 

~ Darwin has shown that as a cause it can be 
- mathematically shown to be able to produce 
results at least of the same order as those 
observed. In the speaker’s estimation it is 
probably sufficient, although the heat ra- 
diated isa very difficult thing to measure 
inareliable way. Our data are all from the 
continents, and they have not been obtained 
in sufficient quantity. The oceanic areas 

are necessarily unobserved. 
In discussion Professor Kemp stated that 
attention had been naturally been drawn to 
the interior of the earth in the endeavor to 
explain, first of all, the contrasts of the con- 
tinental elevations and the oceanic abysses, 
and secondly, the crumplings, foldings and 
faults of mountainous regions. Herschel’s 
explanation, while rational and simple on 
the face of it, is inapplicable because it is 
the area of sedimentation, subsidence and 
‘overloading’ that later on is upheaved in 
the mountains, and this apparent contradic- 
tion is the great difficulty. He also referred 
to the measures of rigidity of the crust, to 
the remarkable localization of the yielding 
along narrow lines when it did come, and to 
its great effects and relatively short dura- 
tion. He asked Professor Woodward also 
to touch on the slowing up of the revolution 
of the earth and the consequent readjust- 
ment of the spheroid to the loss of centri- 
fugal force, an idea advanced some years 
ago by W. B. Taylor. 
In reply Professor Woodward admitted 
that the questions were old and very difficult 
- ones, and that for the mountains he had no 

explanation to advance. He spoke of the 
_ mountainous protuberances as measures of 
the rigidity, and yet this must be qualified by 

the statement that according to isostasy and 
_ to recent pendulum observations they ap- 
| pear to be somewhat lighter under the sur- 
_ face. As to the slowing up of rotation and 


t 


SCIENCE. 


195 


loss of centrifugal force, the idea was an im- 
portant and valuable one, but it did not ap- 
pear to be sufficient to account for the re- 
sults. 

Professor Rees referred to the recent 
observations on changes in latitude made 
under his direction, and to certain factors 
that entered into the calculations which 
would throw light on the question. 

Professor Hallock brought up the recent 
results of experiments on the gyration of 
liquids as bearing on the question and prov- 
ing that a fluid set in rapid rotation con- 
tinues to gyrate long after the enclosing 
vessel ceases. The curious results obtained 
at the Waterville arsenal in the great test- 
ing machine were also cited. The attempt 
was made to burst a cast iron cylinder by 
forcing into it, through a three-sixteenth of 
an inch hole, paraffine and tallow. But it 
was found that both these substances be- 
came, under high pressures, more rigid than 
steel and could not be driven through the 
hole. 

Prof. Britton asked Prof. Woodward if 
the amount of heat radiated per annum 
could be quantitatively expressed, and in 
reply Prof. Woodward said it is computed 
from very meagre data to be enough to melt 
a layer of ice 5 to 7 mm. thick over the 
earth’s surface. The chairman, Prof. R. P. 
Whitfield, in closing the discussion called 
attention to the fact that the submarine 
crumpling and upheaval were not well 
known nor often taken into account, and 
yet they probably far exceed all that we see 
on the continents. 

The discussion will be continued at the 
meeting of the Section, February 18. 

J. F. Kemp, Recording Secretary. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 


AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, FEB. 


Relation of Gravity to Continental Elevation : 
By T. C. MEnDENHALL. 


196 


Observations upon the Glacial Phenomena of 
Newfoundland, Labrador and Southern 
Greenland: By G. F. Wrieut. 

Recurrence of Devonian Fossils in strata of Car- 
boniferous Age: By H. 8. Wiiu1aMs. 

Constituents of the Carton Diablo Meteorite: By 
O. A. Drrpy. 

B - Bromvalerianic Acid: By J. G. SpENzER. 

The Inner Gorge Terraces of the Upper Ohio 
and Beaver Rivers: By R. R. Hice. 

The Glacial Land-Forms of the Margins of the 
Alps: By H. R. Mitt. 

Distribution of the Echinoderms of Northeastern 
America: By A. E. VERRILL. 

Lower Cambrian Rocks in Eastern California : 
By C. D. Watcorr. 

Pithecanthropus Erectus, Dubois, from Java: 
By O. C. Marsu. ( With Plate II.) 

Scientific Intelligence : Chemistry and Physics ; 
Geology and Mineralogy; Botany ; Miscella- 
neous ; Obituary. 


AMERICAN CHEMICAL JOURNAL, FEB. 


Researches on the Complex Inorganic Acids: 
By Wotcorr Gripes. 

Diazobenzene Aniline Chloride: By J. H. 
Kastie and B. C. KEisrr. 

On Imido-Ethers of Carbonic Acid: By FELIX 
LENGFELD and JULIUS STIEGLITZ. 

On Some Bromine Derivatives of Paraisobutyl 
Phenol: By ¥. B. Darns and I. R. Rots- 
ROCK. 

On the Action of Acid Chlorides on the Methyl 
Ether of Paraisobutyl Phenol: By F. B. 
Dans. 

The Effect of Hydrolysis Upon Reaction- Veloci- 
ties: By F. Li. Korrrienr. ; 

On the Influence of Magnetism on Chemical Ac- 
tion: By F. A. Wourr, JR. 

Reviews ; Notes. 

THE AUK, JAN. 

A Winter Robin Roost in Missowri, and other 
Ornithological Notes: By O. WIDMANN. 
On the Nesting of Krider’s Hawk (Buteo bore- 
alis krideri) in Minnesota: By. P. B. PEa- 

BODY. 


SCIENCE 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 7. 


The Nest and Eggs of the Olive Warbler (Den- 
droica olivacea) : By Wiitram W. Pricr. 
A Contribution to the Life History of Porzana 
Cinereiceps Lawrence, with Critical Notes on 
Some of its Allies: By Coartes W. Riou- 
MOND. 

The Terns of Muskeget Island, Massachusetts : 
By Grorcre H. Mackay. 

A Swallow Roost at Waterville, Maine: By An- 
BY F.C. BATEs. 

A New Species of Thryothorus from the Pacifie 
Coast: By A. W. AntTHony. 

A New Subspecies of Harporhynchus from Lower 
California: By A. W. AnTHOoNY. 

The LeConte Thrasher (Harporhynchus le- 
contet): By C. Hart Mrrriam. (Plate 1.) 

Twelfth Congress of the American Ornitholo- 
gists’ Union: By Joun H. Sace. 

Recent Literature ; General Notes ; Correspond- 
ence; Notes and News. 


PSYCHE, FEB. 

Rehabilitation of Podisma Latreille: 
ScuDDER. 

Two new Species of Entomobrya (Illustrated): 
F. L. Harvey. 

The Tipulid genera Bittacomorpha and Pedicia 
(illustrated): F.M. Arprics. 

Gall of Eurytoma sp. on the Cat’s-claw Thorn : 
C. H. TyLer TownsEenD. 

Entomological Notes. 


5. He 


NEW BOOKS. 

North American Fauna, No. 8. C. Harr 
Merriam. Washington, Government 
Printing Office. 1895. Pp. 258. 

Elements of Psychology. JAMES H. Hysiop. 
New York, Columbia College. 1895. Pp. 
131. $1.00. 

Lens Work for Amateurs. Hmnry ORFORD. 
New York, Macmillan & Co. 12mo. 80 cts. 

Proceedings and Addresses of the Second An- 
nual Conference of the Health Officers in 
Michigan Held at the State Laboratory of 
Hygiene, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Lansing, 
Mich. 1894. Pp. 63. 


Br INCE. 


Ss v 
New SERIES Frimay, 


Vou.I. No.8. 


FEBRUARY 22, 


SINGLE Copres, 15 CTs. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00 


1895. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


PHYSICS. 


ABHANDLUNGEN, physikalische, der kénigl. Aka- 
demie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. 4°. Mit. 1 Taf. 
Mk. 10. 


Bors, Dr. H. pu. Magnetische Kreise, deren The- 
orie und Anwendung. Mit 94in den Text gedruck- 
ten Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Gebunden. Mk. 10. 


CHRISTIANSEN, PROF. Dr. C., Elemente der theo- 
retischen Physik. Deutsch v. Dr. Joh. Miller. Mit 
e. Vorwort v. Prof. Dr. E. Wiedemann. gr. 8°. Mk. 
10. 


DrupeE, P. Physik des Aethers auf elektromag- 
netischer Grundlage. 8°. Mit66 Abbildgn. Mk. 14. 

Foppt, Prof. Dr. A., Einfiihrung in die Maxwell- 
*sche Theorie der Elektricitiit. Mit. e. Einleit. Ab- 
schnitte tiber das Rechnen m. Vectorgréssen in der 
Physik. gr. 8°. Mk. 10. 

GARNAULT, E. Mécanique, physique et chimie. 
Paris, 1894. 8°. Avec. 325 fig. 8 fr. 

Korn, Dr. ARTHUR. Eine Theorie der Grayita- 
tion und der elektrischen Erscheinungen auf Grund- 
lage der Hydrodynamik. Zweiter Teil: Elektrody- 
namik. Erster Abschnitt. Theorie des permanenten 
Magnetismus und der konstanten elektrischen Stréme. 
gr. 8°. Mk. 3. 

WEBER. Sechster Band. 
lichen Gehwerkzeuge. Besorgt durch Friedrich Mer- 
kel und Otto Fischer. Mit 17 Tafeln und in den Text 
gedruckten Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Mk. 16. 


WEBER’S WERKE, WILHELM. Herausgegeben von 
der Koniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu 
Gottingen. Vierter Band Galvanismus und Elektro- 
dynamik. Zweiter Teil. Besorgt durch Heinrich 
Weber. Mit 4 Tafeln und in den Text gedruckten 
_Abbildungen. gr. 8°. Mk. 16. 


_ WIEDEMANN,’Gustay. Die Lehre der Elektriz- 
itéit. Zweite umgearbeitete und vermehrte Auflage. 
Zugleich als vierte Auflage der Lehre vom Galvanis- 
mus und Elektromagnetismus. Zweiter Band. Mit 
163 Holzschnitten und einer Tafel. gr. 8°. Mk. 28. 


Mechanik der mensch- 


CHEMISTRY. 

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CONTE? NTS: 
The Laboratory Teaching of Large Classes: 
REMEIEE OAT nisin als co so alettniettelels wc a/sceles, v's © 197 


Original Research and Creative Authorship the Es- 
sence of University Teaching: GEORGE BRUCE 


The = teuiaaandd of Southern Florida: D. G. BRIN vel 
ie es Generic Name of an American Deer: 
PeeART MMRRIAM ......cecesesccneensss oe 208 
James Owen Dorsey: W J M ...........---se00- 208 
MESESFIN ial gic «sis 1) w'e =e »  stetteialatavs[onie'elelc aicielele 209 
On Indiscriminate ‘ Taking’ : PETER T. AUSTEN. 
merentijic Literature :— ......00- +. scecescecsees 209 


Life of Richard Owen: A.S. PACKARD. Glaze- 
brook’s Heat, Light; Houston’s Electricity: T. 

C. M. Hygiene ; Gould’s Dictionary of Medicine. 
MMEMEDIVETOS S— ss 5 0 oo s aw aeteaeledb cress sc0% 217 
The International Zodlogical "Congress ; The Test- 
ing of Electrical Street Railways ; The Minnesota 
Academy of Natural Sciences; Anthropology ; 

Zoology ; Geology ; Entomology ; General. 

Societies and Academies :-—..........00eeeec eens 220 
A, A. A. S. Meeting, 1895 ; New York Academy of 
Sciences, Section of Astronomy and Physics ; In- 
diana Academy of Sciences. 


Scientific Journals ........+.++ Bae ni SassSoia,¥i5/0/0/013.0fe 224 
oe neocon 0 « « staetemitiaivlescss sis 224 
MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 


for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
Keen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 
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LABORATORY TEACHING OF LARGE 
CLASSES.* 
TrAcHING may be subdivided into two 
kinds: First, that which cultivates the fac- 
* Annual discussion before the meeting of the American 
Society of Naturalists, Baltimore, December 27, 1894. The 


Continuation of this discussion by Professors Bumpus and 
Ganong will be published in the next issue of SCIENCE. 


ulties of the ndividnit increasing his abil- 
ity to work for himself Ae enabling him to 
use his intellectual powers with confidence 
in the acquisition of knowledge. Second, 
that which disregards or takes for granted 
that he has these powers at his command 
and strives to increase his store of informa- 
mation. The first process is the improve- 
ment and building up of the intellectual 
forces by any means that will enable them 
to do their work thoroughly and correctly, 
and the second is practically, except in so 
far as it can be used in carrying on the first 
process, a load carried by the brain. Simi- 
lar in fact, though not in kind, to the extra 
fats and extra growths, of all sorts carried 
by the body, it may sometimes be of ad- 
vantage, and sometimes, when in unnatural 
proportion, a serious and perhaps even an 
injurious burden. 

The cultivation of the original powers of 
the individual, of his whole mind, with, of 
course, proper regard for moral and physi- 
eal well-being, which are, in my opinion, 
equally important and essential, is akin to 
the treatment by which a good teacher of 
athletics strives to improve the native 
strength of a pupil and give the muscles 
endurance and force, and which the young 
gymnast himself is taught how to use to the 
greatest advantage. This athletic training 
must go hand in hand with judicious feed- 
ing, and in the parallel processes of educa- 
tion similar objective training must go hand 


198 


in hand with a legitimate amount of infor- 
mation. It is striving against nature to 
throw a pupil wholly on his own resources 
and allow him to find hisway alone. This 
effort not only wastes valuable time, but it 
is an attempt to return to primitive condi- 
tions and to produce unfavorable surround- 
ings that do not exist at the present time. 
This kind of teaching is fortunately very 
rare nowadays, and usually an ideal that it 
is impossible to pursue consistently in act- 
ual practice. 

The natural and right course is really fol- 
lowed by a very good teacher, and strives 
not only to exercise and train his pupil’s 
faculties, but at the same time or at proper 
intervals furnishes information that will 
give needed nourishment and renewed 
strength to his power of doing pioneering 
work, if he be capable of this higher order 
of effort. 

The happy combination of self-culture 
and sufficient intellectual meals is by no 
means easy, and they are mingled in due 
proportion only when the pupil can be em- 
ployed for much the largest part of his time 
in the handling of objects or experiments 
under proper direction, which will enable 
him to build up by his own experience meth- 
ods suitable for his own mind, or, failing 
that, to at least learn how original work 
has been done by others. 

Laboratory teaching is an effort made 
now by all institutions to furnish proper 
facilities for practical instruction of this 
sort, and it is successful or the reverse, ac- 
cording to the proportions in which the 
system adopted deviates from the happy me- 
dium in which neither self-culture nor the 
administering of information is allowed to 
usurp the whole field. 

This being a partial description of Labor- 
atory teaching, it is a question in the minds 
of most naturalists whether it is in a strict 
sense applicable to large classes except un- 
der very exceptional conditions. In the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vor. I. No. 8. 


first place, what is a large class; is it forty, 
eighty, or one hundred and sixty? Can_ 
the class be taken in sections or must it be 
handled as a whole? Can the instructor 
command laboratory facilities in the shape 
of rooms, tables, specimens or instruments, 
and materials for observation or experi- 
ment, and, above all, can he command as- 
sistants? All of these queries must be re- 
plied to in some shape by each instructor 
before it is possible for him to consider 
the subject from any practical point of view. 
It is obvious that laboratory exercises and 
information must be individualized to be of 
the highest standard, and this could not be 
carried out fully by an instructor alone, ex- 
cept for a small class. There is also an ob- 
vious limitation of numbers due to the neces- 
sary limitation of facilities that can be 
offered by any institution, however well 
equipped. Even if an instructor had an 
enormous laboratory capable of accommo- 
dating a large class and money to employ 
the best of assistants, it is also obvious that 
the larger the class the further removed 
the members must be from personal contact 
with their teacher, and as individuals con- 
sequently less able to benefit by his experi- 
ence and by his example, these two last be- 
ing perhaps after all among the most im- 
portant elements of good teaching. 
Assistants come not only between the head 
teacher and his pupils, but where there are 
many minds there must be some strict 
system and set ways of doing the work, and 
more or less disregard of the peculiar needs 
of each individual. It is, however, evident 
that as long as this is recognized as a neces- 
sary evil, and the red tape of the system 
regarded in this light and not exalted into 
a fetish of productive virtue, a very large 
class may be kept at work through assist- 
ants, if they are allowed to have some indi- 
viduality themselves and are taught to cul- 
tivate the same gift in some of their pupils. 
In such matters, however, one must speak 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] 


from the fulness of his own experience, and 
I must leave this subject to those who have 
had experience in conducting large labora- 
tories crowded with pupils. 

My own experience has been with a few, 
unfortunately with very few pupils of the 
highest grade, and then, skipping all inter- 
mediate grades, next with pupils who have 
come to me uninformed or worse off in being 
burdened with undigested information. The 

first of course had almost unlimited time 
and ample facilities, and, therefore, do not 
come into consideration here. 

My classes have varied from ten to five 
~ hundred, but unluckily the binding force of 
_ the conditions under which instruction was 
_ given did not vary in the same proportion. 
_ I have always been obliged to give lessons 
~ to the whole class at once, and the time has 
been invariably limited to comparatively 
few hours. 

Under these somewhat difficult conditions 
it became necessary to adopt some system 
that would include, as far as practicable at 
least, the idea of self culture, so that the 
pupils would at any rate not be led into the 
belief that they knew how to handle and 
usea subject when they really had only ac- 
_ quired some information and the power to 
read about it more intelligently, and perhaps 
also the ability to recognize certain facts of 
which no educated man should be ignorant. 
‘ ig Permit me to exercise one of the usual 
Ben of every speaker and enlarge 


somewhat the boundaries of this discussion 
asking you to consider Laboratory Teach- 
as but one branch of object teaching. 
Ve shall then be able to regard it from the 
point of view of its essential character and 
ee more clearly its application to cases in 
vhich large classes must be dealt with in 
ure rooms capacious enough to hold from 
hty to five hundred or even more persons. 

may then be said, that in proportion asa 
scturer follows objective methods and clings 
the habit of making his audience see, 


SCIENCE. 


199 


each for himself or herself, the objects he is 
talking about, in just the same proportion 
is he trying, at least, to educate them ac- 
cording to the ideal standards. 

Some twenty-four years ago the Teachers’ 
School of Science was begun in Boston and 
it became necessary to decide how the les- 
sons should be conducted. To be faithful 
to the ideals of science and handle a class 
as large as could be comfortably seated in 
the lecture room of the Boston Society of 
Natural History was the practical problem, 
and secondarily how to do this so as to lead 
to the final adoption of natural history 
teaching in the public schools. 

Two necessary conditions were assumed 
as the basis of the system adopted : first, the 
actual study of specimens, and second, the 
subsequent possession of these by the teach- 
ers. This system was inaugurated with a 
class of eighty, and was found to be practi- 
cable with five hundred persons, and suc- 
ceeded as well as could be expected with 
such large audiences. The lecturers em- 
ployed by the school, which subsequently 
came for the most part under the patronage 
of the Trustee of the Lowell Institute, Mr. 
Augustus Lowell, were instructed to con- 
form to the requirements mentioned above, 
and the system has not been materially al- 
tered since the beginning, except in one of 
these requirements. Of late years it has 
not been deemed necessary to have very 
large classes, nor to distribute specimens in 
such profusion as during the earlier years 
in which hundreds of thousands had been 
given away. The details are very simple. 
Every person in the audience is furnished 
with a certain number of specimens. These 
are placed by assistants upon temporary 
tables opposite each chair before the lesson 
begins. The tables for large classes were of 
the simplest description, mere boards with 
a slight moulding to keep objects from roll- 
ing off. They were made in sections and 
were fastened to the floor by iron stanch- 


200 


ions that could be unscrewed and removed 
after they were no longer needed. It occu- 
pied three men about one-half of a day to 
put them up and take them down and store 
them away from a lecture room accommo- 
dating five hundred persons. The seats in 
this room were the ordinary distance apart 
and were not constructed especially for the 
purpose of giving additional room for these 
tables. Similar tables have also been built 
and used successfully in several different lec- 
ture rooms. 

The lecturer leads his hearers to observe 
with the specimens in hand certain facts, 
and he may if he chooses go far beyond 
these simple observations in his remarks,and 
he very often does this, but the specimens 
are dead weights upon his flights into the 
empyrean of fancy or theory. The objects 
are there; they demand constant atten- 
tion, and the teacher cannot keep away 
from their consideration, nor can his audi- 
ence lose consciousness that they are the 
subjects upon which the work is to be 
done. 

The principal difficulty is to acquire the 
habit of carrying on the thread of the dis- 
course, directing it to some definite morpho- 
logic point, or whatever the lecturer may 
choose, weaving the facts shown by the 
specimens into a demonstration of this point, 
and at the same time keep, the pupils at 
work upon the specimens to such an extent 
that most of them actually see the needed 
facts. 

The field capable of being illustrated and 
taught in this way is necessarily limited, 
and there are in each branch of science 
certain series of facts requiring elaborate 
apparatus or rare specimens that cannot be 
used in sufficient numbers. Nevertheless, 
the limits in each department are not so 
narrow as one at first thinks, and the field 
covered grows continually broader in pro- 
portion to the ability and experience of the 
instructor. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 8. 


The first expense is not large; the cost 
of the Geological and Mineralogical speci- 
mens was about ten dollars for each lecture, | 
and for Botany about fifteen, and Zodlogy 
twenty to twenty-five for audiences of five 
hundred. 

But before entering upon the second part 
of my subject, the application of this method 
to smaller classes, permit me to say that 
diagrams were used in order to direct the 
attention of the audience to the facts to be 
observed, and they were encouraged to make 
notes and sketches and instructed in the 
use of a cheap magnifier costing from sixty 
to seventy-five cents. The lecturer was 
allowed also to place objects similar to 
those in the hands of the audience upon his 
table and platform and on the tables in the 
body of the lecture room, and whenever 
practicable these were living representatives 
of the preparation. 

It is needless to say to this audience that 
no claim is made here to the discovery of a 
royal road to knowledge. The system itself 
is an ancient one and was used before I was — 
born by many persons. The habit of ob- 
serving accurately cannot be formed by an 
hour or two of work on Saturday afternoon, 
even with the use of specimens. The 
method has, however, a valid claim to con- 
sideration in so far as it possesses great 
advantages over the subjective methods of — 
the ordinary lecture, when illustrated solely 
by diagrams or stereopticon pictures, and 
its results are far more satisfactory. 

All lessons or lectures away from the aect- 
ual presence of the objects described or dis- 
cussed throw the individual back upon his 
own mental processes, unless he already 
has experience and knowledge of the facts 
treated. Illustrations in the shape of dia- 
grams or stereopticon pictures are substi- 
tutes of one dimension ; they have the su- — 
perficial attributes of length and breadth, 
but their apparent thickness and solidity 
are artistic shams. People who are taught 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] 


in this way think afterwards in a weak sub- 
jective form. The objects depicted are present 
to them as pictures, not as things. The 
classes in drawing at the Lowell Institute 
were objectively taught and not permitted 
to draw from illustrations, but among the 
pupils there were often some that had had 
instruction according to this method. They 
were seated and placed so that no two per- 
sons got the same view of a cube mounted 
on a stand, in one of their lessons. Those 
that had had no training from copying flat 
illustrations tried to depict what they saw; 
those that had had this sort of training us- 
ually outlined the cube as they thought a 
cube ought to appear, giving it the conven- 
tional shape and aspect it had in their own 
minds. Whether seated on the floor or on 
chairs, or standing, in front or at one side, 
the cube almost invariably appeared on 
their sheets with the top side in perspective, 
whether they saw the top or did not see it 
from their station. 

Able pupils carry away from our lessons 
much more than they can from lectures, 
however elaborately adorned with illustra- 
tions, and our results show that even the 
erudest efforts to observe facts with ex- 
amples in hand lead often to a realization 
of the effectiveness of objective work and a 
desire for more culture in this direction. 

These lectures to large audiences created 
gradually a demand for more precise and 
extensive instruction in some of our pupils, 
and this demand led to the giving of series 
of lessons on the same subjects to more 
limited numbers and extending over longer 
periods of time. These have lately taken 
the form of consecutive courses running 
through each winter for four years. We 
haye just finished one on Geology, of this 
amount of time, about one hundred and 
thirty hours in all, and another in Botany, 
and have still another in Zodlogy and Pale- 
ontology, of about the same length, which 
will be finished this year. 


SCIENCE. 201 


In these classes numbering from thirty- 
six to forty-eight the lecturer treats the au- 
dience in much the same way as far as 
specimens are concerned, but having more 
time and more control over the pupils, he 
can do his work more effectually. Each 
person must have a note-book and magni- 
fier; microscopes are furnished by the So- 
ciety. The pupils are told that they must 
make notes, and must make sketches of the 
specimens. Those who state that they can- 
not draw are instructed to try and are 
shown that the quality of their drawing is 
not of so much importance as the employ- 
ment of the eyes and mind in trying to 
draw the object before them. The act of 
trying to draw a specimen is not absolutely 
essential to the success of this method, but 
it is very helpful. It holds the pupil down 
to his work, keeps him constantly observ- 
ing, and he soon learns to make approxi- 
mately a good outline of the specimen, and 
then studies the details much more closely 
than he would otherwise do, if not making 
an effort to represent them on his sketch. 

Different teachers have different ways of 
doing their work, but in general it may be 
said that those at present at work in the 
school follow this process more or less and 
also hold either examinations at stated in- 
tervals or have reviews in which the stu- 
dents are questioned with regard to what 
they have been studying and so on. One 
gentleman keeps a complete card catalogue 
of names and marks, so that he can follow 
accurately the exact course of each pupil 
back through the entire four years, and he 
holds no final examination, preferring to 
make his work perfect as he goes along. 

Two of the teachers—there are only four 
in all—have constantly had the services of 
two assistants who helped to set out the 
specimens and clear the tables after the les- 
sons were finished. These assistants were 
for the most part selected from the audience, 
andcan generally be obtained in this way, 


202 


either as voluntary laborers or for a very 
moderate compensation. These persons, 
under the direction of the teacher, help him 
to supervise the note making and microsco- 
pical observations of the pupils and help 
them to see and discuss with them the facts 
that they observe. A large part of every les- 
son is passed in the description and discus- 
sion of observations made on the specimens. 
The pupils are also encouraged to work in- 
dependently in making connected studies 
and collections out of doors, and to embody 
the results in reports and actual collections 
presented at the final examinations or at the 
close of the term. 

Field work is also carried on in connec- 
tion with the laboratory lectures in miner- 
alogy and geology, and it is proposed to do 
the same when opportunity offers in other 
branches. One can judge in part of the 
ability and attainments of classes by the ex- 
amination papers and their note-books kept 
through the term, and the results in this di- 
rection have been highly satisfactory. I 
have not had time to gather any of these 
evidences as I had intended to do, and I 
shall have to ask you to take my word for 
it that these were more than creditable. 
I have brought a few placards of the courses 
_ and of the questions for the final examina- 
tions in two of the courses, which I have 
exhibited for your inspection. 

The persons attending these lessons were 
all adults and mostly teachers in the public 
schools, but the same method has been found 
to be equally successful with classes of the 
Institution of Technology and Boston Uni- 
versity, and no difficulty has been experi- 
enced in handling them in this way beyond 
what is usual with such pupils. Pupils of 
the Teachers’ School of Science have also 
applied the same method to large classes of 
young people of both sexes in the public 
schools, and by covering less ground at each 
lesson succeeded with them also. 

In certain subjects, such as Physical Geog- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 8. 


raphy, Chemistry and Physies, and Physi- 
ology, and so on, this method has a neces- 
sarily more limited application than in the” 
branches enumerated above, but even in 
these departments it has been more or less 
used, directly by selecting the few experi- 
ments that could be actually made by indi- 
viduals. in the audience, and indirectly by 
showing others on the platform that could 
be repeated by them with apparatus that 
they could make themselves, or purchase 
with very small outlay. 

Permit me in conclusion to repeat that it 
has been thoroughly tested with such classes 
of persons of all ages as have been described, 
but it has not yet, as far as I know, been 
applied to large classes of students in any 
university. If it has been applied to such 
classes by any one their experience is proba- 
bly known to some persons in the audience, 
and I shall be glad to hear what the results 
have been. I am aware that our experi- 
ence will probably be of real value only to 
those who have to deal with classes having 
at their command a limited number of hours 
and but little chance for laboratory work 
outside of the hours devoted to the lessons. 
Nevertheless, there are many who now lee- 
ture with illustrations, diagrams and the 
stereopticon, to whom I would with all de- 
ference suggest the possibility of adding to 
these specimens distributed among their 
pupils. And I further make bold to recom- 
mend that those who make partial use of 
text-books, as aids for the pupils to study 
and recite from, drop a part of these re- 
quirements and allow their pupils to substi- 
tute actual work on specimens done inside 
or outside of the class-room, collections 
made by themselves and so on. I also 
crave their permission to suggest one fea- 
ture of our examinations which you will see 
mentioned on the cards I have displayed. 
This consists in placing before each pupil a 
set of test specimens which he is required 
to place in proper sequence as regards their 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] 


mutual relations, to number, name, describe, 
and so on, in accordance with what he has 
been taught. I have myself a way of slip- 
ping into this set one object that the pupils 
have never seen, so far as I know their 
studies. The replies to this silent ques- 
tioner frequently enable me to determine 
who are the best observers and most origi- 
nal thinkers, and very often point out clearly 
the difference between them and those who 
are merely the best students. 

Whether this system is the best that can 
be devised or has only some praiseworthy 
feature, or is in reality but a poor substi- 
‘tute for a good one, I shall not pretend to 
decide. There are numbers of scientific 
teachers of great experience and learning 
present who have heard my arguments and 
must be our judges, but I think they willall 
indulgently agree that the teachers who have 
adopted and elaborated this method have 
‘tried to come as near to the ideals of objec- 
tive work as the adverse circumstances of 
large classes and limited time would per- 
mit. ApHeEvs Hyarvr. 

_ Boston. 


ORIGINAL RESEARCH AND CREATIVE AU- 
THORSHIP THE ESSENCE OF UNIVERSITY 
TEACHING.* 


Tuar which is most characteristic of the 


_ present epoch in the history of man is un- 


doubtedly the vast and beneficent growth 
of science. In things apart from science, 
‘other races at times long past may be 
compared to the most civilized people of 


to-day. 


J 
~ 
—- 


s 


The lyric poetry of Sappho has never 
been equalled: The epie flavor of Homer, 
even after translation, 
“unsurpassed through the ages. Dante, the 
voice of six silent centuries, may wait six 
centuries more before his medieval miracle 
of song finds its peer. 

*Tnaugural Address by the President of the Texas 


Academy of Science, Dr. p= Bruce Halsted, Octo- 
ber 12, 1894. 


SCIENCE. 


comes down to us. 


203 


The Apollo Belvidere, the Venus of Milo, 
the Laocoén are the glory of antique, the 
despair of modern sculpture. To mention 
oratory to a schoolboy is to recall Demos- 
thenes and Cicero, even if he has never 
pictured Cesar, that greatest of the sons of 
men, quelling the mutinous soldiery by his 
first word, or with outstretched arm, in 
Egypt’s palace window, holding enthralled 
his raging enemies, gaining precious mo- 
ments, time, the only thing he needed to 
enable him to crush them under his domi- 
nant intellect. 

There is no need for multiplying exam- 
ples. The one thing that gives the pres- 
ent generation its predominance is science. 
The foremost factor in modern life is science. 
All criticisms of the scope of life, of the es- 
sence of education, made before science had 
taken its present place, or attempting to 
ignore its prominence, are obsolete, as are 
of necessity any systems of education 
founded on pre-scientific or anti-scientific 
conceptions. 

Unfortunately there are still some people 
so dull, so envious, so unscientifiic, so stu- 
pid as to maintain that the highest aim of 
a university should be the training of young 
men and young women, where they use the 
word ‘training’ in its repressive, inhibi- 
tive sense. The most profound discoveries 
of modern science unite in replacing this 
old ‘training’ idea of education by one 
immeasurably higher, finer, nobler. We 
now know that the paramount aim of 
teaching at every stage, and preéminently 
of the final stage, at the university, should 
be to help the developing mind, the develop- 
ing character, the developing personality. 
Judicious, delicate, sympathetic help is now 
the watchword. Even horses and dogs 
worth owning are no longer ‘ broken;’ they 
are ‘ gentled.’ 

What has brought about this glorious 
change? Science, the greatest achievement 
of human life, the one thing that puts to- 


204 


day, the present, in advance of all past 
ages. Not only by having subjugated the 
forces of nature to the dominion of mind, 
but also by its intellectual influence, science 
is remodelling the life and thought of mod- 
ern humanity. 

Though science is the purest knowledge, 
yet even our estimate of knowledge has 
been changed by science. Mere acquire- 
ment is now considered an unworthy end 
or aim for endeavor. Action, production 
alone now receives our homage, now gives 
a life worth living; and, therefore, each 
must aim either at the practical application 
of his knowledge, or at the extension of the 
limits of science itself. For to extend the 
limits of science is really to work for the 
progress of humanity. This is a fitting 
crown to the sweet and symmetrical evolve- 
ment which true teaching aids—the unfail- 
ing spring of pure pleasure which it affords. 
The laws of physical, but, above all, of 
mental health, made clear by science, let 
every one realize how now our truest edu- 
cation stands ready to aid, to save, to sat- 
isfy endangered or craving bodies or minds. 
Nothing is more beautifully characteristic 
of young children than the desire to know 
the why and wherefore of everything they 
see. This natural spirit of inquiry needs 
only proper direction and fostering care to 
give us scientists. But no one can teach 
science who does not know it. For a 
teacher, however subordinate, to have the 
true informing spirit to vivify his book- 
knowledge, even of the very elements, it is 
found almost uniformly essential that he 
should have been in direct personal contact 
with some one of those great men whose 


joy itis to be able to advance the age in 


which they live, and lead on mankind to 
unexpected victories in the progressive con- 
quest of the universe. But itis the highest 
function of a university to help the gifted 
young man on his way toward becoming 
one of these glorious creators, these men 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 8 


who make and who honor the age in which 
they live. <A university should wish to 
feed the mental leaders of the next genera-~ 
tion. For this nothing can take the place 
of contact with the living spirit of research, 
original work, creative authorship. 

Without fostering and requiring such 
work of students and still more of all its 
professors, no institution can be a univer- 
sity of the first class. Intimate contact 
with a producer of the first rank is worth 
more than the whole world of so-called 
training by use of retailed convictions. 

The most inspiring teacher must have 
known how to acquire conviction where no 
predecessor had ever been before him; to 
show others how to conquer new regions, 
he must himself have broken barriers for 
human thought. As Rector of the Univer- 
sity of Berlin, Helmholtz said: ‘‘ Our ob- 
ject is to have instruction given only by 
teachers who have proved their own power 
to advance science.” There is no honest 
test or proof of scholarship or acquirement 
but production. The characteristic quality 
of all the highest teaching lies in the fact 
that it comes from a creator. 

No more convincing demonstration of 
my thesis could be wished for than the © 
work of Sylvester for America. On page 
233, I., of his Héhere Geometrie, 1893, 
Felix Klein, as high an authority as any 
living, says: ‘‘Sylvester hat noch 1874 als 
60 jahriger Mann den Mut gehabt an die 
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore 
ueberzusiedeln und durch eine ganz specif- 
ische durch 10 Jahre fortgesetzte Lehrtha- 
tigkeit hoéhere mathematische Studien auf 
amerikanischen Boden zu initiiren.” 

The birth of higher mathematics in 
America will always date from Sylyester’s 
advent at the Johns Hopkins. There and 
then with his mighty head he raised the 
whole western continent, and made it a 
worthy associate in the profoundest thought- 
life of our world. But few know that this 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] 


epoch-making period was not Sylvester’s 
first advent in the United States. The im- 
mortal glory now belonging to the Johns 
Hopkins University might have been antici- 
pated by another, and with the very same 
instrument. 

An adequate life of James Joseph Syl- 
vester has never been written, and proba- 
bly never will be while he lives. At Cam- 
bridge he was most impressed by a classmate 
of his own, the celebrated George Green, 
who had already then produced the re- 
markable Green’s Theorem, and much of 
the work which still stands as a founda- 
tion stone in the edifice of modern elec- 
trical science. As Sylvester would not 
sign the thirty-nine articles of the Estab- 
lished Church, he was not allowed to take 
his degree, nor to stand for a fellowship, to 
which his rank in the tripos entitled him. 

Sylvester always felt bitterly this religious 
disbarment. His denunciation of the nar- 
rowness, bigotry, and intense selfishness ex- 
hibited in these creed tests was a wonderful 
piece of oratory in his celebrated address at 
the Johns Hopkins University. No one 
who saw will ever forget the emotion and 
astonishment exhibited by James Russell 
Lowell while listening to this unexpected 
climax. Thus barred from Cambridge, he 
accepted a call to America from the Univer- 
sity of Virginia. 

The cause of his sudden abandonment of 
the University of Virginia is often related 
by the Rey. Dr. R. L. Dabney, as follows : 
Tn Sylvester’s class were a pair of brothers, 
stupid and excruciatingly pompous. When 
Sylvester pointed out one day the blunders 
made in a recitation by the younger of the 
pair, this individual felt his honor and 
family pride aggrieved, and sent word to 
Professor Sylvester that he must apologize 
or be chastised. 

Sylvester bought a sword-cane, which he 
‘Was carrying when waylaid by the brothers, 
the younger armed with a heavy bludgeon. 


SCIENCE. 


205 


An intimate friend of Dr. Dabney’s hap- 
pened to be approaching at the moment of 
the encounter. The younger brother step- 
ped up in front of Professor Sylvester and 
demanded an instant and humble apology, 

Almost immediately he struck at Sylves- 
ter, knocking off his hat, and then delivered 
with his heavy bludgeon a crushing blow 
directly upon Sylvester’s bare head. 

Sylvester drew his sword-cane and lunged 
straight at him, striking him just over the 
heart. With a dispairing howl, the student 
fell back into his brother’s arms screaming 
out, ‘I am killed!”’ ‘“ He has killed me.” 
Sylvester was urged away from the spot by 
Dr. Dabney’s friend, and without even wait- 
ing to collect his books, he left for New 
York, and took ship back to England. 

Meantime a surgeon was summoned to 
the student, who was lividly pale, bathed in 
cold sweat, in complete collapse, seemingly 
dying, whispering his last prayers. The 
surgeon tore open his vest, cut open his 
shirt, and at once declared him not in the 
least injured. The fine point of the sword- 
cane had struck a rib fair, and caught 
against it, not penetrating. 

When assured that the wound was not 
much more than a mosquito-bite, the dying 
man arose, adjusted his shirt, buttoned his 
vest, and walked off, though still trembling 
from the nervous shock. Sylvester was 
made head professor of mathematics of the 
Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, a 
position which he held until the early period 
set by the English military laws for confer- 
ring the life-pension. 

He thus happened to be free to accept a 
position at the head of mathematics in the 
Johns Hopkins University at its organiza- 
tion. With British conservatism, he stipu- 
lated that his traveling expenses and annual 
salary of five thousand dollars should be 
paid him in gold, and this fixed, he came a 
second time to America. 

The fame of his coming preceded him, for 


206 


by this time he was ranked by Kelland in the 
Encyclopedia Britannica as the very fore- 
most living English mathematician. . The 
only possible sharer of this proud preemi- 
nence was his life-long friend Cayley. 

Appointed among the first twenty fellows 
at the organization of the Johns Hopkins 
University, and having an intense desire to 
study Sylvester’s own creations with him, 
I became alone his first class in the new 
University. Sylvester gives in his cele- 
brated address a graphic account of the 
formation of that first class as illustrating 
the mutual stimulus of student and pro- 
fessor. 

The text-book was Salmon’s Modern 
Higher Algebra, dedicated to Sylvester 
and Cayley as made up chiefly from their 
original work. 

The professor broke every rule and canon 
of the Normal Schools and Pedagogy, yet 
was the most inspiring teacher conceivable. 
Every thing, from music to Hegel’s meta- 
physics, linked into the theory of Invari- 
ants, combined with the precious personal 
data, and charming unpublished reminis- 
cences of all the great mathematicians of 
the preceding generation. 

Such a course in the creation of modern 
mathematics, with most precious, elsewhere 
unattainable, historic indications, will per- 
haps never be paralleled. It went on not 
only at the appointed hours, but the pro- 
fessor would send for his class at night, 
while at other times they took excursions 
together to Washington. The incidents of 
these two formative years, spent in most 
intimate association with one of the great 
historic personages of science, can never be 
forgotten. It was during this period that 
Sylvester founded the American Journal of 
Mathematics, and it is due to his particular 
wish that it was given the quarto form. 

Then began a new productive period in 
his life, the astounding activity and mar- 
velous results of which can be faintly esti- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 8. 


mated by consulting the pages upon pages 
taken up in the Johns Hopkins Bibliogra- 
phia Mathematica, merely to enunciate 
the titles of the memoirs and papers pro- 
duced. The very complete and profound 
historic and bibliographic account of the 
theory of Invariants given by Meyer in the 
Berichte of the deutsche mathematische Ge- 
sellschaft indicates very fairly Sylvester’s 
final place in the history of that all-pervad- 
ing subject. His original contributions to 
many other parts of the vast structure of 
modern pure analysis are of nearly as great 
weight. 

Sylvester was completely of the opinion 
that no teaching for a real university can be 
ranked high which is not vitalized by abun- 
dant original creative work. He main- 
tained that it was the plain duty of any 
mature man holding a professorship in a 
real university to resign at once if he had 
not already been copiously and creatively 
productive. 

He believed that without unceasing orig- 
inal research and published original work 
there could be no real university teaching, 
and that any university professor who, 
without such a basis, pretended to be a 
good teacher, was, consciously or unconscei- 
ously, a selfish fraud. : 

On page 6 of his address delivered on 
Commemoration Day, 1877, he speaks of a 
university ‘under its twofold aspect as a 
teaching body and as a corporation for the 
advancement of science.’ He then con- 
tinues; “I hesitate not to say that, in 
my opinion, the two functions of teaching 
and working in science should never be 
divorced. 

“T believe that none are so well fitted to 
impart knowledge as those who are engaged 
in reviewing its methods and extending its 
boundaries . . . May the time never come 
when the two offices of teaching and re- 
searching shall be sundered in this Univer- 


‘sity !” 


T 


_ 


Py 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895. ] 


This was spoken of the Johns Hopkins. 
Since then no university has voluntarily 
avowed an ideal not equally noble and ex- 
alted. Science, penetrating ever deeper, 
makes clear the conditions of progress, of 
true education, of finest teaching. 

Only those who have produced can ade- 
quately fulfill its present motto: ‘‘I serve, 
I help.” GerorGE Bruce HAtstep. 

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAs. 


THE ARCH.ZLOLOGY OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA 

TurovuGH the investigations of Professor 
Jeffries Wyman, Mr. A. E. Douglass and 
lately of Mr. Clarence B. Moore, a large 
amount of accurate information about the 
mounds of central and southern Florida 
has been laid before the public. Especially 
noteworthy are Mr. Moore’s explorations, 
which have been published with every de- 
sirable addition of maps, measurements and 
illustrations. They were conducted with a 
fidelity to the correct principles of mound 
excavation, which renders them models of 
their kind. The results were rich, instruc- 
tive, often surprising, such as copper breast- 
plates and ornaments, curiously decorated 
pottery, specimens of Catlinite, and little 
earthern images, very life-like, of the bear, 
squirrel, wildcat, and even the tapir, which 
latter had become extinct in Florida when 
the whites first explored it. 

Nothing, however, which has been found 
in the mounds of Florida justify us in sepa- 
rating them as a class from other mounds in 
the Southern States; there is nothing in 
them ‘extra-Indian,’ as Mr. H. C. Mercer 


remarks in his review of the subject in the 


American Naturalist for January. He might 
haye gone further and have said there is 
nothing extra-North American Indian. The 
pottery decoration does not reveal those 
arabesque designs which Mr. Holmes has 
pointed out in some of the more modern 
pottery of the Gulf coast, as indicating 


i Caribbean or Antillean influence. If that 


SCIENCE. 


207 


arrived, its arrival was later than the con- 
struction of the older Floridian mounds. 

But an obscurity certainly hangs over 
the ethnography of Florida at the period of 
the discovery. 

A large part of the peninsula was peopled 
by a tribe whose language stood alone on 
the continent, the Timucuas, and which be- 
came extinct generations ago, though fortu- 
nately reserved in the works of a Spanish 
missionary, Father Pareja. They are de- 
seribed by the Spanish and French explorers 
of the sixteenth century as quite a cultured 
people, and at that time building mounds 
and erecting their houses upon them. 

It is not certain that they extended to the 
extreme south, and therefore this portion 
of the peninsula is left blank on the lan- 
guistic map of the region. That some tribe 
of advanced culture occupied the territory 
about the Carlosahatchie bay is revealed by 
a curious discovery due to the distinguished 
antiquary and explorer M. Alphonse Pinart, 
which he communicated to the former pub- 
lisher of Sctence. In examining a rare work 
by Father Francisco Romero, published at 
Milan in 1693, entitled Llanto Sagrado de la 
America Meridional que busca alivio en los reales 
ojos de Nuestro Senor Don Carlos ITT., he found 
the statement that a chieftain called Carlos, 
who lived on the bay of that name on the 
southwest coast of Florida, came across to 
Havana in a small canoe to be instructed in 
the Christian faith and baptized. On re- 
turning, the authorities promised to send a 
missionary to his people, but neglected to 
fulfill their agreement. 

‘Some time afterward,” says the writer, 
“they recieved a letter written with char- 
acters entirely different from ours, and with 
a strange ink. This letter was brought 
across by a fisherman, who translated it. 
He stated that the Floridian chief, Carlos, 
sent by it his respectful homage to the au- 
thorities, and complained bitterly that the 
missionary had not been sent to him.” 


208 


The original, says the author, was subse- 
quently taken to Spain and deposited in the 
library of the Duchess of Aveyro. M. Pin- 
art adds that, from correspondence with the 
representatives of that family, he has reason 
to believe this original is still in existence. 

Whether the ‘ writing’ was the familiar 
pictography of the North American Indian, 
or allied to that higher form which prevailed 
in Mexico and Yucatan, may be decided by 
a sight of the document itself. Atany rate, 
it is worth mentioning that this unknown 
people had a recognized system of recording 
ideas; and possibly investigations in the 
mounds of that locality may bring other 


specimens to light. 
D. G. Brinton. 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


THE EARLIEST GENERIC NAME OF AN 
AMERICAN DEER. 

In September, 1817, Rafinesque published 
descriptions of two species of deer from 
Paraguay, which he named Mazama bira and 
M. pita. The first was based on the 
Gouazoubira, the second on the Gouazoupita, 
of Azara. Both had been previously de- 
scribed by Illiger}; consequently the speci- 
fic names fall. Mazama bira Raf. =Cervus 
rufus Il.; M. pita Raf. =C. simplicicornis Ill. 
But the generic name Mazama antedates by 
many years the names Subulo}, Passalites§, 
Coassus ||, and even Cariacus 4], and hence is 
the earliest generic name for any American 
deer, so far as known. Fortunately, the rules 

*Am. Monthly Mag., Vol. I., No. 5, Sept. 1817, p. 
363. 

{tAbhandl. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss., Berlin (for 
1811),1815, p. 117. 

{ Subulo H. Smith, Griffith’s Cuvier, Vol. V., 1827, 
p. 318. 

@ Passalites Gloger, Hand- u. Hilfsbuch Naturge- 
schichte, 1, 1841, p. 140. 

|| Coassus J. E. Gray, List. Mamm. British. Mus. 
1843, pp. xxvii and 174. 

| Cariacus Lesson, Nouy. Tableau Regne Animal, 
Mammif., 1842, p. 173. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 8. 


of nomenclature demand that the type be 
chosen from the species originally covered ~ 
by the genus ; it cannot be taken from those 
subsequently added by Rafinesque himself 
(in Am. Monthly Mag., Vol. I., p. 437, Oct. 
1817; and Vol. II., p. 44, Nov. 1817). The 
type therefore must be one or the other of 
the two well known South American deer, 
rufus or simplicicornis, and may be restricted 
to the formr, which will stand as Mazama 
rufa (Illiger). 
C. Harr Merriam. 


JAMES OWEN DORSEY. 

Rey. J. Owen Dorsry, Indian linguist, 
died in Washington, February 4, of typhoid 
fever. For over twenty years Mr. Dorsey 
was an enthusiastic student of aboriginal 
languages, chiefly those of the Siouan fam- 
ily. His acquaintance with these languages 
was so extended and his grasp of principles 
so strong as to render him one of the fore- 
most authorities on Indian linguistics. Al- 
though numerous publications have been 
made under his name, the greater part of 
the material collected and created during 
his active career remains unpublished. 
Fortunately, this rich store of manuscripts 
is preserved, under the systematic arrange- 
ment of their author, in the Bureau of Amer- 
ican Ethnology, with which Mr. Dorsey 
has been connected from its organization. 

James Owen Dorsey was born in Balti- 
more, Maryland, October 31, 1848, and re- 
ceived his earlier education in local schools. 
He was remarkably precocious, reading He- 
brew at the age of ten, and his vocal range 
and power of discriminating and imitating 
vocal sounds were exceptional. He entered 
the Theological Seminary of Virginia in 
1867, was ordained a deacon of the Protest- 
ant Episcopal Church in 1871, and during 
the same year became missionary among 
the Ponha Indians, in what was then Dakota 
Territory. There he began systematic study 
of Indian language, myth and custom. 


ww. 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] 


Among his publications are memoirs on 
‘Omaha Sociology,’ ‘Osage Traditions,’ ‘a 
study of Siouan cults,’ ‘Omaha dwellings, 
furniture and implements,’ printed in the 
annual reports of the Bureau of American 
Ethnology ; ‘Omaha and Ponca letters,’ a 
bulletin of the same bureau ; and the ‘ Dhe- 
giha language,’ forming Volume VI. of the 
Contributions to North American Ethnol- 
ogy. In addition he edited a Dakota-Eng- 
lish dictionary, and a volume on Dakota 
grammar, texts and ethnography, by the 
late Rev. S. R. Riggs, published in two 
volumes of the last named series. Numer- 
ous minor articles were published in differ- 
ent anthropologic journals. Mr. Dorsey 
was Vice-President of Section H ofthe A. A. 
A. 5S. in 1893, and at the time of his death 
was Vice-President of the American Folk- 
lore Society. In the absence of the Presi- 
dent of this Society he presided over the 
annual meeting in Washington during the 
Christmas holidays, this being his last pub- 
lie work in science. WJM 
DISCUSSION. 
ON INDISCRIMINATE ‘ TAKING.’ 

In many of the text-books which have of 
late appeared, and even in articles by some 
of the most renowned chemists, the verb ‘ to 
take’ is frequently used in a way that is 
very annoying to teachers who are endeay- 
oring to train students in brevity and ex- 
actness of expression. Pages could be filled 
with examples of bad style and verbo- 
sity that ill-accord with the clearness and 
brevity that are desirable, and that are 
supposed to’ characterize scientific litera- 
ture, A few quotations from recent text- 
books will suffice to illustrate this particu- 
lar case—that of indiscriminate ‘taking.’ 

“Take a cylindrical porous jar, such as 
is used in a galvanic battery, close the open 
end, ete.” 

It were better to say, “‘ close the end of a 
¢ylindrical porous jar, such as is used, ete.” 


SCIENCE. 


209 


Another example: ‘‘ Take two flasks and 
connect them.” 

Better—‘ Connect two flasks,”’ ete. 

Another : ‘‘ The method of experimenting 
adopted by Graham was to take a bottle or 
jar with a neck contracted somewhat and 
fill it to within half an inch of the top with 
the solution of the salt to be investigated.” 

Better—‘ The method . . . was to filla 
bottle or jar with a somewhat contracted 
neck to within half an inch,” ete. 

Another : ‘ If we take an iron tube closed 
at one end and connected at the other with 
a Sprengel pump and exhaust it com- 
pletely.” 

This awkward form of diction often ex- 
cites mirth in the class-room, as it gives 
unusual opportunities for double meanings. 

“Take a pound of sugar and an equal 
weight of sulfuric acid.” This would be a 
severe dose, even for a trained scientist. 

The following is from a recent text-book: 
“Take a lump of chalk or sandstone, some 
very dry sand, a glass of water and a glass 
of treacle.” 

This might do for a bill of fare in a 
Chinese restaurant, but it is out of place in 
a scientific book. 

“Take some white arsenic.’’—‘ Take a 
sedlitz powder,’’—are the singular directions 
which preface two experiments in a book 
recently published by the Society for Pro- 
motion of Christian Knowledge in London. 

If editors and teachers will pay more at- 
tention to this awkward use of the word 
‘take’ they will incur the gratitude of a 
patiently suffering public. 

Perer T. AusTEN. 


POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE OF BROOKLYN. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

The Life of Richard Owen. By his grandson, 
the Rey. Richarp Owen, M. A. With 
the scientific portions revised by C. 
Dayirs SHERBORN. Also ‘an essay on 
Owen’s position in anatomical science. 


210 


By the Ricur Hon. T. H. Huxtey, F. 

Rk. S. Portraits and illustrations. In 

two volumes. New York, D. Appleton 

& Co. 1894. Pp. 409, 393. $7.50. 

The life of the great English comparative 
anatomist as told in these volumes was in 
many respects an ideal one. It is the old 
story of a self-made man, who, without the 
advantages of good preparatory schools, or 
of the university life at Cambridge or Ox- 
ford, by his own native ability and industry, 
as well as by his kindly disposition and social 
tact, rose to the highest scientific position in 
Great Britain, came to be the friend of some 
of England’s leading statesmen, of her great- 
est poets and novelists; the recipient of 
marked favors from the Queen; living to 
see the completion of the magnificent na- 
tural history museum at South Kensington 
planned by himself, and dying at the great 
age of eighty-eight years, during sixty of 
which he published the long series of mono- 
graphs and general works which form his 
most enduring monument. 

This biography, as prepared by his grand- 
son largely from Owen’s letters and diary 
and those of his wife, even if it includes 
what may be thought to be many trivial 
details, gives what seems to us to be a most 
attractive and life-like sketch of the man. 
We see Owen, not only in his study at the 
College of Surgeons and afterwards at the 
British Museum, but also at his home in the 
little rambling thatched cottage in Rich- 
mond Park, presented him by the Queen. 
We also catch glimpses of his club life, of 
his success as an administrator, as a lec- 
turer, as a literateur; we are given evi- 
dences of his fondness for art and music 
and the drama, as well as poetry, and ac- 
counts of his journeys over the continent 
and up the Nile. 

It isa record not of a scientific recluse, 
but of one who had many outside interests, 
and who lived in touch with the best minds 
and the best thought of his time. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 8. 


Richard Owen was born in 1804 at Lan- 
caster, the son ofamerchant. After leaving 
the grammar school, he was when sixteen 
apprenticed to a surgeon, and when twenty 
matriculated at Edinburgh University as a 
medical student. Six years after he became 
prosector to Dr. Abernethy in London and 
assistant curator of the Hunterian Collection 
at the College of Surgeons, and in 1856 was 
appointed superintendent of the Natural 
History collections of the British Museum, 
a position created for him and which he held 
until shortly before his death. 

His first paper was published in 1830, 
and two years later his famous memoir on 
the pearly nautilus. This at once gaye 
him a national and continental reputation 
as a comparative anatomist of the first rank. 
Huxley makes the generous claim, in 
referring to the work, that there is 
nothing better in Cuvier’s ‘ Mémoires sur les 
Mollusques,’ and he adds: ‘‘ Certainly in the 
sixty years that have elapsed since the 
publication of this remarkable monograph, 
it has not been excelled, and that is a good 
deal to say with Miuller’s ‘ Myxinoid Fishes ” 
for a competitor.” Owen’s last work (the 
list of the entire series of articles, mono- 
graphs and general works embracing 647 
titles) appeared in 1889. What a record! 
Sixty years of almost uninterrupted health, 
of unexampled productiveness, of accurate, 
painstaking, honest labor. 

Owen’s place in biological science, a 
science which has widened and deepened 
so immeasurably since the date of publica- 
tion of his first great work in 1832, is not 
altogether easy to determine, but the task 
is much lightened by the appreciative and 
magnanimous essay by Professor Huxley on 
Owen’s position in Anatomical Science, 
placed at the end of the biography. 

Owen was called by some of his contem- 
poraries ‘the British Cuvier,’ and this fairly 
well expresses his position. He may besaid 
to have lived in the interreenum between 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] 


the age of Oken, St. Hilaire and Cuvier, and 
the age of the modern school of morpholo- 
gists. He made no special contributions to 
- comparative embryology ; he was guiltless 
of histology and of microscopic technique. 
J His ideas and lines of thought and work 
; were a fusion of Okenism and of the 
doctrine of correlation of organs taught 
by Cuvier, with perhaps a slight infus- 


| ae ee 2 


ion of the transformationist school of 
France. Like some of the fossil forms 
which he restored with masterly skill 
d philosophic insight, he was in a sense 
a synthetic or prophetic type of naturalist. 
_ Forexample, he declined when asked to at- 
tack the ‘ Vestiges of Creation’, rather 
 sympathizing with the views put forth in 
that book; but also objected to become a 
loyal disciple of his friend, Darwin. He 
partially accepted the general doctrine of 
eyolution ; but though his views were vague 
and unformed, like many others perhaps in 
the period between 1850 and 1870, he prob- 
_ ably felt that Natural Selection was not a 
sole, efficient cause, though believing in the 
_ orderly evolution of life by secondary law. 
¢ We find in this life no statement from 
_ Owen’s own letters or journals regarding his 
attitude to the doctrine of natural selection. 
_ Either he was late in life somewhat indiffer- 
_ or he was guarded in speaking or writ- 
ing of the matter. Certainly there are no 
Bioonds for the statement sometimes made 
y eat he showed outright ‘ hostility ’ to Dar- 
, unless his Athenzeum article be re- 
ded as such. In Owen’s evidence before 
Mr. Gregory’s committee regarding the re- 
moval of the Natural History Collection to 
South Kensington his biographer tells us : 
‘Owen made some interesting remarks con- 
ming Darwin’s work on the ‘Origin of 
Breries, just published, which helps to 
strengthen the impression that he was at 
first much taken with the new views, and felt 
t he same friendliness toward them as he had 
iously shown to the views expressed in 


SCIENCE. 


211 


the ‘ Vestiges of Creation.’ ’? Owen remarks 
concerning the arrangement of the new mu- 
seum: “ With regard to birds, I must say 
that not only would I exhibit every species, 
but I see clearly, in the present plan of na- 
tural history philosophy, that we shall be 
compelled to exhibit varieties also. 

As to showing you the varieties of those 
species, or any of those phenomena that 
would aid one in getting at the mystery of 
mysteries, the origin of species, our space 
does not permit ;’’ and again he replies to 
a question of the chairman: “I must say 
that the number of intellectual individuals 
interested in the great question which is 
mooted in Mr. Darwin’s book is far beyond 
the small class expressly concerned in sci- 
entific research.”’ 

Owen’s controversial papers, as well as his 
statements of scientific belief, were at times 
vague anda grain oracular, and were pre- 
sented in a labored style, quite different from 
that of his letters and popular lectures, or 
even his work on Archetypes, the style of 
which has been characterized as ‘clear and 
forcible.’ Darwin in the well known refer- 
ence to Owen’s views in the Historical 
Sketch prefacing the sixth edition of the 
Origin of Species was, he says, ‘completely 
deceived’ by such expressions as ‘the con- 
tinuous operation of creative power,’ and he 
was apparently unable to determine what 
his real opinions were, and was evidently 
piqued and disappointed that the great an- 
atomist, his old scientific friend of many 
years, did not accept the doctrine of natural 
selection. On p. 91 his biographer states: 
“Tf not ‘dead against’ the theory of natural 
selection, Owen at first looked askance at it, 
preferring the idea of the great scheme of 
Nature which he had himself advanced. 
He was of the opinion that the operation of 
external influences and the resulting ‘con- 
test of existence’ lead to certain species be- 
coming extinct. Thus it came about, he 
supposed, that, like the dodo in recent times, 


212 


the dinornis and other gigantic birds had 
disappeared. But he never, so far as can be 
ascertained, expressed a definite opinion on 
Darwinism.” 

It is well enough at this day, when the 
scientific world is of one mind as regards 
the truth of the evolution theory, to ascribe 
indifference and even ‘hostility’ to Owen, 
but we fail to see that this is quite just. 
For Owen, so far from attacking or mini- 
mizing the new plan of evolution invoked by 
Darwin, was even said by the editor of the 
‘London Review,’ as Darwin tells us, in his 
own words, to have ‘ promulgated the theory 
of natural selection before I had done so.’ 

So strong a Darwinian as the acute and 
clear-headed Gray states, more fully and 
satisfactorily perhaps than Darwin, the posi- 
tion of Owen. In his ‘Darwiniana’ Dr. 
Asa Gray, who, writing in 1860, frankly 
confesses: ‘‘ We are not disposed nor pre- 
pared to take sides for or against the new 
hypothesis,”’ and yet who by his own studies 
and mental tendencies was ‘not wholly un- 
prepared for it,’ thus humorously refers to 
Owen’s views, published before the appear- 
ance of Darwin’s book, ‘‘ Now and then we 
encountered a sentence, like Prof. Owen’s 
‘axiom of the continuous operation of the 
ordained becoming of living things,’ which 
haunted us like an apparition. For, dim as 
our conception must needs be as to what 
such oracular and grandiloquent phrases 
might really mean, we feel confident that 
they presaged no good to old beliefs ” (p. 
88). Further on he writes: ‘‘ Owen him- 
self is apparently in travail with some trans- 
mutation theory of his own conceiving, 
which may yet see the light, although Dar- 
win’s came first to the birth. In- 
deed to turn the point of a pungent simile 
directed against Darwin—the difference be- 
tween the Darwinian and the Owenian hypo- 
theses may, after all, be only that between 
homeopathic and heroic doses of the same 
drug” (p. 102). Again, in 1873, he writes : 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 8. 


“Owen still earlier signified his adhesion to 
the doctrine of derivation in some form, but 
apparently upon general, speculative 
grounds; for he repudiated natural selection, 
and offered no other natural solution of the 
mystery of the orderly incoming of cognate 
forms.”’ 

Finally we may quote from a letter of 
Darwin’s (Life ii. p. 388), written in 1862 
to Sir Charles Lyell: ‘‘I was assured 
that Owen in his lectures this spring ad- 
vanced as a new idea that wingless birds had — 
lost their wings by disuse, also that mag- 
pies stole spoons, &c., from a remnant of 
some instinct like that of the Bower bird, 
which ornaments its playing passage with 
pretty feathers. Indeed, I am told that he 
hinted plainly that all birds are descended 
from one.” 

From all that has been said it would seem 
to follow, from a perusal of these scattered 
fragments, that Owen was an evolutionist 
somewhat of the Lamarckian school; that 
he was not a Darwinian as such, not being 
fully persuaded of the adequacy of natural 
selection as the sole cause of all evolution. 
To this class certainly belong some natural- 
ists and philosophers of the present day. 
But it should be added that Owen, in the 
latter part of his life, did not use the hy- 
pothesis or theory asa working one, as did 
some of the elder naturalists of his own 
period, as Lyell, Wyman, Leidy, ete. He 
was fifty-five years old when the ‘Origin of 
Species’-appeared, and either was not then 
prone to speculation, or had little leisure 
for it. 

It must be granted that Owen, clear- 
headed and sagacious as he was, did not rise 
to the plane of that high quality of genius 
which opens up new lines of investiga- 
tion. His was not an epoch-making mind 
of the quality of Lamarck or Darwin, in 
the field of evolution, nor of Muller, Von 
Baer, Rathke, and Huxley, the founders of 
modern morphology; nor of Koelliker or 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] 


- Leydig, the founders of modern histology. 
He was a closet naturalist, made no collee- 
tions with his own hands, was not a field 
paleontologist ; and his travels were rather 
for health and recreation than for study or 
exploration. The vast collections which 
poured in upon him from South America, 
Australia and New Zealand, as well as 

from his own land, occupied his working 
hours and energies decade after decade, 
until the passing years left him stranded on 
the shores of a world of ideas and modes of 
cooking now subsiding beneath the incom- 
ing flood of modern methods and theories. 
And yet, his philosophic grasp and sug- 
gestive mind exhibited in his treatment 
of the subject of parthenogenesis, in his 
essay on the subject which appeared in 1849, 
and in which he has, as Huxley states, an- 

_ ticipated the theory of germ-plasm of 
Weismann, are qualities of genius, and 

_ prove what he might have produced, had 
he received any training along the lines of 
embryology and cell-doctrines. 

' “Owen, in fact,’ says Huxley, “got no 
further towards the solution of this wonder- 
ful and difficult problem than Morren and 
others had done before him. But it is an 
interesting circumstance that the leading 
idea of ‘ Parthenogenesis,’ namely, that sex- 
less proliferation is, in some way, depend- 
ent upon the presence in the prolifying re- 
gion, of relatively unaltered descendants of 
the primary impregnated embryo cell (A + 
B) is at the bottom of most of the attempts 
which have recently been made to deal with 
the question. The theory of the continuity 
of germ-plasm of Weismann, for example, 
‘is practically the same as Owen’s, if we 
omit from the latter the notion that the en- 
dowment with ‘spermatic force’ is the in- 
dispensable condition of proliferation.” 
Owen’s greatest works, those of most last- 
ing value, in vertebrate zodlogy were, as 
pointed out by Huxley, besides his memoir 
on the anatomy of Nautilus, his work on 


SCIENCE. 


213 


Odontography, his papers on the anthropoid 
apes, on the aye-aye, on Monotremes, and on 
Marsupials, as well as on Apteryx, the great 
auk, the Dodo, and Dinornis, as well as Lepi- 
dosiren, while chief among his essays on 
fossil mammals were those on Mylodon, Me- 
gatherium, Glyptodon, ete. He also pro- 
posed the orders of Theriodonta (Anomo- 
dontia), Dinosauria, and Pterosauria, and 
as early as 1839, as Zittel states, “‘ he began 
his long series of fundamental works which 
continued to appear for half a century, and 
which laid the foundation for all later re- 
searches on fossil reptiles.’’ He also revised 
the classification of the Ungulates, his divi- 
sions of odd and even-toed Ungulates being 
well founded and generally accepted. 
Unlike Cuvier and others, Owen labored 
without the aid of trained assistants; he 
did his own work unassisted. And here 
arises the question how far he was indebted 
to Cuvier for his methods of work. It is 
generally supposed and stated that Owen 
studied in Paris under Cuvier, and that 
“Cuvier and his collections made a great 
impression on Owen, and gave a direction 
to his after studies of fossil remains.” But 
his biographer explicitly states that he only 
made a brief visit to Cuvier in July, 1831, 
and gives us the following account of his in- 
tercourse with the great French anatomist : 
“ His rough diary, which he kept during his 
stay at Paris, seldom mentions the fossil 
vertebrate collection, and shows that his 
interviews with Baron Cuvier were for the 
most part of a purely social character. It 
notes, for example, that he attended pretty 
regularly Cuvier’s soirées, held on Saturday 
evenings, and that he enjoyed the music. 
With the diary agree his letters. Both de- 
vote page after page to the sights and amuse- 
ments of Paris. Owen, in fact, seems to 
have regarded this stay at Paris as an ex- 
ceedingly pleasant and entertaining holiday. 
At the same time it is impossible to form a 
just estimate of Owen’s work without tak- 


214 


ing the labors of Cuvier into account. Al- 
though Owen stands on ground wholly his 
own, he was ever willing to acknowledge 
the debt which he owed to Cuvier.” 

The name of Owen will ever be associated 
with those of Oken, Goethe, Spix, and Carus, 
or the school of transcendental anatomy. 
The discussion by Huxley of Owen’s work on 
the archetype of the vertebrate skeleton is 
handled in his peculiarly trenchant and 
clear-minded way, and yet his criticisms are 
genial, just and broad. It should be re- 
membered that Owen’s work ‘ On the Arche- 
type and Homologies of the Vertebrate 
Skeleton’ appeared in 1848, over ten years 
before the appearance of the ‘Origin of 
Species,’ and at a period when many minds 
in the scientific world were tinged more or 
less deeply with the spirit of the German 
and French transcendental school of an- 
atomy. As Huxley eloquently expresses it, 
“The ablest of us is a child of his time, profit- 
ing by one set of its influences, limited by 
another. It was Owen’s limitation that he 
occupied himself with speculations about the 
‘Archetype’ some time before the work of 
the embryologists began to be appreciated 
in this country. It had not yet come to be 
understood that, after the publication of the 
investigations of Rathke, Reichert, Remak, 
Vogt and others, the venue of the great cause 
of the morpology of the skeleton was re- 
moved from the court of comparative an- 
atomy to that of embryology.” He then 
adds: ‘‘It would be a great mistake, how- 
ever, to conclude that Owen’s labours in the 
field of morphology were lost, because they 
have yielded little fruit of the kind he 
looked for. _On the contrary, they not only 
did a great deal of good by awakening at- 
tention to the higher problems of morphol- 
ogy in this country ; but they were of much 
service in clarifying and improving anato- 
mical nomenclature, especially in respect of 
the vertebral region.” 

As regards the vertebrate theory of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S.: Vou. I. No. 8 


skull, perhaps the last word has not been 
said, if traces of vertebree still, as is alleged, — 
appear in certain of the sharks. 

If Huxley by his destructive criticism has 
destroyed, or seemed to have destroyed this 
theory, the ghost is apparently not wholly 
laid. The more ideal constructive, German 
minds, as Gegenbaur and others, claim that 
the adult skull is in a degree segmented, as 
evinced by the serial arrangement of the 
nerves, as well as of the branchial arches, 
Though Wiedersheim states* that “the at- 
tempt to explain the adult skull as a series 
of vertebree fails completely,’’ adding, * it is 
a case of protovertebree only,’”’ he says in a 
foot-note that Rosenberg has, however, 
shown that in a shark ( Carcharias glaueus), 
“the portion of the cranium lying between 
the exit.of the vagus and the vertebral col- 
umn is clearly composed of three vertebree.” 
Gadow finds four vertebree in embryos of 
Carcharias, while Sagemehl has found a 
somewhat similar modification in Ganoids. 
It would seem that the segmentation of the 
head observed in the embryo of vertebrates, 
and probably inherited from their yvermian 
ancestors, has been obliterated in the adults 
by adaptation, but that traces may have 
survived in certain sharks and Ganoids. 

Finally, it must be conceded that though 
it is the fashion of the younger men to 
characterize Owen as a comparative anato- 
mist of the old school, and now quite oyer- 
shadowed by the scientific leaders of the 
present generation, the kindly and dis- 
criminating judgment of the great English 
anatomist and essayist we have just quoted, 
will undoubtedly be sustained by many 
coming generations. Owen’s place in na- 
tural science, in many respects an unique 
one, will be among the greatest anatomists 
of the first half of our century. His name 
will bridge over the gap between Cuvier, 
and the embryologists and morphologists 


Elements of the Comparative Anatomy of Verte- 
brates, p. 56. v 


{ 


‘ 
_ FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] 


_ of the second half of the nineteenth cen- 


_ pared. 


tury. 
~ Brown UNIVERSITY. 


Heat ; Light ; Elementary Text-Books, Theoreti- 
eal and Practical for Schools and Colleges: 
By R. T. Guazesroox. 12 mo., about 
220 pages each. New York, Macmillan 
& Co. Price $1.00. 

These are recent volumes in the series of 
Cambridge Natural Science Manuals. 

All American physicists are familiar with 
the previous excellent products of Mr. 
Glazebrook’s pen in the line of text-books 
for laboratory and class-room, and will be 
interested in this new series which is in- 

tended to fill a place quite different from 
that for which his previous works were pre- 
They are less extensive and more 
elementary. According to the author, they 
"represent what has for some time consti- 
tuted a practical course for medical students 
in the Cavendish laboratory. There has 
been much discussion, and there will con- 
tinue to be much discussion for some time 
to come, as to the proper sequence of labor- 
atory, text-book and lecture instruction in 
elementary physics. In the Cavendish lab- 
oratory the system adopted for this course, 
at least, seems to be that the instructor 
first presents a portion of the subject in the 
_ form of a lecture in which he illustrates, by 
the use of simple apparatus, and explains 
the theory of the experiments, deriving 
E inciples and numerical results, as far as 
possible, from the results of experiments 
actually performed. The members of the 
class then make the experiments, singly or 
in pairs, or occasionally in large groups, 
using the same, or similar, apparatus. 
Phe volumes contain descriptions of experi- 
ments and also theoretical principles and 

‘deductions, so that they constitute at once 

‘text-book and laboratory hand-book. At 

intervals throughout the work there will 

be found well selected collections of prob- 


A. S. Packarp. 


SCIENCE. 


215 


lems and examples, and a good set of ex- 
amination questions at the end. The ap- 
paratus described is usually simple, and 
most of it could be made with simple ma- 
terials by one having some technical skill 
of the right sort. 

It is hardly necessary to say that the the- 
oretical discussions and presentation of prin- 
ciples are, for the most part, clear and clean 
as far as they go. 

In the ‘ Heat,’ the first chapter has to do 
with its nature, and its relation to work or 
energy is concisely but clearly stated. In 
the second chapter the treatment of temper- 
ature and its measurement is unusually 
satisfactory, considering the limitations to 
which the wholé work is subjected. It is to 
be regretted, however, that there is no men- 
tion of the hydrogen scale, since so many of 
the most important temperature measure- 
ments now depend upon it. Calorimetry is 
discussed quite thoroughly, with many prac- 
tical illustrations, and in the chapters de- 
voted to expansion several neat suggestions 
as to methods will be found. In the refer- 
ence to the necessity for ‘ compensating’ the 
effect of temperature on the balance wheel 
of a watch, it is erroneously implied that the 
principal reason for this grows out of the 
change in the dimensions, and consequently 
moment of inertia of the wheel due to change 
in temperature, while, as a matter of fact, 
it is the temperature change of the modulus 
of elasticity of the ‘ hair’ or balance spring 
which makes nearly all the trouble. The 
volume ends with a brief but good chapter 
on the mechanical equivalent of heat. 

In the volume on ‘ Light,’ the geometrical 
treatment is used exclusively. There is a 
single brief reference to the physical nature 
of light, which is so thoroughly discussed 
in the author’s volume on ‘ Physical Opties ’ 
published some years ago, but in the book 
under consideration the rectilinear propa- 
gation of a ‘ray’ is assumed and made the 
basis of the whole discussion. The chapters 


216 


devoted to reflection from plane surfaces are 
excellent, and those in which refraction is 
treated are particularly thorough and good. 
The simpler geometrical treatment of lenses 
is very satisfactory ; optical instruments and 
‘aids to vision’ receive rather more atten- 
tion (especially the latter) than is usual in 
books of this class. There are also a num- 
ber of interesting and rather uncommon ex- 
periments and exercises combining the eye 
and lenses of various forms, by means of 
which many problems relating to vision are 
made clear. There is a chapter on the 
spectrum and color, with which the volume 
ends. 

Both of these volumes can confidently 
be recommended for courses in secondary 
schools, or in colleges where a limited 
amount of elementary instruction in physics 
is required. T.C.M. 


Electricity, One Hundred Years Ago and To- 
day. Epwixn J. Houston. New York, 
W. J. Johnston & Co., Limited. 12mo., 
pp. 200. 


This volume is built around or upon a 
lecture having the same title which was de- 
livered in 1892. It was a historical discus- 
sion of the growth and development of elec- 
tricity from the beginning (not one hundred 
years ago) tothe present time. In preparing 
it for publication the author has increased its 
volume several times, and its interest and 
value proportionately by the addition of an 
extensive series of historical foot-notes. 
Many of these consist of long quotations from 
original authorities which would have been 
hardly suitable for a popular address, but 
which greatly enhance the worth of the ad- 
dress when printed. Some discussions of 
quite recent date are extensively quoted, 
and this volume includes, in comparatively 
small space, the results of much labor ex- 
pended in the pursuit of exact information 
by reference to original papers. For this 
reason, if for no other, it will be welcome to 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 8, 


all interested in the science of electricity or 
the art of its application. T.. Cg 


Hygiene. By I. Lane Norrer and R. H. 
Firra. London, Longmans, Green & Co. 
1894. 

This manual, of 374 pp. 8°, is a very con- 
cise and clear summary of what a non-pro- 
fessional, well educated man should know 
with regard to the general laws of health, 
the causes of disease, and the best means 
of combating the latter. Dr. Notter is the 
Professor of Hygiene in the Army Medical 
School at Netley, and Examiner in Hygiene 
in the Science and Art Department at South 
Kensington, and Dr. Firth is his assistant 
in each of these positions, hence this manual 
may be considered as a summary of the — 
latest English teaching on this subject. In 
such subjects as heating and ventilation, — 
house drainage, construction of buildings, 
hospitals, etc., its recommendations are 
adapted especially to the climate and cus- 
toms of England, and the illustrations are 
solely of English appliances and methods, 
and this must be borne in mind by American 
readers. 

Galton’s grates, Tobin’s tubes, Shering- 
ham valves, Buchan’s traps, ete., are not to 
be found in the market in this country, 
where other equally satisfactory appliances 
take their place. 

Itis not a book to be resorted to for thril- 
ling and sensational quotations, but it will 
be found to give sound common sense advice 
upon the subjects of which it treats, and is 
commended to the readers of ScreNcE as a 
good manual of reference. 


An Illustrated Dictionary of Medicine, Biology 
and Allied Sciences. By GrorcE M. GouLp, 
A. B., M. D. Philadelphia, P. Blakis- 
ton, Son & Co. 1894. 4°, pp. 1633. 
This is a very full and complete diction- 

ary of medicine, printed clearly on good pa- 

per, and so bound that it will remain open 
at any page, a convenience not always 


— 


i 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895. ] 


found in books of reference. Some of the 
words proposed by the author are not ac- 
cepted by good authorities, as for example, 
‘chemic’ for chemical, ‘physiologic’ for 
physiological, and in this respect the work 
is sometimes misleading. In the attempt 
to give a complete list of the bacteria many 
names are given which would not be ac- 
eepted by a bacteriologist, the list evidently 
having been prepared by some one not 
_ familiar with the subject. These, however, 
are minor details; the main fact about the 
work is that it is the most complete and 
practically useful single volume dictionary 
of medical terms in the English language, 
and as such it is commended to the readers 
of Scrence. 


: NOTES. 
THE INTERNATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL CONGRESS. 
Tse following invitation has just been 
_ issued to the Third International Zodlogical 
Congress to be held in Leyden next Septem- 
ber: “The first International Zodlogical 
Congress took place in Paris at the time of 
the International Exhibition of 1889. The 
second meeting was held in Moscow in 1892. 
There the resolution was passed that in 
September, 1895, this Congress would again 
meet in Leyden, the oldest University of 
the Netherlands. The Netherlands’ Zodlo- 
gical Society has taken upon itself to make 
all the necessary arrangements for the re- 
_ ception and accommodation of the Congress. 
At the invitation of that Society, the under- 
signed request you to become a member of 
the International Congress and to attend 
the Leyden meeting. It appears probable 
that different questions, in which the inter- 
est of zodlogists in general, as well as those 
of specialists are involved, can be brought 
toasolution by mutual exchange of opinions 
on the occasion of such an international 
meeting. At any rate the way that will 
lead to such a solution may there be pre- 
pared. Moreover it is undoubtedly a dis- 
¥ 
‘ 


SCIENCE. 217 


tinct advantage to become personally ac- 
quainted with representatives of Zodlogical 
Science from different parts of the world. 
As soon as you shall have expressed your 
sympathy with the above stated aims of the 
International Zodlogical Congress we shall 
be glad to be allowed to append your name 
to a more general invitation directed to all 
zoologists and morphologists, which will be 
brought before our fellow-workers by the aid 
of different periodicals. We venture to 
add that even in case of your not being able 
to attend the proposed Congress you will 
favor us with the expression of your sym- 
pathy with the movement. Pray to be 
so kind to send your answer to Dr. P. P. C. 
Hoek, Secretary of the Netherlands Zodlo- 
gical Society at Helder, Holland.”’ 

The invitation is signed by about one 
hundred naturalists in different parts of the 
world, including the following from this 
country: A. Agassiz, E. D. Cope, E. L. 
Mark, O. C. Marsh, H. F. Osborn, W. B. 
Scott and C. O. Whitman. 


THE TESTING OF ELECTRICAL STREET 
RAILWAYS, 


THE expenditure and distribution of 
power on electrical street railways has 
formed a subject of investigation on a some- 
what extensive scale, and for a number of 
years past, by the departments of Sibley 
College, Cornell University. In the issue of 
the Sibley College Journal for January, Mr. 
James Lyman, formerly of Yale University, 
now engaged in special work of this char- 
acter in the graduate department of the 
College, summarizes some of the most im- 
portant results thus collated. In the per- 
formance of the work of investigation, par- 
ties are sent out, sometimes to the number 
of ten or a dozen, including the experts in 
charge and their student-assistants, di- 
vided into squads, assigned each to its spe- 
cial part of the work, the electricians to the 
measurement of current, the electrical en- 


218 


gineers to the handling of the dynamos 
and electric ‘plant,’ the mechanical en- 
gineers to the testing of engines and 
boilers, and each individual to that work 
which he ean best direct or with regard to 
which the experience will prove most 
fruitful.* 

The records of the Sibley College labora- 
tories are thus peculiarly rich in data of 
this kind. The first case quoted is that of 
the trial of the Rochester, N. Y., street rail- 
way plant by Dr. Bedell,in 1891. The road 
has about twenty miles of track, and very 
easy gradients. The traction demanded 1.4 
E. H. P. per ton, at 6.5 miles average speed, 
efficiency of line was 90 per cent., that of 
the station 64.8 per cent., and there were 
needed, at the engines, 2.4 J. H. P. per ton, 
20 I. H. P.per car. The Buffalo plant was 
tested in 1892, under the responsible direc- 
tion of Messrs. Wood and Palmer. The 
average power demanded was 1.76 I. H. P. 
per ton. The Ithaca street railway was 
tested in 1894, and is important as illus- 
trating work on heavy gradients, averaging 
about nine per cent., a maximum occurring 
at twelve or thirteen. The traction co- 
efficient was found to be 40 pounds, per 
one per cent. of gradient and per ton. 
In a level country, the estimate for power 
to be provided at the station is put at 
2.5 I. H. P. per ton of car and load, the 
number of cars on the line averaging about 
ten. If averaging twenty, the figure be- 
comes 2.2. 

* As many as a dozen indicators and numerous volt 
and ammeters, dynamometers, special condensing 
apparatus, scales for weighing coal and water, and 
similar test apparatus are often supplied by the Col- 
lege, the resources of which are gauged, in a way, by 
the fact that it furnishes a large part of its graduating 
classes of late years, numbering about a hundred, 
with all the instruments needed in work of investiga- 
tion in their graduating theses ; which theses are us- 
ually accounts of such work. Its working ‘plant’ 
includes fifteen steam engines, seven gas engines, 


some fifty gauges and a sti] larger number of steam 
engine indicators. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vox. I. No. 8 


THE MINNESOTA ACADEMY. 

Tur Minnesota Academy of Natural Sei- 
ences has, in addition to its ‘Bulletin,’ in- 
stituted a new series of publications termed 
‘Occasional Papers.’ It is intended that 
in this series shall be published researches 
of considerable importance. Vol. I., No. 1, 
which has recently appeared, contains ‘Pre- 
liminary Notes on the Birds and Mammals 
collected by the Menage Scientific Expedi- 
tion to the Philippine Islands,’ by Frank §. 
Bourns and Dean C. Worcester. 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 

Unper the title of ‘ Notes on Primitive 
Man in Ontario,’ by David Boyle, there has 
been printed in Toronto, by order of the 
Legislative Assembly, as an appendix to the 
report of the Minister of Education, Dr.G. W. 
Ross, a pamphlet of about 100 pages, contain- 
ing much instruction concerning the aborigi- 
nal tribes of that province. Mr. Boyle has 
been for many years the efficient curator of 
the valuable Ethnological Museum of the 
Canadian Institute. This monograph com- 
prises many pictures of the native imple- 
ments of stone, clay, bone, horn, shell and 
copper in that museum, and will be useful 
to ethnologists for purposes of comparison. 


Tsetsatt is the Tsimsidn name of a small 
tribe recently discovered on Portland Inlet, 
British Columbia, 54° 50’ Lat., which con- 
sists at present of twelve Indians only. 
‘They live on the proceeds of hunting and 
fishing and originally spoke a Tinné or 
Athapaskan dialect, which is evidenced by 
the fact that two of their number still re- 
member words of it, though the rest speak 
the Nass dialect of the Tsimsién Indians 
surrounding them. Even the original 
Tinné name of the tribe is no longer re- 
membered. Dr. Franz Boas studied the 
tribe during the later months of 1894, and 
also discovered another remnant of the 
same linguistic family, the Tinné, which 
lives in the vicinity. He favors, somewhat, 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] 


the theory that Haida, Tlinkit and Tinné 
are related to each other, and that after a 
more thorough study the three will be found 
to form one and the same linguistic family. 
Dr. Boas’ discovery is remarkable for this 
reason, that the great Tinné family is al- 
most exclusively an inland nation, and has 
pushed its branches to the ocean only at two 
places, viz., in Southern Texas (Lipans) 
and in Southwestern Oregon (Rogue 
Rivers), contiguous to the northwest coast 
of California, where little Tinné tribes have 
settled also. 
Alaska. This name was originally ap- 
plied only to the narrow peninsula situated 
at the southwest extremity of the Alaska 
Territory. _It is a corruption of alékshak, 
mainland, continent, a term of the Eastern 
dialects of the Ale-it language. The name 
of Unalashka Island contains the same word, 
for it is contracted from 4ngun alikshak, 
‘to the west of the mainland.’ Angun, 
west, also enters into the composition of 
Unangun, a division of the Ale-it people, 
which is reducible to un, people, and 4ngun, 
west. (From notes by Ivan Petré6ff. ) 


Tur Department of Anthropology, Uni- 
versity of Chicago, has just published 
Bulletin 1—Notes on Mexican Archeology, by 
Frederick Starr. A full description is given 
of the ruins of an interesting ‘painted 
house’ at San Juan de Teotihuacan. The 
walls were decorated with pictures, in a 
variety of colors, representing warriors and 
religious personages. The designs are re- 
produced in aseries of a dozen cuts. Some 

otes are also given regarding Mitla and 

mte Alban. Paintings from a wall at 
Mitta are reproduced in full size. 

It is the intention of the University to 
publish Bulletins in this Department from 
time to time as fresh material is secured. 


ZOOLOGY.—THE MAMMALS OF FLORIDA. 


Mr. Frank M. Cuapman has recently 
published a list of the Mammals known to 


SCIENCE. 219 


inhabit the State of Florida (Bull. Amer, 
Mus. Nat. Hist. vi. pp. 333-346). He gives in 
all, the names of 53 species and sub-species. 
Aquatic species are excluded. The largest 
forms are the Virginia deer, the black bear, 
the puma and the wolf. The last-named 
is approaching extinction. The beaver is 
believed to occur in the Chipola River. 
The sole West Indian form is a leaf-nosed 
bat (Artibeus carpolegus), and this is believed 
to be only an accidental visitant. The 
house-rat of Florida is the white-bellied 
roof rat (Mus alexandrius) rather than the 
Norway rat. Se Waele 


GEOLOGY. 

Ar a meeting of the Council of the 
Michigan Academy of Sciences, Messrs. A. 
C. Lane and I. C. Russell were appointed 
a committee to present to the Legislature a 
plan for a topographical survey of Michigan. 
The plan to be proposed will be in codper- 
ation with the U.S. Geological Survey and 
the preparation of a map similar to the 
maps of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and 
Connecticut, recently compiled at the joint 
expense of the States named and the U.S. 
Geological Survey. 

Proressor J. E. Topp, State Geologist of 
South Dakota, has just issued his first re- 
port. It is entitled ‘South Dakota Geo- 
logical Survey, Bulletin No. 1: A Preli- 
minary Report on the Geology of South 
Dakota.’ In this volume the present state 
of knowledge concerning the geology of the 
State is presented briefly and in a form that 
is acceptable to the intelligent citizen as 
well as to the specialist. The report is an 
octavo of 172 pages, and it is accompanied 
by several plates and a geological map of 
the State. 

THE committee appointed by the mem- 
bers of the Johns Hopkins University to 
mature a plan for securing a permanent 
memorial of the late Professor George 
Huntington Williams are able to announce 


220 


that subscriptions have been received of a 
sufficient amount to procure a portrait in 
oil, which will soon be completed and pre- 
sented to the University. The artist selected 
is Mr. Robert G. Hardie, of New York. 


ENTOMOLOGY. 


Iy a paper read to the K. Bohm. Gesell- 
schaft der Wissenschaften on November 23d 
last, Dr. Anton Fritsch, of Prag, announced 
the discovery in the Permian beds of Bo- 
hemia of the larval cases of a caddis-fly. 
This is the first indication of the existence 
of insects with a complete metamorphosis 
in paleozoic times, unless the doubtful frag- 
ments found by Dathe in Silesian culm are 
to be regarded as shards of beetles, or the 
passages found in certain carboniferous 
woods are to be credited to coleopterous 
larve. It is to be hoped that Dr. Fritsch 
will amply illustrate these remains in his 
great work now in progress on the Fauna 
der Gaskohle Bohmens. 

GENERAL. 

PROFESSOR WARBURG, Of Freiberg, has 
been called to Berlin as the successor of 
Kundt. 

Proressor Kuz, of Marburg, known for 
his researches in physiological chemistry, 
died on January 16. 

Macminian & Co. announce a translation 
by Dr. A. C. Porter, of the University of 
Pennsylvania, of the Lehrbuch der Botanik, 
by Strasburger, Noll, Schenck and Schimper. 

Tue St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences 
has recently made some changes in the 
system of publishing papers communicated 
to it. In September, 1894, it commenced 
the publication of a monthly number, under 
the title Bulletin de V Académie Impériale des 
Sciences, which serves as the organ of the 
three classes of the Academy. This Bulletin 
is intended to include the procts-verbaux of 
the meetings, annual reports of scientific 
researches, reports on prizes conferred by 
the Academy, notes on the work of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vox. I. No, 8. 


museums, &c. In addition to notices of 
this kind, the Lulletin will contain short 
scientific papers. The Mémoires de ? Acad- 
émie Impériale des Sciences will form in future 
the second means of publication. 
be divided into two independent series, 
dealing respectively with the physico- 
mathematical section of the Academy’s pa- 
pers, and the historical and philological see- 
tion. The publication of the Mélanges, tirés du 
Bulletin, has been discontinued.—Nature. 

Aw International Congress on Childhood 
will be held in Florence in the spring of 
1895. Among the questions to be discussed 
are the physical, moral and mental eleya- 
tion of children, children’s hospitals, the 
care of deaf-mute and blind children up to 
the time of their admission into an educa- 
tional institution, care of poor and aban- 
doned children, reformatories, and yaga- 
bondage in its relation to childhood.—N, 
Y. Medical Record. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
A. A. A. S. MEETING, 1895. 

Atv a special meeting of the Council, held 
on January 26th, it was decided to post- 
pone the proposed meeting in San Francis- 
co. An invitation from Springfield, Mass., 
to hold the meeting of 1895 in that city, was 
accepted. The date of the meeting was 
fixed as follows : Council meeting, Wednes- 
day, August 28th, at noon; General Ses- 
sions, Thursday, August 29th, at 10 A. Mm. 

Special efforts will be made by the offi- 
cers of the sections to prepare programmes 
for the sections in advance of the meeting 
and for this purpose members are requested 
to send abstracts of their papers, as early 
as possible, to the Permanent Secretary, or 
to the Secretaries of the Sections. 

F. W Purnam, Permanent Secretary. 
SALEM, Mass., Jan. 30, 1895. 
NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ; SECTION 
OF ASTRONOMY AND PHYSICS, FEB. 4, 
Proressor W. Hattock showed a new 


It will_ 


4 


- 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] 


photographic method of comparing the rate of vi- 
bration of two tuning forks. The forks are 
so clamped that a prong of each is held in 
front of a manometric capsule. The forks 
are bowed and the flames photographed as 
described in the Physical Review, Vol. 
IIL., p. 305, 1875. The vibrations are then 
eounted in the wavy line on the negative. 
The accuracy in ordinary work is about two 
or three-tenths of a wave per second. 

The second paper was by Prof. J. K. 
Rees on the Penumbre of sun-spots as 
shown in Rutherfurd’s photographs, with 
especial reference to the discussion at the 
December meeting of the Royal Astronom- 
ical Society. Professor Rees called the at- 
tention of the Section to the remarks made 
by the Rev. F. Howlett on presenting to 
the Royal Astronomical Society of London 
three volumes of sun-spot drawings. This 
set of volumes contains drawings made dur- 
ing a period of thirty-five years, and shows 
minute details in regard to the forms and 
changes of solarspots. The Rey. Mr. How- 
lett stated that his main object in continu- 
ing the series had been to test the theory 
put forth by Professor Wilson, of Glasgow, 
in the latter part of the last century. Wil- 
son’s theory claimed that the penumbra in 
4 spot shelves down toward the umbra ; and 
that the portion of the penumbra nearest 
the sun’s centre will, therefore, grow nar- 
rower and narrower, due to perspective, as 
the sun-spot reaches a point nearer and 
nearer to the limb. Mr. Howlett claimed 
that his drawings showed that the Wilson- 
jan theory was not borne out by his obser- 
vations as recorded in his drawings. 

He made bold to say that, instead of the 
penumbra of the spot possessing shelving 
sides sloping down toward the umbra, the 
penumbra shows a convex surface in a 
eurve conformable to the general contour 
of the solar surface. He remarked that he 
had not himself witnessed a single case of 
certain notching of the limb. 


as 


SCIENCE. 


221 

Professor Rees exhibited on the screen a 
series of fine photographs of the solar sur- 
face taken by Mr. Rutherfurd with his pho- 
tographie telescope (13 inches diameter of 
object glass, 11 feet of focal length) during 
the years 1870-1871. Attention was called 
to the appearance of the penumbral regions 
of the spots which showed conclusively that 
the penumbra was, as a rule, eccentric with 
respect to the umbra. Spots were pointed 
out near the centre of the sun where the 
penumbral marking was deficient on, some- 
times the west side, then on the east side, 
sometimes on the north side and sometimes 
on the south side. Spots were also indi- 
cated which showed, when near the limb of 
the sun, the penumbral region wanting on 
the side farthest from the centre and well 
developed on the side toward the centre. So 
far as these photographs showed, there was 
no doubt that the Wilson theory did not 
completely explain the various phenom- 
ena. 

Professor Rees also showed some pictures 
of sun-spots taken by Mr. C. A. Post, of 
New York City, exhibiting the non-central 
character of the umbra with respect to the pe- 
numbra. Mr. C. A. Post, of New York City, 
then threw on the screen some photographs 
of the sun and moon that he had taken. 

He also exhibited a series of strikingly 
beautiful lantern slides made from photo- 
graphs of lightning flashes. 

Professor M. I. Pupin deseribed his new 
form of automatic vacuum-pump (see Am. 
Journ. Sci., Vol. 39, 1895, p. 19). An ex- 
tremely ingenious device utilizes an ordi- 
nary vacuum pump (water pump) to raise 
mercury for the Sprengel pump. Little 
mercury is needed and the whole is con- 
tinuous in its action. 


INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 


The Indiana Academy of Science met at 
Indianapolis, December 27-28, 1894, with 
W. A. Noyes, of the Rose Polytechnic of 


222 


Terre Haute, as President, and C. A. Waldo, 
of De Pauw University, as Secretary. 

The Academy was well attended by the 
leading scientists of the State. 

After the ordinary preliminary business, 
the body continued in general session, and 
listened to the reading of nine papers on 
general scientific topics. 

The Academy then met in two sections, 
Physico-Chemical and Biological. In the 
former section, 28 short papers were read, 
and in the latter 51. The papers indicated 
that much work had been done during the 
past year in the various lines of scientific 
investigation. 

The reports from the directors of the Bio- 
logical Survey of Indiana were encouraging, 
showing that every effort was being put 
forth to accomplish this survey as quickly 
as possible and in a satisfactory manner. 
A resolution was passed requesting the Leg- 
islature of the State to print and distribute 
the proceedings of the Academy. This ex- 
pense has always been borne by the Acad- 
emy, but in view of the fact thatthe State is 
reaping the benefits it should assume the 
expense. ; 

The Spring meeting will be held at the 
Wyandotte Cave, in Crawford county. 

Following is a list of the papers: 

Address by the Retiring President,— Lavoisier. 

W. A. Noyes. 


GENERAL SUBJECTS. 

1. Some Facts in Distribution of Gileditschia 
Triacanthos and Other Trees: Krnest Walker. 

2. Propagation and Protection of Game and 
Fish: I. W. Sharp. 

3. Anthropology ; the Study of Man: Amos 
W. Butler. 

4. A New Biological Station and its Aim: 
C. H. Higenmann. 

5. Transmission of Impressions in Spinal 
Cord: G. A. Talbert. 

6. Does High Tension of Electric Current 
Destroy Life: J. L. Campbell. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 8: 


7. The Surdue Engineering Laboratory since 
the Restoration: Wm. F. M. Goss. 

8. Method of Determining Sewage Pollution 
of Rivers: Chas. C. Brown. 

9. Psychological Laboratory of Indiana Uni-~ — 
versity: W. L. Bryan. 
PHYSICO-CHEMICAL SUBJECTS. 


10. Interesting Deposit of Alumina Oxyhy- 
drate: G. W. Benton. 

11. Observations on Glacial Drift of Jasper 
County: A. H. Purdue. 

12. Concerning a Burial Mound Recently 
Opened in Randolph County: Joseph Moore. 

13. Reversal of Current in the Toepler Holtz 
Electrical Machine: J. L. Campbell. 

14. A Florida Shell Mound: U. F. Glick, 

15. Note on Rock Flexure: E. M. Kindle. 

16. The Alternate-Current Transformer with 
Condenser in one or both Cirewits: Thomas 
Gray. 

17. Elastic Fatigue of Wires: C. Leo Mees. 

18. A Warped Surface of Universal Elliptie 
Eccentricity: C. A. Waldo. 

19. Accurate Measurements of Surface Ten- 
sion: A. L. Foley. 

20. Effect of the Gaseous Medium on the 
Electrochemical Equivalent of Metals: C. 
Leo Mees. 

21. Some new Laboratory Appliances im 
Chemistry: H. A Huston. 

22. Volumetric Determination of Phosphorus 
in Steel: W. A. Noyes and J.S. Royse. 

23. Action of Ammonia upon Dextrose: W.- 
E. Stone. 

24. Action of Zine Ethyl on Ferrie Chloride 
and Ferric Bromide: H.H. Ballard. 

25. The Sugar of the Century Plant: W.- 
E. Stone and Dumont Lotz. 

26. Camphoric Acid: W. A. Noyes. 

27. Action of Potassium Sulf hydrate wpon 
Certain Aromatic Chlorides: Walter Jones 
and F. C. Scheuch. 

28. A New Phosphate: H. A. Huston. 

29. Dip of the Keokuk Rocks at Blooming- 
ton, Ind: Edward M. Kindle. 


* 30. Structural Geologic Work of J. H. Means 
in Arkansas: J.C. Branner. 
31. Wave Marks on Cincinnati Limestone : 
W. P. Shannon. 
32. Correlation of Silurian Sections in East- 
ern Indiana: V. F. Marsters and E. M. 
Kindle. 
33. Some New Indian Fossils: C. E. Newlin. 
34. Extinct Fauna of Lake County: T. H. 
Ball. ; 
| 35. Strepomatide of the Falls of the Ohio, 
with their Synonymy: KR. Ellsworth Call. 
36. Streams of Southeastern Indiana, with 
List: H. M. Stoops. 
37. The Swamps of Franklin County: H. 
_ M. Stoops. 


f BIOLOGICAL SUBJECTS. 


- 38. Water Cultures of Indigenous Plants: D. 
-T. MacDougal. 
39. Working Shelves for Botanical Labora- 
tory: Katherine E. Golden. 
40. New Apparatus for Vegetable Physiology : 
_ J. C. Arthur. 
41. Collections of Plants made during the 
_ Year: M. B. Thomas. 
42. The Flowering Plants of Wabash County : 
_ A. B. Ulrey and J. N. Jenkins. 
43. Revision of the Phanerogamie Flora of 
_ the State: Stanley Coulter. 
44. Report of Progress of the Botanical Divi- 
sion of the State Biological Survey: L. M. 
Underwood. 
45. Value of Seed Characters in Determining 
Specific Rank in the Genus Plantago: Alida 
M. Cunningham. 
_ 46. Additions to the Fish Fauna of Wabash 
County: W.O. Wallace. 
47. Notes on the Reptilian Fauna of Vigo: 
_W.S. Blatchley. 
48. Preliminary List of Birds of Brown 
County: Edward M. Kindle. 
49. The Birds of 1893: Amos W. Butler. 
- 50. Some Notes on the Blind Animals of 
Mammoth Cave, with Exhibition of Specimens : 
R. Ellsworth Call. 


a 


FEBRUARY 22, 1895.] SCIENCE. 223 


51. The Batrachians and Reptiles of Wabash 
County: W, O. Wallace. 

52. On the Occurrence of the Whistling Swan 
(Olor columbianus) in Wabash County: A. 
B. Ulrey. 

53. Birds of Wabash County: A. B. Ulrey 
and W. O. Wallace. 

54. Birds Observed in the Sawtooth Moun- 
tains: B. W. Evermann and J. T. Scovell. 

55. Animal Parasites Collected in the State 
during the year 1894: A. W. Bitting. 

56. Angling in the St. Lawrence and Lake 
Ontario: Barton W. Evermann. 

57. Indiana Mammals: Amos W. Butler. 

58. Mimicry in Fishes: W. J. Moenkhaus. 

59. Variation in Leueiseus: C. H. Eigen- 
mann. 

60. The Redfish of the Idaho Lakes: B. 
W. Evermann and J. T. Seovell. 

61. Observations upon Some Oklahoma 
Plants: E. W. Olive. 

62. Rediscovery of Hoy’s White Fish or 
Moon-eye (Argyrosoma hoyi): Barton W. 
Evermann. 

63. Saxifragacee of Indiana: Stanley Coul- 
ter. 

64. The Range of the Blue Ash: W. P. 
Shannon. 

65. Plant Products of the U. 8. Pharmaco- 
pea (1890): John S. Wright. 

66. Noteworthy Indiana Phanerogams : Stan- 
ley Coulter. 

67. Methods of Infiltrating and Staining in 
oto the Heads of Vernonia: E. H. Hea- 
cock. 

68. Embryology of the Ranunculacee: D. 
M. Mottier. 

69. Certain Chemical Features in the Seeds 
of Plantago Virginiana and P. Patagonica: 
Alida M, Cunningham. 

70. Root System of Pogonia: M. B. Thomas. 

71. Salt-rising Bread: Katherine E. 
Golden. 

72. An Increasing Pear Disease in Indiana : 
L. M. Underwood. 

73. Notes on the Floridee: Geo. W. Martin. 


224 


74. Measurement of Strains Induced in Plant 
Curvatures: D. T: MacDougal. 

75. The Stomates of Cyas: Edgar W. Olive. 

76. The Buckeye Canoe of 1840: W. P. 
Shannon. 

77. Embryo-Sac of Jeffersonia Diphylla: 
Frank M. Andrews. 


78. Cell Structure of Cyanophycew: Geo. 
W. Martin. 
79. Some Notes on the Amoeba: A. J. Big- 


ney. 

80. Variations of the Polyporus lucidus: L. 
M. Underwood. 

81. Preliminary Account of the Development 
of Etheostoma Ceruleum: A. B. Ulrey. 

82. Embryology of the Cupulifere: D. W. 
Mottier. 

83. Embryology of the Frog: A. J. Bigney. 

84. Variation Etheostoma: W. J. 
Moenkhaus. 

85. Blood Corpuscles of very Young Human 
Embryo: D. W. Dennis. 

86. Poisonous Influences of some Species of 
Cypripedium: D. T. MacDougal. 

87. Development of Sexual Organs of Cyma- 
togaster: C. H. Higenmann. 

88. The Vegetation House asan Aid in Re- 
search: J.C. Arthur. 

89. The Proposed New Systematic Botany of 
North America: WL. M. Underwood. 


m 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, FEB. 

On a Lens for Adapting a Visually Corrected 
Refracting Telescope to Photographic Observa- 
tions with the WSpectroscope: James E. 
KEELER. 

Schmidt’s Theory of the Sun: E. J. Witezyn- 
SKI. 

A Cloud-Like Spot on the Terminator of Mars : 
A. E. Doueuass. 

Preimanary Table of Solar Spectrum Wave- 
Lengths. II.; H. A. RowLanp. 

Photographie Observations of Eclipses of Jupiter’s 
Satellites: WILLARD P. GERRISH. 

The Arc-Spectra of the Elements. II. Ger- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No.8 


manium: H. A. Rowianp and R. R- 
TATNALL. 

Comparison of Photometric Magnitudes of the 
Stars: Epwarp C. PickERINe. 

The Spectrum of 'Cephei: A. BELOPOLSKY. ~ 

Minor Contribution and Notes ; Reviews ; Recent 
Publications. 


NEW BOOKS. 


Butterflies and Moths. W. FurNnaux. Lon- 
don and New York, Longmans, Green & 
Co. 1894. Pp. xiv+358. $3.50 

Elements of Astronomy. GEORGE W. PARKER. 
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CONTENTS: 
On Dr. William Townsend Porter's Investigations of 
the Growth of the School Children of St. Lowis: 
BARE BOAG) |ojaivie 0,6. ~ +. oo dceMReenclels ic o.s 225 


BE GANONG. 2. 5). 32 ooo ieee ell wisicis cole 230 
Magnetism and the Weather: H. A. HAZEN ..... 234 
Similar Inventions in Areas Wide Apart: O. T. 

oD One SU SRG EBEIBsOO.S. .<\c€ oe gepgeeee 235 
The Social Sense: J. MARK BALDWIN.... ..... 236 
American Students at the Naples Zodlogical Station : 

ERO E ORIN» « 07s..-\- «010 «stateieieieiieicle s/s isd.s os 238 
BRIERESTIONGCNCE — wo 0. oo we wie cane ea sien cels cece 239 

Pithecanthropus erectus: HARRISON ALLEN. 

The Elihu Thompson Prize: M. 

RMMOMASIG VALEMGUUTE — . 2. 0 oe acscceccccecces 241 


Merriam’s Revision of the Pocket Gophers Fees 
ALLEN. Gregory’s The Planet Earth: T. C. M. 
The Wood’s Holl Biological Lectures: CHARLES 


8. DoLLEy. Williams’ Aero-Therapeutics. Phys- 
ies: WILLIAM HALLocK. Geology: J.D. R. 
Wotes and News :— ......-2-cesceeeeeees stataletafets 249 


The A. A. A. S. Table at Wood’s Holl Laboratory ; 
General . 


Societies and Academies :—..... 00.00.00 0ees eerie 200 
Michigan Academy of Science ; The Academy of 
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia ; Geological So- 
ciety of Washington; Fortnightly Scientific Club 
_in the University of Minnesota. 

Scientific Journals ........+.+++- sot COARSBEOROe 251 

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New York, or Lancaster, Pa. 


ON DR. WILLIAM TOWNSEND PORTER'S IN- 
VESTIGATION OF THE GROWTH OF THE 
SCHOOL CHILDREN OF ST. LOUIS.* 

Dr. Porter’s investigations on the growth 
of the school children of St. Louis claim 


particular attention, as the author opens a 
number of new problems and proposes new 
methods of inquiry. His conclusions are 
far-reaching and have a close relation to 
the method of treatment of a number of 
questions. It is the importance of these in- 
vestigations, which are based on very exten- 
sive material, which induces me to subject 
the author’s methods to an examination. 

Dr. Porter’s scheme of measurements is 
based largely upon that used by Dr. H. P. 
Bowditch in his investigations in Boston, 
and on the one which I used in the collec- 
tion of data in Worcester, Mass. To these 
the measurements of girth of chest and 
of strength of grasp are added. It must 
be regretted that Dr. Porter determined the 
age of the child at its nearest birthday, 

*1, The Physical Basis of Precocity and Dullness. 
( Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis, 
Vol. VI., No. 7, March 23, 1893.) 

2. The Relation between the Growth of Children 
and their Deviation from the Physical Type of their 
Sex and Age. (Ibid., Vol. VI., No. 10, November 
14, 1893. ) 

3. Untersuchungen der Schulkinder in Bezug auf 
die physischen Grundlagen ihrer geistigen Entwick- 
lung. (Verh. d. Berliner Gesellschaft fiir anthropolo- 
gie, 1893, pp. 337-354. ) 

4. The Growth of St. Louis Children. (Transac- 
tions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis, Vol. 
VI., No. 12, April 14, 1894, pp. 263-380 ; republished 
in Quarterly Publications of the American Statisti- 
eal Association, N. s., No. 24, Vol. III., December, 
1893, pp. 577-587. ) 

5. The Growth of St. Louis Children. (Ibid., Nos. 
25, 26, Vol. IV., March—June, 1894, pp. 28-34. ) 


226 


while heretofore all investigators deter- 
mined the age in full years. There exists, 
therefore, a difference of half a year between 
the period of Dr. Porter’s tables and all 
others which makes a comparison difficult. 
’ Dr. Porter bases all his discussions on 
the assumption that all series of observations 
of children of any given age are probability 
curves, and he illustrates this point by a 
detailed discussion of the observations on 
stature of eight-year-old girls. In connection 
with this subject he discusses the meaning 
of the probable deviation, of the mean, and 
of the average value of the series. Although 
he employs both the mean and average 
values, he evidently inclines toward the use 
of the former. I will not dwell at length 
upon the fact that whenever the curve is 
really a probability curve the average is 
a better value than the mean, because it is 
more accurate, nor on the other fact that 
the mean deviation gives a more constant 
value than the probable deviation, and is 
therefore the better value, as both con- 
siderations have little practical bearing, 
although I consider them of importance 
from a theoretical point of view. 

It may be granted for a moment that the 
curves are probability curves. Then there 
remain two objections to Dr. Porter’s values. 
The one is that the difference in numbers 
of individuals observed for each year is not 
taken into consideration. This difference 
in numbers has the effect that the average 
age of all individuals whose nearest age is 
six years will be a little more than six 
years. These corrections amount to more 
than 3% of the annual growth, during the 
first and last years to even more. It af- 
fects the annual rate of growth of stature to 
the amount of several millimeters, the 
weight to the amount of halfa pound. 

Furthermore, Dr. Porter makes a linear 
interpolation for determining the mean, 
while the general curve ought to be taken 
into consideration. The determination of 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Voz. I. No. 9. 


the 50% point of a series ought to be based on 
the values found at two points, at least, on 
each side. The same may be said of the 
interpolation for all the other percentile 
grades. The corrections made necessary by 
these two causes are not great, but sufficient 
to make all the millimeters and tenths of 
kilograms inaccurate. 

A more important objection is based on 
the fact that the observed curves are not 
probability curves. In examining Dr. 
Porter’s curve for stature of girls of 8 years 
of age (paper No. 4, p. 286), it will be seen 
that in the first part of the table the differ- 
ences between theory and observation are all 
positive, while in the second part they are, 
with one exception, all negative. When 
the curves of stature, weight, span of arms, 
height sitting, girth of chest for girls from 
12 to 15 years of age, and for boys from 14 
to 18 years of age are consulted it will ap- 
pear that the asymmetry is still more 
marked. Dr. Porter himself quotes at 
length Dr. Bowditch’s remarks on this asym- 
metry (Ibid., p. 298), and calls attention to 
the difference between mean and average. 
These constantly occurring differences and 
their regular distribution are the very best 
proof that the curves under consideration 
are not probability curves. If this is the 
case, neither the average, nor the mean, nor 
the most frequent value represent the type | 
of the age to which the curve refers. 
This can be determined only by a detailed 
examination of the causes of the asymme- 
tries. 

I have stated at a former time (Screncn, 
Vol. XIX., May 6, May 20, 1892) what I be- 
lieve to be the cause of this asymmetry, and 
I will revert to this subject after the dis- 
cussion of one of Dr. Porter’s most funda- 
mental deductions. 

He concludes, from his data, that the 
basis of dullness is deficient physical devel- 
opment ; that the basis of precocity is an un- 
usually favorable physical development. — 


Marcu 1, 1895.] 


His method has been to compare the meas- 
urements of all children of a certain age at- 
tending various grades of schools. He found 
that those in the lower grades were inferior 
in their measurements to those attending 
the higher grades. He expresses this result 
in the following language (No. 1, p. 168): 
* Precocious children are heavier, and dull 
children lighter, than the mean child of the 
same age. This establishes a basis of pre- 
eocity and dullness.”’ I believe that the 
method of investigating this point is not 
free of objections. It would, indeed, be a 
serious accusation against the teachers of 
St. Louis if they should entirely disregard 
the effects of physical development in grad- 
ing their pupils. However crudely this 
may be done, it is certainly done to a lim- 
ited extent. Sickly children who stay out 
of school for a great portion of the term 
will lag behind ; vigorous ones will advance 
more rapidly. Be this the case or not, the 
fact remains that children who are physic- 
ally more vigorous accomplish a greater 
amount of mental work. But I do not be- 
lieve that Dr. Porter’s wording of the phe- 
nomenon conveys the correct interpreta- 
tion. I should prefer to call the less favor- 
ably developed grade of children retarded, 
not dull ; and these terms are by no means 
equivalent, as a retarded child may develop 
and become quite bright. In fact, an inves- 
tigation which I had carried on in Toronto 
with the same object in view, but according 
to a different method, gives just the reverse 
result. The data were compiled by Dr. G. 
M. West, who found that the children pro- 
nounced by the teacher as bright were less 


' favorably developed than those called dull 


by their teachers. Furthermore, I do not 
believe it is correct to say that the facts 
found by Dr. Porter establish a basis of pre- 
eocity and dullness, but only that preco- 
cious children are at the same time better 
developed physically ; thatis to say, the in- 
teresting facts presented by Dr. Porter prove 


SCIENCE. 


227 


only that children of the same age who 
are found in higher grades are more ad- 
vanced in their general development than 
those who are found in lower grades. Dr. 
Porter has shown that mental and physical 
growth are correlated, or depend upon com- 
mon causes; not that mental development 
depends upon physical growth. 

This brings me back to the question of 
the cause of the asymmetries of the observed 
curves. According to the above interpreta- 
tion of Dr. Porter’s results (which is merely 
a statement of the observed facts), we 
must expect to find children of a certain 
age to be on different stages of development. 
Some will stand on the point corresponding 
exactly to the age, while others deviate from 
it. This was the assumption which I made 
in the paper quoted above, when trying to 
explain the asymmetries of the curves, and 
I consider Dr. Porter’s observations a very 
strong argument in favor of my theory, 
which is briefly as follows : 

When we consider children of a certain 
age we may say that they will not all be on 
the same stage of development. Some will 
have reached a point just corresponding to 
their age, while others will be a little behind, 
and still others in advance of their age. Con- 
sequently the values of their measurements 
will not exactly correspond to those of their 
age. We may assume that the difference 
between their stage of development and 
that belonging to their exact age is due to 
accidental causes, so that just as many 
will be less developed as further developed 
than the average child of a particular age. 
Or, there will be as many children on a 
stage of development corresponding to that 
of their age plus a certain length of time 
as corresponding to that of their age minus 
a certain length of time. 

The number of children who have a cer- 
tain amount of deviation in time may be 
assumed to be arranged in a_ probability 
curve, so that the average of all the chil- 


228 


dren will be exactly on the stage of develop- 
ment belonging to their age. 

Ata period when the rate of growth is 
decreasing rapidly, those children whose 
growth is retarded will be further remote 
from the value belonging to their age 
than those whose growth is accelerated. As 
the number of children above and below 
the average of development are equal, those 
with retarded growth will have a greater 
influence upon the average measurement 
than those whose growth is accelerated, 
therefore the average value of the measure- 
ment of all the children of a certain age 
will be lower than the typical value, when 
the rate of growth is decreasing; higher 
than the typical value when the rate of 
growth is increasing. This shows that the 
averages and means of such curves have no 
meaning as types. I have shown in the 
place quoted above, how the typical values 
can be computed, and also that for stature 
they differ from the average up to the 
amount of 17 mm. 

These considerations also show clearly 
that the curves must be asymmetrical. 
Supposing we consider the weights of girls 
of thirteen years of age, the individuals 
composing this group will consist of the fol- 
lowing elements: girls on their normal 
stage whose weight is that of the group 
considered, advanced girls, and retarded 
girls. In each of these groups which are 
represented in the total group in varying 
numbers, the weights of the individuals are 
probably distributed according to the laws of 
chance, or according to the distribution of 
weights in the adult population. What, 
however, will be the general distribution ? 
As the rate of increase of weight is de- 
creasing, there will be crowding in those 
parts of the curves which represent the 
girls in an advanced stage of development, 
and this must cause an asymmetry of the 
resultant general curve, which will depend 
upon the composition of the series. This 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I.’ No. 9. 


asymmetry does actually exist at the 
period when the theory demands it, and 
this coincidence of theory and observation 
is the best argument in favor of the opin- 
ion that advance and retardation of devel-~ 
opment are general and do not refer to any 
single measurement. 

Futhermore, the increase in variability 
until the time when growth begins to de- 
crease, and its subsequent decrease, are en- 
tirely in accord with this theory. I have 
given a mathematical proof of this phenom- 
enon in the paper quoted above (Scipncs, 
May, 1892). Dr. Porter has called atten- 
tioa to the same phenomenon in his paper 
of November, 1893, but I believe his formu- 
lation is not sufficiently general, nor does he 
give an interpretation of the phenomenon 
which may be explained as follows: The 
probability of a child not being in the stage of 
development corresponding to its age fol- 
lows the laws of chance. With increas- 
ing age the mean deviation from the normal 
type must increase. Assuming that at 
the age of four years, .5 yearrepresents the 
mean deviation, then a certain number of 
children will be in the stage of develop- 
ment corresponding to 3.5 and 4.5 years. 
At the age of sixteen years the mean deyvia- 
tion will probably be one year, and just as 
many children would be on the stages of 
fifteen and seventeen years as there were of 
the four-year old children on the stages of 
3.5 and 4.5 years. The absolute amount of 
growth (in girls) from fifteen to seventeen 
years is less than from 3.5 to 4.5, so that 
for this reason a decrease in variability 
must be found at the time when the rate of 
growth begins to decrease. On the other 
hand, the difference between individuals 
which will finally become tall or short, in- 
creases with the increase of growth, so that 
the combined effect of these counteracting 
causes will be a maximum of variability at 
the period preceding puberty. Dr. Porter’s 
formulation of the phenomenon (No. 2, p. 


Marcu 1, 1895. ] 


247) that ‘the physiological difference be- 
tween the individual children in an anthro- 
pometric series and the physical type of the 
series is directly related to the quickness of 
growth” does not quite cover the phenome- 
non. 

Tt will be seen from these arguments that 
the very natural supposition that some 
children develop more slowly than others 
is in accord with all the observed facts. It 
was necessary to prove this in some detail, 
because the further interpretations made 
by Dr. Porter largely hinge upon this point. 

These conclusions are based on the as- 

sumption that ‘‘ the type at a certain devi- 
ation from the mean of an age will show 
the same degree of deviation from the 
mean at any subsequent age; for example, 
a type boy in the 75 percentile grade at age 
6willthroughout his growth be heavier than 
75 per cent. of boys of his own age.”? (No. 4. 
p. 293.) This assumption which I have 
criticised on a former occasion (ScreNncE, 
Dec. 23, 1892, p. 351), is most decidedly in- 
correct, and with it fall all the conclusions 
in regard to the growth of tall children and 
short children. 
_ We know a number of facts which show 
plainly that the assumption is incorrect. 
It has been shown in Dr. Bowditch’s tables 
that Irish children are shorter than Ameri- 
can children. If the position of the Ameri- 
can child is expressed in percentile grades 
of the whole Boston series, and that of the 
Trish child in the same manner, it will be 
seen at once that they diverge more and 
more with increasing age. Pagliani’s meas- 
urements of Italian children and my own 
of Indian tribes of different statures bring 
out the same point still more strongly. 

I think the error underlying the assump- 
tion that the average children retain their 
percentile rank can be shown best in the 
following manner: We know by means of 
observations the distribution of measure- 
ments for certain ages. If the assumption 


SCIENCE. 


229 


is made that the same children remain on 
the average in the same percentile grade a 
certain very complex law of growth follows. 
We may invert this reasoning by saying : 
Only if the assumption of a certain very 
complex law of growth is made can the 
same children remain in the same percentile 
grade. For any different law of growth 
they would change from one grade to an- 
other. There is no inherent probability in 
this law ; on the contrary, it was quite un- 
expected and surprising when first promul- 
gated. As a matter of fact, three factors 
condition the rate of growth: hereditary 
influences, the preceding life history of the 
individual and the average conditions dur- 
ing the period under consideration, and it 
is quite unlikely that these factors should 
always be found to stand in such a relation 
as to result in general stability of percentile 
grades. 

As the facts disprove this assumption, 
and as the cause of the asymmetries remains 
entirely obscure under it, while they can 
be fully explained in all their details by 
the theory advanced before, I cannot ac- 
knowledge that the conclusions reached re- 
garding the growth of tall and short chil- 
dren are correct. 

On pp. 339-348 of his fourth paper Dr. 
Porter makes a valuable suggestion regard- 
ing the practical application of measure- 
ments to the determination of the stage of 
development of individuals. His proposal 
is to compute the distribution of weight, 
chest, girth and others correlated to vari- 
ous heights. Then all children are under 
the suspicion of being abnormally developed 
who differ much from the standard values. 
Dr. Porter assumes the narrow limits of 
the probable deviation as the limits of nor- 
mal variability. It may be a question where 
these limits ought to be drawn, but there 
can be no doubt that this method is much 
better than the one applied in our gymnasia, 
namely, that the individual is expected to 


230 


be in all his measurements on the same per- 
centile grade. This latter method is based 
ona quite erroneous theory of the propor- 
tions of the body. Dr. Porter’s method is also 
better than that based on single measure- 
ments, as it points out abnormal propor- 
tions, not simply abnormal size. It is 
necessary, however, to bear in mind 
the one restriction that many measure- 
ments are not closely correlated with 
stature, but have different correlations. 
This is the case with girth of chest, strength 
of squeeze and many others. Therefore 
their correlation to stature will not give 
more satisfactory results than the study of 
the single measurements alone. It will 
certainly be of great use to school hygiene 
to subject all children whose proportions 
are abnormal to a medical examination, 
but it will not be possible to determine by 
means of the measurements what indi- 
viduals are retarded in growth and what 
are advanced, as Dr. Porter suggests, ex- 
cept in very exceptional cases. The corre- 
lation between any two measurements is so 
slight that a great many cases which are 
normal for one year are also quite normal 
for the preceding and following years at 
least. This is also shown by the fact which 
is apparently so contradictory, that children 
of a certain height are the heavier the older 
they are (according to Bowditch), but that 
also children of a certain weight are the 
taller the older they are. 

Finally, I must say a word in regard to 
Dr. Porter’s objection to the combination of 
measurements taken in different cities. It 
is, of course, true that the results in various 
cities depend upon the composition of the 
population and its geographical and social 
surroundings. If we knew all these factors 
and their influences it would be necessary 
to sub-divide the series of each city into 
numerous divisions. As we do not know 
the exact influence of these factors, we must 
endeavor to take as our basis a general 


SOIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No: 9, 


curve, including as many individuals as 
possible of the same population but under 
a diversity of conditions and compare the 
curves determined by certain factors with 
them. It is, therefore, perfectly correct 
to compute the growth of American chil- 
dren from data collected in various cities, 
provided each city is given its proper 
weight according to the number of chil- 
dren measured. The more cities and vil- 
lages are included in such a combination, 
the more nearly we shall get the curve re- 
presenting the growth of the American child. 
By comparing the general curve with the 
ones obtained in different cities we can in- 
vestigate the causes which produce the dif- 
ference between the individual curves and 
the general curve. We know that national- 
ity, occupation, social status have a con- 
siderable influence. I have found that first- 
born children exceed later-born children in 
size. The effect of all these causes can be 
studied by comparing the individuals repre- 
senting each group of factors with the gen- 
eral population. FRANZ Boas. © 
NEw YORK. 


LABORATORY TEACHING OF LARGE CLASSES 
IN BOTANY.* 

THE great increase in the size of the classes 
in Elementary Botany during late years im 
Harvard College has forced their teachers 
to the development of some system for 
their efficient and economical management 
in the Laboratory. Under the guidance of 
Professor Goodale there has been worked 
out the plan upon which are based the 
recommendations made in this paper; in- 
deed, what I have to say is little more than a 
description of the system in use there during 
the last year I was connected with it, 7. ey 
1892-’93. My observations are, therefore, 
based not upon theory alone, but upon the 
results of trial and selection. 


*Read before the American Society of Naturalists, 
Baltimore, Dec. 28, 1894. 


Marcu 1, 1895.] 


- The conditions which had to be faced 
were these: A class, numbering towards, 
and in one year over, 200 men, and likely in 
the future further to increase, composed of 
beginners ignorant of how to study things, 
comes in for a course in General Botany, 
extending from the middle of February to 
the first of June, in all some fifteen weeks. 
There are two regular weekly lectures. 
The Laboratory work cannot for academical 
reasons exceed an average of four hours 
per week, and for practical reasons it must 
be confined to the hours 11-1 and 2-5 Tues- 
day, the same hours on Thursday, and 9-1 
Saturday, 7. e., only 14 hours in the week 
are available. The normal seating capacity 
of the Laboratory is 75, but the supply of 
dissecting microscopes and boxes for stu- 
dents’ utensils, books, ete., is enough for 

_ over three-fourths of the class. 

_ I give thus fully a statement of the con- 
ditions at Harvard, because they illustrate 
in kind, though perhaps in unusually favor- 
able degree, the difficulties which in more 
or less modified form must be faced in all 
large colleges providing elementary labora- 
tory instruction, and to which an efficient 
system of laboratory management must be 
adapted. These conditions may be classified 
for purposes of discussion as follows : 

1. The classes are too large for individual 
teaching by the instructor. 

2. Laboratory hours must be adjusted to 
other academic work, to insufficient ac- 
commodations and sometimes to yet other 
considerations. 

3. Many students of diverse attainments 
must be taught how to work and to think 
seientifically, and must be kept progressing 
together through the stages of a logically- 
graded course. 

4. Large quantities of special material 
must be provided at an unfavorable season. 

I have placed first what all admit to be 
the greatest drawback to large laboratory 
classes, but one which seems inseparable 


SCIENCE. 231 


from our unwieldy colleges, 7. e., the impos- 
sibility of individual knowledge of and con- 
tact with his students by the instructor. 
That this kind of teaching, this diagnosis 
of each case and fitting of proper treat- 
ment to it, is the only good kind, and that 
no development of methods or systems, or 
of leadership of the whole class by one man, 
ean replace it, is pedagogically so axiomatic 
that the instructor should here take his 
stand squarely and insist that his students 
shall have it, if not from him directly, then 
from competent assistants trained by him. 
I regard this as the first great essential in 
the laboratory teaching of large classes— 
competent assistants. 

The source of supply of such assistants is 
not far to seek; they should come from 
amongst the advanced students who have 
been through the course and who intend to 
make teaching a profession. Any college 
with elementary courses large enough to 
need such a system as we are discussing 
must have advanced students in propor- 
tional numbers, and skillful management of 
the real advantages of the position should 
give the instructor his choice from among 
them. In Harvard College the supply has 
always exceeded the demand; the prestige, 
experience and money attaching to the po- 
sitions make them attractive to the best 
men. 

The assistants having been thus selected, 
it is essential to place each in full charge 
of a section which he keeps without change 
to the end of the term, in order that he may 
come to know well and teach well each in- 
dividual. These sections should never ex- 
ceed thirty men, and twenty-five is a much 
better, and twenty the best number. The 
instructor himself will, of course, visit the 
laboratory constantly, but he will do far 
better to go about among the men generally 
than to take a section himself. Moreover, 
great freedom should be allowed to the judg- 
ment of each assistant in the details of his 


teaching. There must be, to be sure, a uni- 
form plan of study for the course, but the 
earrying-out of the plan in details should be 
left to the assistant, who should be held 
responsible for his results rather than his 
methods. It is very desirable, or perhaps, I 
should say, necessary, to hold weekly meet- 
ings of the assistants at which the coming la- 
boratory topics are discussed, uniform ways 
of treating difficult or morphologically de- 
batable questions agreed upon, and peda- 
gogic advice given, the latter, as I have 
found, always eagerly received and acted 
upon. In this way, in conjunction with 
the weekly guides to be mentioned below, 
all desirable uniformity of treatment can be 
secured. 

Itis necessary, and indeed, good policy as 
well, to pay the assistants ; the amount will 
vary according to the general scale of ex- 
penditure in vogue in the particular college. 
One dollar an hour may be considered fair, 
perhaps the maximum that it is needful to 
pay. 

Let us consider secondly how conflicting 
hours may be adjusted to insufficient ac- 
commodations, and to the need of bringing 
each man always under the same assistant. 
The solution of this often appalling problem 
can be found only in this: the instructor 
must claim for his Laboratory work equal 
rank with any other college exercises, make 
the choice of hours, or rather sections, as 
wide as possible, and require students to 
work exactly in these sections or else remain 
out of the course. The size of the sections 
must be limited partly by the number an 
assistant can manage, partly by the seating 
accommodation of the laboratory. Thus a 
room of fifty to sixty seats can accommodate 
two sections at once. The hours should be 
arranged so as to give at least two hours of 
consecutive time; the best arrangement for 
a four-hour-a-week course is to have each 
section meet in two-hour periods at the same 
hours on two different days. Thus a sec- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 9.7 


tion meeting 11-1 Tuesday would meet 11— 
1 Thursday. Nostudent should be allowed 
to break hours and come in different see- 
tions if it can possibly be avoided. To ar- 
range the students in sections, each should - 
be asked to hand in, at the opening of the 
work, his preference and his second choice. 
The great majority can be assigned to their 
preference, only a few, selectable by lot, 
need to be placed in their second choice 
in order to adjust the sizes of the sections. 
In order to prevent all confusion, we have 
found it very useful to give each student 
a card stating the number of his section, 
of his seat, of his microscope, of his box 
and the name of the assistant, and to 
check off for each section on blue-print plans 
of the laboratory and lists of instruments, 
etc., the numbers as assigned. By this 
plan successive sections may use the same 
seats and instruments without confusion 
and each come always under its own as- 
sistant. j 
We have next to notice how the labor and 
confusion of getting the sections to work 
may be minimized and the time of the assiste — 
ants economized for the higher grades of 
their teaching work, and how the sections 
may be kept progressing uniformly. The 
beginner (and for that matter the most 
advanced of students ), when a new topic is 
placed before him, has no idea of what he is 
to study about it, of what is important and 
what is not, of the nomenclature he is to 
employ. The questions ‘‘ what am I to do 
with it?’ ‘what do you want me to do 
next ?’’ dreadful as they sound, are yetnat- 
ural enough. If these questions can be 
answered for each student without reference 
to the assistant it is an immense gain, and 
they can be answered by a printed guide or 
synopsis of the week’s work supplied each 
week to each student. These should be ar- 
ranged upon the approved plan in use in 
the many excellent laboratory manuals, 7. 
e., they should indicate the points which it, 


Manrcu, 1 1895.] 


is needful to study, suggest some idea of 
their relative importance, give needed bits 
of information now and then, and in general 
supply just enough data to allow the student 
to work by himself to correct conclusions. 
But an ordinary laboratory manual is not 
sufficient, for a great value of these weekly 
guides is that they fit the exact material to 
be used, the state of advancement of the 
class, and the logical course laid out by the 
instructor, which cannot be the same as that 
of anybody else’s manual. These guides 
may also be made to supply botanical 
terms, always upon the good pedagogic 
principle of making the student feel the 
need of a term before supplying it, and then 
offering it not as a term with a definition, 
but as a definition or description which can 
be expressed in a single word. The effect 
of these guides upon the order and rapidity 
of work is remarkably great, and they en- 
able one assistant to teach a much larger 
section than is possible without them. 

It is also of very great value to the labor- 
atory work to have the lectures accompany, 
and actually, as they do theoretically, sup- 
plement it. This is practically possible, 
though perhaps not always convenient. The 
most logical course (to be briefly described 
immediately) that I have been able to de- 
yelopin my few years’ teaching does allow 
the lectures to keep with and supplement the 
laboratory work throughout the term. 
Laboratory study must always be the study 
of a few type forms ; the correlation of the 
data thus gained, their bearing upon general 
principles and their relation to the science 
as a whole must be the function of the 
lecture, and this is the better performed 
when the latter follows as closely as possi- 
ble upon the former and while it is still 
fresh in mind. A few minutes at the begin- 
ning of each lecture devoted specially to the 
topics of the laboratory work just past, and 
its relation to what is to come, has been 
found to be very profitable. 


. 4 


SCIENCE. 233 


We come finally to our fourth and last 
problem, how can good materials be pre- 
vided in the winter to such large classes? 
A college which has abundant greenhouses 
hardly needs to ask this question. What 
remarkable results may be obtained in pro- 
viding large quantities of material from 
small space is shown by Mr. B. M. Watson’s 
work at the Bussey Institution in supplying 
material to the classes at Harvard. For 
those less fortunately situated, its solution 
is to be found in so arranging the course 
that materials available in the markets or 
easily grown, come first, and are gradually 
replaced by out-door materials as the season 
advances. Happily the most logical plan 
of treatment for a general course in Botany 
lends itself exactly to this procedure. Ex- 
perience has shown that with elementary 
classes it is desirable to consider plant life 
as a cycle, which may best be broken for 
study at the seed. Ifnow the structure and 
morphology of the seed be the first topic in 
both Laboratory and Lectures, and its de- 
velopment into the young plant the second, 
and if then the plant-organs leaf, root, 
stem, flower and fruit be treated in succes- 
sion, we are in both brought back to the 
starting point, the seed. If, moreover, in the 
lectures, the full biology and physiology of 
each organ be considered along with its 
anatomy and morphology and as determin- 
ing these, then are the topics not only 
treated in the most logical and instructive 
fashion, but the lectures and laboratory 
work may be kept together, the one truly 
supplementing the other; and the topics are 
taken up in the order which allows material 
best obtainable in winter to come first, 
gradually giving place to that which the 
spring offers. The seed, always obtainable, 
comes first, then follow germinating embryos 
and young plants easy to grow in wardian 
cases in class rooms or at very small cost in 
the nearest greenhouse. Leaves may be ob- 
tained from the same greenhouse, from 


234 


evergreen shrubs out of doors or even 
bought in the markets, as celery, cabbage, 
ete. Roots may likewise come from the 
markets, stems and buds abundantly from 
the trees out of doors, and towards spring 
the latter may be forced to open in warm 
rooms. Far too little use is made of these 
easily obtained materials. By the time the 
vegetative organs have been studied the 
first Apetale will be in bloom, and if the 
students have been properly taught to use 
eyes and hands the Apetalz will present 
no difficulties ; later come other wild flowers, 
and all is easy. 

Allow me, in conclusion, to sum up the 
points of this paper. In the laboratory 
teaching of large classes, the first essential 
is a recognition of the fact that nothing can 
replace individualism in teaching and that 
a sufficient number of assistants should be 
employed. These assistants must be in- 
tending teachers, given some pedagogic in- 
struction, supplied with a uniform plan of 
work, but left very free in the details of their 
modes of reaching the students. Classes 
should be divided into sections with fixed 
hours and containing not more than thirty 
men, over each of which one assistant has 
entire charge until the end of the term. 
As an aid to uniformity of plan and to 
answer the innumerable legitimate ques- 
tions which arise in laboratory work, as 
well as to supply technical nomenclature, 
weekly printed guides, fitted to the exact 
work being done, should be supplied to 
each student. Lectures and laboratory 
work should be kept together and follow 
such a course that the vegetative organs 
upon which material is at all times avail- 
able should be studied in the winter, and 
the reproductive organs in the spring or 
summer. 

So much for a general plan ; each teacher 
must vary it in adaptation to his own 
needs. W. F. Ganone. 

SMITH COLLEGE. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. .No. 9 


MAGNETISM AND THE WEATHER. 

Mucs time has been devoted to the study 
of magnetic and meteorologic observations 
with the hope of establishing a definite con- 
nection between the two. The results thus 
far have been almost entirely negative, al- 
though a connection has been found with 
auroras, and the diurnal range of air pres- 
sure is now believed to be a thermo-electrie 
phenomenon, allied to the diurnal range in 
the swings of the magnetic needle. There 
are certain well established facts that have 
been ascertained regarding magnetism that 
almost always stand at the base of all such 
investigations, although it is admitted that 
magnetic phenomena are extremely com- 
plex, and those of the weather are far 
more so. 

1. The three principal magnetic con- 
ditions or fluctuations are as follows: (a) 
The diurnal change due to some combined 
solar and terrestrial action. (b) Magnetic 
storms, which are peculiar and sharp dis- 
turbances, generally originating in the sun. 
These often occur at three or four successive 
rotations of the sun. 

(c.) A gradual change in magnetism 
from one day to the next. These are quite 
singular, and have been studied more than 
any other conditions in the hope of establish- 
ing some relation with our weather. 

2. In studies of magnetism strenuous and 
long continued efforts have been made to 
establish a regular recurring period depend- 
ing upon the rotation of the sun. It is 
easy to see that if there were such regular 
period its discovery would be of the pro- 
foundest significance. The results of such 
studies, however, have been far from satis- 
factory. It is known that sunspots have a 
different period of rotation, according as 
they are near or far from the equator, and 
this fact is enough to show the extremely 
dubious nature of an attempt to fix on any 
definite period for recurring solar effects. 
It is not at all surprising that more than a 


MARcH 1, 1895.] 


score of periods have been determined from 
25.5 to 27.5 days, depending somewhat 
upon the data employed and upon the me- 
thod of its manipulation. Itis very certain 
that, if any one will take the ‘horizontal 
force,’ for example, and arrange the observa- 
tions in intervals of 26 days (the best thus 
far found) he will quickly find that, judg- 
ing from the disturbed days, there is abso- 
lutely no fixed interval. These disturbed 
days would seem the very best material for 
such studies, as they are very definite. 
These days will occur for three or four ro- 
tations most beautifully, but after that the 
disturbance disappears and no more will 
appear along that line for a score of rota- 
tions. 

In the same way one will very quickly 
find, in using the data and leaving out the 
disturbed days, that there is absolutely no 
recurring period of 26 days or any fraction 
of that interval. Sometimes by grouping 
ten rotations one will find a fairly good 
fluctuation, but the very next group of ten 
rotations will make ‘hodge podge’ of the 
previous group. This would seem an ex- 
tremely important point to settle, as months 
have been devoted to fruitless efforts in 
trying to determine such a period. 

3. The fluctuations under (c) above are 
simultaneous over the whole earth, as has 
been shown by the records at Batavia, 
India, Los Angeles, Cal.; St. Petersburg 
and Tiflis, in Russia; Vienna, Austria; 
Washington, D. C.,and Zikawei, China. 
One is struck at once by the wonderful 
regularity of these fluctuations over the 
whole Northern Hemisphere. Making al- 
lowance for the difference of time and for 
disturbed days, the fluctuations are found to 
be exactly the same at each station, and the 
record at a single station will answer per- 
fectly for comparison with any supposed 
related meteorologic phenomenon. 

4. After thirteen years of study and care- 
ful discussion I am satisfied that the pressure 


=. 


SCIENCE. 235 


of the air, or perhaps the fluctuations of the 
dew point, are by far the best to use for de- 
termining a possible connection with mag- 
netism. Iam also perfectly satisfied that, 
except in the cases specified above, there is 
no direct relation between magnetic and 
meteorologic phenomena, and this is also 
the outcome of the exhaustive studies in 
England and on the continent. I am also 
satisfied that there is an indirect relation, 
but the phenomena are so extremely com- 
plex that it has proven impossible to deter- 
mine it up to the present. 

5. In all studies of this character, and in 
all attempts at determining coincidences 
between such phenomena, one will always 
find a most valuable check by cutting up 
the long list of rotations into groups of 7, 
10 or 14 rotations in each. If these sepa- 
rate groups do not show a thread running 
through them, or fluctuations common to all 
and continually recurring, he may be satis- 
fied that there is nothing init. There is a 
peculiar and well-nigh unaccountable fasci- 
nation in arranging and summing groups of 
figures in the hope that something may 
come, but continuous effort will show that 
there is something back of it all which is 
not understood, and no headway can be 
made by direct comparisons. 

H. A. Hazen. 

FEBRUARY 1, 1895. 


SIMILAR INVENTIONS IN AREAS WIDE 
APART. 

As a contribution to the much disputed 
question of the occurrence of similar inven- 
tions in areas wide apart, I desire to call the 
attention of readers to the device for weay- 
ing of which I have found abundant ex- 
amples in the Pueblo country, in the New 
England States, and in Finland. 

The apparatus consists essentially of a 
small rectangular frame-work in which are 
placed a series of perpendicular slats perfo- 
rated in the middle. It has the appearance 


236 


of a grating of small bars about one-six- 
teenth of an inch apart, and each bar is 
pierced in the middle. In fact, all of these 
are the harness of a small loom used in 
weaving tape, braid, garters, belts and the 
like. 

Among the old-time families of New Eng- 
land, this apparatus is set up by taking a 
ball of twine or thread which is to constitute 
the warp, and walking around a number of 
chairs placed at a distance from one another 
as many times as there are to be threads in 
the warp. This coil is then cut apart, one 
end tied together in a knot, and the separate 
threads of the other end passed through the 
holes of the slats and between them. This 
apparatus is worked by lifting and depres- 
sing this frame as the weft shuttle is passed 
backward and forward by the hand. At 
each turn the weft is beaten home by the 
harness, the lower end of which is held be- 
tween the knees, by the shuttle, or by the 
hand. 

In a Zuni example in the Museum set up 
by Mr. Cushing, the weaver sits upon the 
ground, having the far end of the warp 
fastened to some part of the building, and 
the proximal end attached to a stick form- 
ing part of a belt. The very same process 
employed by the New England woman 
is.also in vogue among the Pueblos. By 
lifting and depressing the frame which 
is simply a couple of parallel sticks to 
which split reeds are tied, having holes 
burnt through the center, the weaver is able 
to pass the shuttle stick backward and for- 
ward. 

When the Pueblo woman wishes to make 
short garters she uses the soles of her feet 
as a resting place for the little bar to which 
the far end of the weft is attached. Her 
shuttle is a stick on which the weft yarn is 
wound. 

The Finnish harness is carved from a 
single block of wood, the upper and lower 
borders being somewhat cylindrical and the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 9. 


upright bars carved like little slats from the 
solid piece. These are perforated exactly 
after the manner of the New England ex- 
amples. 

I learn by inquiring at the Patent Office ~ 
in Washington, that in Belgium a patent 
has recently been issued for an improvement 
on this style of weaving apparatus. 

TI leave the question open as to the amount 
of contact between the Fins, the New Eng- 
land housewife and the Pueblo woman. It 
is easy enough to account for the dispersion 
of this apparatus among the white people of 
Europe, and thence among the Fins and the 
New England farmers. The only question 
for us to inquire into now, is, where did the 
Pueblo woman learn to weave after this 
fashion ? 

Dr. Matthews tells me that the Navajo 
do not use this frame, but make their belts 
by means of a harness similar to that which 
they employ in making their blankets. It 
is also a question where and how the 
Navajos learned to set up a loom so much 
like those found among the primitive Euro- 
pean weavers. It is a fact that the Aino 
employ precisely the same apparatus as do 
the Navajo. O. T. Mason. 

WASHINGTON. 


THE SOCIAL SENSE. 

ALL persons thrown intimately with chil- 
dren from about four years of age and later 
may serve psychologists by making detailed 
observations of what may be called ‘chum- 
ming’ on the part of children and youth. By 
‘chumming’ is meant all instances of un- 
usually close companionship voluntarily 
made, ‘platonic affection,’ personal influ- 
ence one over another when this influence 
is limited more or less to one person, and 
when the relationship is stronger than ordi- 
nary and is shown in any unusual or re- 
markable ways, such as bearing punishment 
for or with the other, moping or becoming 
very unsocial when separated. Cases of 


MAakcu 1, 1895.] 


boys chumming with boys, and girls with 
girls, are especially valuable; and of older 
persons of the same sex. Similar observa- 
tions are needed on cases of marked or 
unreasonable antipathy of one child to an- 
other. 

The object of the inquiry is to get light 
on the growth of the child’s social sense, 
what it is that attracts and repels him most 
in others. To this end observations on the 
following points are especially desired by 
the writer. 

In every case of chumming or anti- 
pathy : 

1. (a) Ask the child A why he loves or 
dislikes the child B. Take down the an- 
swers in full. (b) Repeat the question once 
a week for six weeks at least, if the phe- 
nomenon continues. 

2. (a) Observe what A imitates most in 
B, and (b) whether he imitates the same 
actions or qualities in others besides B. 
(ec) Note whether what A imitates in B 
is more prominent in B than in other per- 
‘Sons. 

3. (a) Observe how far A shares his toys, 
property, food, pleasures, ete., with B more 
than with other children. (b) Ask him 
why he gives his things to B. (c) Observe 
whether this keeps up if B does not re- 
eiprocate. 

4. (a) Observe any cases in which A is 
willing to suffer for or with B. (b) Whether 
he will fight for him, or defend him with 
words (give details of actions or words of 
defense). 

5. Observe whether B figures largely in 
A’s dreams (a) by noting any speech aloud 
when sleeping, and (b) by asking A fre- 
quently what he dreamed about the pre- 
ceding night (being careful not to suggest 
B to him in any way). 

6. State all the details of the relation be- 
tween A and Bespecially. (a) Do they see 
each other oftener than they do others? 
(Db) Do they sit together in school? (c) Do 


i 


SCIENCE. 237 


they room or sleep together? (d) Have 
they any common infirmity or fault (stam- 
mering, defective vision, stooping, deceitful- 
ness, &c.)? (e) Have they ever been pun- 
ished or disgraced together in school or at 
home ? 

7. Give (a) what is known (not mere im- 
pressions) of the disposition of each ; (b) - 
the length of time they have shown the lik- 
ing or antipathy. 

8. In case of the breaking off of the lik- 
ing or antipathy (a) note all the facts which 
lead to it. (b) Question each child as to 
why he has ceased to like or dislike the 
other. 

9. When the relation is mutual make the 
same series of observations with the second 
child, B, as with the first, A (as given 
above). 

10. Give the number of companions of each 
child reported on: (a) Number of brothers 
and sisters, and their ages and places of resi- 
dence with or away from the child reported 
on. (b) Amount of time per day which 
the child spends with other children in 
school and on the street, ete. 

11. Make special note of any unusual oe- 
eurrences or action, showing the affection 
or antipathy, which are not covered by this 
schedule. 

N. B. All observations should cover as 
many of these enquiries as possible; yet ob- 
servations of some of them only should still 
besentin. All observations should be care- 
fully arranged under the headings of the 
schedule, 7. e., by the numbers, letters, ete., 
in order to secure correct classification. All 
reports and enquiries should be addressed 
to the undersigned at Princeton, N. J., and 
should bear the name and address of the 
sender plainly written. All names, per- 
sonal details, etc., are strictly confidential, 
except when special consent to the contrary 
is given in further correspondence. 

J. Mark Batpwiy. 


PRINCETON. 


238 


AMERICAN STUDENTS AT THE NAPLES 
ZOOLOGICAL STATION. 

Iy another number of Scrmnce the steps 
leading to the establishment in 1892 of the 
United States Table at Naples, by the 
Smithsonian Institution are described. Up- 
on behalf of Harvard College, Prof. Alex- 
ander Agassiz subscribed for a second table 
at the same time. Mr. Willian E. Dodge, 
of New York, has recently visited the Sta- 
tion,and has offered to contribute $250 a 
year for three years toward a third Ameri- 
ean Table. In response to this offer Dr. 
Anton Dohrn has sent to Mr. Dodge the 
following interesting letter, giving a com- 
plete history of American work at the 
Naples Station up to the present time : 

‘“ When I established the Station I had a 
correspondence with Professor Louis Agas- 
siz, who greatly applauded my plans, but 
at the time was not in a. position to estab- 
lish any relations with us. In a later letter 
he told me that he had also begun to work 
in the same direction, having procured a 
sum of money and a suitable locality in 
Penikese Island, where he would try to es- 
tablish a school of marine biology. In the 
year 1881 Professor Whitman, now of Chi- 
cago University, came to Naples, on his re- 
turn from Japan, where he had been pro- 
fessor at Tokio for two years, and asked for 
permission to work in the Zodlogical Sta- 
tion. Although there was no American 
Table for him I offered him hospitality, and 
he remained for six months. Half a year 
later came Miss Nunn, availing herself of 
the table of the University of Cambridge, 
also for six months. In 1883 Dr. Sharp, 
from Philadelphia, spent two months 
at the Bavarian Table. In the same year 
the first American Table was engaged by 
Williams College for one year, and this table 
was first occupied by Prof. E. B. Wilson, 
now at Columbia College, for six months, 
and was engaged later by Professor Clarke, 
of Williams College, but owing to sickness 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 9 


he postponed coming until the year 1884. 
In 1885 the table was subscribed for one 
year by the University of Pennsylvania, 
and was occupied first by Dr. Dolley and 
later by Dr. Patten. Dr. Patten was also 
received for six months as our guest. 

‘““All my efforts to secure the codperation 
of other American colleges proved unsuc- 
cessful, and again the American naturalists 
took advantage of the English and German 
Tables. Dr. Cobb, of Massachusetts, occu- 
pied the British Association Table for two 
months. Mr. Norman, of Indiana, oceu- 
pied the Hamburg Table; Mr. Ward, from 
Troy, the table of the Grand Duchy of Baden, 
and Mr. Kaufman one of the Prussian 
Tables. This was in the spring of 1891, 
when Major Davis first visited Naples and 
became acquainted with the state of things. 
He immediately offered, in a most generous 
way, to engage a table for his countrymen, 
and asked me not to admit any more Ameri- 
eans to the European tables. His table 
was immediately occupied by Dr. Russell, a 
botanist, who worked here during four 
months ; by Miss Platt, of Boston, for three 
months, and again in the second year by 
Professor E. B. Wilson, then of Bryn Mawr. 
Dr. Corning, also an American, but oecu- 
pying the post of assistant in Prague Uni- 
versity, came upon one of the Austrian 
Tables, and Dr. Bashford Dean, of Colum- 
bia, upon the Bavarian Table, while the 
Davis Table was occupied by others. In 
the year 1893 the Davis Table was occupied 
by Dr. Field, of Baltimore, and Dr. Parker, 
from Harvard College. In the meantime 
Dr. C. W. Stiles, of Washington, who had 
paid a short visit to the Zodlogical Station 
in 1891, led a movement for the establish- 
ment of more direct official relations between 
American institutions and the Zodlogical 
Station, and finally upon the unanimous re- 
commendation of the Society of American 
Naturalists, the secretary of the Smithson- 
ian Institution entered into a contract for 


— 


Mancu 1, 1895.] 


an American table for three years. Almost 
at the same time Professor Agassiz engaged 
a table for Harvard College for three years. 
Both of these tablesare in demand by so many 
investigators that they still do not cover the 
needs of American students. In fact, there 
have always been more American occupants 
than tables, and I receive them willingly as 
guests. Dr. Fairchild, of Washington, Dr. 
Wheeler, of Chicago, and Professor Bum- 
pus, of Brown University, occupied the 
Smithsonian Table in 1893-94, while Mr. 
Rice, of Washington, occupied the Harvard 
Table in 1894. In 1894-5 Dr. Murbach, of 
Berkeley, occupied the Smithsonian Table, 
while Dr. Child and Professor Ritter, of the 
University of California, occupied the Har- 
vard Table. At the same time Professor 
Hargitt, of Syracuse University, and Pro- 
fessor Gardiner, of the University of Colo- 
rado, were received as guests. At the pres- 
ent time Professor Morgan, of Bryn Mawr, 
and Professor Leslie Osborn, of the Uni- 
versity of Indiana, are occupying the Smith- 
 sonian Table, and Dr. Nutting and Pro- 
fessor Reighard are soon expected to arrive. 
“ These twenty-nine American naturalists 
have already profited by the Zodlogical 
Station, and many more would have come 
had arrangements been made earlier and on 
alarger scale. In comparison with Euro- 
pean states, I may state that Germany rents 
eleven tables, Italy nine, Austria-Hungary 
three, England three, Russia three (which 
were discontinued this year, but are going to 
be continued). Spain has had three, which 
have been for a time discontinued, but will 
most likely be re-established. Holland, 
Belgium, Switzerland and Roumania have 
each one table. I entertain the hope that 
France and the Scandinavian kingdoms 
will subsequently secure tables. Iam glad 
to say that the Zodlogical Station is quite 
capable of giving them all the full benefit 
of its complete arrangements.” 
This letter places before American zodlo- 


» 


SCIENCE. 


239 


gists in the most direct and convincing 
manner the importance, not to say obliga- 
tion, of remedying the past infringement 
upon the hospitality of the broad-minded 
director of the famous station. The Smith- 
sonian table and the Harvard table should 
now be supplemented by a third, and it is to 
be hoped that some means will be found of 
adding $250 to the generous subscription of 
Mr. Dodge and securing this end. 
Henry F. Osporn. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS. 

Mr. Epiror: In Scrence of January 11, 
p. 47, Dr. D. G. Brinton reviews under the 
title ‘The Missing Link Found at Last,’ 
Dr. E. Dubois’ Memoir on Pithecanthropus 
Dr. Brinton, while accepting the 
dental apparatus to be of the simian type, 
acknowledges that the skull is like the 
famous Neanderthal man, and that the 
femora are singularly human. Professor 
O. C. Marsh (Silliman’s Journal, February, 
1895, p. 144) calls Pithecanthropus an ‘ ape- 
man.’ In another place he alludes to it as 
a‘ large anthropoid ape.’ A communication 
signed ‘R. L.,’ presumably Richard Lydek- 
ker, appeared in ‘ Nature,’ January 24, 
1895 ; the ground is taken that the femur 
of Pithecanthropus is ‘ actually human ;’ that 
the skull ‘can belong to no wild anthro- 
poid ;’ and that the molar may ‘ perfectly 
well be human.’ 

It thus appears that differences of opinion 
are already being entertained, respecting 
the validity of Pithecanthropus. I have ven- 
tured to make a contribution to the subject, 


erectus. 


since I quite agree with ‘R. L.’ Thesingle 
tooth preserved (see the accompanying cut) 


240 


is the third upper molar. It possesses two 
divergent roots. Contrary to what one ex- 
pects, the smaller part of the crown forms 
the outside (buccal), and the larger the in- 
side (palatal) surface. Du Bois thus de- 
scribes the tooth on the assumption that the 
broader of the two roots represented two 
other confluent roots. If the broader half 
of the crown were outside (as it appears to 
be from the figure) the identification of the 
tubercles on the grinding surface would be 
easy. As it is, it is difficult, if not impos- 
sible, to name the cusps. The tooth must 
be classified as irregular and degenerate. 
I am in the habit of naming such teeth, 
crater-like, since all sides of the crown are 
uniformly higher than the centre, and the 
sides of the single valley are much fissured. 
We often meet with such teeth in man, but 
so far as I know they have not been seen in 
apes. 

The tuberculation in the gorilla for the 
third molar is complete; the fourth cusp 
(hypocone), while rudimentary, is distinct. 
In the chimpanzee, according to Owen, the 
third molar is tritubercular, but in a speci- 
men in the Academy of Natural Sciences of 
Philadelphia, it shows distinctly the rudi- 
ment of ahypocone. In the orang the third 
molar is distinctly quintitubercular, the 
fifth cusp being developed in the commissure 
between the mesocone and the hypocone. 

The tooth of Pithecanthropus is larger than 
any human tooth with which I am famil- 
ilar. The following table will place its 
measurements in harmony with ape and 
human teeth. 


Length. Width. 
Pithecanthropus,..........-.... 11.3mm. 15.3 mm. 
Gorilla’ Ore ao... eee 41“ 135 “ 
Orang, ....« 35 ee oo o/s Oy sie NB ets 
Chimpanzeeyn Ses. - =... eles NOR ncws OY. ic 
Native of Australia,(1). ....... SU) ie sian baal 

so RGh Lait) | | (o) er HO ee 14) 
“ © Sandwich Islands,....10° “ 13.5 “¢ 


In Owen’s Odontography the gibbon is 
seen to possess a molar of length 6 mm. and 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S.. Von. I. No. 9 


width 7.5mm.; but even here the form of the 
tooth is quite unlike that of Pithecanthropus, 
being tritubercular with a rudimental hypo- 
cone. The tooth, unlike that of any anthro- 
poid ape examined, is wider than long. The 
proportion of the width in comparison t0 
the length is much the same as in the third 
molar of the human subject. The great 
size of the tooth and the possession of three 
roots, forming two diverging root-stems are 
distinguishing characters, but they are not 
simian. Some allowance must be made for 
the great variability in the shape of the 
third upper human molar. 

Respecting the calvarium, I note in the 
view of the vertex a median elevation ap- 
parently over the interfrontal suture. This 
is often met with in the human skull, but 
so far as I know is never seen in the skull 
of the ape. The recession back of the exter- 
nal orbital process differs only in degree from 
that seen in man. The femur is indubi- 
tably human. Harrison ALLEN. 

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 14, 1895. 


THE ELIHU THOMSON PRIZE. 


Tue Epiror or Scrence: Your trans- 
atlantic contemporary, Natwre, has from its 
beginning enjoyed a large support among 
scientific men of the United States. It is 


‘so well conducted, and combines in so un- 


usual a degree freshness and reliability, that 
it it is: almost indispensable, and Americans 
continue to renew their subscriptions an- 
nually, in spite of the very general feeling 
and not infrequently expressed opinion that, 
on the whole, it is not now and never has 
been quite fair or just in its treatment of 
American science and scientific men. 

An illustration of this is to be found in a 
recent number (January 31, 1895) which 
is so striking as to deserve attention. On 
page 324 will be found a note in reference 
to the recently announced award of the 
Elihu Thomson Prize (see this journal, 
page 190). It is a most ingeniously con- 


Marci 1, 1895.] 


structed account of the award made by the 
Paris Committee, the preparation of which 
must have cost the writer no small effort. 
So skilfully, however, are the words selected 
and the phrases arranged that, to one un- 
familiar with the facts, the note appears to 
be a simple and straightforward statement 
that in declaring the award the Committee 
announced that it had found two memoirs 
_of equal value and that it was decided to 
award a prize of 5000 franes to each, the 
collection of the additional money being the 
-eause of the delay in the publication of 
_the decision of the Committee. In the ac- 
count of the affair in a recent number of 
Scrence it was pretty clearly stated that the 
memoir prepared by an American, Dr. Web- 
ster, of Clark University, had been adjudged 
_by the Committee to be worthy of first place. 
In order that every reader may be able 
to decide this matter for himself, the follow- 
_ ing quotations from the report of the Com- 
mittee are submitted: Memoir 3 was that 
to be the work of Messrs. Oliver Lodge and 
R. T. Glazebrook, and No. 4 was that of 
Dr. Webster. 

“Le n° 3 est consacré a la vérification de 
la formule donant la périod des décharges 
oscillantes d’un condensateur. C’est un 
travail considérable, accompagné de plusi- 
eurs photographies et dans lequel l’auteur 
a cherché, au moyen de caleuls approfondis, 
A éyaluer toutes les corrections inhérentes 
4 Vemploi de sa méthode. 

“La vérification n’est qu’approachée ; le 
principe de la méthode pourrait donner lieu 
A quelques critiques, le cireuit de la dé- 
charge se fermant périodiquement par une 
étincelle qui introduit des perturbations im- 
possibles & prévoir. 

“Le mémoir n° 4 port sur le méme sujet, 
étudié par une méthode nouvelle dans ses 
détails, quia permis 4 l’auteur d’atteindre 
et de mesurer des périodes de quelques cent- 
milliémes de seconde. L/’influence des 
principales causes d’erreur parait trés at- 


= 


4 


SCIENCE. 


241 


ténuée, bien qu’il reste encore quelques 
doutes sur linfluence de la capacité inhér- 
ente a la bobine de self-induction. La for- 
mule a été vérifiée a 1 pour 100 prés. Le 
temps a fait défaut 4 vauteur pour complé- 
ter ses recherches en variant les conditions 
de ses expériences.” 

And then the following award from the 
‘ procés-verbal’ of the Commission : 

‘La Commission estime que le mémoire 
n° 4 est digne de recevoir le prix établi par 
le Professeur Elihu Thomson ; elle espére 
que ce témoignage encouragera l’auteur A 
continuer ses belle recherches. 

““*Toutefois elle regrette de ne pas avoir 
a sa disposition deux prix d’égale valeur 
qu’elle serait heureuse @’attribuer aux mé- 
moires n° 3 et n° 4,’” ; 

A literal translation of the above, as a 
fair statement of its meaning is, perhaps, 
too much to look for in the columns of 
‘Nature,’ but it is a pleasure to assure 
Messrs. Lodge and Glazebrook, whose names 
are ‘household words’ in every corner of 
this country, that their reputation is not 
such as to need bolstering by any oblique 
methods. M. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 


Monographie Revision of the Pocket Gophers, 
Family Geomyide (exclusive of the Species of 
Thomomys). By Dr. C. HArt Merriam. 
North American Fauna, No. 8. Wash- 
ington, Government Printing Office. 
1895. S8vo, pp. 258, pll. 18, with 4 maps 
and 71 cuts in text. 

In this memoir Dr. Merriam has pro- 
duced an admirable piece of monographic 
work, setting a standard that may well be 
aimed at by other workers in the treatment 
of similar groups. The family Geomyide, 
or the Pocket Gophers, has hitherto been 
regarded as consisting of the two genera 
Geomys and Thomomys, only the first of 
which is here treated. It is a distinctively 
North American group, ranging from the 


242 


dry interior of British Columbia and the 
plains of the Saskatchewan to Costa Rica. 
The regions oceupied respectively by the two 
groups, however, do not to any great ex- 
text overlap, Thomomys occupying in the 
United States the area west of the Great: 
Plains, and the Geomys group the region be- 
tween the Mississippi River and the eastern 
base of the Rocky Mountains, with outlying 
representatives in northern Florida and the 
contiguous portions of Alabama and Geor- 
gia. In Mexico Thomomys ranges over the 
peninsula of Lower California and a large 
portion of the interior of Mexico, which lat- 
ter region it shares with numerous forms of 
the Geomys group, now broken up by Dr. 
Merriam into no less than nine genera. 
These collectively not only occupy a large 
part of central and southern Mexico, but 
extend as far southward as Costa Rica. 

In respect to material Dr. Merriam has 
been especially fortunate, having availed 
himself of opportunities at his disposal as 
Chief of the Division of Ornithology and 
Mammalogy of the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, to bring together ma- 
terial from a wide area and in an abund- 
ance scarcely dreamed of by any previous 
monographer of the group. Of the one 
thousand specimens thus rendered avail- 
able for study, over two hundred are from 
Mexico and Central America, from which 
area the specimens previously handled by 
investigators could be counted on the fin- 
gers of the two hands. Hence not only has 
the known area inhabited by these animals 
been greatly extended, but the harvest of 
specimens has yielded novelties not pre- 
viously suspected to exist. 

Only about one-half of Dr. Merriam’s 
exceilent memoir is given to the systematic 
descriptions of the genera and species, the 
first hundred pages being devoted to the 
generalities of the subject—habits, func- 
tion and structure of the cheek pouches, 
food, sexual and individual variation, geo- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 9. 


graphical distribution, etc., about 15 pages— 
and to chapters on the morphology of the 
skull (80 pages) and the dental armature 
(36 pages). Nearly seventy of the text fig- 
ures and six plates relate to the structure 
of the skull and teeth, this profusion of 
illustration greatly facilitating a clear com- 
prehension of the points discussed in the 
text, and forming a most important feature 
of the work. 

In coloration, size and in external details 
generally, the species of Geomyid are yery 
much alike. There are, however, large 
forms and small forms, between which there 
isa wide difference in size, and also forms 
that are normally plumbeous instead of the 
usual shade of yellowish brown, but in gen- 
eral, even for the discrimination of species, 
resort must be made to structural details of 
the skull and teeth, which often afford char- 
acters of importance where external differ- 
ences are nearly inappreciable. The range 
of variation in cranial and dental charae- 
ters is so great, in these animals which 
look so much alike externally, that Dr. 
Merriam has felt justified in separating the 
old genus Geomys into nine groups which he 
thinks should rank as genera, ‘several of 
which’ he says, ‘ are of supergeneric value.’ 
These genera are Geomys, Pappogeomys, Or- 
thogeomys, Cratogeomys, Platygeomys, Orthogeo- 
mys, Heterogeonys, Macrogeomys and Gygogeo- 
mys. While these are apparently natural 
groups, doubtless taxonomers will differ as 
to whether all are entitled to full generie 
rank. 

In 1857 Baird recognized seven species of 
Geomys, of which six retain place in Mer- 
riam’s list. In 1877 Coues, in his mono- 
graphic revision of the genus, admitted five. 
During the last two years others have been 
described, raising the number currently 
admitted in 1894 to sixteen. To this num- 
ber Dr. Merriam here adds twenty-one, 
raising the total of species and sub-species 
to thirty-seven! Only the genera Geomys 


¥ 
; 
| Maren 1, 1895.]. 


and Cratogeomys are represented in the 

United States; the former, with seven spe- 

_ eies and five sub-species, scarcely extends 

‘across our southern border; the latter, 

with seven species and one sub-species, 

is mainly Mexican, one speciés, however, 

_ ranging northward over southeastern New 
Mexico and northwestern Texas. Macro- 
geomys is known only from Costa Rica; He- 
terogeomys and Orthogeomys occupy separate 
areas in southern Mexico and Guatemala; 

Pappogeomys, Platygeomys and Zygogeomys 
occur in central and western Mexico, the 
latter being known,only from a very re- 

stricted area in the State of Michoacan. 

The chapters on the Morphology of the 
Skull and the Dental Armature bring into 
strong relief many points in relation to 
changes of structure, due to age and growth, 
which have heretofore been only lightly 
touched upon, and especially the influence 
of the masseter muscle upon the general 
shape of the skull in adult life. The facts 
here presented may well be studied with 
eare and profit by students of not only the 
mammals of to-day, but of the extinct forms 
aswell. The skull is considered not only 
as a whole, but its individual bones are 
treated in detail, with cuts showing the 
skull sectionized, and young skulls in com- 
parison with old ones of the same species. 
The memoir thus illustrates some of the best 
work and the tendencies of the ‘ new school’ 
in recent mammalogy. In fact, no similar 
group of mammals has before been treated 
in such exhaustive detail, or from a mor- 
phological standpoint, or with such admi- 
rable profusion of illustration. 

J. A. ALLEN. 

AMERICAN Museum oF ; 
NatTuRAL History, New York. 

The Planet Earth. Ricuarp A. Grecory, 
16 mo, pp. 108. Macmillan & Co., New 
York. Price 60 cents. 

This little book is called ‘An Astronomi- 
cal Introduction to Geography.’ In the 


.7 


SCIENCE. 243 


preface the reader is promptly informed 
that in class books on Astronomy and 
Geography the subject of the earth con- 
sidered as a planet is treated inadequately 
and unscientifically. The author expresses 
his hope that his treatment, which, by in- 
ference, is both adequate and scientific, may 
be the means of reviving the ‘ Observa- 
tional Astronomy of pre-telescopic times.’ 
Just why the telescope should be tabooed, 
or why it is less ‘scientific’ than strings 
with beads strung on them, does not clearly 
appear. It is quite evident, however, that 
the author wishes to restore what is some- 
times called the ‘historical’ method of 
presentation and instruction, according to 
which the student is expected to traverse 
the path along which mankind has slowly 
toiled in order to reach conclusions which 
in the present state of our knowledge are 
often quickly attained by perfectly logical 
processes. There is, also, generally involved 
in this method, the erroneous assumption 
that a student can, in the short time avail- 
able for his training in science and scienti- 
fie methods, re-discover for himself all the 
great facts and principles which are the 
fruit of ages of intellectual activity, if 
only he has a few simple appliances at hand 
and is started-in the right direction. This 
is a very large error, and it is not desirable 
to pursue it farther at this point. Admit- 
ting; therefore, and no one will venture to 
deny this, that much can be learned by a 
proper study of the apparent motions of the 
heavenly bodies, and that young people 
should be led to make such study before 
finishing or even beginning their study of 
the earth, as it is presented in the so-called 
unscientific treatment in Astronomy and 
Geography, it is yet extremely doubtful if 
the book now under consideration will be 
of real value to them. 

The first chapter, which forms a consid- 
erable part of the whole, is devoted to ‘ the 
constellations.’ The continued fixedness of 


244 


the North Star at one point in the sky is 
established by a quotation from Shake- 
speare, but there is an intimation later that 
the distinguished poet was possibly a little 
weak in his Astronomy. The author is 
very fond of bolstering up quite generally 
accepted scientific theories by poetic quota- 
tions, and even in the case of the Law of 
Gravitation, against which there can hardly 
be said to be any serious rebellion at the 
present time, he finds it desirable to repeat 
that bit of nonsense beginning, 


“The very law that moulds a tear,”’ 


for the existence of which not even poetic 
license furnishes excuse. 

In the discussion of the size and mass of 
the earth, as elsewhere, great unevenness 
is shown. On one page is a diagram of a 
complicated piece of triangulation by the 
British Ordnance Survey, including the 
base-line on Salisbury Plain, and on that 
opposite is one explaining angular measure 
and terrestrial latitude by opening the legs 
of a pair of compasses. In the discussion 
of latitude there are many errors, and a be- 
ginner will be greatly helped by not reading 
it. There is a good deal about the Zodiac, 
with incidental references to ‘mansions in 
the sky’ and the emotions with which the 
first men witnessed the first Setting of the 
Sun, ‘to whom he was dead,’ together with 
a brief account of how their hopes were 
buoyed up and their fears calmed by the 
appearance of the ‘ Evening Star.’ See wood 
cut on opposite page representing Venus 
shining upon a rural scene, including a vil- 
lage of at least twenty houses, a church 
with a tall spire tipped with a cross, and 
calming the fears ofa farmer driving a yoke 
of oxen drawing a cart on which is prob- 
ably a half ton of hay or grain or something 
of the sort. This is a marvellous develop- 
ment for a single day. At this point more 
poetry appears, and the rigorously scientific 
treatment is enhanced in value by numer- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No.9, 


ous references to Lucifer, Apollo, ete., ete. 
To illustrate the phases of Venus, which, 
by the way, hardly belong to pre-telescopic 
astronomy, the author shows a picture in 
which a lamp represents the sun, and a 
comely young woman with quite-up-to-date 
leg-of-mutton sleeves is represented as 
standing in four positions, in front of, 
behind, on the right and on the left of the 
luminary as viewed by the reader. Un- 
fortunately it has been thought necessary 
to represent this young lady as looking 
squarely at the sun in all of the four posi- 
tions, and thus what is intended to simplify 
the explanation of one phenomenon proyes 
to be much more effective in establishing a 
very erroneous conclusion respecting an- 
other. And this is not the only happening 
of this kind in the barely one hundred pages 
of the book. To one who only ‘skims’ 
through it, it is reminiscent of the days of 
a quarter or half century ago, when ‘ As- 
tronomy and the Use of the Globes’ was a 
favorite subject in young ladies’ seminaries. 
A more careful examination shows, however, 
that it is not so harmless as might at first 
appear, and although it unquestionably con- — 
tains some good features it is quite safe to 
predict that the ‘inadequate and unscien- 
tific’ treatment of the subject found in good, 
modern text-books of Astronomy and Geog- 
raphy will continue, for the present, to re- 
ceive the confidence of both instructors and 
students. T.C.M. 


Biological Lectures’ Delivered at the Marine 
Biological Laboratory of Wood’s Holl. 8vo, 
242 pp. Boston, Ginn & Co. 1894. 

In no way, short of an actual sojourn at 
the Wood’s Holl Laboratory, is it possible 
to secure a better idea of the scope and 
character of the opportunities afforded by 
this institution than by the perusal of this 
series of selected lectures. Wood’s Holl is 
at once the ‘ finishing school’ of the Ameri- 
can biological student, and the rallying point 


Manrcw 1, 1895.] 


for trained investigators. Its biological 
laboratory affords advantages which are 
each year more widely appreciated, and one 
has but to glance over the titles of the papers 
listed in the appendix to the volume under 
consideration, to be impressed with the 
scientific vigor which characterizes both its 
staff and pupils. 

The ten lectures for 1894 bear the follow- 
ing titles: I. ‘The Mosaic Theory of De- 
yelopment,’ by E. B. Wilson. II. ‘The 
Fertilization of the Ovum,’ by E, G. Conk- 
lin. III. ‘On Some Facts and Principles 
of Physiological Morphology,’ by Jacques 
Loeb. IV. ‘ Dynamics of Evolution,’ by J. 
A. Ryder. V. ‘On the Nature of Cell-Or- 
ganization,’ by 8. Watasé. VI. ‘The In- 
adequacy of the Cell-Theory of Develop- 
ment,’ by C. O. Whitman. VII. ‘ Bdellos- 
toma Dombeyi Lac,’ by Howard Ayres. 
VIII. ‘The Influence of External Condi- 
tions on Plant Life,’ by W. P. Wilson. IX. 
‘Trrito Contractility in Plants,’ by J. Miur- 
head McFarlane. X. ‘The Marine Biolog- 
ieal Stations of Europe,’ by Bashford Dean. 

Of these papers more than one-half are 
eoncerned in a presentation of the results of 
modern research into the activities of the 
living cell, and it would be difficult to di- 
rect a student to any one volume from 
which he might gain a clearer idea, or find 
a more satisfactory discussion, of the pres- 
ent condition of theory and established fact 
concerning the cell state. Prof. E. B. Wil- 
son strikes the key-note of the motive 
which runs through the book when he calls 
attention, on the first page, to the remark- 
able change of front which has taken place 
during recent years respecting the germ- 
layer theory—namely : (a) the growing re- 
cognition of the inadequacy of a theory of 
development which practically ignores the 
pregastrular stages of the ovum; and (b) 
the tendency to resume the attempts of 
Briicke and others to formulate a pre-or- 
ganization theory which should account for 


_ 


SCIENCE. 


245 


the evident organization of the cell, by the 
postulation of primary elements, or bearers 
of cell qualities; the ‘ physiological units’ 
of Herbert Spencer, the ‘gemmules’ of 
Darwin, the ‘ Micelle’ of Niageli, the ‘ plas- 
tidules’ of Elsberg and Haeckel, the ‘ ino- 
tagmata ’ of Th. Engelmann, the ‘ pangenes ’ 
of De Vries, the ‘plasomes’ of Wiesner, 
the ‘ idioblasts ’ of Hertwig, the ‘ biophores ’ 
of Weismann, and finally the ‘idiosomes’ 
of Whitman, in which may be found ‘the 
secret of organization, growth and develop- 
ment.’ 

The tendency in modern biology is, in 
other words, to rob the cell of its leadership 
in the phenomena of organization, and to 
regard it as but a ‘biotome,’ life epoch, or 
form-phase; correlated with a series of vis- 
ible cell-aggregates (organs and tissues) on 
the one hand, and to another series of invis- 
ible aggregates of diminishing complexity, 
which terminate finally in protoplasmic 
molecules variously designated, as indicated 
above. These living molecules are pointed 

“out as the foundation of organization, and 
the protoplasmic molecule, the ‘ Specifische 
Bildungstoffe ’ of Sachs, as the ‘ essential 
archetectonic element ;’ furnishing a com- 
mon basis for every grade of organization, 
but ‘subject to a regenerative and forma- 
tive power existing as one and the same 
thing throughout the organie world’ (Whit- 
man). The prevailing thought of the book 
seems to be expressed by Ryder in the con- 
viction ‘that experimental investigation in 
embryology will make no solid progress 
until all such conceptions as gemmules, 
biophores and idiosomes are abandoned,” 
and in the dictum of Loeb that “all life 
phenomena are determined by chemical pro- 
cesses.”? We are asked to concur in the 
admission that “‘the phenomena of life are 
ultimately physical in their nature and are 
to be treated in detail as physical problems.’’ 

We may derive from these essays a no- 
tion of the drift of biological thought in the 


246 


immediate future which will undoubtedly 
throw much light on the behavior of proto- 
plasm through the investigation of its mole- 
cular relations, its surface tensions, vortex 
movements, chemotropism, chemotaxis, po- 
larity, ete.; but many will doubt whether 
this treatment of life phenomena ‘as purely 
physical and chemical problems’ will do 
away with the conception of some anage- 
netic or organic growth force, some bathmic 
energy, such as is assumed by Cope in his 
consideration of the ‘Origin of Structural 
Variations.’ 

That physical and chemical influences 
tend to locate growth force is becoming more 
and more evident, from such studies as we 
have presented to us in these lectures, and 
in recent researches like those of Butschli on 
‘Protoplasm and Microscopic Forms,’ Loeb 
on ‘ Physiological Morphology,’ and Vaug- 
han, Halliburton and others on the ‘ Nuc- 
leins.’ There is no reason to doubt that sur- 
face tensions may lie behind all protoplas- 
mic movements; that polarity, gravity, 
geotropism, heliotropism or thermotropism 
may determine the direction of growth, and 
that osmosis, metabolism, or the presence 
of nuclein may explain the ability of cells 
to utilize the pabulum within their reach, 
but the explanation seems, somehow, to be 
inadequate. 

Notwithstanding the brilliant achieve- 
ments of experimental science, the oracular 
dicta of the modern priests of monism 
or materialistic empiricism carry little con- 
viction. One turns away with a sense of 
dissatisfaction and a lingering doubt wheth- 
er mechanism and organism are after all 
identical. Haeckelismus has by no means 
proven itself infallible, and the reading of 
these lectures will be much more interesting 
to many, from the fact that here and there 
are to be found wide differences of opinion 
on fundamental questions; while along with 
the assurance that certain present state- 
ments must be regarded as axiomatic ; long 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 9. 


established theories are shown to be inade- 
quate; long discarded theories are resusci- 
tated and presented, rehabilitated and dis- 
guised. The moneron no longer stands in 
its integrity as the material basis and start-— 
ing point of life. The student of the cell 
finds himself confronted with a microcosm, 
not with an ultimate unit of life, and is 
puzzled to know whether he may account 
for this complex organism by differentiation 
from some homogeneous Anlage or rudiment, 
or whether nucleus and cytoplasm repre- 
sent dissimilar organisms, which ‘by mutual 
adaptation have given rise to a third organ- 
ism, in which each of them serves as organ 
to the whole.’ 

As the facts of particulate mheritance 
have led to a rehabilitation of the old the- 
ory of incasement, preformation or pangene- 
sis, it seems not improbable that having 
traced ‘the secret of organization, growth 
and development’ beyond the cell to cer- 
tain ‘ultimate elements of living matter,’ 
‘jdiosomes,’ or protoplasmic molecules, and 
bearing in mind that these living molecules 
must have a complex atomic organization, 
inasmuch as ‘function presupposes struc- 
ture,’ we find ourselves forced to ask what 
determines the upbuilding of atomic aggre- 
gates combining the physical and chemical 
complexity essential to the phenomena of 
growth and evolution. In reply we are 
presented with a prepotent ‘ plastic power’ 
(Schwann); a ‘regenerative and formative 
power, one and the same thing throughout 
the organic world’? (Whitman); this is prob- 
ably the ‘formative impulse’ of Schleiden. 
Cope (loc. cit.) refers us to ‘a special form 
of energy known as growth energy or Bath- 
mismel.’ In what way does this ‘plastic 
power,’ ‘formative impulse’ and ‘ growth 
energy’ differ from the ‘vital force’ of 
Planck, Schelling, Schopenhauer and other 
philosophers? The physiological morphol- 
ogist. has carried us back to living proto- 
plasmic molecules varying greatly, and 


J 
WV 
- Marcu 1, 1895.] 


which he finds himself able to direct some- 
what in their future combinations, as the 
chemist handles radicles and proximate 
_ principles ; but President Schurman has 
_ long since pointed out that there is a ‘ fun- 
damental contrast between the initial varia- 
tions and the subsequent means of their 
preservation’; for example, between modi- 
fying organisms and originating idiosomes 
and ‘that where science stops, philosophy 
begins.’ 
It is to this lothfulness to directly admit 
that Czolbe was right in saying: ‘The 
power of organisms cannot be explained by 
_ the planless and formless physical and chem- 
ical activities;’? that Schurman refers in 
saying: ‘This jugglery with causality, as 
though in time everything could be got out 


of almost nothing, is the besetting sin of 


Darwinists.”’ 

PHILADELPHIA. 

_ Aero-therapeutics or the Treatment of Lung Dis- 
eases by Climate. By CHARLES THEODORE 
 Wi414ams. London and New York, 

Macmillan & Co. 1894. 8°, pp. 187. 

This is a good book by a competent au- 
thority, being the Lumleian lectures for 
1893, by Dr. Williams, who is the senior 
physician to the hospital for consumptives 
at Brompton, and the late President of the 
Royal Meteorological Society. It includes 
discussion of those factors and elements 
of climate which bear directly upon human 
health, and is especially full upon the sub- 
ject of atmospheric pressure and its varia- 
tions, and on the effects of high altitudes 
upon cases of consumption. 

The effects of such altitudes as are usually 
resorted to for curative purposes depend in 
part upon the rarefaction and increased 
diathermaney of the atmosphere, and in 
part upon the change in habits, exercise 
and food which is made when becoming a 
resident of such a resort. One of the most 
definite effects produced by diminished at- 
mospherie pressure upon the healthy animal 


7 


CHARLEs S. DoLiey. 


SCIENCE. 


247 


organism is an increase in the number of 
the red corpuscles of the blood, which has 
been shown by Viault and Eggar to occur 
in man to the amount of 16 per cent. in the 
course of three or four weeks. Mountain 
races usually have large chests, compara- 
tively great activity of the respiratory or- 
gans, and great power of endurance for 
walking. They are usually remarkably 
free from serofula and consumption, which 
is probably due to absence of overcrowding 
and to their comparatively great amount 
of out-door life, which greatly lessen the 
chances of their becoming infected with the 
tubercle bacillus. The sending of consump- 
tives to high altitudes is a method of treat- 
ment which has come into vogue within the 
last thirty years, Davos and St. Moritz be- 
ing the first of this class of health resorts to 
attract special attention. Dr. Williams 
concludes that this mode of treatment is 
most effective in recent cases of consump- 
tion, that at least six months’, ind in many 
cases two years’, stay is desirable, and that 
it produces great improvement in about 75 
per cent. of the cases, and a cure in about 
40 per cent. One chapter of the book is de- 
voted to the high altitudes of Colorado and 
their climates, and is based on the author’s 
personal observations. The greater part of 
the surface of this State is over 5000 feet 
above the sea level, and some of the most 
beautiful parks are above 7000 feet in alti- 
tude, the atmosphere is dry and clear, and 
there is sunshine the year round, all of 
which are important factors in the treat- 
ment of consumption. Physicians will find 
Dr. Williams’ comments upon the import- 
ance of these great mountain plateaus and 
parks, as a location for consumptive pa- 
tients in the first stages of their disease, to 
be interesting and valuable. 


PHYSICS. 
On the Voluntary Formation of Hollow Bubbles, 
Foam and Myelin Forms by the Alkaline 


248 


Oleates, together with Related Phenomena, 

Especially those of Protoplasm. G. QUINCKE. 

Wiedemann, Ann. 1894. Vol. 53, p. 593. 

This article is a continuation of Prof. 
Quincke’s investigation published in 1888 
(Weid., Ann., Vol. 35, 1888, p. 562, et 
seg), and a reply to the criticisms which his 
article provoked. It gives the results of 
elaborate investigations upon the phenom- 
ena observable upon mixing various soaps, 
oils and water, and traces them to surface 
tension and allied forces. Some very inter- 
esting suggestions are given upon the simi- 
larity of some of the resulting appearances, 
with the arrangement of the heavenly bodies 
in space, and a strong likeness is shown be- 
tween some of these peculiar bubbles with 
very thin, solid walls formed in such mix- 
tures, and some of the formations in plant 
cells. The observations also go far toward 
explaining the motions sometimes observed 
in cells, which would seem to be due to the 
same forces as produce those peculiar mo- 
tions of a drop of oil upon water. 


On the Comparison of High Range Mercury 
Thermometers of Jena Glass 59LLL, with the 
Air Thermometer at temperatures between 
300° and 500° C. By Atrons MAuLKE. 
(Wied. Ann. 1894. Vol. 58, p. 965.) 
Contains a very careful determination of 

the apparent co-efficient of expansion of 

mereury in Jena glass 59111, and demon- 
strates the availability of mercury thermo- 
meters made of this glass for the measure- 
ment of temperatures up to 500° C. (900° 
Th). WitiiAmM HALLocK. 


On the Units of Light and Radiation. By 
A. Macrartann, D. Sc., LL.D. A pa- 
per read before the American Institute of 
Electrical Engineers, 16th January, 1895. 
(Abstract. ) 

The author shows that the difficulty ex- 
perienced in defining and denoting the dif- 
ferent ideas commonly expressed by the 
word ‘candle’ is due to the want of a name 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 9. 


for the unit of solid angle; and suggests 

the word steradian, which has already been 

used for that purpose. 

He considers the different physical ideas 
in the general subject of radiation, and 
shows the appropriate expression for the 
unit of each. With this system of radiation 
units he compares the system of units of 
light recently proposed by M. Blondel, and 
shows that the light system ought to be par- 
allel to, not identical with, the radiant en- 
ergy system. Finally he discusses M. Hos- 
pitalier’s proposed symbols for light quan- 
tities. 

GEOLOGY. 

Report on the Bevier Sheet, by C. H. Gordon 
and others. ArrHur Wuvstow, State 
Geologist, Mo. Geol. Surv. 1894. 

This is the second of a series of detailed 
reports on areal geology in Missouri. The 
main feature is a carefully prepared and 
well executed topographic and geologic map, 
which includes portions of Macon, Ran- 
dolph and Chariton counties, an area of 
about 250 square miles. This map is on a 
scale of gz$55 and the topography is shown 
by contours of 20 feet interval. The topo- 
graphic base was executed by Messrs. C. 
H. Gordon, C. F. Marbut and M. C. Shel- 
ton. On the map are shown the horizon 
lines of the coal beds and the distribution 
of the geological formations, as well as the 
location of coal pits, drifts and drill holes. 
It is accompanied by a sheet of columnar 
and cross-sections, which give details of the 
geology. In the accompanying text, Mr. 
Gordon describes the physiography, includ- 
ing the topography, drainage, soil, forestry, 
etc., and the stratigraphic and economic 
geology. The Quaternary geology is re- 
ported on by Prof. J. E. Todd, and the 
distribution of the clays and shales by Mr. 
H. A. Wheeler, E. M., who were employed 
as specialists and whose reports on these 
subjects for the whole State are in process 
of preparation. J. Diaaa 


j 


“Marci 1, 1895.] 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
A, A. A. 8S. TABLE AT WOODS HOLL LA- 
BORATORY. 
__ Iy joint session of Sections F and G, the 
following resolutions of the Committee of 
the A. A. A. S., on a table at the Marine 
Biological Laboratory at Woods Holl, 
Mass., were offered by Dr. 8S. H. Gage for 
adoption by the Sections: 

The Sections of Zodlogy and Botany (F 
and G) request that the Association con- 
tinue its subscription of $100 for an inves- 

tigator’s table at the Marine Biological La- 
boratory at Woods Holl, Mass. 
The two Sections in joint Session also 
make the following suggestions for the 
award and government of the table sub- 
‘scribed for by the Association : 
1. That the table shall be known as the 
A. A. AS. table. 
_ 2. That the award of this table shall be 
entrusted to a committee of five, consisting 
of the vice-president and secretary-elect of 
each Section (F and G), and of the director 
of the Marine Biological Laboratory (at 
present C. O. Whitman). 

3. Any fellow or member of the A. A. A. 
§. shall be eligible for appointment to the 
table. (An applicant for membership in 
the Association will be considered as a 
member, and therefore eligible. ) 

4. Applications for the table are to be 
made to the permanent secretary, who shall 
forward them to the senior vice-president 
of Sections F and G, seniority being deter- 
mined as in § 11 of the Constitution, 7. ¢., 
according to continuous membership. 

5. That the holders of the Association’s 
table are expected to give proper credit for 
the use of the table in all published results 
of investigations carried on at the table. 

{The grant for the table was made by 
Council.) 

GENERAL. 
_ Proressor T. H. Morcan and Professor 
_ Herbert Osborn: have been awarded the 


> 


SCIENCE. 


249 


Smithsonian Table at the Naples Zodlogical 
Station for periods lasting until October 8, 
1895. After that date the table will be 
vacant and applications for it may be ad- 
dressed to Professor Langley, Secretary of 
the Smithsonian Institution. 

Lorp Acton succeeds the late Professor 
Seeley in the professorship of modern his- 
tory at the University of Cambridge. 

Proressor W. W. CLENDENTNY, of the State 
University of Louisiana, has been appointed 
geologist in charge of a survey of the State. 

Dr. Lomparp, known for his writings on 
climatology, died at Geneva on January 22, 
in his ninety-second year. 

Accorpine to The American Naturalist, Mr. 
R. T. Hill, of the U. S. Geological Survey, 
is in Panama, and Dr. H. C. Mercer, of the 
University of Pennsylvania, is in Yucatan. 

Tue New York Assembly has passed a 
bill appropriating $1,175,000 for the pur- 
chase of a new site, and the erection of 
buildings for the College of the City of New 
York. 

Tue American Museum of Natural His- 
tory has applied to the Legislature for 
$500,000, for an addition wing, which 
would complete the southern front of the 
building. 

Tue Arizona Legislative Assembly has 
presented a memorial to Congress, request- 
ing that the district in Apache county 
covered with trunks of petrified trees be 
withdrawn from entry with a view to pre- 
venting destruction and injury until the 
district has been made a public park. 

THERE have been so many requests for 
copies of Prof. Charles S. Minot’s article in 
the Popular Science Monthly for July, 1893, en- 
titled ‘The Structural Plan of the Human 
Brain,’ that the article has been reprinted 
and copies may now be obtained at twenty 
cents each, from Mr. Charles B. Wormelle, 
6 Menlo Street, Brighton District, Boston, 
Mass. 


250 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
MICHIGAN SCIENCES AND ACADEMIES. 

AFTER some discussion and correspond- 
ence, a preliminary meeting was called 
at the State University in Ann Arbor, last 
June, and an organization effected. The 
following officers were elected to serve for 
the first meeting which was held in connec- 
tion with that of the State Teachers’ Asso- 
ciation, December 26-27, in the State Capi- 
tol at Lansing : 

President—W. J. Beal. 

Vice-President—J. B. Steere. 

Secretary and Treaswrer—F. C. Newcombe. 

Additional Members of the Executive Commit- 
tee—W. B. Barrows, I. C. Russell. 

At the close of the meeting very nearly 
an even hundred members were enrolled. 

A very complete constitution and by-laws 
were adopted. One of the main features of 
the Society is to proceed systematically with 
a State biological survey. The State will 
be asked to publish the transactions, and to 
furnish some aid toward conducting field 
work. 

Three vice-presidents were elected who 
are to act as chairmen of committees on 
Botany, Zodlogy and Sanitary Science. 
Doubtless other vice-presidents for other 
work may be elected at the next annual 
meeting. 

An informal field meeting will be held in 
May or June. 

Those in attendance were much pleased 
with the first program as carried out in 
Lansing, and are showing much enthusiam 
regarding future work. The objects of the 
Society, as now stated in the constitution, 
are the investigations in Agriculture, Bot- 
any, Zoology, Sanitary Science, Archeology 
and kindred subjects, but may include 
other departments when workers are ready 
to enter the field. 

The present officers are: 

President—Bryant Walker. 

Vice-President—Frederick C. Newcombe. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 9 


Vice-President—Jacob E. Reighard. 
Vice-President—Henry B. Baker. 
Secretary—G. C. Davis. 
Treasurer—H. A. Strong. ~ 
The program was as follows: 


- 


WEDNESDAY, 1:30 P. M. 
1. Call to order and introductory remarks by 
the President. 
. Report of the Executive Committee. 
3. Determination of the hour for Election of 
Officers, and for Other Business. 


bo 


PRESENTATION OF PAPERS. 


1. The Mammals of Michigan: Dr. J. B. 
STEERE. 

2. The Birds of Michigan: Pror. D. C. Wor- 
CESTER. 


3. Additions to the Flora of Michigan: Mr. 
C. F. WHEELER. 

4. The Cryptogamic Flora of Michigan : 
L. N. JouHnson. 

5. Work of the Michigan Fish Commission: 
Dr. C. A. Kororm and Pror. H. B. 
WARD. 

6. The Michigan Lepidoptera: Dr. R. H. 
Wotcort. 


Mr. 


WEDNESDAY. 7:30 P. M. 

7. Our Society and a State Survey: Pror. W. 
J. Brat. 

8. Practical Benefits of Bacteriology: 
F. G. Novy. 

9. Simian Characters of the Human Skeleton: 
Pror. W. H. SHERZER. 

10. Date and Development of Michigan Arche- 
ology: Mr. Haran I. Smrre. 

11. Some Notes on the Michigan Coat of Arms: 
Pror. W. J. BEAL. 

12. Teaching Botanyin Winter: Prox. W. J- 
BEAu. 


Pror. 


THURSDAY, 9:00 A. M. 
13. Flora of Michigan Lakes: Pror. CHAS. 
A. Davis. 
14. Michigan Lepidoptera: Dr. R. H. Wor- 
corr. 
15. Review of our Present Knowledge of the 


Marcu 1, 1895. ] 
Molluscan Fauna of Michigan: Mr. BRYANT 
’ . WALKER. 
16. Distoma Patalosum; A Parasite of the 
Crayfish: Mr. C. H. Lanper. 
17. Bacteria and the Dairy: Pror. C. D. 
_ Smrru. 
18. Tendencies in Michigan Horticulture: Mr. 
A. A. Crozier. 
19. Futile Experiments for the Improvement of 
Agriculture: Dr. Manty Mites. 


THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF 
PHILADELPHIA, 


Proressor DAnreL G. Brryton is giving a 
course of six lectures, entitled A Survey of 
the Science of Man, on Mondays, January 

28, February 4, 11, 18, 25, and March 4, 
1895, in the Lecture Hall of the Academy. 
_ The lectures are : 

1. The Physical Faculties of Man. 

. The Mental Faculties of Man. 

. The Social Faculties of Man 

4. The Artistic Faculties of Man 

5. The Religious Faculties of Man. 

6. The Progress of the Race. 


GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
FEB. 18. 

Discussion of Field Methods: (1) How do you 
determine the Thickness of Strata? Sym- 
posium opened by Mr. G. K. Givserrt. 
General discussion is invited. 

Rapid Section Work in Horizontal Rocks: Mr. 

_ M.R. Campsert. 

Newly Discovered Dyke near Syracuse, N. Y.: 
Messrs. N. H. Darton anv J. F. Kemp. 

Wuirman Cross, Secretary. 


PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
FEB. 16. 
Biographical Sketch of James Clarke Welling : 
Mr. J. Howarp Gore. 
Biographical Sketch of Robert Stanton Avery : 
Mr. L. D. Supy. 


Biographical Sketch of Garrick Mallery: Mr. 
Roger FLercuer. 


4 


SCIENCE. 


251 


The Central American Rainfall: Mr. Mark 
W. Harrineron. 
Witiiam C. Wrxtock, Secretary. 


FORTNIGHTLY SCIENTIFIC CLUB IN THE UNI- 
VERSITY OF MINNESOTA. 
Jan. 19, 1895. 

The Vivisection of Plants: Mr. D. T. Mac- 
DoveGau, 

Is Man Woman’s Equal? The Zodlogist’s 
answer and some of its consequences: 
Proressor H. F. NacHTRIEs. 

Feb. 2, 1895. 

The Departure of the Ice Sheet from Lake Su- 
perior and the more Eastern Laurentian 
Lakes: Mr. WARREN UPHAM. 

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Fripay, Marcu 8, 1895. 


CONTENTS: 


Ourrent Notes on Anthropology if ): D. G. BRIN- 
0 + Se SCAB CORSE BROBEEED <5 0 CCigt SS eEeOnDE 253 
Ourrent Notes on Physiography (CEE) is; Wi MM. 
Ie ncaoininl nots sin a's, o 5 o eile ptattbialnielejniere.s.«/ele 257 
Laboratory Teaching of Large Ctasses—Zoitog Yt 
ITERMON C. BUMPUS ...... 200-000 -0++ - 260 
Notes on the Biology of the Lobster : FRANCIS i. 
LUDO € Sa R OB ESSRgSe <6 9:5 S588 aqua ese 263 
The Newark System I. C. RUSSELL............- 266 
Death of George N. Lawrence: C. HART MER- 
0: Je oe BESS SB EOREEEIID © 60.2052 MOCenOnae ts 268 
Betentific Literature — .......0.- serene sconenee 269 
Greenhill’s Mechanics: R. §. Woopwarp. 
Bechhold’s Chemische Dynamik: HH. C. JONEs. 


Bernthsen’s Organic Chemistry: FELIX LENG- 


FELD. Haeckel’s Phylogenie: GARY N. CAL- 
KINS. Geology. 
SvOteR ONE NEWS — ...200-cccccarccccsccceccces 275 


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CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY (IV.) 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF VARIATIONS IN THE 
HUMAN SKELETON. 

Tr is a little odd that two papers on the 
same subject, with almost the same title, 
prepared independently at the same time, 
should agree in defending a new view of 
the significance of variations and anomalies 
in organic forms. 


The one of these is that which I read be- 
fore the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science in August last, pub- 
lished in the American Anthropologist for 
October, entitled Variations of the Human 
Skeleton and their Causes; the other was the 
Shattuck Lecture, delivered before the Mas- 
sachusetts Medical Society by Dr. Thomas 
Dwight, Professor of Anatomy at Har- 
vard University, with the title, the Range 
and Significance of Variation in the Human 
Skeleton. 

The two papers, although drawing their 
material from wholly independent sources, 
and reasoning along different lines, reach 
quite the same conclusion, to wit: That 
variations, which in the human skeleton re- 
semble forms in lower animals, are not to be 
interpreted as ‘reversions’ or ‘atavistic 
retrogressions,’ but that other laws should 
be invoked to account for them, such as 
nutrition, mechanical action, ete. 

Dr. Dwight adds the following significant 
words: ‘The opinion is growing daily 
stronger among serious scholars that if 
man’s body came from a lower form it was 
not by a long process of minute modifica- 
tions, but by some sudden, or comparatively 
sudden transition.” 

This is the opinion which, under the name 
heterogenesis, I have defended for many years 
(see my Races and Peoples, pp. 80,81). It has 
lately received strong support from some of 
Bateson’s admirable studies in variation. 


254 


THE ANTIQUITY OF MESOPOTAMIAN CULTURE. 


At a recent meeting of the Oriental Club 
of Philadelphia, Dr. J. P. Peters, whose re- 
searches among the ruins of the valley of the 
Euphrates are well known, mentioned his 
observations on the deposition of alluvium 
by the river as a chronometer for measuring 
the antiquity of some ruin-mounds. The 
deposits from the known date of Alexander’s 
conquests display marked uniformity ; and 
taking the depths of these as a standard, the 
foundations of Ur (the ‘ Ur of the Chaldees ’ 
of Genesis, the modern Muchair) and of Eri- 
chu (the modern Abu-Shahrein ) must have 
been laid about seven thousand years B. C. 

This venerable antiquity, however, ap- 
pears quite modern compared to that as- 
signed the same culture in some calculations 
laid before the Académie des Inscriptions 
by M. Oppert last summer. They had refer- 
ence to the established beginnings of the 
Sothiae cycle and the Chaldean Saros, or 
recurrent cycles of eclipses. His argument 
was that the former dated from an observa- 
tion of the cosmical rising of Sirius visible 
to the naked eye. This could occur only at 
an eclipse of the sun at its rising; and this 
he figured was upon a Thursday, August 
29, in the year 11,542 before Christ! And 
as it was visible only south of latitude 26°, 
the locality of the observation he fixes for 
various reasons at the island of Tylos, the 
modern Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf. 
Truly, this is a tour de maitre in archeology 
which makes one dizzy! 


DIVISIONS OF THE STONE AGE. 

A USEFUL broadside, about twenty inches 
square, presenting succinctly the subdi- 
visions of the Stone Age, was published last 
year by M. Philippe Salmon in the Bulletin 
de la Société Dawphinoise d’ Archeologie et 
d’ Ethnologie. The three periods it presents 
are the paleolithic, the mesolithic and the 
neolithic. These are subdivided into epochs, 
six in all, each characterized by the products 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 10. 


of definite stations, peculiar industries, 
climate and fauna. As a synopsis of the 
accepted data, from the best French author- 
ities, the scheme merits high praise. 

The position of the mesolithie division 
takes the place of the ‘ hiatus,’ which figures 
in the works of Mortillet and others as an 
unexplained time of transition between the 
rough and polished stone ages. Salmon, 
however, claims that no such gap exists. 
He quotes, for instance, the station of 
Campigny, near the lower Seine, and Spien- 
nes, in Belgium, as proofs that the peoples 
and the culture of the earlier and ruder 
epochs progressed steadily, without import- 
ant breaks, up to the full bloom of the 
neolithic generations. The importance of 
such a generalization, if it could be estab- 
lished, would be great; for, working back 
from historic to pre-historic times, there is 
no doubt but that the neolithic nations of 
central and western Europe were of Aryan 
speech, and Salmon’s argument would carry 
this mighty stock in lineal line to the pre- 
glacial fishermen in the valley of the Somme. 


THE TEACHING OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 


In a little pamphlet which I published in 
1892, entitled ‘ Anthropology as a Science 
and as a Branch of University Education,’ 
a plan was suggested by which this science 
could be introduced into our universities as 
one of the optional branches for the doctor- 
ate of philosophy, and its importance as a 
department of the higher education was ~ 
emphasized. 

The subject has been taken up lately in 
Germany with gratifying interest. In the 
‘ Globus ’ for October, 1894, Professor Fried- 
rich Muller, of Vienna, warmly advocates 
that a chair representing anthropology 
should be recognized as a proper addition 
to the faculty of a great university; and 
a few weeks later, in the same journal, 
the question was discussed by Dr. Rudolf 
Martin, of the University of Zurich. The 


=a 


MARCH 8, 1895.] 


latter agrees that anthropology properly 
takes its place in the faculty of philosophy ; 
but his division of the science is open to 
doubt. He would class all its branches un- 
der two groups: those relating to, 1. phys- 
ieal anthropology; and, 2. psychical anthro- 
pology, or ‘ethnology.’ Under the latter, 
he includes pre-historic archeology ; and 
not seeing very clearly where in such a 
scheme ethnography would come in, he 
takes the short cut of leaving it out alto- 
gether! This is a serious omission, as in 
many respects descriptive racial and tribal 
anthropology alone offers the indispensable 
raw material on which to build up a true 
science of man. His opinon, that at least 
two instructors, one for the physical and 
one for the psychical side, are desirable, 
will, of course, commend itself; but each 
should at the same time be well versed in 
the side which he does not teach. 


GUATEMALAN ANTIQUITIES. 


Unper the sensational title ‘An Ameri- 
ean Herculaneum,’ a writer, M. X. West, 
in ‘ La Nature,’ November 3, describes the 
site of an ancient city, three kilometers 
from Santiago Amatitlan, Guatemala. His 
story is that at a depth of five or six meters, 
under a mass of volcanic cinders and tufa 
thrown out by some sudden eruption, there 
have recently been discovered the remains 
of a village with all the appurtenances of 
its daily life, finely decorated pottery, stone 
implements and images, the foundations of 
its buildings, and blocks bearing inscrip- 
tions in unknown characters. More aston- 
ishing is the statement that along with 
these were cups of graceful shape of glass, 
sometimes colored. This casts serious doubt 
on the whole narrative, unless ‘ voclanic 
glass,’ 7. e., obsidian, is intended, as nowhere 
on the American continent had glass-making 
been discovered by the natives; and, indeed, 
it is very doubtful if at any point they had 
reached the art of glazing pottery. 


SCIENCE. 255 


At the Madrid Exposition, in 1892, the 
Lake of Amatitlan figured as the locality 
where an extraordinary seal, Egyptian in 
appearance, and some other probable frauds 
were found. No doubt it was the center of 
a high native culture, that of the Zutuhils, 
a Mayan tribe ; and there seems to be also 
some modern adepts at present in the vicin- 
ity, whose skill should admonish the col- 
lector to be wary in investing in articles of 
that provenance. 


AN EXCELLENT INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPO- 
GEOGRAPHY. 

THE various relations which his geo- 
grapical surroundings bear to man in his 
personal, social and national life constitute 
the almost new science of ‘anthropo-geo- 
graphy,’ to which Professor Ratzel, of Leip- 
zig, has lately contributed a standard work. 
In this country it has received little atten- 
tion from educators since the time of Pro- 
fessor Guyot, whose ‘ Earth and Man’ was 
creditable for its period. The more mod- 
ern opinions and results have been admi- 
rably summed up in a little volume writ- 
ten by Professor Spencer Trotter, of Swarth- 
more College, under the title ‘ Lessons in 
the New Geography ’ (Boston, D. C. Heath 
and Co., 1895). In the compass of 182 
pages the author presents, in succinct lan- 
guage, suitable to the student and the gen- 
eral reader, the relations which have ex- 
isted between the distribution of land and 
water, the climates of the various zones and 
the plants and animals which they produce, 
to the life and development of the human 
species. He then proceeds to define the 
recognized types or races of men, and to 
point out their distribution when they first 
became known. The book closes with ob- 
servations on commerce and the progress of 
discovery, and various tables of statistical 
information. 

Whether as a text-book in schools and col- 
leges, or as a trustworthy and lucid exposi- 


256 


tion of the subject for general reading, this 
volume merits cordial commendation, and 
should awaken a wider interest in the attrac- 
tive topics which it discusses. 


THE OROTCHI TARTARS. 


Aw entertaining description of this tribe 
is given from Russian sources in the ‘ Jour- 
nal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic 
Society,’ Vol. X XVI. (Shanghai, 1894). 
It isa member of the Tungusic stock, and 
is situate along the eastern coast of the con- 
tinent, from 42° to 52° ; but the pure types 
are found only toward the northern limit. 
They are small in stature, a man five feet 
four inches in height being considered tall. 
The women average six inches shorter than 
the men. Their bodies are thick set and 
muscular, and their power of endurance re- 
markable. Like all the other pure blood 
tribes in Eastern Sibera, they are steadily 
diminishing, either through intermixture of 
blood or through new diseases introduced by 
foreigners. 

Their boats are rude, but they manage 
them skillfully, which is the more neces- 
sary, as none of them knows how to swim, 
and when a craft capsizes its occupants in- 
fallibly drown. This ignorance is owing to 
two causes: the coldness of the water at 
most seasons, and their invincible repug- 
nance to cleanliness. They are adepts in 
making garments of the bowels and skins of 
fishes, from which they are sometimes called 
‘ the fish-skin Tartars.’ They are also handy 
with tools. 

Their religion is ostensibly that of the or- 
thodox Greek Church; but really their ances- 
tral Shamanism is as strong as ever. The 
residences of the Shamans are denoted by 
sticks or poles planted in front of them, 
carved to resemble animals, like the Totem 
poles of the north-west coast. Their chief 
divinities make a triad, bemg Boa Anduri, 
‘spirit of the sky ;’ Temu Anduri, ‘ spirit 
of the sea,’ and Kamtchanga Anduri, ‘ spirit 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 10. 


of the mountains.’ They indulge in violent 
religious frenzies, in which they speak in un- 
known tongues. One woman was unable 
to talk in her own for two months after such — 
a spell. 


THE FUTURE OF THE COLORED RACE IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 

THIs momentous question has been made 
the subject of careful investigation by a 
physician of Savannah, Dr. Eugene R. Cor- 
son. His essay is published in the ‘ Wilder 
Quarter-Century Book,’ a well deserved 
memento issued by the pupils of Dr. Burt C. 
Wilder, of Cornell University, at the expira- 
tion of his first quarter century of teaching. 

Dr. Corson regards the relative mortality 
of the two races, white and colored, in the 
United States as ‘the pith of the whole 
matter ;’ and, therefore, addresses his special 
attention to this. From his own obserya- 
tions and the census statistics, he concludes 
that the pure blacks have in our country a 
decidedly higher mortality than the whites ; 
more die in childbirth, they are more suscep- 
tible to disease, they succumb more quickly, 
they are prone to bacillar diseases in a 
higher degree, and their alleged exemption 
from malaria is not generally true. The 
hybrids between the two races he pronounces 
less fertile and less viable than either. “ Mis- 
cegenation is a reducing agent, chemically 
speaking.” 

From these considerations, which he ad- 
vances, backed by large testimony, he 
reaches the comforting conclusion that there 
will be no ‘war of races’ among us; that 
the blacks will gradually fade out or become 
absorbed in the white population; and this 
in such a manner as not to deteriorate it. 


THE PRE-HISTORIC TRIBES OF THE EASTERN 
UNITED STATES. 

In THE Archiv fiir Anthropolgie, for Novem- 

ber, 1894, Dr. Emil Schmidt undertakes to 

gather together the fragmentary facts which 


MAncu 8, 1895.]. 


east light on the population of the Missis- 
sippi Valley and Atlantic slope of the Un- 
ited States at a date anterior to that of the 
tribes found there resident by the first ex- 
plorers. He presents the question temper- 
ately and free from the fantastic notions 
which one generally anticipates in this in- 
vestigation. His results may be briefly 
stated. 

Beginning with the ‘ mound builders,’ he 
points out numerous reasons for consider- 
ing them the immediate ancestors of the 
present Indians; going further into their 
identification, he decides that the ancestors 
of the Cherokees were the mound builders 
of the Ohio Valley. The original seat of the 
Huron-Iroquois family he locates north of 
the Great Lakes, and that of the Algon- 
quian family somewhere to the south of 
Hudson’s Bay, where the Crees are still 
- found speaking a pure and ancient dialect. 
These two mighty stocks moved slowly 
~ southward, driving the mound builders 
from the Ohio, and penetrating into Vir- 
ginia. There they met the Dakotas, whom 
they destroyed, except the small tribes of 
the Tuteloes and Catawbas. The Gulf 
States were peopled by the Muskoghean 
tribes from the south-west. The debated 
question whether there was a ‘ rough stone’ 
or paleolithic age in the United States, he 
answers, from the evidence before him, in 
the negative. 


GALTON’S METHOD OF ISOGENS. 


Mr. Gatton is fertile in the application of 
new methods to anthropologic data. In a 
recent article in the Journal of Statistics he 
applies the method in use among meteorolo- 
gists to define lines of equal barometric 
pressure, to data of natality. His so-called 
‘isogens’ are analogous to the isobars of the 
weather maps. They are lines of equal 
birth-rate forming a constant derived from 
the two variables, the age of the father and 
that of the mother. 


SCIENCE. 


257 


By this ingenious and simple process he 
reaches some curious results. One is the 
unexpected law of natality, “That the 
sums of the ages of the parents are con- 
stant; in other words, that the birth-rate is 
determined by the joint ages of the father 
and mother. The difference between the 
ages of the two parents is of no acconnt 
whatever in nine-tenths of the total num- 
ber of marriages.” Only in the obvious 
case where the wife is older than the hus- 
band and is approaching the limit of the 
child-bearing age, is this law at fault. An- 
other odd fact developed by this method is 
that a woman approaching somewhat closely 
the limit of the child-bearing age, say about 
thirty-five or thirty-eight, is more fertile 
with a man of her own age than with one 
who is younger; though it is admitted cer- 
tain social reasons may help to this result. 

Like all of Mr. Galton’s articles, this one 
will be found admirably presented and well 
worth study. 

D. G. Brixton. 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY (II). 
SIXTH INTERNATIONAL GEOGRAPHICAL 
CONGRESS. 

Tue Sixth International Geographical 
Congress is to be held in London from July 
26th to August 3d, 1895, under the auspi- 
ces of the Royal Geographical Society. An 
invitation circular has lately been issued, 
stating the general plan of the Congress, 
the conditions under which tickets of mem- 
bership can be obtained, the program of 
subjects for discussion, and a most compre- 
hensive list of honorary officers, honorary 
general committeemen, and committees in 
charge of various divisions of the subject 
proposed for discussion. An extended ex- 
hibit of geographical materials will be held 
in connection with the Congress, which 
altogether promises to be a most attractive 
reunion. The invitation circular can be 


258 


had from the Secretary, Royal Geographical 
Society, 1 Saville Row, London, W. A 
representative American attendance is 
highly desirable. 


NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MONOGRAPHS. 


A RECENT number of the ‘ National Geo- 
graphical Magazine,’ as well as a circular 
distributed by the American Book Co., New 
York, announces the early preparation of 
a series of geographical essays under the 
above title, prepared by various experts and 
addressed particularly to the public school 
teachers of this country. The intention of 
this series of monographs is to present ac- 
curate and properly correlated informa- 
tion upon the geography of our country, 
in simple, untechnical language, and with 
good illustrations, in such form that it 
may be practically useful in supplement- 
ing the ordinary teaching of physical geo- 
graphy. They areto help supply the teach- 
er with that background of knowledge 
that is so essential to good teaching. 
They will not replace any existing text- 
books, but in time, as the number of mono- 
graphs increases, they will certainly be free- 
ly drawn on by text-book makers. They 
deserve prominent mention in Screncs, for 
although reduced to as simple form as pos- 
sible, the names of the authors announced 
are a guarantee that the monographs will be 
essentially scientific in character. Their 
appearance will be watched for with inter- 
est. 

GEOGRAPHICAL PRIZES. 

THE National Geographic Society an- 
nounces as a subject for a competitive prize 
essay in 1895: ‘The River Systems of the 
United States.’ The essays must not ex- 
ceed two thousand words in length, and 
will be received only from those public 
schools whose intention to compete is an- 
nounced not later than May, 1895. The es- 
says must be composed entirely by scholars. 
They must be written by the end of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Voz. I. No. 10 


school year, 1894-95, and submitted to the 
Society not later than July 15th next. The 
geographical gold medal of the Society will 
be awarded to the best essayist of the 
country ; the second best will receive a cer- 
tificate of honorable mention. The best es- 
sayist of each State will receive a certificate 
of proficiency from the committee on awards. 
This committee consists of General A. W. 
Greely, Professor T. H. Mendenhall and 
Superintendent W. B. Powell. Further in- 
formation concerning the competition may 
be had from the Society by addressing its 
Secretary in Washington, D. C. 


NEWELL’S REPORT ON AGRICULTURE BY 
IRRIGATION. 

Mocs physiographic material is gathered 
in the harvest fields of other subjects. A 
good opportunity for physiographie glean- 
ing is Newell’s ‘Report on agriculture by 
irrigation in the western part of the United 
States at the eleventh census’ (1890), re- 
cently issued. In California, where irriga- 
tion has attained greater importance than 
in any other State, the advantageous ar- 
rangement of the canals and ditches is in 
many cases peculiarly dependent on the 
ageraded alluvial fans that the streams 
from the Sierra have so often built out from 
their canyons on emerging upon the open 
valley plain. The fans of Kings and Kern 
rivers are the best illustrations given of 
this kind. The abrupt slopes of the San 
Bernardino mountains in the southern part 
of the State are cut by deep narrow valleys 
from which the waste is strewn in great al- 
luvial fans of unusual height and radius. 
Newell shows these to be of much impor- 
tance in their relation to agriculture, but, as 
if to illustrate the backward condition of 
geographical terminology, and the slow 
penetration that the few terms already in- 
vented make among practical engineers, he 
calls these well-formed fans by the vague 
term, ‘great masses.’ “The debris, cone 


Mancu 8, 1895.] 


_ sisting of sand, gravel and bowlders, has 


’ 


a 


been piled in great masses at the points 
where the streams enter upon the lower 
plains.” If it were not for the earlier ac- 
count of these huge fans by Hilgard (Bull. 
Geol. Soc. Amer., iii, 1891, 124) they could 
hardly be recognized here. In Arizona 
we read that the irrigating streams are 
largely supplied by rains induced by the en- 
forced ascent of the winds when they en- 
counter the precipitous and ragged fault 
scarp, where the great plateaus rise out of 
the lower desert plains. In Idaho a great 
expanse of dissected country, where the 
rivers have cut down deep valleys, cannot 
be irrigated without expensive engineering 
operations ; but farther up the Snake River, 
“where the streams have not yet succeeded 
in cutting through the lava,” the river 
water can be distributed over the plain with 
comparative ease. ‘Yet’ is a most ex- 
pressive word for the geographer. The 
whole report is full of suggestive examples 
for extract and quotation. 


BAYS AND FIORDS REGARDED AS SUBMERGED 
VALLEYS. 


Earty writers generally ascribed bays 
and fiords to the destructive action of the 
Sea, or to local dislocation. Esmark, about 
1826, was perhaps the first to ascribe much 
importance to ice as an agent in making the 
Norwegian fiords; a suggestion that was 
afterward carried to an extravagant ex- 
treme. Dana, on returning from the Wilkes 
expedition, introduced the idea that fiords 
are drowned valleys ; but whether the ero- 
sion of the valleys was done by ‘ river work 


alone, or more or less by glaciers,’ must be 


determined by local study. In the present 
view of the problem, glacial erosion is 
almost by general consent reduced to a 
moderate measure ; it is chiefly the fiord 
basins that are now attributed to ice action, 
while fiord valleys are regarded by nearly 
all observers as of preglacial origin as ordi- 


SCIENCE. 


259 


nary land valleys, afterwards submerged. 
Bays, like Chesapeake and Narragansett, 
are commonly regarded as resulting from 
the submergence of wide river valleys, modi- 
fied by glacial erosion or deposition, if in 
glaciated regions. This modern view is 
lately reénforced in an article by Professor 
Shaler (Evidences as to change of sea level, 
Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., vi., 1885, 141-166), 
in which various reéntrants of our coast, 
such as Chesapeake and Narragansett bays, 
the fiords of Maine, and the numerous de- 
pressions which break the northern part of 
the continent into a group of islands, are all 
ascribed wholly or chiefly to the submerg- 
ence of stream-worn lands. The general 
problem of submergence seems, however, 
hardly so simple as ‘to indicate a progres- 
sive subsidence of a somewhat uniform 
nature’ along the Atlantic coast from Mexico 
to near the pole. The possibility of numer- 
ous subordinate and discordant oscillations 
in different parts of the coast is wide open ; 
and while in a general way it may be said 
that our eastern coast has been depressed, 
it does not follow that the depression was 
synchronous throughout, as it must have 
been if its cause were a movement of the sea 
floor; hence a preference for this ‘ hypo- 
thesis of Strabo’ hardly seems warranted. 
The submergence of our southern coast may 
now be going on, while the northern coast 
may be at present rising, but not risen 
enough to correct an earlier and greater sub- 
mergence. This would make diverse conti- 
nental movements the essential cause, and 
displacement of the sea floor only secondary. 


GEOLOGIC ATLAS OF THE UNITED STATES. 


AxTHouGH primarily of geological inter- 
est, the several folios of this great atlas now 
issued are important to geographers from 
the accurate and succinct accounts that they 
give of topographical features. The topo- 
graphical sheets alone are very instructive ; 
but their value is greatly increased when 


260 


accompanied by explanations that have 
been prepared by trained observers who 
have been all over the ground, examining 
the forms of the surface as the expressions 
of internal structures. From the sheets in 
eastern Tennessee we may learn of the two 
peneplains that there give local illustration 
of wide-spread Appalachian forms. 
Livingston sheet, Montana, there is a fine 
illustration of one of the many extinct lake 
basins now drained through a steep-walled 
gorge, in a way so characteristic of the 
northern Rocky Mountains. With the 
Placerville sheet, in the California Sierra, the 
text tells of the reduction of the mountain 
belt to gentle slopes before the eruption of 
the great Neocene lava flows by which many 
of the older valleys were broadly filled ; and 
of the deep canyons cut by the displaced 
rivers since the mountain belt has been up- 
heaved with a westward slant. The plan 
of liberal distribution of these folios ensures 
that they will reach a wide variety of 
readers. They will be welcomed by many 
workers : students, teachers and investiga- 
tors; geographers, geologists and econo- 
mists. 
GEIKIE’S GREAT ICE AGE. 

Tue third edition of this important work 
has been lately issued (New York, Apple- 
ton, 1895). Although distinctly a geolog- 


ical treatise, not written from the geograph- 


ical point of view, it contains numerous 
pages of physiographic interest, for many 
glacial deposits are so young as still to pre- 
serve essentially their constructional form ; 
hence the account of moraines, drumlins, 
rock-basins, and so on, are of immediate 
geographical value. The general subject 
of glacial erosion is hardly treated with the 
fulness that the many discussions it has 
given rise to would warrant; and the ex- 
planation of rock-basins does scanty justice 
to the opinions of many Swiss geologists 
who look on ice action as a secondary pro- 
cess compared to a gentle warping of pre- 


SCIENCE. 


On the * 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 10 


existent valleys. The extract from Wal- 
lace’s paper, defending the glacial excava- 
tion of rock-basins, would imply that that 
author was not acquainted with the numer- 
ous lakes of dislocation in our western ter- 
ritory. For American readers the two 
chapters and the several maps by Cham- 
berlin will prove attractive. 
W. M. Davis. 


HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 

LABORATORY TEACHING OF LARGE 
CLASSES—ZOOLOGY.* 

Ir the large and increasing attendance at 
our summer schools, and the publication of 
many books and the reports made by those 
dealing in scientific apparatus, can be taken 
as an index, the amount of zodlogical teach- 
ing is very rapidly increasing, and the con- 
duction of large classes is a problem of con- 
siderable importance. 

A class of college students numbering 
twenty or twenty-five, and conducted by 
one officer, is a large class and, even with 
a favorably equipped laboratory, is quite as 
large as a single teacher should attempt to 
carry. Of course, if a certain number of 
assistants can be engaged, a larger number 
of students can be directed, though this is 
virtually the establishment of so many sub- 
classes. 

One of the first conditions for successful 
zodlogical instruction is that of immediate 
environment. To crowd a score or more of 
katabolic youth into a small, miserably- 
lighted room, and compel them to breathe 
the fumes of stale alcohol for two or three 
hours, is to invite failure. Each student 
should have a table to himself where there 
is good light, and where he feels a certain 
amount of proprietorship. It should be so 
located that he is not tempted to carry on a 
clandestine parasitism, or even a symbiotic 

* A paper read before the American Society of Nat- 


uralists at the Baltimore meeting, December 28, 
1894. , 


Marcu 8, 1895.] 


existence with his neighbors. He should 
be provided with instruments, drawing and 
dissecting, that are his own, and these ought 
not to be handed down from class to class, 
broken and rusty and inheriting mutilations 
from a long line of ancestors. Each table 
should be provided with a drawer or locker 
in which towel, dissecting tray, books, notes, 
ete., can be safely kept, and any disposition 
towards untidiness should be censured. 

I do not think that the best dissecting 
material obtainable is any too good for the 
college student. An advanced worker, or 
one of a small class, may perhaps profitably 
examine poorly prepared material, but noth- 
ing can more effectually dampen the en- 
thusiasm of an instructor than to see a 
student pow from carapace to the dissect- 
ing dish the only too appropriately named 
‘soft-parts’ of a crab or lobster. There is 
everywhere an abundance of good laboratory 
material, if the teacher will only exercise 
a little activity and foresight. With the 
“numerous preserving fluids, and with alcohol 
free of duty, the student should have per- 
fectly preserved material, unless living 
forms are available. 

The compromise that is often made be- 
tween the lecture and laboratory, by the 
mere exhibition of specimens or the passing 

of specimens from hand to hand during the 
lecture, is slipshod and dangerous. Such 
a display may come off once or twice a 
month, and if carefully conducted is of con- 
siderable value, but if occurring frequently 
there is bound to be a most unfortunate 
sameness in the style of presentation. The 
average student who has carefully dissected 
the cranium of the cat or sheep will take 
away with him a better understanding of 
the mammalian skull than he who has 
viewed acres of diagrams or handled, for a 
moment, the skulls of all the typical ver- 
tebrates. 

In certain laboratories it is considered 
good form to prohibit, or at least to dis- 


- 


SCIENCE, 


261 


courage, the free consultation of books of 
reference by the laboratory student. Pic- 
tures and diagrams, illustrating the animals 
under discussion, are supposed to poison the 
adolescent mind and should only be kept in 
the inner recesses of the professor’s study, 
where he may occasionally retreat for a few 
moments of silent communication, after 
having been floored by a poser from one of 
his students. In my opinion, the student 
should be given every possible aid; there 
should be books galore ; charts and diagrams 
should be conspicuous upon the wall; and 
fine dissections, made possibly by advanced 
students, anatomical preparations and 
models should be freely displayed upon the 
reference table. Prof. Howes, in his ad- 
mirably equipped laboratory in London, 
has placed upon a ledge, running nearly 
around the room, a series of most beautiful 
dissections. In America these are too 
often hidden away in cases, and I fail to un- 
derstand why the best of such material is 
placed in our museums, ostensibly for the 
education of the public, but actually to the 
sacrifice of the interests of the student. 

Speakers at earlier meetings of this So- 
ciety have, I think, not over-estimated the 
educational value of drawing, but we should 
be very careful that the permission to dia- 
grammatize is not interpreted as permission 
for free-hand carelessness. The drawings 
should be carefully prepared; outline, com- 
posite pictures of the material studied. 

Tt is unfortunate that we must introduce 
the microscope into our large class of ‘ zo- 
ology students.’ The question of first ex- 
pense, for every student must have an in- 
strument, is a serious one, and then there is 
the time lost in giving a course in optics. 
Here, however, a little forethought will pre- 
vent much waste of the precious time actu- 
ally appropriated to zodlogy. It is well to 
have one or two extra instruments in re- 
serve, to use in case of accident, and there 
should be an abundance of the material 


262 


studied. I feel that one should be cautious 
in appropriating large time to the process 
of killing, staining, and other matters of 
pure technique, and especial care should be 
taken lest the disease of * microtome-mania ’ 
become epidemic. The microtome is an in- 
strument for the advanced worker and the 
investigator, but it is no uncommon thing 
to see a student, yielding to the blandish- 
ments of the instrument, cutting sections 
by the yard, when a few questions will 
reveal shameful ignorance of the gross an- 
atomy of the animal imbedded. 

One is inclined to think that the enthusi- 
asm of the student is the proper index of 
the work accomplished. But it is not, at 
least not always. The course in zodlogy 
should be a course in zodlogy, and the stu- 
dent, certainly of the elementary class, 
should not be allowed to take alluring short 
cuts to histology, embryology and advanced 
morphology. There is a vast amount of 
microscopical work that can and ought to 
be done in our large classes. At Brown 
University the work of an entire term is 
upon the cat. The material is easy to 
procure ; the organs are large, and I think 
the time of fifty students well spent. A 
critical study of other vertebrates should 
use up the two remaining terms of the 
year. ‘The turtle and the snake very fairly 
represent the reptilian phylum ; the latter, 
aside from popular prejudice, is a most 
satisfactory animal for the laboratory. I 
think it is a mistake not to more generally 
provide Hlasmobranch material for the col- 
lege student. When skate and ‘dog-fish ’ 
can be so readily procured and so easily 
preserved,every zoological laboratory should 
have an abundance. 

And now let me mention a condition, and 
the one upon which success with large 
classes most directly depends, viz., order and 
system. Though the members of our class 
are not all free and equal, as Americans 
they must be treated as such. The work 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 10. 


of a certain day must be planned for the 
class as a whole, and not for individuals of 
the class. All students should have, at the 
beginning of the session, the same equip- 
ment, the same material, and matters of 
neatness should be enjoined upon all alike. 
The water in the dissecting trays must be 
frequently renewed, organic refuse must 
be disposed of, the tables must be kept 
dry, the instruments should not be allowed 
to soak in the bottom of the pan, or the 
pencil used as a probe. The table should 
not be smeared with blood, fat and alcohol. 
There should be a place for everything, 
and ‘systematic zodlogy,’ in the sense of or- 
der, should everywhere prevail. It is much 
easier for the student to become indifferent 
to the orderly side of zodlogy than it is for 
him to acquire respect. for the cleanly. 

A definite syllabus, placed upon the board, 
or laboratory outlines, one on each table, 
must be used. The latter can be prepared 
by the teacher and struck off with a cyclo- 
style or hectograph, and they are of im- 
mense help. The student knows what to 
do and when and how to do it. Extra par- 
agraphs may be added for those who work 
more rapidly; though quality and not quan- 
tity should be the end. 

The teacher, with his eye upon the whole 
class, must go from table to table, quizzing 
here and helping there. He must be ready 
to dissect mutilated specimens and repro- 
duce lost parts instanter; and thankful is 
he, if not too frequently he is constrained 
to follow that motto placed by Professor 
Agassiz so conspicuously at Penikese: “ Do 
not be afraid to say, I do not know.”’ 

I must beg your forbearance while I say 
a few words in regard to the large zoology 
classes in our secondary schools. It is my 
opinion that laboratory classes, conducted 
along the lines which we have just men- 
tioned, are not at the present time to be too 
strongly urged for the common schools. 
There are very few teachers who have had 


a 
- 


MARcH 8, 1895.] 


proper training for this kind of work, though 
the number is happily on the rapid increase. 
The ‘hard parts’ of the lower animals, 
starfish, urchins, molluses, crustacea, in- 
sects, etc., offer ample opportunity for ele- 
mentary zodlogical work, but it seems to be 
hardly advisable to largely recommend the 
dissecting of mammals by the average class, 
though I think the isolated parts, eye, 
bones of the ear, the tongue, heart, brain, 
ete., can be properly and very profitably 
used. Elaborate outfits of dissecting in- 
struments are not here necessary, though 
one or two microscopes are desirable. 
In the secondary school there is a splendid 
opportunity for the cultivation of the obser- 
vational powers, by comparing the external 
characters of animals; by observing hab- 
its ; how the bird breathes ; how it involun- 
tarily grasps the branch; the adaptation of 
structure to use in the feet of waders, 
scratchers and singing birds ; the structure 
of the scale and feathers, and claws; the 
pneumaticity of the bones; the preening of 
the feathers; the dull coloring of the fe- 
male ; the shapes and colors of eggs and any 
peculiar nesting habits. It is all wrong for 
a child to think that zodlogy can only be 
learned over a dissecting dish. The funda- 
mental principles of biology, the theory of 
adaptation, protective coloring, protective 
and aggressive mimicry, distribution, de- 
generation, parasitism and development can 
all be illustrated to and understood by the 
school-child who has never held a scalpel. 
The school-room already has its plants ; it 
should also have its local collection. The 
children make most enthusiastic and active 
collectors. It is not necessary that the 
teacher should be qualified to give off-hand 
the sesquipedalian scientific name of each 
and every insect that is brought to the 
school. A far better goal is reached when 
the student is taught to recognize homolo- 
gies, to place grasshoppers, katydids and 
crickets together, to have a separate apart- 


SCIENCE. 


263 


ment for butterflies and moths, and another 
for beetles, etc. Perhaps certain students 
may be interested in the mollusean fauna 
of the neighborhood and others may choose 
to collect cocoons. (I recently read in one 
of the ubiquitous anti-vivisection papers 
that the lung of the pond-snail is provided 
with most beautiful rows of minute horny 
teeth. Early observations would not only 
correct such aberrations, but would secure 
a familiarity with natural phenomena which 
would give that philosophical training that 
is often so lamentably lacking in our edu- 
cated classes.) The child is delighted with 
the movements of aquatic animals. Aqua- 
ria should be in every school. There are 
hundreds of animals to be collected in any 
pond or stream, and how easy is it to here 
find themes for written exercises and models 
for drawing ! 

The zodlogy of the secondary school should 
not be merely an isolated subject of study. 
It is not attractive to some, and knowledge 
cannot be forced upon unwilling minds; 
but it can be unconsciously absorbed in so- 
lution. Zodlogy then should enter into the 
reading, the writing, the spelling, the arith- 
metic ; geography is stupid without it, and 
the history of human progress is but dis- 
tribution with the consequent ‘struggle for 
existence’ and the ‘survival of the fittest.” 

Hermon C. Bumrevs. 

BROWN UNIVERSITY. 


NOTES ON THE BIOLOGY OF THE LOBSTER.* 

Reproduction.—After hatching a brood in 
May, the female usually molts and after- 
wards extrudes a new batch of eggs. In 


*This paper was read before the Society of Morphologists, 
Baltimore, December 28th. 

The following observations are from part of a pro- 
longed investigation of the habits and development 
of the lobster, undertaken for the U. 8. Fish Commis- 
sion. The detailed work, now ready to go to press, 
will be published in the Fish Commission’s Bulletin. 
It will contain a full presentation and discussion of 
the habits and general life-history of the adult lob- 


264 


this case egg-laying follows close upon 
copulation. Sometimes a female is impreg- 
nated immediately after the old eggs are 
hatched and before the molt occurs. A 
second copulation is then necessary for the 
fertilization of the eggs. Occasionally the 
seminal receptacle of a lobster is found 
loaded with sperm a year before the eggs 
are due. 

Laying of Eggs.—Much confusion has sur- 
rounded this subject because of the lack of 
continuous observation throughout the 
year. The facts seem to be as follows: 
The majority of lobsters capable of spawn- 
ing lay eggs in July and August. About 
20 to 25 % extrude their eggs at other times, 
it may be in the fall, winter or spring. Dur- 
ing a period of seven consecutive months 
five traps were kept set in the harbor of 
Wood’s Holl, Mass., December 1st, 1893, to 
June 30th, 1894, and visited daily. In all 
168 ege-lobsters were taken; 44, or 25.6 % 
of the number, bore eggs which had been 
laid in the fall and winter. 

I have tabulated 51 lobsters coming from 
different parts of the coast of Maine, having 
external eges which had been laid out of 
the usual season of July and August. In 
one case at Matinicus Id., Maine, February 
Ath, the eggs had been extruded but a few 
hours, and the yolk was unsegmented. 
Another from York Id., Maine, November 
15th, had eggs in a late state of segmen- 
tation of the yolk. Still another from 
Brimstone Id., Maine, January 27th, had 
eggs in the nauplius stage. At Wood’s Holl, 
in 1889 to 18938, the recorded observations 
(over 300 in all) show that the greatest num- 
ber of eggs are laid in the last two weeks of 
ster, and the habits of the larvee and young during 
their period of immaturity. The history of the larva 
and the structure and development of the reproduc- 
tive organs will be fully described, and the develop- 
ment of the embryo will also be reyiewed. The work 
is illustrated by 54 full-page plates, many of which 


are executed in colors or reproduced from photo- 
graphs, and by 40 figures in the text. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 10. 


July, the whole period lasting from June 
16th to August 31st. Data from the Maine 
coast (129 observations) indicate that the 
greatest number spawn in the first two 
weeks of August. 

The spawning period of lobsters in the 
extreme north is said to last from July 20th 
to August 20th in Newfoundland. July 
and August are the months commonly as- 
signed for the spawning in Prince Edward 
Island. 

Number of Eggs Laid and Law of Produe- 
tion.—In the course of the work of lobster- 
hatching at the Station of the United 
States Fish Commission at Wood’s Holl, 
it becomes necessary to remove the eggs 
from a large number of lobsters. These 
are carefully measured and the number de- 
duced by simple calculation. I have tabu- 
lated the number of eggs laid in 4,645 lob- 
sters measuring from 8 to 19 inches. In 
examining the column of averages one is 
struck by the fact that a ten-inch lobster 
bears twice as many eggs as one eight inches 
long; that a twelve-inch lobster bears twice 
as many as one ten inches long. It is there- 
fore suggested that in early years of sex- 
ual vigor there is a general law of fecun- 
dity which may be thus formulated; the 
number of eggs produced by female lob- 
sters at each reproductive period varies in 
a geometrical series; while the lengths of 
lobsters producing these eggs vary in an 
arithmetical series. If such a law prevails 
we would have the following: 

Series of lengths in inches: 

Oo ® @ © OG 
8 or 10. 2 (2s e4 =: Gaels 

Series of eggs: 

5,000 : 10,000 : 20,000 : 40,000 : 80,000 : 

160,000. 

An examination of the table shows how 
closely the first four terms of this series are 
represented in nature, and that when the 
14-16-inch limit is reached there is a de- 
cline in sexual activity. Yet the largest 


MAnc# 8, 1895.] 


number of eggs recorded for lobsters of this 
size show that there is a tendency to main- 
tain this high standard of production even at 
an advanced stage of sexual life. 

A graphic representation of the fecundity 
of the lobster tells more forcibly than words 
or figures can do how closely it conforms to 
the law just enunciated. The curve which 
we obtain is the wing of a parabola; the 
curve of fecundity is parabolic up to the 
fourth term, where the ratio of production 
is distinctly lessened. The largest female 
lobster, carrying the largest number of eggs, 
was obtained at No Man’s Land, June 9th, 
1894. It was sixteen inches long and car- 
ried one pound of eggs, estimated to contain 
97,440. It is safe to assume that the aver- 
age number of eggs laid by a lobster eight 
inches long is not above 5,000. The large 
lobster just mentioned, on account of the 
ineumbrance of its eggs, was unable to fold 
its ‘tail,’ which suggests the explanation of 
the rudimentary condition of the first pair 
ofswimmeretts. If these appendages were 
of the average size the large number of eggs 
which would naturally adhere to them 
would make folding of the abdomen impos- 
sible, and it is by folding the ‘tail’ that the 
egg-bearing lobster so successfully protects 
her eggs and eludes her enemies. 

Period of Incubation —Summer eggs which 
are laid in July and August are ordinarily 
hatched in June, after a period of from ten 
to eleven months. Nothing is known about 
the hatching of fall and winter eggs. The 
majority of the eggs which are hatched at 
Wood’s Holl complete their development in 
June. 

That young are hatched at other times is 
certain, and we should expect this to be the 
ease from the variations which occur in the 
time of ovulation. Captain Chester in 1885 
hatched some eggs at Wood's Holl Station on 
the 8th of November and the following days, 
the temperature of the water varying from 
54.3 to 56 degrees Fah. Some lobsters 


& 


SCIENCE. 265 


were hatched early in February in 1889 at 
the hatchery of the Fish Commission Station 
at Gloucester, Mass. The water was very 
cold, and it was estimated that as many as 
10,000 lobsters were hatched. 

Period of Sexual Maturity. Lobsters be- 
come mature when measuring from 74 to 
12 inches in length. Very few under 9 
inches long have ever laid eggs, while but 
few have reached the length of 10} inches 
without having done so. The majority of 
female lobsters 10} inches long are mature. 
Anatomical evidence shows that the period 
at which lobsters become mature is a vari- 
able one, extending over several years. 

Frequency of Spawning. The adult lobster 
is not an annual spawner, but produces 
eggs once in two years. This is proved by 
the anatomical study of the reproductive or- 
gans, and confirmed by the percentage of 
ege-bearing lobsters which are annually 
captured. In a total catch of 2,657 lobsters, 
December Ist to June 30th, 1893 and 1894, 
the sexes were very nearly equally divided, 
and about one-fifth of the mature females 
caught bore external eggs. The catch off 
No Man’s Land in 1894 amounted to 1,518 
lobsters; 93.5% were females, and 63.7% 
carried eggs. When these results are aver- 
aged it is found that about one-half of the 
females carried eggs, as would be the case 
if they spawned every other year. Ehren- 
baum is, without doubt, mistaken in sup- 
posing that the lobster does not breed often- 
er than once in four years (Der Helgolander 
Humer, ein Gegenstand deutscher Fischeret. 
Aus der Biologischen Anstalt auf Helgoland, 
1894. 

Gastroliths. Gastroliths are known only 
in two Macroura, the lobster and crayfish, 
and were observed in the lobster for the 
first time, and recorded by Geoffroy, the 
Younger, in 1709. Though a differentiated 
part of the cuticle, they are not cast off in 
the molt, but are retained and dissolved in 
the stomach. Their structure in the lobster, 


266 


consisting of hundreds of small spicules, 
makes the solution of them possible in a 
very short time. 

The gastroliths have been supposed to 
possess great medical properties and to 
perform a variety of functions, the most 
common and accepted belief being that they 
play an important part in the provision of 
lime for the hardening of the new shell. 
The small quantity of lime which they con- 
tain, however, not more than one one hund- 
red and twenty-sixth of that of the entire 
shell, according to an analysis recently 
made by Dr. Robt. Irvine, shows that 
this is relatively unimportant. Fragments 
of lime furthermore are always at hand, and 
are frequently eaten by the soft lobster, 
shortly after ecdysis, in the adolescent 
stages at least. It is more likely that the 
gastroliths are the result of excretion of lime 
which is absorbed from parts of the shell to 
render molting possible, and that their sub- 
sequent absorption in the stomach is a mat- 
ter of minor importance. 

Rate of Growth.—Larvee increase in length 
at each molt (stages 2 to 10) from 11 to 
15.84%, or on the average about 13.5% 
(measurements from 66 individuals). The 
increase in the young at each molt agrees 
quite closely with that seen in the adult, 
where the increase per cent. in ten cases 
was 15.3%. Allowing an increase per 
cent. at each molt of 15.83—probably not ex- 
cessive for young reared in the ocean—and 
assuming the length of the first larvee to be 
7.84 mm. we can compute approximately 
the length of the individual at each molt. 


Length at 10th molt 28.23 mm. 


Bt CSilmn 9S BBR 
BS on Grea 
Wy «25th ‘* 258.90 ‘* (9.5 inches. ) 
3 “30th ‘“‘ 486.81 ‘ (19.1 inches. ) 


According to this estimate a lobster two 
inches long has molted 14 times; a lobster 
5 inches in length, from 20 to 21 times; an 
adult from 10 to 11 inches long, 25 to 26 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vox. I. No. 10, 


times; and a 19-inch lobster, 30 times. These 
estimates do not, I believe, go very far 
astray. We see them practically verified 
up to the tenth molt. a 

The time interval between successive 
molts is the next point to consider. Here 
the data are very imperfect. How long is 
the three-inch lobster in growing to be six 
inches long? Probably not more than two 
years and possibly less. This is supported 
by the observations of G. Brook. We there- 
fore conclude that a ten-inch lobster is be- 
tween four and five years old, with the — 
highest degree of probability in favor of the 
smaller number. 

Francis H. HERRICK. 

ADELBERT COLLEGE. 


THE NEWARK SYSTEM. 


In an article in a recent number of Scr- 
ENCE* Professor C. H. Hitchcock again ob- 
jects to the use of ‘Newark’ as a group 
name in geology. ‘This article is essen- 
tially a republication of a portion of a paper 
by the same author, which appeared in the 
American Geologist in 1890} in criticism of 
an article of mine in the same journal,{ 
in which reasons were presented for reviy- 
ing the use of Newark as a name for a cer- 
tain system of rocks. 

I replied§ to Professor Hitchcock’s ob- 
jections and criticisms, and showed conclu- 
sively, as I believe, that the term referred 
to has precedence over all other names ap- 
plied to the system in question, which do 
not imply correlation. In hisrecent article 
Professor Hitchcock does not so much as 
mention my rejoinder ; but is of the opinion 
that the considerations presented in his ear- 
lier paper ‘would have been sufficient to 
convince any one, looking at the subject ju- 
dicially and impartially, of the inadequacy 


* Vol. 1, New Series, Jan. 18, 1895, pp. 74-77. 
t Vol. 5, 1890, pp. 197-202. 

{ Vol. 3, 1889, pp. 178-182. 

gAm. Geol., Vol. 7, 1891, pp. 238-241. 


Marcu 8, 1895.] 


of the name Newark to special recognition.’ 
On the other hand, I am of the opinion that 
my reply should have silenced opposition. 
There is, thus, a radical difference of opin- 
ion between us. There is also a question 
of fact involved. Has Newark priority as a 
group name? This is a simple historical 
question that almost any one can decide 
from the documentary evidence. In the 
papers described in the following foot-note* 
I have presented or referred to all of the evi- 
dence known to me bearing on the question. 

In Professor Hitchcock’s recent article 
there are many statements that have no re- 
lation to the matter under discussion, since 
they refer to usages of later date than the 
introduction of the term Newark. No legit- 
imate arguments are advanced that are not 
in the former paper, and as these have all 
been answered, there is nothing left for me 

_ to do but to follow my opponent’s example 
‘ and republish my reply to his five-year-old 
criticism. 

My paper in the American Geologist for 
April, 1891, reads as follows: 

“Ty a brief paper on the Newark system 
published in this journal [Am. Geol.] about 
two years since,} I proposed a revival of 
* Newark’ as a group name for the reddish- 
brown sandstones and shales and associated 
trap rocks of the Atlantic coast region, 

which had previously been quite generally 
referred to the Triassic and Jurassic. A 
long list of names was presented that had 
been used to designate the rocks in question; 
nearly all of which implied correlation with 
European terranes, ranging from the Silu- 
rian to the Jurassic. The advisability of 
adopting a name that did not indicate re- 


*The Newark System, Am. Geol., Vol. 3, 1889, 
pp. 178-182. 

Has ‘Newark’ priority as a group name, Am. 
Geol., Vol. 7, 1891, pp. 238-241. 

The Newark System, U. S. Geol. Sury., Bull. No. 
85 (Correlation Papers) 1892. 

TVol. 3, 1889, pp. 178-182. 

tAm. Geol. 5, April, 1889, p. 251. 


= 


SCIENCE. 


267 


lationship with distant formations was also 
pointed out. The first name on the list re- 
ferred to which met this requirement was 
‘Newark group,’ proposed by W. C. Red- 
field, in 1856. That this was a group name, 
intended to indicate the entire formation, is 
shown by the language used. Redfield’s 
words are: 

“‘T propose the latter designation [New- 
ark group] as a convenient name for these 
rocks (the red sandstone extending from 
New Jersey to Virginia) and to those of 
the Connecticut valley, with which they 
are thoroughly identified by foot-prints and 
other fossils, and I would include also the 
contemporaneous sandstones of Virginia 
and North Carolina.’’* 

As stated in my previous paper, the term 
‘group’ has been adopted by the Internat- 
ional Congress of Geologists in a wider 
sense than was implied by Redfield. I 
therefore suggested that ‘system’ should be 
substituted instead. Before offering the 
suggestion I made what I believe to have 
been an exhaustive examination of the lit- 
erature relating to the terrane in question, 
and concluded that Redfield’s name had 
precedence over all other names that had 
been used which did not imply correlation. 

The term Newark system has recently 
been adopted by several geologists, in ac- 
cordance with my suggestion, and up to the 
present time but one voice has been raised 
against it. In an article on ‘ The use of the 
terms Laurentian and Newark in geological 
treatises,’ published in this journal, + Prof. 
C. H. Hitcheock has formulated five objec- 
tions to its acceptance. These will be con- 
sidered in the order in which they were pre- 
sented. 

First. It is claimed that ‘ An essential 
feature of a name derived from a geograph- 


* Am. Jour. Sci., 2d ser. 1856, Vol. 22, p. 357 ; also 
in Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proe., Vol. 10, Albany meet- 
ing, 1856, p. 181. 

t Vol. 5, 1890, pp. 197-202. 


268 


ical locality is that the terrane should be 
exhibited there in its entirety or maximum 
development; ’ and that the territory about 
Newark, N. J., does not meet these require- 
ments for the Newark system. 

Without dissenting from the wisdom of 
the rule proposed, although a large number 
of exceptions could be found to it in the 
best geological memoirs, I wish to state 
from my own knowledge that the region 
about Newark may be taken as typical of the 
terranenamed after that city. The character- 
istic reddish-brown standstones and shales 
are there well exposed, and in the neighbor- 
ing Newark mountains the associated trap 
rock occurs in sheets of great thickness. 
This statement is sustained by Prof. Hitch- 
cock’s own words, a little farther on in the 
paper cited, where he says, ‘‘ the New Jersey 
terrane possesses the distinguishing features 
of the Trias quite as well as the one in New 
England.” 

That Passaic would have been a better 
name, as Prof. Hitchcock suggests, is per- 
haps true, but the one before us was 
definitely selected and has priority. 

Second. Itis stated by Prof. Hitchcock 
that the name ‘ Connecticut or Connecticut 
River sandstone has priority over Newark,’ 
and was used by several geologists before 
Redfield’s proposal in 1856, ‘though none 
of them had proposed it as a geological 
term.’ The admitted fact that no one had 
used the name referred to as a geological 
term, relieves me of the necessity of show- 
ing that Redfield’s name has priority. 

In the writings of the older geologists 
among whom Prof. Edward Hitchcock will 
always take the first rank as an investiga- 
tor of the sandstones of the Connecticut val- 
ley, the terms ‘Connecticut sandstone,’ or 
‘Connecticut River sandstone,’ were used in 
the same sense as the coordinate term I have 
just employed, 7. ¢., as a geographical desig- 
nation ; just as they might have referred to 
the granite of Massachusetts without any 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 10. 


intention of proposing a group name. The 
fact that the older geologists, and among 
them Prof. Edward Hitchcock, spoke of the 
Newark rocks of New England under defi- 
nite group names, implying correlation, is 
sufficient evidence that they did not recog- 
nize the value of an independent name. 
Third. It is stated that Prof. J.D. Dana 
adopted the name proposed by Redfield, in 
his lectures, but did not use it in his subse- 
quent writings. Prof. Dana’s reasons for 
this course have never been published, and 
so far as it is a precedent—happily prece- 
dents have less weight in geclogy than in 
some other professions—it indicates that we 
should first use the name Newark and then 
abandon it for other names implying indefi- 
nite correlation with distant terranes. 
Fourth and Fifth. While it is admitted 
that the terrane under discussion is quite as 
well represented in New Jersey as in the 
Connecticut valley, it is claimed that the 
latter having been studied first, should haye 
furnished the group name. I fully agree 
with Prof. Hitchcock in this, and could add 
several other group names which to my 
taste might be improved, but the author of 
a geological name, like the paleontologist 
who describes a new fossil, is entitled to 
priority. To attempt to introduce a new 
name for a group of rocks already sufficient- 
ly well designated, would only bring con- 
fusion, similar to that produced by the 
great variety of names implying correla- 
tion that have already been used for the 
Newark system.”’ IsrAEL C. RusspLL. 
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 
DEATH OF GEORGE N. LAWRENCE. 
THE veteran ornithologist, George N. 
Lawrence, died at his home in New York 
City, Jan. 17, 1895, at the age of 89 years. 
He was born in New York, Oct. 20, 1806. 
His wife, to whom he had been married 
more than sixty years, died only five days 
earlier. 


- Mancn 8, 1895.] 


Mr. Lawrence was one of the most care- 


_ ful and prolific of American ornithologists. 


- 1844, the latest in 1891. 


- The list of his published writings * contains 


121 titles, the earliest of which appeared in 
The period of 
his productive activity thus covered nearly 
halfa century. He was an active contem- 
porary of all American ornithologists from 
Audubon and Nuttall to the younger writ- 
ers of the present day. ‘ Baird, Cassin and 
_ Lawrence’ are classic names in ornithology 
—names associated in joint authorship in 
Baird’s great work on the birds of North 
America, published in 1858. For nearly 
fifty years Baird and Lawrence, then the 
foremost authorities on American birds, 
were warm personal friends, and on more 
than one occasion accomplished, by hearty 
cooperation, what neither could have done 
alone. It should not be forgotten that their 
arduous labors paved the way for the re- 
‘finement of detail that characterizes the 
bird work of to-day. 
_ Baird busied himself chiefly with the 
birds of the United States, Lawrence chiefly 
with those of tropical America. Lawrence 
described more than 300 new species from 
the West Indies, Mexico, Central and South 
America. One genus and twenty species 
were named in his honor—tokens of respect 
and esteem—by American and European 
naturalists. 

Baird and Lawrence lived under widely 
different conditions. Baird led an active 
official life, burdened with the cares and 
responsibilities of three great institutions, 
two of which, the National Museum and 
Fish Commission, were his own creation ; 
he was constantly overworked and died 
prematurely at the age of sixty-five years. 
Lawrence led a quiet, retiring life, far away 
from the public eye, and died at the ripe 
age of fourscore years and nine. Still, the 


* The Published Writings of George Newbold Law- 
tence, by L.S. Poster. Bull. U.S. National Museum, 
No. 40. 1892. 


SCIENCE. 


269 


two had many traits in common ; both were 
plain and unassuming, kind and thoughtful 
in their family relations, and ever ready to 
extend a helping hand to those, however 
young, whose tastes led them to the study 
of birds. In looking back over the twenty- 
five years that have passed since I first 
enjoyed their acquaintance, my mind con-- 
stantly recurs to the kindly words of en- 
couragement and advice that shaped my 
early course as a naturalist, and the friend- 
ships that followed will always live among 
my most cherished memories. 
C. Harr Merriam. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 


A Treatise on Hydrostatic. By ALrrep 
GEORGE GREENHILL, Professor of Mathe- 
matics in the Artillery College, Wool- 
wich. Macmillan & Co., London and 
New York. 16mo, pp. viii+536. 

The science of hydrostatics, originating 
with Archimedes, is now more than twenty 
centuries old. It is, in many respects, one 
of the most perfect and satisfactory of the 
sciences. This fact, however, arises from 
the simplicity of the phenomena with which 
hydrostatics has to deal rather than from 
anything like continuity of progress during 
its lengthy history. Indeed, as regards 
purely hydrostatical principles, we are not 
very greatly in advance of Archimedes. 
Our superiority over him is due, first, to an 
immensely enlarged capacity, through the 
developments of mathematics, for the ap- 
plication of those principles; and, secondly, 
to the exploration of the much larger and 
more interesting domain of hydrodynamics, 
of which, in fact, hydrostatics is only a 
special case. 

The work of Professor Greenhill treats 
hydrostatics from the modern point of view. 
He does not hesitate to cross the border for 
an excursion into hydrokinetics whenever 
desirable or essential, although some might 


270 


infer from the title of the book that such ex- 
cursions are avoided. The scope and char- 
acter of the work may be best inferred from 
the following paragraphs of the preface : 

‘““The aim of the present Treatise on 
Hydrostatics is to develop the subject from 
the outset by means of illustrations of ex- 
isting problems, chosen in general on as 
large a scale as possible, and carried out to 
their numerical results; in this way it is 
hoped that the student will acquire a real 
working knowledge of the subject, while at 
the same time the book will prove useful to 
the practical engineer.” 

“In accordance with modern ideas of 
mathematical instruction, a free use is 
made of the symbols and operations of the 
Calculus, where the treatment requires it, 
although an alternative demonstration by 
elementary methods is occasionally submit- 
ted ; because, as has well been said, ‘‘it is 
easier to learn the differential calculus than 
to follow a demonstration which attempts to 
avoid its use.” 

Too much stress cannot be laid on this 
remark with regard to the role of the cal- 
culus in applied science. We are coming 
now, after two centuries, to realize clearly 
that the use of the calculus has become gen- 
eral in all higher investigations, not because 
the pure mathematicians have so desired, 
but because the phenomena of nature de- 
mand for their interpretation such an instru- 
ment of research. 

The book is a mine of interesting and 
useful information, and must become one 
of the standards for students, teachers and 
engineers. The principles are illustrated 
by a wide variety of good examples, many 
of which are drawn from practical applica- 
tions. Special attention is given to the 
problems of flotation and stability of ships, 
and to problems arising in naval architec- 
ture. The theory of the various hydrostat- 
ic instruments, including the hydrometer, 
the barometer and the gas thermometer, is 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 10. 


worked out quite fully. A chapter is de- 
voted to pneumatics, and another to pneu- 
matic machines. There are also chapters 
on capillarity, hydraulics, the general equa- 
tions of equilibrium, and on the mechanical 
theory of heat. In short, the work is a very 
comprehensive one. Few books contain 
more information per page, and few abound 
to such an extent in historical references. 

The exposition of the author is in general 
clear and logical, though occasionally an. 
important principle is announced without 
due warning. Thus, Bernoulli’s theorem 
appears without demonstration on p. 467 in 
the chapter on hydraulics. It would have 
been more in accord with the admirable 
spirit of the book, we think, if the author 
had given in that chapter the general equa- 
tions of fluid motion, and thence deduced 
Bernoulli’s theorem, even if this enlarge- 
ment had required a change in the title of 
the work. 

Some obscurity arises here and there from 
the author’s habit of condensation. Thus, 
on p. 458 we read, “so that the attraction 
of pure gravitation on a plummet weighing 
Weis WG dynes, where G denotes the ac- 
celeration of gravity.” Of course, the ex- 
pert would quickly see that Wg means W 
grammes, but the average engineer will not 
commend such economy. 

The book has a good, but not quite good 
enough, index. For example, the unusual 
words barad and spoud are occasionally 
used by the author. Their meaning is plain 
from the context, in most cases, to the 
specialist, but the general reader would not 
get any light on these terms from the in- 
dex ; for it does not contain the word spoud, 
while it refers for barad to a page on which 
this word does not occur. ; 

These faults, however, are small ones, 
and such, moreover, as are well-nigh in- — 
separable from the first edition of a book so 
full of sound knowledge as this one. 

R. 8. Woopwarb. 


_ Marcu 8, 1895.] 


Eine Discussion der Krafte der chemischen Dy- 


namik. 3 Vortrige von Dr. Ludwig Stet- 
| tenheimer. H. Brecuuoip. Frankfurt, 
1895. 6 Marks. 


This pamphlet of 85 pages is certainly 
revolutionary in character, as the author 
proposes to abandon some of our fundamen- 
tal conceptions of chemistry, and to deal 
with the subject purely mechanically. Chem- 
istry, according to the author, is the me- 
chanics of the smallest bodies, as Astronomy 
is the mechanics of the largest, while Phys- 
icsis a connecting link between the two. 

In chemistry we have to deal with mat- 
ter, with equilibria, and with forces. In 

_ chemical reactions energy is set free, and 
we know in many cases its mechanical ex- 
pression in calories. Al] the groupings and 

unions which we express in our chemical 
formule do not necessarily have their coun- 

_ terpart in the substances themselves, but are 

only conditions of equilibrium, not general 
but special cases of equilibria. The mole- 
eule ceases to be a fundamental conception. 
Chemistry of to-day isa molecular chemistry, 
but we must now give up this conception, 
and, in the place of the molecular or chem- 
ical compound, we must introduce, as in as- 
tronomy, a ‘system,’ a ‘chemical system.’ 
Atoms combine to form groups due to the 
action of the various forces, but why not 
have these groups go on combining until we 
have something which can be perceived by 
the senses? Ifthe same force of attraction 
which binds the atoms together also causes 
the groups to unite, what conditions the 
limits of the molecule? Ina substance like 

' potassium oxide we do not know whether 
two or several molecules are combined, but 
why may not hundreds, thousands or all 
the molecules be combined? This does 
not conflict with Boyle’s law, since we may 
regard a gas as if it were only one molecule 
and having no inter-molecular spaces. 

A system composed of a few well-defined 
atoms and groups is termed a molecular 


SCIENCE. 


271 


system. These combined systems, and not 
the ordinary molecules, represent conditions 
of equilibria. Im the second chapter con- 
siderable space is given to the consideration 
of equilibria, both stable and unstable, and 
the third and last is devoted to the condi- 
tions of union in the solid, liquid and 
gaseous states. As a result of these con- 
siderations, the author concludes that 
chemical forces differ in no wise from me- 
chanical, but that everything points to a 
mechanical interaction between the smallest 
particles of matter. 

While scientists are always ready to con- 
sider new ideas which will lead to wider 
generalizations, yet it is always a fair ques- 
tion to ask whether a given suggestion will 
accomplish this. In the present case it 
seems quite proper to consider whether all 
the chemical evidence of the existence of 
atoms and groups forming definite units, 
called molecules, has been taken into ac- 
count. If so, then will this method of 
regarding chemical phenomena enable us to 
advance further or faster than that involv- 
ing atoms and molecules? It can be safely 
predicted that chemists will be somewhat 
adverse to giving up conceptions upon which 
their whole science is built, at least until 
something more than abstract ideas are 
offered in their place, something about 
which they can think definitely and clearly, 
and which will suggest new lines of work. 
It is doubtful whether the work published 
by Dr. Stettenheimer will meet with pro- 
nounced success in removing these con- 
ceptions of atoms and molecules from 
chemistry, since they have proved so fruit- 
ful in the past, and seem to meet the de- 
mands of most of the working chemists of 
to-day. 

The book, while clearly printed, contains 
a remarkably large number of typographical 
errors. Nearly a full page of corrections is 
given, yet the reader will encounter many 
mistakes in the text which form no part of 


272 


this tabulated evidence of careless proof- 

reading. 

The reviewer has found it difficult to give 

a satisfactory account of the contents of the 

second and third chapters in a short review, 

so that those who may wish to follow the 
author’s applications of his fundamental 
ideas must read the original. 
H. C. Jonzs. 
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 

Teat-book of Organie Chemistry. By A. 
BerntuHsen. 2d English Edition, trans- 
lated by G. McGowan, from the 4th 
German Edition. London, Blackie & 
Son. New York, D. Van Nostrand. 1894. 
The general excellence of this work is in- 

dicated by its reception both in German 

and in English speaking countries. Four 

German editions in six years have been 

found necessary, and the second English 

edition will probably be even more exten- 
sively used than the first. The present 
book is a work of about 575 pages, fifty 
more than the previous edition, and occu- 
pies a position between the elementary and 
the encyclopedic text-book. As stated in 
the preface, the descriptive part is con- 
densed as far as possible, and special em- 
phasis put upon summarizing the charac- 
teristics of each class of compounds. There 
are frequent valuable tables of the princi- 
pal properties of important classes of com- 
pounds. The subject-matter is treated in 
a way showing the intimate knowledge of 
the literature to be expected from a chem- 
ist like Bernthsen, though it seems strange 
that he makes no reference to American 
periodicals, but seems content to use the 
often imperfect abstracts in the foreign 
journals. The fourth German edition was 
published in 1893, and the subject is well 
brought to that date. A point would have 
been gained, and the value of the book 
greatly enhanced, had the translator 
brought to the date of publication of the 
English editions at least those chapters 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 10, 


which treat of classes of compounds on 
which important work was done in 1893 
and 1894. I refer particularly to the 
sugars, terpene, etc. The translation is 
good, though sometimes too literal. Many 
German expressions have crept in, and do 
not make the matter any clearer. In the 
text, formule of substances are frequently 
used instead of names. It would be better 
to use names only, but if P,S, is used in 
one place because it occupies less space 
than Phosphorus Pentasulphide, it should 
be used always, and the one should not ap- 
pear on one page, and the other a few 
pages further on. On the whole the work 
is well adapted to the needs of those Amer- 
ican colleges in which organic chemistry 
can receive the time and attention it de- — 
serves. With it a mature student can eas- 
ily get a good working knowledge of the 
subject. For undergraduate work, as car- 
ried on in most of our colleges, a less am- 
bitious course, thoroughly given and em- 
bodying the use of a smaller text-book, 
seems desirable. 


FELix LENGFELD. 
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 


Protisten und 
Jena, 1894, 


Systematische Phylogenie der 
Pflanzen. Ernst HArCKEL. 
Pp. 400. 

Prof. Ernst Haeckel, of Jena, has re- 
cently begun an extensive work on the sys- 
tematic evolution of animal and plant life. 
It is to be in three parts, the first of which 
has just appeared as the ‘ Phylogeny of the 
Protista and the Plants.’ The second part, on 
the phylogeny of invertebrates, and the 
third part, on that of vertebrates, are also 
promised during the present year. In the 
present volume the author outlines his plan 
and presents in the opening paragraphs the 
main data upon which his phylogeneti¢ 
trees are based, namely, the three branches 
of natural science, paleontology, ontogeny, 
or the life history of individuals, and mor- 
phology. The work as a whole is im 


——— 


two organisms. 


ony 


MARCH 8, 1895.] 


Haeckel’s most attractive popular style, and 
is divided and subdivided into titles and 
headings, thus making it delightful for read- 
ing and reference. 

The first organisms, he imagines, were 
Monera, or ‘ Probionten,’ which were small 
homogeneous plasma particles with no an- 
atomical structure. Life activity here was 
limited to mere assimilation and growth, 
and where the latter exceeded a certain limit 
of cohesion of the constituent plasm the or- 
ganism split into two parts and thus formed 
This was the beginning of 
reproduction and of inheritance. The homo- 
geneous protoplasm of these Monera was an 
albuminate arising from a mixture of water, 
earbonic acid and ammonia. The origin of 
life, therefore, is little more than this par- 
ticular combination of inorganic parts at a 
certain period. While it is probable that 
the Monera were widely created at this 
period, the atmosphere, temperature, etc., 
being in the proper condition, it is not prob- 
able that they have been produced spon- 
taneously since then. Haeckel states the 
stages in this creation as follows: Ist. 


_Nitro-carbon compounds were formed by 


the synthesis and reduction of various acids 


and salts. The composition was about the 
sameasthatof albumen. 2nd. The albumen 


molecules with water formed crystalline, but 


as yet microscopically invisible, molecules. 


8rd. These albumen groups arranged them- 


‘selves in definite ways and formed micro- 
—Seopically visible plasma granules. 
These plasma granules had the power to as- 


4th. 


Similate food, a chemical change, and to 


‘grow, and at the limit of cohesion to divide 


and form new ones. These homogeneous 
plasma granules were Monera. 

All of this, however, is hardly new to the 
readers of Haeckel. The greatest novelty of 
this work lies in his radical views as to the 
re-classification of animals and plants. He 
first separates them on the old lines accord- 
ing to their mode of nutrition. Plants are 


SCIENCE. 273 


essentially formative organisms and have 
the power by the thermal energy derived 
from the sun’s rays to change inorganic into 
organic combinations, taking up carbon 
dioxide and throwing off oxygen. Animals, 
on the other hand, are just the reverse; with 
them the chemical energy of combinations 
is reduced to heat and motion. It follows 
that plants must have been the first forms of 
organisms on the earth, because they only 
are able to transform by the energy of the 
sun’s rays inorganic substances into organic. 
Animals were developed secondarily from 
the plants by a process of parasitism. That 
is, some of the plants began to absorb and 
assimilate parts of other plants, thus chang- 
ing from an inorganic, carbon-dioxide diet 
to an organic mode of nutrition. This pro- 
cess of nutrition-change, known as metasitism 
(metasitismus), is familiar in certain of the 
higher plants which have acquired the 
power to absorb solid nutriment, for ex- 
ample, the insectivorous plants. Haeckel 
derived the original name then from the 
original plant by a mere change in nutrition. 
Metasitism plays a most important part in 
the new theory, and in this book is given 
more importance than it has hitherto 
received. 

From this original homogeneous substance 
the several parts of the cell, as it is known 
to-day, were derived by a process of differ- 
entiation. Certain parts of the plasm, by 
reason of their position, became adapted for 
the acquisition of food, while the internal 
parts, unable to take in food, gradually as- 
sumed reproductive functions, and in time 
came to have a certain definite form ; thus 
arose the cell nucleus. The outer portion 
of the cytoplasm, in addition to its nutri- 
tive function, gradually aequired a protect- 
ive function also, and membranes were dif- 
ferentiated. Later, by a process of incom- 
plete cell division, colonies of these simple 
cells were formed, and from these the high- 
er cell aggregates were derived by a process 


274 


of division oflabor. Haeckel supposes, from 
the almost universal appearance of nuclei 
in cells, that this differentiation, Into nu- 
cleus and cytoplasm, must have taken place 
at a comparatively early period, and that all 
of the forms of life which have a nucleus 
must have been derived from one early nu- 
cleated type, for he is a firm believer in the 
inheritance of acquired characters. 

The primitive plants, from which all of 
the organic world has been derived, are 
called ‘Probiontes’ or archephyta. From 
this primitive stem, which was non-nu- 
cleated type, and composed of absolutely 
homogeneous protoplasm without indica- 
tions even of the ‘ micelle,’ of Hertwig, or 
the ‘Schaumplasma,’ of Butschli, were given 
off the primitive nucleated plant types of the 
Flagellata in one direction, and the primi- 
tive non-nucleated animal (Moneran ) types 
in another. In addition to these two de- 
rivatives there was a third, which repre- 
sents the original chlorophyl bearing plant. 
These were the Cyanophycee or Chromacez, 
in which the chlorophyl is not in the form 
of small plates, but exists as a diffuse color- 
ing matter within the cell. From these 
forms, which also were non-nucleated, the 
Bacteria arose by a process of metasitism. 

In the primitive plant types of Flagellata 
the nuclei have not acquired a distinct dif- 
ferentiation, but remain absolutely homo- 
geneous (1. é., not divisible into nuclein, pa- 
ranuclein, etc.), and therefore represent the 
first and most primitive forms of nuclear dif- 
ferentiation. These are not derived from the 
Monera or non-nucleated animal types, but 
come directly from the primitive plant type 
or the Archephyta. He gives the name 
Mastigota to these early flagellated plant 
cells which belong to the class of Palmel- 
laceze, and from them he derives all of the 
higher plants and animals, the latter aris- 
ing polyphyletically by the process of meta- 
sitism. The rise of the higher animals and 
of man is traced in a direct line down to 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 10. 


these primitive plants. The first step in 
the scale is the origin of the animal Flagel- 
lates by change in the method of nutrition 
and consequent loss of chlorophyl or allied 
bodies. Then comes the formation of col- 
onies and gradual division of labor until 
the highest type of protozoon organization 
is attained. This type is represented by 
the form Catallacta, which is thus the con- 
necting link between the protozoa and meta- 
zoa. Volvox occupies a similar position in 
the phylogeny of the higher plants in their 
relations to the protophyta. 

In general it may be said that this part 
of the ‘Systematische Phylogenie’ is a re- 
vision of the earlier views of Haeckel. The 
one essentially new feature is the division 
line which he makes between plants and 
animals. This border line has been the 
subject of contention between zodlogists and 
botanists for ages, and now he proposes to 
form a hard and fast distinction. The di- 
viding line is the ability of the organisms, 
whatever they may be, to form chlorophyl 
or similar bodies, and thus to derive nourish- 
ment, in conjunction with solar energy, from 
inorganic substances. This, as may readily 
be supposed, makes havoe with our existing 
classifications, and the changes will be ac- 
cepted, if ever, only after much contention. 
For. example, the Fungi (Chytridiacez, 
Zygomycetes and Ovomycetes) are taken 
from the vegetable kingdom and transferred 
to the animal, and with them the Saccharo- 
mycetes (yeast) and the Bacteria. The lat- 
ter he claims have absolutely no connection 
with the fungi— Indessen beruht diese Auf- 
fassung nur auf der Macht der dogmatischen 
Tradition und nicht auf welchem rationellen 
Urtheil’’—is Haeckel’s forcible way of repre- 
senting this position. ’ 

On the other hand, many of our so-called 
Protozoa are taken into the Protophyte di- 
vision of plants. All forms which haye 
coloring matter in the form of chlorophyl, 
and are, therefore, holophytic in their mode 


- —_ 


Marcu 8, 1895.] 


of nutrition, are transferred to the vegetable 
kingdom. The greatest drafts are upon the 
group of Flagellata, which are so often pro- 
vided with chromatophores. He does not 
take the Radiolaria, however, with their 
‘yellow cells,’ probably for the reason that 
they are symbiotic forms. This will prob- 
ably be the sticking point in such a classi- 
fication, for even if the dividing principle 
be admitted, the difficulty will ever be to 
decide, in these low forms, what is true 
chlorophyl formation and what symbiosis. 
The discoveries of Famintzin and Entz show 
that in many of the lower forms the presence 
of chlorophyl is due to minute plant cells 
which live independently of the animals 
with which they are associated. Before the 
classification can be complete it must be de- 
termined for each form whether the chloro- 
phyl is a symbiotic plant or a natural pro- 
duct. Gary N. CALKins. 


GEOLOGY. 


Kansas River Section of the Permo-Carbonifer- 
ousand Permian Rocks of Kansas. CHARLES 
S. Prosser. Bulletin Geol. Soc. America, 
Vol. 6, pp. 29-54. 1894. 

In the above paper Professor Prosser con- 
‘siders the historic section of the Upper 
Paleozoic rocks as exposed along the upper 

course of the Kansas River. As is well 
known, the early geologists of the State en- 
gaged in a most animated controversy over 
the correlation of the geological formations 
of this region. Although the investiga- 
tions of Meek, Hayden, Hawn and Swallow 
began more than thirty-five years ago and 
were vigorously conducted for a number of 
years, still the subject was not settled, and 
many of the points at issue between the dis- 
putants are still open for decision. 

The author describes various typical geo- 
logical sections as exposed in the steep 
bluffs of the Kansas river and its tribu- 
taries, giving the distinctive geological 
characters and fossils of the various divi- 


- 


SCIENCE. 275 


sions. In connection with this description, 
there is a complete review of the previous 
geological work, followed by a chart of tab- 
ulated sections, on which the correlation of 
the early geologists is indicated. 

Possibly the most interesting fact in the 
paper to a geologist familiar with the region, 
is the statement that the Cottonwood and 
Manhattan limestones are the same. This 
limestone, which is the most valuable stone 
in the State for construction, has been ex- 
tensively used, and the author states that 
he has traced it across the country from 
Cottonwood Falls, on the Cottonwood River, 
to Manhattan, on the Kansas River. An- 
other interesting fact in reference to the 
stratigraphical geology is the correlation of 
the buff, magnesian limestones near Fort 
Riley with those of Florence, in the Cotton- 
wood Valley. 

In conclusion, it is stated that this is only 
a preliminary paper and that the writer has 
in hand the preparation of a report in which 
a full description of the formations of Cen- 
tral Kansas will be given, with the distri- 
bution of their fossils and their general 
correlation. 


NOTES AND NEWS. * 
FORESTRY AND ECONOMIC BOTANY. 

Tue steady increase of interest in for- 
estry matters, so desirable and essential, has 
recently become evident in many ways, es- 
pecially in the Eastern States. New York, 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey have taken 
long strides in the right direction in the 
shape of much needed legislation ; and the 
establishment of forestry journals for the 
promulgation of knowledge respecting the 
nature and value of our native trees is a 
step that will receive commendation from 
thoughtful people everywhere. The South 
Jersey Woodmen’s Association has shown 
wisdom in securing an official organ through 
which they may increase the scope of their 
influence. The first number of ‘The New 


276 


Jersey Forester’ (May’s Landing, New 
Jersey), contains valuable and interesting 
articles from the pens of well known scien- 
tists. The editor, Mr. John Gifford, Special 
Forestry Commissioner of New Jersey, re- 
views recent forestry legislation in that 
State, and discusses the causes and effects 
of forest fires in the southern interior of New 
Jersey ; B. E. Fernow, Chief of the Forestry 
Division, Washington, D. C., presents the 
extent and aims of the forestry movement 
in the United States. An illustrated article 
on ‘The Periodical Ciceda, or Seventeen 
Year Locust,’ by Professor John B. Smith, 
State Entomologist, New Brunswick, N. J., 
is followed by interesting contributions on 
‘The Evil Effects of Drifting Sands Along 
the Jersey Coast,’ by Professor Charles S. 
Dolley, President of tne American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Education, and 
on ‘The Colony of Russian Refugees at 
Woodbine,’ by H. L. Sabsovich, Superin- 
tendent of the Baron Hirsch Colony. The 
example set by this publication, both in its 
purpose and the high standard presented in 
this first number is one which may well be 
followed by State forestry associations 
throughout the country. 

At teachers of botany and lovers of trees, 
especially those interested in forestry agita- 
tion, will welcome the excellent charts is- 
sued by Miss Lewis. The execution of the 
drawings of leaves and acorns in Chart No. 
1 is all that could be desired, accurate and 
finished in every detail, as might be expect- 
ed of anything coming from the pencil of one 
so expert, and so widely and favorably 
known as a thorough botanist and skilled 
artist. Miss Lewis, a member of the 
Academy of Natural Science of Philadel- 
phia and a teacher of long experience, has 
done much to promote a love for natural his- 
tory and to encourage its being taught in 
our schools, and she is to be congratulated 
upon her latest contribution to this good 
work. ‘Teachers have only to see the charts 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 10. 


to insure the introduction of the same into 
the class-room. 

Stites AnD HasALL announce in a recent 
number of the Veterinary Magazine the 
discovery of a new species of intestinal fluke 
(Distoma tricolor) in the Cotton-tail rabbit 
(Lepus sylvaticus, Bachman) and in the 
Northern hare (Z. americanus Eraleben). 

A NEw and serious enemy to pear trees 
has recently been discovered in New Jersey 
by Dr. John B. Smith. It is a flat-headed 
borer (Agrilus Sinnatus Ol.), a species com- 
mon in Europe, and was imported into a 
nursery in Union county, N. J., not more 
than ten yearsago. It is already wide- 
spread in that State, probably occurring 
also in New York. The last number of 
‘Insect Life’ (Vol. VII., No. 3) contains 
an illustrated article on this pest. 

M. G. V. BerrHoumiev, in the first num- 
ber of the current volume of Annales de la 
Société entomologique de France, has be- 
gun the publication of what bids fair to be 
a very complete monograph of the Ichneu- 
monide of Europe. 

E. A. Smyru, Jr., of the Virginia Agri- 
cultural College, has recently examined the 
stomach contents of a large number of 
hawks and owls, with the result that he is 
able to show that the good offices of many 
of these birds by far overbalance any oc- 
casional instance of ravages upon the poul- 
try yard. The ‘trim and dauntless little 
sparrow hawk’ is found to be a very active 
enemy of caterpillars, grasshoppers and 
other insects, as well as of the ubiquitous 
English sparrow, and to deserve protection 
at the hands of all farmers. 

Tue Cornell University Agricultural Ex- 
periment Station Bulletins for December, 
1894 (Nos.78, 80), just issued, treat respee- 
tively of ‘The Quince in Western New York,’ 
a subject of considerable interest, inasmuch 
as quinces are more extensively grown im 
that district than anywhere else in North 


: 


Marcu 8, 1895.] 


America ; and of ‘The Variety and Leaf- 
Blight of the Strawberry.’ The publica- 
tions of the Cornell Station excel in beauty 
of illustration much of the material issued 
by similar institutions. 


ENTOMOLOGY. 


In a recent and excellently illustrated 
memoir (Museum Dzieduszyckianum, iv— 
Lemberg) on the insect fauna of the petro- 
Jeum beds of Boroslow, Galicia, Lemnicki 
describes no less than seventy-six coleoptera, 
of which nineteen are regarded as identical 
with living European insects, while the 
others find their nearest allies in boreal 
Europe, Asia and America. As only four 

“Species are identical with those found by 
Flach at Hésbach, Bavaria, in beds looked 
upon as Lower Pleistocene by Flach, and 

since the Hoésbach coleoptera as a whole 
show far less boreal affinities than those of 

Galicia, Lemnicki thinks the Hésbach 

_ fauna must be considered Middle Pleistocene 

and the Galician Lower Pleistocene. 


RUSSIAN SCIENCE NOTES. 


_ Tue Jubilee-book issued by the Univer- 
‘sity of Kasan in commemoration of the 
Lobachévsky centenary has already reached 
avery large circulation. His compatriots 
are pushing the non-Euclidean geometry. 

N. P. Sokolov has just issued at Kiev 
‘(University Press) a pamphlet of 32 pages 
(large 8vo) entitled ‘The significance of 
‘the researches of N. I. Lobachévsky in 
geometry.’ 

Volume VI. of the second series of the 
Bulletin of the physico-mathematical society 
of Kasan, pp. 18-41, contains an interesting 
contribution by W. Sichstel on the funda- 
mental theorems of spherical geometry. 

Two books on America have lately been 
published in Russia. One is by Witkowsky, 
4 scientist sent by the Russian government 
to study geodetic work in the United States. 
‘The other i is published by a Russian, now 


SCIENCE. 


277 


resident in Los Angeles, who has been more 
than ten years in America, and has here 
amassed a fortune. He is a fervid republi- 
can, and writes under the nom-de-plume 
Tverski. 

The well-known and justly admired writer 
Korolenko, ranked by the Russians second 
only to Tolstoi of living authors, was during 
1893 in America, and is about to issue his 
impressions of travel. This book, because 
of the high reputation of the author, is 
awaited with keen interest. 

GEORGE Bruce HALsTep. 


THE COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY. 


Tue A. A. A. S., at its Brooklyn meet- 
ing, made two appropriations to aid research 
in biological laboratories. One at Wood’s 
Holl, of which notice was given in our last 
number, and one at the Cold Spring Harbor 
Laboratory ; concerning which the follow- 
ing is the wording of the vote : 

“That $100 be granted to Franklin W. 
Hooper in behalf of the Biological Labora- 
tory at Cold Spring Harbor, to be devoted 
to defraying the expense of original re- 
search ; he nature of this to be approved 
by a committee selected by the Council.” 

The committee appoiated consists of the 
Vice-Presidents-elect of Section F. and G., 
viz.: Prof. D. S. Jordan and Prof. J. S. 
Arthur. 

Applications are to be sent to Prof. F. W. 
Hooper, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and 
Sciences, or to Prof. H. W. Conn, Wesleyan 
University, Middletown, Conn. 


WASHINGTON LECTURES. 


Tue Series of Saturday Lectures, compli- 
mentary to the citizens of Washington, will 
be continued during the season of 1895, un- 
der the joint auspices of the Anthropological 
and Geological Societies. Two courses have 
been provided for, each so arranged as to 
give a logical introduction to the science 
treated. 


wis 


The addresses will be delivered in the 
Lecture Hall of U. S. National Museum, 
4:20 to 5:30 Pp. M., on the dates specified. 
Citizens of Washington and their friends are 
cordially invited to attend. 

The anthropologie course will comprise: 
(1) an exposition of the elements of anthro- 
pology by the President of the Anthropo- 
logical Society, and (2) somewhat more de: 
tailed expositions of the different branches 
of the science of man by representatives of 
the four sections of the Society. The geo- 
logic course, which is provisionally ar- 
ranged, will comprise an exposition of the 
growth of North America from the most 
ancient geologic period to the present time, 
illustrated by maps showing various stages 
in continental development. 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 
February 23.— What is the Science of Demol- 
ogy? Mason J. W. PowE Lu. 
March 2.—Human Growth: Dr. FRANZ Boas. 
March 9.—The Founding of Sociology: Vice- 
President LestER F. WARD. 
March 16.—The Progress of the Scientific 
Method: Vice-President W J McGzs. 
March 23.—The Growth of Arts: Vice-Presi- 
dent Frank Haminron CusHine. 


GEOLOGY. 

March 30.—The Continent in Algonkian Time : 
Pror. C. R. Van Hise. 

April 6.—The Continent in Cambrian and 
Silurian Time: Hon. Coartes D. Wat- 
coTT. 

April 13.—The Continent in Devonian Time: 
Marius R. CaMPBELt. 

April 20.—The Continent in Cretaceous and 
Tertiary Time: G. K. GILBERT. 

April 27.—The Continent in Glacial and Re- 
cent Time: PRor, WILLIAM B. CLARK. 


A PROPOSED NATIONAL UNIVERSITY. 


REPRESENTATIVE Hatner, of Nebraska, 
has introduced a bill to establish the Uni- 
versity of America, in which each State, Ter- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vox. L No. 10. 


ritory and Congressional District shall be en- 
titled to an equal proportionate number of 
students, chosen by means of open competi- 
tive examinations. Instruction in all the 
branches of all departments of knowledge is 
to be given, and facilities furnished for scien- 
tific and literary research and investigation. 
The government of the University is to be 
vested in a board of twenty regents.—Hven- 
ing Post. 
GENERAL. 


Joun Murray has published the report 
of the Oxford meeting of the British As- 
sociation edited by the Assistant Seere- 
tary, Mr. G. Griffith. In addition to the 
address of the President, Lord Salisbury, 
and those of the Vice-Presidents of the 
several sections, there are printed in full 
eight papers by special invitation of the 
general committee, among them Professor 
Langley’s On Recent Researches in the Infra 
Red Spectrum. The other papers are given 
in abstract or by title only. Four hundred 
pages, half the volume, are taken up by the 
reports of committees and investigators, 
previously appointed. 

Dr. HERMANN WEBER, a Fellow of the 
College of Physicians in London, gave last 
December £2,500 for the purpose of found- 
ing a prize to be given triennially for the 
best essay on tubercular consumption. The 
competition is open to writers in all coun- 
tries. 

Tue Vienna Academy of Sciences has 
received by the will of Josef Treitel 800,- 
000 florins to be used for the advancement 
of astronomy. 

PROFESSOR WELDON is announced to dis- 
cuss Variation in Animals and Plants at the 
second of the special meetings of the Royal 
Society. 

M. Gurenarp has been elected a mem- 
ber of the Section of Botany of the Paris 
Academy of Sciences, succeeding M. de 
Chartre. 


_ Marcu 8, 1895.] 


Dr. F. N. Scumirz, Professor of Botany 
in the University of Greifswald, died on 
January 28, at the age of 44. 

_ Tue University of Wisconsin has begun 
the publication of series of bulletins in 
Philology and Literature, in Science, in 
Engineering, and in Economics, Political 
Science and History. The numbers so far 
issued are: On the Speed of the Liberation of 
Iodine in Mixed Solutions of Potassium Chlorate, 
Potassium Iodide and Hydrochloric Acid, by 
Herman Schmidt. Track, by L. F. Loree. 
Some Practical Hints in Dynamo Design, by 
Gilbert Wilkes. The Steel Construction of 
Buildings, by C. T. Purdy. The Evolution of 
@ Switchboard, by Arthur Vaughan Abbott. 
‘The Geographical Distribution of the Vote of 
the Thirteen States on the Federal Constitution, 
1787-8, by Orin Grant Libby. 
Tue J. B. Lierrvcorr Co. announce Sug- 
gestions to Hospital and Asylum Visitors, by Dr. 
John §S. Billings and Dr. Henry M. Hurd, 
and A Text-book of Chemistry, intended for 
‘the use of pharmaceutical and medical 
students, by Professors Samuel P. Sadtler 


College of Pharmacy. 

_ Gryn & Co. announce The Religions of 
India, by Edward Washburn Hopkins. 
_D. Appteton & Co. announce The Story 


series includes The Story of the Earth, 
H. G. Seeley; The Story of the Primitive 
; by Edward Clodd; The Story of the 

System, by G. F. Chambers. The 
Same publishers announce a translation of 
, Nordau’s Entartung. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
= NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
& Tue Section of Geology and Mineralogy, 
| February 18, listened to papers of which 

following are abstracts: Heinrich Ries 


SCIENCE. 279 


described the geology and petrography of the 
‘Harrison Granite’ of Westchester county, 
N.Y. This forms an elongated belt, prin- 
cipally in the town of Harrison, on Long 
Island Sound, and is in the midst of the 
mica schists, which Dr. F. J, H. Merrill re- 
gards and has recently mapped as meta- 
morphosed representatives of the Hudson 
River stage. The granite contains both 
hornblende and biotite and is really a gran- 
ite-diorite. It is all more or less gneissic, 
and shades from a coarsely laminated va- 
riety with many ‘ Augen’ of feldspar, in the 
central portion, to decidedly schistose vari- 
eties at the border. Evidences of crushing 
and many curious inclusions in the feldspar 
are abundant. 

In discussion, J. F. Kemp cited the 
many intrusive bosses of granite all along 
the north shore of the Sound from Stony 
Creek, Conn., to Niantic, R. I. The results 
of observations as yet unpublished, on those 
in Rhode Island, were given anda few notes 
on their mineralogy. ; 

G. F. Kunz followed with a paper on the 
‘Minerals used for the Assyrian, Babylo- 
nian and Sassanian Cylinders, Seals, ete.,’ 
which was illustrated by many specimens 
and lantern slides. An abstract of the pa- 
per, which will be printed in full in the 
Transactions of the Academy, is as follows: 

The seals that date from 4000 B. C. to 
2500 B. C. are cylinders, a form that is 
thought to have been suggested by the joint 
of areed. Nearly all depict animals with- 
out other ornamentation. They were made 
of black or green serpentine, conglomerate, 
diorite, and often of the central whorls of 
the large conchs from the Persian Gulf. 
From 2500 to 600 B. C. the cylindrical shape 
continues, but, in addition to the animals, 
from one to six rows of cuneiform charac- 
ters appear. Variously colored chalcedony, 
(especially a blue variety), brick red ferru- 
ginous quartz and red hematite are also 
used. Up to this time the carving was 


280 


done with a sapphire point, but in the fifth 
century wheel-work begins to appear. In 
the sixth century B. C. cylinders begin to 
be partially replaced by cone-shaped seals, 
and by the scaraboid forms introduced from 
Egypt. From the third century B. C. to 
the third century A. D. the seals become 
lower and flatter, and finally graduate into 
rings, mostly with Persian or Sassanian 
characters. Although in part made from 
the stones of the neighboring hills, yet rarer 
materials begin to appear—evidently ob- 
tained by trade with Egypt and other coun- 
tries more or less remote. 

In addition to the minerals mentioned 
above, the following are recognized : clear, 
pellucid quartz, amethyst, agates of various 
colors, lapis-lazuli from Bodakshan in Tur- 
kestan, amazon-stone, possibly of Egyptian 
origin, calcite, green and white and in the 
form of various marbles, aragonite, gypsum, 
syenite and jade. 

It is hoped that further study may enable 
us to trace these minerals to their original 
localities with greater certainty. 

J. F. Kemp, Recording Secretary. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 


THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL 
SOCIETY, MARCH. 


The Synthetic Food of the Future: 
W. WILeEy. 

The Determination of Phosphoric Acid: H. 
PEMBERTON, JR. 

On the Estimation of Sulphur in Pyrites: G. 
LUNGE. 

Improvement in the Manufacture of Acetone: 
E. R. Squiss. 

Report of Committee on Atomic Weights, Pub- 
lished During 1894: FF. W. CLarx. 

Coloring Matter in the California Red Wines: 
W. D. Brentow. 

The Penetration Machine—An Explanation : 
H. C. Bowen. 

Notes: Argon. 


HARVEY 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 10, 


AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY, JAN. 

Comparative Observations on the Indirect Color 
Range of Children, Adults, and Adults Train- 
ed in Color: Guo. W. A. Luckey. 

Minor Studies from the Psychological Laboratory 
of Cornell University: Taste Dreams: 3. 
B. TrrcHenrer. On the Quantitative Deter- 
mination of an Optical Illusion: R. WaAprA- 
NABE, Po. D. The Cutaneous Estimation of 
Open and Filled Space: C. S. PARRISH. 

The Daily Infe of « Protozoan; A Study in 
Comparative Psycho-physiology: C. F. Hopen, 
Pu. D., and H. Ausrry Arkins, Pa. D. 

Minor Studies from the Psychological Laboratory 
of Clark University: A Study of Individual 
Psychology: CArotine Mites. The Mem- 
ory After-Image and Attention: ArrHuR H. 
Danrets, Po. D. On the Least Observable 
Interval between Stimuli addressed to Dis- 
parate Senses and to Different Organs of the 
Same Sense: Avice J. Hamury. Notes on 
New Apparatus: Epmunp CO. SANFORD. 

On the Words for ‘Anger’ in Certain Lan- 
guages; A Study in Linguistic Psychology: 
A. F. CHAMBERLAIN, PH. D. . 

A Laboratory Course in Physiological Psychol- 
ogy; The Visual Perception of Space: Hp- 
MUND C. SANFORD. 

Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of 
the American Psychological Association at 
Princeton. 

Psychological Literature. 


NEW BOOKS. 

History of Chemistry. F.P. VENABLE. Bos- 
ton, D. C. Heath & Co. 1894. Pp. viii 
ainel' Diffs 

Mental Development of the Child and the Race. 
Methods and Processes. JAMES MARK 
Batpwin. New York and London, Mac- 
millan & Co. 1895. Pp. xvit+496. $2.60. 

Qualitative Chemical Analysis of Inorganic 
Substances as Practiced in Georgetown Col- 
lege, D. C. New York, Cincinnati, Chi- 
cago, American Book Company. 1894. 
Pp. 61. 


ten Abbildungen, 486 S. KI. 8°. 
__ Drtescu, Hans. 


‘ 


SOCIE NCE. 


New SERIES. 
Vou. I. No. 11. 


Fripay, Marcu 15, 1895. 


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BARRILLOT, ERNEST. Traité de Chimie Légale. 
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BuJARD, Dr. ALFONS und Dr. EDUARD BATER. 
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q Analytische Theorie der orga- 
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Fripay, Marca 15, 1895. 


CONTENTS : 
The Plant Individual in the Light of Evolution: L. 
FISIBATLEY .......0....-cnscnmoccccrcesace 281 
Current Notes on Physiography (III.): W. M. 
PEPE ES yjalo'e's: o'sie's vidi's ol siars onc Miata minenelelcla\oiaieyw a’elels 292 
The New York Meeting of the Association of Ameri- 
MMCUTUAUNTMASUS «cok « «<2 « vc oeinincjsielatvs cicle « islaie 295 
RIEMESTAOSLENCE S— 5.5 oe cee eee cdc coe tececlsmes 297 


A Card Catalogue of Scientific Literature : HENRY 
ALFRED Topp. Pithecanthropus erectus: HaAR- 
RISON ALLEN. 

Wetentific Literature :— ......00 cn cceesscccces 299 
W. Slingo and A. Brooker’s Electrical Engineer- 
ing: F. B. Crocker. Physiological Physics : 
WILLIAM HALLOCK. Mathematics. Meteorology: 

' A. L. Rotcn. 


TIME, NEWS S—. 5 5 o.oo 5 0 sce ieelaciveccinses veces 303 
Entomology ; General. 
Societies and Academies :-—........cececcccessce- 304 


The Biological Society of Washington; The New 
York Academy of Sciences; National Geograph- 
teal Society ; Philosophical Society of Washington ; 
Boston Society of Natural History. 
Scientific Journals ........+++++ “CBSE SCHOEN OUIE 308 
IRE To vivo csc d.o:s:0'e's.+.0.0 ape Nv as niep e'sia,sie 308 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

Subscriptions and advertisements should be sent to SCIENCE, 
41 N. Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or 41 East 49th St., New York. 


THE PLANT INDIVIDUAL IN THE LIGHT OF 
EVOLUTION.* 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF BUD-VARIATION, AND ITS 
BEARING UPON WEISMANNISM. 
18, 
Wuusrt the animal and vegetable king- 
doms originate at a common point and are 
not clearly distinguishable in a number of 


* Address before the Biological Society of Wash- 
- ington, Jan. 12, 1895. 


= 


é 


the lower groups or organic beings, they 
nevertheless diverge rapidly and they finally 
become very unlike. I believe that we 
shall find that this divergence into two 
coérdinate branches of organic nature is 
brought about by the operation of at least 
two fundamentally distinct laws. There is 
a most unfortunate tendency, at the pres- 
ent time, to attempt to account for all phe- 
nomena of evolution upon some single 
hypothesis which the observer may think 
to be operative in the particular group of 
animals or plants which he may be study- 
ing. For myself, I cannot believe that all 
forms of life are the results of any one law. 
It is possible that all recent explanations of 
evolution contain more or less truth, and 
that one of them may have been the cause 
of certain developments , whilst others have 
been equally fundamentally important in 
other groups of organisms. If I were a 
zoologist, and particularly an entomologist, 
I should hold strongly to the views of La- 
marck; but, being a horticulturist, I must 
accept largely, for the objects which come 
within the range of my vision, the princi- 
ples of Darwin. In other words, I believe 
that both Lamarckism and Darwinism are 
true ; and, in this connection, it is signifi- 
cant to observe that Lamarck propounded 
his theory from studies of animals, whilst 
Darwin was first led to his theory from ob- 
servations of plants. I am willing to 
admit, also, at least for the sake of argu- 


282 


ment, that Weismannism, or the Neo- 
Darwinian philosophy, may be true for 
some organisms, but it is wholly untenable 
for plants. 

There is one feature of this difference be- 
tween the animal and the plant to which I 
wish to call your attention on this occasion. 
It is the meaning of individuality in the 
two. I must say, at the outset, that when 
I speak of a plant or an animal I refer to 
those higher forms which the layman knows 
by these names, for it is not my purpose to 
discuss the original causes of divergence so 
much as those phenomena of individuality 
which are most apparent to the general ob- 
server. The animal may be said to have 
complete autonomy. It has a more or less 
definite span of life. It grows old and dies 
without having been impaired by decay, 
and the period of death may have no imme- 
diate relation to environment. It hasa defi- 
nite number of parts, and each part or organ 
is differentiated and performs one function, 
and this function serves the whole animal 
and not the organ itself. If any part is re- 
moved the animal is maimed and the part 
cannot be supplied, and the severed portion 
has no power to reproduce either itself or 
the animal from which it came. The only 
means by which the animal can multiply is 
by a union of sexes. The plant, on the con- 
trary, has no perfect or simple autonomy. 
It has no definite or pre-determined proxi- 
mate span of life, except in those instances 
when it is annual or biennial, and here du- 
ration is an evident adaptation to environ- 
ment. The plant frequently dies as the re- 
sult of decay. It hasnota definite number 
of parts, and each part of the plant may 
perform a function for itself, and the part 
may be useful to the remainder of the plant 
or it may not. One part is like what all 
other parts are or may be. If one portion 
is removed the plant may not be injured; in 
fact, the plant may be distinctly benefited. 
And the severed portion may not only have 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 11. 


the power of reproducing itself, but it may 
even reproduce an organism like that from 
which itcame. In other words, plants mul-~ 
tiply both with and without sex. Poten- 
tially, every node and internode of the plant 
is an individual, for it possesses the power, 
when removed and properly cared for, of 
expanding into what we call a plant, and of 
perfecting flowers and seeds and of multiply- 
ing its kind. 

Those of you who are botanists now re- 
eall the contention of Gaudichaud concern- 
ing the plant unit or phyton. He proposed 
that the leaf, with its connecting tissues, is 
the vegetable individual and that the plant 
is'a colony of these individuals. Gaudi- 
chaud offered this theory as an explanation 
of the morphology and physiology of plants, 
and the hypothesis really has no place in 
the present discussion; but, inasmuch as I 
have borrowed the word which he proposed 
for the plant unit, it is no more than fair 
that I should explain his use of it; and this 
explanation may serve, incidentally, to il- 
lustrate some of the problems of individual- 
ity to which JI shall recur. Gaudichaud, 
while recognizing that a cell which develops 
into a bud is itself an individual, neverthe- 
less considered that the leaf, with its de- 
pendent tissues, represents the simple vege- 
table unit. Each of these units has an 
aerial or ascending part and a radicular 
part. The ascending part has three kinds 
of tissues or merithals—the stem merithal, 
petiolar merithal and the limbic merithal. 
Now, each phyton fixes itself upon the 
trunk or upon an inferior phyton, in the 
same manner as a plant fixes itself in the 
soil, and, sending its vascular threads 
downwards between the bark and the wood, 
is enabled to support itself upon the plant 
colony; and, at the same time, the exten- 
sion of these threads produces the thicken- 
ing of the stem, and the superposition of 
phytons increases the height of the plant. 
This mechanical theory of the morphology 


s 


Marcu 15, 1895.] 


of plants was not original with Gaudichaud, 
but he greatly enlarged it and gave it most 
of its historic value, and, what is more to 
our purpose, he used the word phyton, 
which, in lieu of a better one, I shall use as 
a convenient expression for that asexual 
portion of any plant which is capable of re- 
producing itself. Gaudichaud’s fanciful 
hypothesis was not completely overthrown 
until the exact studies of Yon Mohl upon 
the vegetable cell established a rational 
basis of morphology and physiology. 

What I wish now to show is that the 
evolution of the vegetable kingdom cannot 
be properly understood until we come to 
feel that the phyton, or each portion of the 
plant, which, when removed, has the capa- 
bility of reproducing itself and its parent, 
is in reality a potential autonomy. In 
doing this I shall not forget that the plant 
also has an individuality as a whole, but as 
this feature is quite aside from my argu- 
ment and is the conception of the plant 
which is everywhere accepted, I shall. ne- 
eessarily confine my remarks to the indi- 
vidual life of the phyton. The mere fact 
that the phyton may reproduce itself is not 
the most important point, but, rather, that 
each part of the plant may respond in a 
different manner or degree to the effects of 
environment and heredity. Before proceed- 
ing to this matter, I should say that there 
is no doubt about the capability of every 
plant to be propagated asexually. It is 
true that all plants have not been so propa- 
gated, but there is every reason to suppose 
that the gardener can acquire the requisite 
skill to grow. oaks and hickories from cut- 
tings were it worth his while todo so. At 
present there are cheaper modes of multi- 
plying these plants. But certain pines and 
spruces, which do not seed under cultiva- 
tion, are propagated by cuttings, and the 
tissue of these trees is as little adapted to 
such use as that of any plants with which I 
am acquainted. The fact that plants are 


‘. 


. 


SCLENCE. 


283 


not grown from cuttings does not prove 
that they cannot be so propagated, for we 
know that the essential structure of all of 
them is very similar, and that each node 
and internode—or each phyton—does or 
may produce branches and flowers and 
seeds when it is borne upon its parent plant. 
And I should remind you that those plants 
which are not readily multiplied by cuttings 
are generally propagated by grafting, which, 
for illustration, amounts to the same thing, 
for we only substitute the stock of another 
plant for the soil. Plants of the most vari- 
ous kinds are readily multiplied by graft- 
age. Even tuberous herbaceous stems, 
which are not commonly associated with 
the art of the grafter, unite with ease. One 
of the latest investigators in this field is a 
Frenchman, Daniel, and his conclusions 
upon the physiology of grafted plants show 
that the physiological modifications in these 
plants are largely such as arise from physi- 
cal causes, showing that the parts still 
preserve their essential autonomy. 

Now, if every plant varies in the number 
of parts, or phytons, of which it is com- 
posed, it follows that this number must be 
determined by agencies which act imme- 
diately upon the given plant itself. We all 
know that the number of these parts is de- 
termined very largely by environment. 
A dozen plants springing from the same 
capsule may vary immensely in the num- 
bers of their branches, leaves and flowers, 
and this variation is generally obviously 
correlated with amount of food, amount of 
space which the plant is allowed to occupy, 
and other physical conditions which affect 
its welfare. But we not only find that no 
two plants have the same number of parts, 
but that no two branches in the same plant 
arealike. One part grows longer, one more 
erect, one has greener leaves, one bears 
more fruit. So, too, there may be different 
forms of flowers on the same plant, a sub- 
ject to which Darwin has devoted an entire 


284 


volume. We know, also, that this varia- 
tion amongst the sisterhood or colony of 
branches is determined by very much the 
same conditions which determine variation 
in independent plants growing in soil. I 
believe that the primary and most im- 
portant determinant of this variation is the 
variation in food supply, the same which 
Darwin believed to be the most potent fac- 
tor in the origination of variations in gen- 
eral. That branch or phyton which re- 
ceives the most food, because of its position 
or other incidental circumstance, is the one 
which grows the largest, has the heaviest 
and greenest leaves, and, in the end, is the 
most fruitful. JI use the word food to desig- 
nate not only the supply of nutriment 
which is derived from the soil, but also that 
obtained from the air and which is most 
quickly and thoroughly elaborated in the 
presence of the brightest sunlight. Thus 
the uppermost branches of the tree, whilst 
farthest from the root, are generally the 
strongest, because they are more freely ex- 
posed to light and air and their course is 
least impeded. Many branches in the in- 
terior of tree tops are undoubtedly parasites 
upon the plant colony, taking from it more 
than they return. 

If the number of the plant units is deter- 
mined by circumstances peculiar to that 
plant, and if there is variation amongst 
these units in any plant, then it follows that 
there must be struggle for existence between 
them. And this struggle differs from the 
conflict between independent plants in the 
complex battle for life only in the circum- 
stance that it is more intense or severe, 
from the fact that the combatants are more 
closely associated. There are weak branches 
and strong branches, and the survival of the 
fittest is nature’s method of pruning. The 
strong terminal branch, shooting upwards 
towards air and sunlight, makes the bole of 
the tree, whilst the less fortunate or side 
branches perish and fall. The leaf surface 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 11. 


of any tree or large plant is always pushing 
outwards towards the periphery, which is 
only another way of saying that the an-_ 
terior branches die. I often find fruit 
growers who refuse to prune their trees be- 
cause they believe it to be unnatural, while 
at the same time their tree tops are full of 
dead limbs, every one a monument to the 
stupidity of the owner ! 

Now, the effect of this struggle for exist- 
ence allows of mathematical measurement. 
Each bud should produce a branch or a clus- 
ter of fruit. A seedling peach tree may be 
two feet high the first year, producing thirty 
leaves, and in every axil a bud. Hach of 
these buds should produce a branch, which 
should again produce thirty buds. The 
third year, therefore, whilst the tree is only 
six or eight feet high, it should have 900 
branches, and in the fourth year 27,000! 
Yet a peach tree twenty years old may not 
have more than 1,000 branches! That is, 
many millions of possible branches have 
been suppressed or have died. I once 
made an actual observation of such a battle 
and counted the dead and wounded. A black 
cherry tree came up near my door. The 
first year it made a straight shoot nineteen 
inches high which produced twenty-seven 
buds. It also sent out a branch eight inches 
long which bore twelve buds. The little 
tree had therefore enlisted thirty-nine sol- 
diers for the coming conflict. The second 
year twenty of these buds did not grow. 
Nineteen of them made an effort, and these 
produced 370 buds. In two years it made 
an effort, therefore, at 409 branches, but at 
the close of the second year there were only 
twenty-seven branches upon the tree. At 
the close of the third year the little tree 
should have produced about 3,500 buds or 
branch-germs. It was next observed in 
July of its fourth year, when it stood just 
eight feet high; instead of having between 
3,000 and 4,000 branches, it bore a total of 
297, and most of them were only weak 


Marcu 15, 1895.] 


spurs from one to three inches long. It 
was plain that not more than twenty, at 
the outside, of even this small number could 
long persist. The main stem or trunk bore 
forty-three branches, of which only eleven 
had much life in them, and even some of 
this number showed signs of weakness. In 
other words, in my little cherry tree, stand- 
ing alone and having things all its own 
way, only one bud out of every 175 suc- 
ceeded in making even a fair start towards 
a permanent branch. And this struggle 
must have proceeded with greater severity 
as the top became more complex, had I not 
put an end to its travail with the axe! 


1M fe 


I am now ready to say that I believe bud- 
variation to be one of the most significant 


and important phenomena of vegetable life, 


and that it is due to the same causes, oper- 
ating in essentially the same way, which 
underlie all variation in the plant world. 
As some of you may not be familiar with 
the technical use of the term, I will explain 
that a bud-variety is an unusual or striking 
form or branch appearing upon a plant; or, 
as Darwin put it, bud-variation is a term 
used to “include all those sudden changes 
in structure or appearance which occasion- 
ally occur in full-grown plants in their 
flower-buds or leaf-buds.” A classical ex- 
ample is the origination of the nectarine 


from a branch of a peach tree; and one 


often hears of Russet apples upon a certain 


_ branch of Greening apple tree, of weeping, 


_ variegated or cut-leaved shoots on otherwise 


normal trees, or of potatoes that ‘mix in the 
hill.’ Now, this matter of bud-variation 
has been a most puzzling one to all writers 
upon evolution who have touched upon it. 
It long seemed to me to be inexplicable, 
but I hope that you will now agree with me 
in saying that it is no more unintelligible 
than seminal variation of plants, for I have 
already shown that there is abundant asex- 


SCIENCE. 


285 


ual variation (of which bud-variation is 
itself the proof), and that this variation 
takes place as readily when the phyton is 
growing upon a plant as when it is growing 
in the soil. The chief trouble has been, in 
the consideration of this subject, that per- 
sons have observed and recorded only the 
most marked or striking variations, or those 
which appear somewhat suddenly (although 
suddenness of appearance usually means 
that the observer had not noticed it before), 
and that they had therefore thought bud- 
variation to be rare and exceptional. The 
truth is, as I have said, that every branch 
or phyton is a bud-variety, differing in 
greater or lesser degree from all other 
phytons on the same plant. These differ- 
ences, even when marked, may arise in 
every part of the parent plant, as on stems 
aerial and subterranean, from bulbs and 
tubers, or even from the adventitious buds 
of roots ; and the characters of these vari- 
eties are as various as those originating 
from seeds. The nurseryman knows that 
branches differ amongst themselves, for 
he instructs his budders to cut buds only 
from the top-most shoots of the nursery 
rows in order that he may grow straight, 
vigorous trees; and every farmer’s boy 
knows that the reddest and earliest apples 
grow on the uppermost branches, and his 
father will always tell him that he should 
never select cions from the center or lower 
part of atree. Every skilful horticulturist 
will tell you that the character of the 
orchard is determined very largely by the 
judgment of the propagator in selecting 
cions. To select out the extreme forms of 
these variations and to attempt to explain 
bud-variation by them is exactly like se- 
lecting the extreme types of seminal 
variations, and, by ignoring the lesser ones 
and the intermediates, to attempt to build 
thereon a theory of the variation of plants. 
If you ask me why it is that the nectarine 
was produced upon a branch of a peach 


286 


tree I will answer that nectarines have 
also been produced from peach seeds. The 
answer to one answers the other. It is 
true that bud-variations, if we use that 
term, as we logically must, to denote all 
variations between phytons, are commonly 
less marked than seed-variations, but this 
is only because the conditions of origin and 
environment of the phyton are less varied 
than those of the seedling. The phytons 
originate from one parent, not from two; 
and they all grow in very like conditions. 
But I am convinced that, when we consider 
the plant individual in the light of evolu- 
tion, the bugbear of bud-variation vanishes. 

A good proof that bud-variation and seed- 
variation are one in kind is afforded by the 
fact that selection can be practiced for the 
improvement of forms originating by either 
means. Darwin was surprised, as he says, 
to ‘hear from Mr. Salter that he brings the 
principle of selection to bear on variegated 
plants propagated by buds, and has thus 
greatly improved and fixed several varie- 
ties. He informs me that at first a branch 
often produces variegated leaves on one side 
alone, and that the leaves are marked only 
with an irregular edging, or with a few lines 
of white and yellow. ‘To improve and fix 
such varieties he finds it necessary to en- 
courage the buds at the bases of the most 
distinctly marked leaves and to propagate 
from them alone. By following, with per- 
severance, this plan during three or four 
successive seasons a distinct and fixed var- 
iety can generally be secured.” This prac- 
tice, or similar ones, is not only well known 
to gardeners, but we have seen that nature 
selects in the same manner, through the op- 
eration of the same struggle for subsistence 
which Darwin so forcibly applied to all other 
forms of modification. Once given the three 
fundamental principles in the phylogeny of 
the phyton, the variation amongst them- 
selves, the struggle for existence, the capa- 
bility of perpetuating themselves—an in- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 11. 


disputable trinity—and there can no long- 
er be any doubt as to the fundamental like- 
ness of the bud-variety and the seed-variety- 

Yet I must bring another proof of this 
likeness to your mind. It is well known 
that the seedlings of plants become more 
variable as the species is cultivated ; and it 
is also true that bud-varieties are more fre- 
quent and more marked in cultivated 
plants. Note, for example, the tendency of 
cultivated plants to bear variegated or cut- 
leaved or weeping shoots, and the fact that 
the colors and doubleness of flowers often 
vary greatly upon the same plant. Many of 
our best known roses, carnations, chrysan- 
themums, violets and other garden plants 
originated as bud-sports. This factis so well 
known that critical gardeners are always on 
the alert for such variations. In any house 
of 200 roses, all grown from cuttings, the 
grower will expect to find more than one de- 
parture from the type, either in color or free- 
dom of bloom or in habit of plant. Every 
gardener will recall the ‘sporting’ tenden- 
cies of Perle des Jardins rose, and the fact 
that several commercial varieties have 
sprung from it by bud-variation. As early — 
as 1865 Carriére gave a descriptive list of 
154 named bud-varieties, and remarked at 
length upon their frequency amongst culti- 
vated plants. This fact of greater bud- 
variability under cultivation was fully 
recognized by Darwin, and he regarded this 
as one of the strongest proofs that such ya- 
riation, like seed-variation, is ‘the direct 
result of the conditions of life to which 
the plant has been exposed.” 

In order to extend the proofs of the es- 
sential ontogenetic likeness of bud and semi- 
nal variations, I will call to your remem- 
brance the fact that the characters of the 
two phytons may be united quite as com- 
pletely by means of asexual or graft hybrid- 
ism as by sexual hybridism. I do not need 
to pursue this subject, except to say that 
we now believe that graft-hybrids are rare 


“Manon 15, 1895.] 


and exceptional chiefly because the sub- 
_ ject has received little experimental at- 
‘ tention. Certainly the list given by Focke, 
a and the anatomical researches of Macfar- 
- lane, show that such hybrids may be ex- 
“pected in a wide variety of subjects and 
with some frequency. It is now stated pos- 
itively by Daniel, as the result of direct ex- 
periment, that the seeds of cions of certain 
cultivated herbs which are grafted upon a 
wild plant give offspring which show a 
marked return to the wild type. I should 
also add that the breaking up of seminal 
_ hybrids into the characters of either parent 
may take place, as Darwin has shown, 
through either seed- or bud-variation. You 
are all no doubt aware that hybrids gener- 
ally tend to revert to the types from which 
they sprung, and this sometimes occurs 
_ eyen in hybrid offspring which is propagated 
clusively by buds or cuttings. 
Still another proof of the similarity of 
_ bud-yarieties and seed-varieties is the fact 
that the seeds of bud-varieties are quite as 
likely to reproduce the variety as the seeds 
of seed-varieties are to reproduce their 
: parents. Darwin and others have recorded 
‘this seminal transmission of bud-sports. 
_“ Notwithstanding the sudden production 
of bud-varieties,’’ Darwin writes, ‘‘ the char- 
acters thus acquired are sometimes capable 
of transmission by seminal reproduction . 
Mr. Rivers has found that moss-roses 
[which are bud-varieties] generally repro- 
duce themselves by seed; and the mossy 
character has been transferred by crossing 
from one species to another.”’ This general 
fact that bud-sports may reproduce many 
of their essential acquired characters by 
seeds is so well grounded in the minds of 
‘gardeners that the most critical of them 
€ no distinction, in this respect, be- 
cen varieties of bud and seed origin when 
‘selecting parents for making crosses. And 
if we can prove the similarity of bud and 
seed variations by showing that both bear 


SCIENCE. 


287 


the same relation to transmission of char- 
acters by means of seedage, we can demon- 
strate it equally well by the converse pro- 
position—that both bear the same relation 
to the perpetuation of their features by 
cuttings. Some seed-varieties will not 
‘come true’ by cuttings, and there are also 
some bud-sports which will not, as every 
gardener of experience knows. I will cite 
a single case of ‘ sporting’ in bud offspring. 
One winter a chance tomato plant came up 
in one of my greenhouses. I let it grow, 
and it bore fruit quite unlike any other 
variety which I ever saw. There was no 
other tomato plant in the house. I propa- 
gated it both by seeds and cuttings. I 
had two generations of cuttings. Those 
taken directly from the parent plant, 
‘came true’ or very nearly so; then a lot 
of cuttings from these cutting-grown plants 
was taken, making the second asexual gen- 
eration from the original seedling. While 
most of the seeds ‘came true,’ few of these 
second cuttings did, and, moreover, they 
“sported ’ into several very unlike forms— 
so much unlike that I had both red and 
yellow fruits from them. In respect to 
transmission of characters, then, bud- and 
seed-varieties are alike, because either class 
may or may not transmit its marks either 
by seeds or buds. 

Finally, let.me say, in proof of the further 
similarity of bud- and seed-variations, that 
each class follows the incidental laws of 
external resemblance which pertain to the 
other class. For instance, there are analo- 
gous variations in each, giving rise to the 
same kinds of variegation, the same anoma- 
lies of cut and colored foliage, of weeping 
branches, party-colored fruits and the like; 
and the number of similar variations may 
be as great for any ameliorated plant in the 
one class as in the other. The most expert 
observer is not able to distinguish between 
bud-varieties and seed-varieties ; the only 
way of distinguishing the two is by means 


288 


of the records of their origins, and because 
such records of any varieties are few we 
have come to overlook the frequency of 
bud-variation and to ascribe all progressive 
variability in the yegetable kingdom to 
seeds or sex. 

Whilst it is not my purpose to discuss 
the original sources of bud-variations, I 
cannot forbear to touch upon one very re- 
markable fact concerning reversions. It is 
a common notion that all bud-varieties are 
atavistic, but this position is untenable if 
one accepts the hypothesis, which I have 
here outlined, of the ontogenetic individual- 
ity of the phyton, and if he holds, at the 
same time, to the transforming influence of 
environment. Itis also held by some that 
bud-varieties are the effects of previous 
crossing, but this is controverted by Dar- 
win in the statement that characters some- 
times appear in bud-varieties which do not 
pertain to any known living or extinct spe- 
cies; and the observations which I am 
about to recite also indicate the improba- 
bility of such influence in a large class of 
cases. The instances to which I call your 
attention are, I think, true reversions to 
ancestral types. Those of you who have 
observed the young non-blooming shoots of 
tulip-tree, sassafras and some other trees 
will have noticed that the leaves upon them 
often assume unusual shapes. Thus the 
leaves of sassafras often vary from the typ- 
ical oval form to three-lobed and mitten- 
shaped upon the strong shoots. There are 
the most various forms on many tulip-trees, 
the leaves ranging from almost circular and 
merely emarginate to long-ovate and vari- 
ously lobed; all of them have been most 
admirably illustrated and discussed recently 
by Holm in the proceedings of the National 
Museum. Holm considers the various 
forms of these liriodendron leaves to be so 
many proofs of the invalidity of the fossil 
species which very closely resemble them. 
This may be true, for there are probably no 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 11. 


specific names of organisms founded upon 
so fragmentary and scant material as those 
applied to fossil plants; and yet I cannot 
help feeling that some of these contempora- 
neous variations are reversions to very old 
types. I was first led to this opinion by a 
study of the sports in ginkgo leaves, and 
finding them suggestive of Mesozoic types. 
“This variation in leaf characters,’’ I wrote 
at the time, ‘recalls the geologic history of 
the ginkgo, for it appears to be true that 
leaves upon the young and vigorous shoots 
of trees are more like their ancestors than 
are the leaves upon old plants or less vigor- 
ous shoots, as if there is some such genea- 
logical record in leaves as there is in the de- 
velopment of embryos in animals.”” Subse- 
quent observation has strengthened my be- 
lief in the atavistic origin of many of these 
abnormal forms, and this explanation of 
them is exactly in line with the characters 
of reversions in animals and in cultivated 
plants. It would, of course, be futile to at- 
tempt any discussion of the merits of the 
specific types proposed by palzeobotanists, 
but in those cases, like the ginkgo, where 
the geologic types are fairly well marked, 
constant and frequent, and where the similar 
contemporaneous variations are rare, there 
is apparently good reason for regarding 
contemporaneous forms as fitful recollec- 
tions of an ancient state; and this supposi- 
tion finds additional support in the ginkgo, 
because the species is becoming extinct, a 
fact which also applies to the tulip-tree, 
which is now much restricted in its distri- 
bution. Jam further reinforced in this yiew 
by Ward’s excellent study of the evolution 
of the plane-tree, for, in this instance, it 
seems to be well determined that the geo- 
logic type has fairly well marked specific 
characters, and the auricular or peltate base 
upon contemporaneous leaves, which re- 
cords the connection between the two, is 
sufficiently rare to escape comment. Ya- 
rious writers have remarked upon the 


- Marcu 15, 1895.] 


similarities of these occasional leaves to 
geologic types, but, so far as I recall, 
they regard them as remnants or ves- 
tiges of the ancient types rather than as 
reversions to them. There is this impor- 
tant difference between a remnantand a re- 
version. A remnant or rudiment is more 
or less uniformly present under normal 
conditions, and it should give evidence of 
being slowly on the decline ; whilst a rever- 
sion is a reappearance of wholly lost char- 
acters under unusual or local conditions. 
Now, my chief reasons for considering these 
sports to be reversions is the fact that they 
occur upon the sterile and verdurous shoots, 
the very shoots which are most likely to 
vary and to revert because they receive the 
greatest amount of food supply, as Darwin 
has shown to be the case with independent 

plants. And Iam therefore able to make 
still another analogy between phytons and 

plants, and to illustrate again the essential 
sameness of bud-variations and seed-varia- 
tions. 


Ill. 


I now wish to recall your attention more 
Specifically to the subject of asexual varia- 
tion. I have shown that no two branches 
are alike any more than are any two plants. 
_T have also cited the frequent occurrence of 
_ differences so marked that they are called 
_bud-varieties or sports. Carriére enumer- 

ated over 150 of them of commercial im- 
_ portance in France, and, as nearly as I can 
_ estimate, there are no fewer than 200 named 
Bisrticaltural varieties grown at the present 
moment in this country which had a like 
origin. It is also known that there are a 
number of spécies in which seeds are prac- 
_ tically unknown, and yet which run into 

Many varieties, as the pineapple, banana 

and bread-fruit ; and note, if you will, the 

great variations in weeping willows, a tree 

which never fruits in this country. In our 
gardens there are three or four varieties of 


SCIENCE. 289 


the common seedless ‘top’ onion, and I 
have been able, by treatment, to vary the 
root of the horse-radish, a plant which 
rarely, if ever, produces viable seeds in this 
climate ; and there are variable seedless 
plants in our greenhouses. I might also 
cite the fact that most fungi are sexless, so 
far as we know, and yet they have varied 
into innumerable species. You will be in- 
terested in a concrete case of the apple. 
The Newtown Pippin, which originated 
upon Long Island, New York, has been 
widely disseminated by graftage. In Vir- 
ginia it has varied into a form known as 
the Albemarle Pippin, and a New York 
apple exporter tells me that it is a poorer 
shipper than the Northern Newtown and is 
not so long-keeping. In the extreme North- 
western States the Newtown, while. it has 
not been rechristened there, is markedly 
unlike the Eastern fruit, being much longer 
and bearing distinct ridges about the apex. 
Finally, in New South Wales, the ridges are 
more marked and other characters appear, 
and the variety is there known as the Five- 
crowned Pippin. This is not an isolated 
case. Most Northeastern varieties of apples 
tend to take on this elongated form in the 
Pacific Northwest, to become heavy-grained 
and coarse-striped in the Mississippi Valley 
and the Plains, and to take other character- 
istic forms in the higher lands of the South 
Atlantic States. This asexual variation is 
sometimes veryrapid. An illustration came 
directly under my own observation (and 
upon which I have once reported) in the 
case of the Chilian strawberry. Within 
two years this plant, growing in my garden, 
varied or departed from its wild type so 
widely as to be indistinguishable from the 
common garden strawberry, which has been 
regarded by many botanists to be specifi- 
cally distinct from the Chilian berry. This 
remarkable departure, which has enabled 
me, as I believe, to reconstruct the evolu- 
tion of the garden strawberry, was one in 


290 


which no seedling plants were concerned. 
If all the common garden strawberries owe 
their origin to a like souree—as I cannot 
doubt—then we have here a most instruc- 
tive case of sexless evolution, but one in 
which the subsequent generations reproduce 
these characters of sexless origin by means 
of seeds. 

This asexual modification is not confined 
to domesticated plants. Any plant which 
is widely distributed by man by means of 
cuttings or other vegetative parts may be ex- 
pected to vary in the same manner, as much 
experiment shows ; and if they behave in 
this way when disseminated by man they 
must undergo similar modification when 
similarly disseminated by nature herself. 
I need only cite a few instances of habitual 
asexual distribution of wild plants to recall to 
your attention the fact that such means of 
distribution is common in nature, and that in 
some cases the dispersion over wide areas is 
quite as rapid as by means of seeds; and 
some plants, as various potamogetons, cera- 
tophyllums and other aquatics, are more 
productive of detachable winter buds and 
other separable vegetable organs than they 
are of seeds. The brittle willows drop their 
twigs when injured by storms of ice or 
wind, or by animals, and many of these cut- 
tings take root in the moist soil, and they 
may be carried far down streams or distrib- 
uted along lake shores; the may-apple and 
a host of rhizomatous plants march onward 
from the original starting point ; the bry- 
ophyllum easily drops its thick leaves, each 
one of which may establish a new colony of 
plants; the leaves of the lake-cress (Nas- 
turtium lacustre) float down the streams 
and develop a new plant while they travel ; 
the house-leeks surround themselves with 
colonies of off-shoots, the black raspberry 
travels by looping stolons, and the straw- 
berry by long runners; the tiger-lily scat- 
ters its bulb-like buds, and all bulbiferous 
plants spread quite as easily by their fleshy 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 11. 


parts as by seeds. Now all these vegetative 
parts, when established as independent 
plants, produce flowers and good seeds, and 
these seeds often perpetuate the very char- 
acters which have originated in the asexual 
generations, as we have seen in the case of 
many bud-varieties ; and it should also be 
remarked that these phytons usually trans- 
mit almost perfectly the characters acquired 
by the plant from which they sprung. Or, 
to put the whole matter in a convenient 
phrase, there may be, and is, a progressive 
evolution of plants without the aid of sex. 

Now, where is Weismann’s germ-plasm ? 
One of the properties of this material—if an 
assumption can receive such designation— 
is its localization in the reproductive organs 
or parts. But the phyton has no reprodue- 
tive parts; or, if it has them, they are de- 
veloped after the phyton has lived a per- 
fectly sexless life, and possibly after genera- 
tions of such life, in which it and its progeny 
may either have remained comparatively 
stable or may have varied widely, as the 
circumstances may have determined. If 
any flower, therefore, contains germ-plasm 
it must have derived it out of the asexual 
or vegetative or soma-plasm. And I will 
ask where the germ-plasm is in ferns. 
These plants are fertilized in the prothallie 
stage, and one brief sexual state is all that 
the plant enjoys, after which the sex-organs 
die and wholly disappear. The fern, as the 
layman knows the plant, is wholly asexual, 
and the spores are as sexless as buds; yet 
these spores germinate and give rise to an- 
other brief prothallic or sexual stage, and if 
there is any germ-plasm at all in these 
fleeting sexual organs it must have come 
from the sexless spores. It is interesting 
to note, in this connection, this bud-yaria- 
tion is as frequent in ferns as in other 
plants. Or, if the Weismannians can locate 
the germ-plasm in all these instances, pray 
tell us where it is in the myriads of sexless 
fungi! There is no such thing as continu- 


MAkcu 15, 1895.] 


ous localization of germ-plasm in plants. 
Weismann himself admits that the germ- 
plasm must be distributed in ‘ minute frac- 
tion’ in all ‘somatic nuclei’ of the begonia 
leaf, because that leaf is capable of giving 
rise to new plants, by means of cuttings, 
and all the plants may produce good 
flowers, which, if they are sexual at all, are 
so only by virtue of containing some of this 
elusive germ-plasm. There is no other way 
_ for these plants to get their germ-plasm, ex- 
cept from the somatic leaf from which they 
came. It would seem that this admission 
undermines the whole theory of the local- 
ization of the germ-plasm in plants, for one 
exception in the hypothesis must argue 
that there are others. But notso! There 
are no insurmountable difficulties before 
the Weismannians. It is the begonia which 
_is the exception, for it is abnormal for plants 
_ to propagate by any such means! The an- 
_swer which has been made to this state- 
ment is that very many plants are propa- 
gated asexually by horticulturists, and that 
all plants can probably be so propagated if 
there were any occasion for the effort. 
This answer is true; but the philosophical 
answer is that every phyton is an autonomy, 
and that the mere accident of its growing 
on the plant, in the soil, or in a bottle of 
water, is wholly aside from the point, for 
wherever it grows it lives at first a sexless 
life, it has an individuality, competes with 
‘its fellows, varies to suit its needs, and is 
eapable, finally, of developing sex. 
_ Another fundamental tenet of Weis- 
mannism is the continuity of the germ- 
plasm, the passing down from generation to 
— of a part or direct offspring of 
the original germ-plasm. Now, if there is 
any continuity in plants, this ancestral 
germ-plasm must be inextricably diffused in 
the soma-plasm, as I have said, for every 
‘part or phyton of these plants, even to the 
and parts of the leaves, is able to pro- 
luce sexual parts or germ-plasm. And if 


® 


SCIENCE. 291 


this germ-plasm is inextinguishably associ- 
ated with every cell of the plant body, why 
does it not receive and transmit all incident 
impressions upon the plant? Why should 
acquired characters impress themselves 
upon the soma-plasm and not upon the 
germ-plasm when this latter element is 
contained in the very nuclei, as Weismann 
admits, of somatic cells? If the theory of 
the continuity of the germ-plasm is true for 
plants, then acquired characters must be 
transmitted! The only escape from this 
position is an arbitrary assumption that one 
plasm is impressionable and that the other 
is not ; and, now, that we can no longer rel- 
egate the germ-plasm to imaginary deep- 
seated germ-cells, such an assumption is too 
bold, I think, to be suggested. 

The entire Weismannian hypothesis is 
built upon the assumption that all perma- 
nent or progressive variation is the result 
of sexual union; but I have shown that 
there is much progressive variation in the 
vegetable kingdom whichis purely asexual, 
and, for all we know, this type of modifica- 
tion may proceed indefinitely. There is no 
doubt of the facts; and the only answer to 
them which I can conceive the Weismannian 
to make is that these progressive variations 
arise because of the latent influence of an- 
cestral sexual unions. In reply to this I 
should ask for proofs. Hosts of fungi have 
nosex. Jam not convinced but that there 
may be strains or types of some species of 
filamentous algve and other plants in which 
there has never been sexual union, even 
from the beginning, And I should bring, 
in rebuttal, also, the result of direct obser- 
vation and experiment to show that given 
hereditable asexual variations are often the 
direct result of climate, soil or other im- 
pinging conditions. As a matter of fact, 
we know that acquired characters may be 
hereditary in plants; if the facts do not 
agree with the hypothesis, so much the 
worse for the hypothesis. Unfortunately, 


292 


the hypothesis is too apt to be capable of 
endless contractions and modifications to 
meet individual cases. I sometimes think 
that we are substituting for the philosophy 
of observation a philosophy of definitions. 

I have, therefore, attempted to show : 

1. That the plant is not a simple autono- 
my in the sense in which the animal is. 

2. That its parts are virtually independent 
in respect to (a) propagation (equally either 
when detached or still persisting upon the 
parent plant), (b) struggle for existence 
amongst themselves, (¢) variation, (d) 
transmission of their characters, either by 
means of seeds or buds. 

3. That there is no essential difference 
between bud-varieties and seed-varieties, 
apart from the mere fact of their unlike 
derivation ; and the causes of variation in 
the one case are the same as those in the 
other. 

4. That all these parts are at first sexless, 
but finally may or may not develop sex. 

5. That much of the evolution of the 
vegetable kingdom is accomplished by 
wholly sexless means. 

There is, then, a fundamental unlikeness 
in the ultimate evolution of animals and 
plants. A plant, as we ordinarily know it, 
is a colony of potential individuals, each one 
of which, save the very first, is derived from 
an asexual parent, yet each one may, and 
usually does, developsex. Each individual 
is capable also of receiving a distinct or pe- 
culiar influence of the environment and 
struggle for existence, and is capable, there- 
fore, of independent permanent modifica- 
tion. Itis not possible, therefore, that there 
is any localization or continuity of a germ- 
plasm in the sense in which these concep- 
tions are applied to animals; nor is it pos- 
sible for the plant as a whole to make a 
simple functional adaptation to envyiron- 
ment. If there is a continuity of germ- 
plasm in plants this element must of neces- 
sity be intimately associated with every par- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 11. 


ticle of the plant body, even to its very pe- 
riphery, and it must directly receive external 
impressions ; and this concept of Weismann 
—the continuity of the germ-plasm—be- 
comes one of the readiest means of explain- 
ing the transmission of acquired characters. 
All these conclusions prove the unwisdom 
of endeavoring to account for the evolution 
of all the forms of life upon any single 
hypothesis ; and they illustrate with great 
emphasis the complexity of even the funda- 
mental forces in the progression of organic 
nature. L. H. Barney. 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY (IIU.). 
WOODWARD’S SMITHSONIAN GEOGRAPHICAL 
TABLES. 

‘THE average geographer,’ to whose needs 
Professor Woodward has attempted to suit 
the recent volume of Geographical Tables 
issued by the Smithsonian Institution, 
should certainly feel highly complimented 
by this tribute to his quality. The volume 
contains, among many other matters, tables 
of codrdinates for the projection of poly- 
conic maps, lengths of a degree on parallels 
and meridians at different latitudes, areas 
of latitude-and-longitude, quadrilaterals of 
different dimensions and at different lati- 
tudes, adopted dimensions of the earth’s 
spheroid, value of gravity at the earth’s sur- 
face, and salient facts of physical geodesy. 
The latter heading includes the area of the 
earth, of oceans and continents, and the 
average heights of continents and depths of 
oceans, taken from Helmert’s Geodasie. For 
areas the continents are given 51,886,000, 
and the oceans 145,054,000 square miles. 
The mean depth of the oceans is placed at 
3,440 meters. The mean heights of the con- 
tinents are given as follows: The earlier re- 
sults of Humboldt’s, still often quoted, and 
the later ones of Penck (Morphologie der 
Erdoberflache, 1894) being added for com- 
parison. 


Marci 15, 1895.] SCIENCE. 293 

Humboldt. Helmert. Penck. whatever shape, they form only a compara- 

Europe, 205 300 330 m. tively thin growth upon the underlying 

_ Asia, 351 500 1010 base”? (p. 177). The text, with its figures, 

Africa, — 500 660 supplemented by maps and plates, gives an 

Australia, 250 310 excellent idea of the geographical features 

fe North, 228) 502 650) ,.-,. of the region and of their evolution. 

ME South, 346 f° 9 650 5 9 

All Continents, 308 440 735 SPENCER’S RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ANTIL- 


The increase in the values of the latter 
measures is probably an approach to the 
truth, for early explorations frequently gave 
too much emphasis to narrow mountain 
ranges, and too little to broad plateaus. 


A. AGASSIZ ON THE BAHAMAS, 


A RECONNOISSANCE Of the Bahamas and of 
the elevated reefs of Cuba, made by A. 
Agassiz in the winter of 1893, affords 

material for a Bulletin of 200 pages with 47 
plates and many figures in the text, lately 
issued by the Museum of Comparative Zo- 
ology at Harvard College. The author is 
emphatic in rejecting the sufficiency of the 
Darwin-Dana theory of submergence in ex- 
plaining the features of great limestone 
banks. The Bahamas consist of low hills 
of eolian limestone, “‘ formed during a period 
of rest, during which the great beach of the 
then existing reef constantly supplied fresh 
material to be changed by the surf and the 
winds into sand for the heaping up of sand 
dunes. They could not be formed in a dis- 
trict of subsidence unless the subsidence was 
slower than the rate of growth of the corals, 

_ which is not the case in the Bahamas, as the 

_ reefs of to-day, even when they come to the 
surface, are not the sources from which the 
material for the great dunes of the Bahama 
Islands is derived” (p. 184,185). At pres- 
ent the dunes are disappearing before the 
action of the sea. The conclusion of the re- 
connoissance seems to be that the great 
limestone banks are chiefly formed as 
“marine limestones,’ accumulating ‘ at great 
depths by accretion ;’ and that in the West 
Indies “ wherever coral reefs occur, and of 

z 


3 


LEAN CONTINENT. 


Pror. Marcet Berrranp, of the Ecole 
des Mines and the Geological Survey of 
France, has published an account of certain 
faint deformations of northwestern France, 
in which he interprets the inequalities in 
the floor of the English channel as the re- 
sult of faint anticlinal and synclinal move- 
ments (Bull. Soc. Géol. France, xx., 1892, 
118); thus implying that neither erosion 
nor deposition has been of significant meas- 
ure in shaping the channel floor. Prof. J. 
W. Spencer takes almost the other extreme, 
and interprets certain inequalities of the 
ocean floor of the Antillean region, even to 
depths of twelve or fifteen thousand feet, as 
the results of river erosion during a not re- 
mote time when the entire region is sup- 
posed to have had a much greater altitude 
than at present (Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., vi., 
1895, 103-140); thus implying that no 
other processes than river erosion can ac- 
count for the inequalities that he has traced. 
It must be concluded from these contrasted 
arguments that the forms of the sea floor 
are not yet so well understood as those of 
the land; because the facts are much less 
accurately known under than over sea level, 
because only form and not structure can be 
determined by soundings, and because the 
forms of the sea floor have received rela- 
tively little study. Where two specialists 
reach conclusions so unlike, it is difficult 
for others to choose between them; and for 
the present there will probably be some 
hesitation in adopting the teachings of the 
one or the other. With much _ interest 
aroused in the facts brought forward, and 


294 


with all willingness to look on the conti- 
nents as unstable, it is difficult to believe 
that they have suffered changes so great as 
Spencer announces, not only in the uplift of 
the Antillean region, but in the deep de- 
pression of the axis of Central America, and 
in the denudation of the (inferred) great 
banks or continental shelf along the Wind- 
ward Islands. The strongest proof will be 
demanded before vertical movements of 
two miles and a half can be accepted ; and 
we fear that most readers will take refuge 
in a verdict of ‘not proved.’ 


HISTORY OF THE ST. JOHN RIVER, NEW 
BRUNSWICK. 


Aw article on the ‘Outlets of the St. John 
river,’ by G. F. Matthew (Bull. Nat. Hist. 
Soc., New Brunswick, xii., 1894, 43-62), 
concludes that this river has been built up 
by contributions from three other systems, 
whose lower parts are now to be seen in the 
Restigouche, Miramichi and Petitcodiac. 
The evidence of this conclusion is derived 
from the geological structure of the coun- 
try, beginning as far back as the Huronian 
time ; the three rivers whose upper basins 
now belong to the St. John having been de- 
fined as basins of deposition in more or less 
remote geological periods. Thus the St. 
John river has attained its present magni- 
tude by the breaking of mountain or hill 
barriers which once separated its three river 
systems, and is not a simple valley of con- 
tinuous growth like the Mississippi (p. 
55). The difficulty of accepting Dr. Mat- 
thews’ conclusion as the only solution of 
the history of the St. John does not lie in 
any objection to the geological history of 
the region and its several basins of deposi- 
tion, as far as stated, but in the omission of 
sufficient consideration of what has hap- 
pened in the region since it became a land 
area. It has long been subject to subaerial 
erosion. During this time it has in all 
probability been variously warped and 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 11. 


otherwise moved with respect to its base- 
level. Its rocks are of diverse resistance, 
and hence there may have been repeated 
opportunities for diversion and rearrange- 
ment of river courses during the long life 
of the region asa land area. While admit- 
ting that several geological basins of great 
antiquity are now drained by a single river, 
it does not necessarily follow that this river 
is an immediate descendant of the rivers 
which at one time or another drained the 
separate basins. The actual St. John river 
may once have been larger than now; its 
neighbors may have gained drainage area 
from it instead of losing drainage area to it; 
but these possibilities are not considered. 


THE ORIGIN OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 


THE reference to the Mississippi in the 
previous paragraph brings up an oft-encoun- 
tered implication of simple history in the 
development of this great river, against 
which there is much evidence. A similar 
implication is found in a recent State Sur- 
vey Report, where it is stated that, as a re- 
sult of continental evolution at the close of 
the Carboniferous period, the drainage of 
the Ohio region was turned southward 
“into the great Mississippian bay, which 
then washed the shores of the new-born 
continent as far north as the mouth of the 
Ohio river” (Geol. Coastal plain of Alabama, 
1894, 11). It is found again in the ‘Story 
of the Mississippi-Missouri,’ where the 
Mississippi at the close of the Appalachian 
revolution is described as heading some- 
where in the Minnesota- Wisconsin region, 
and flowing southward to its mouth some- 
where near the present city of St. Louis, 
whence a deep gulf extended southward to 
the present Gulf of Mexico (Amer. Geol. 
iii., 1889, 368). While the southward- 
flowing streams of the Wisconsin- Minnesota 
highlands are probably of ancient origin, 
the southward course of the Mississippi be- 
tween Tennessee and Arkansas seems t0 


Marcu 15, 1895. ] 


have been initiated not at the close of the 
Appalachian revolution, but long afterwards 
in Cretaceous time. The Appalachian revo- 
lution formed the mountains of Arkansas, 
as well as. those of the Alleghany belt. The 
similarity of structure is so great that a 
trans-Mississippian extension of Appala- 
chian growth may be reasonably assumed, 
as has been pointed out by Winslow (Bull. 
G.S. A., ii., 1891, 231). The existence of 
a bay, from the Gulf of Mexico northward 
towards St. Louis, is very improbable as a 
result of the Appalachian revolution ; an 
east and west constructional mountain belt 
is a more likely product ; and not until this 
mountain belt was well denuded to a pene- 
plain did a later deformation depress it 
transversely, admitting the Cretaceous 
waters northward across it, and thus first 
forming the Mississippiembayment. Prob- 
ably in part at the same time, and to a 
greater extent in later time, the denuded 
peneplains to the east and west were raised 
towards their present upland altitude, and 
as a result of this elevation the existing 
valleys and lowlands were opened in them 
during some part of Tertiary time. With 
these later elevations we may associate the 
uplift of the filled embayment and the 
southward growth of the Mississippi as a 
river. This view of the origin of the Mis- 
sissippi embayment and of the date of the 
southward discharge of Mississippi drainage 
was first published by L. G. Westgate 
(Amer. Geol. xi., 1898, 251), as a result of 
conference with L. S. Griswold, who had 
then recently completed his investigation of 
the novaculite region of Arkansas. 


THE CHUNNENUGGA RIDGE AND THE BLACK 
PRAIRIES OF ALABAMA. 


Ir is, perhaps, too much to expect that the 
origin of the physiographic features of a 
region should always receive due attention 
in a geological report along with the origin 
of its strata ; yet there is no other place so 


SCIENCE. 


295 


appropriate for the official publication of 
physiographical discussions. It therefore 
occasions regret to find so little account of 
the origin and meaning of the Chunnenugga 
ridge and the Black prairies of Alabama in 
the elaborate report on the Geology of the 
Coastal Plain lately published by the Survey 
of that State. ‘‘ The Chunnenugga ridge is 
made in great part by alterations of hard 
limestone ledges and bands of indurated 
sands of the Ripley...... It overlooks 
the low trough of the black prairies of the 
Rotten limestone towards the north with 
somewhat precipitous slopes in that direc- 
tion, while its descent towards the south is 
much more gentle” (p. 356). It is mani- 
fest that the ridge with its inland-facing 
escarpment and the denuded inner lowland 
are typical features of a certain stage in the 
denudation of a coastal plain that consists 
of more and less resistant strata ; the drain- 
age of the lowland being chiefly gathered 
by subsequent streams that have been de- 
veloped along the strike of the beds, and dis- 
charged by consequent streams which main- 
tain transverse valleys through the enclos- 
ing ridge or upland. This general relation 
of form and drainage is so often repeated on 
coastal plains that its occurrence in Alabama 
deserves mention as a local example of a 
general physiographic feature; just as the 
Cretaceous strata on which it is developed 
deserve mention as local examples of a wide- 
spread geological formation. 
W. M. Davis. 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 

THE NEW YORK MEETING OF THE ASSOCI- 
ATION OF AMERICAN ANATOMISTS. 

Tue Seventh Annual Session of the Amer- 
ican Anatomists was held in the Medical 
Department of Columbia College, 437 West 
59th Street, New York City, December 28 
and 29, 1894. 

The Association was called to order Fri- 
day, December 28th, by the President, Dr. 


296 


Thomas Dwight, ina few introductory re- 
marks. 

The report of the Secretary and Treasurer 
was read and accepted. 

The Executive Committee recommended 
for election to membership the following 
names, and, on motion, the gentleman were 
elected : 

1. Dr. F. J. Brockway, Assistant Demon- 
strator of Anatomy, Columbia College, New 
York City. 

2. Dr. W. A. Brooks, Jr., Assistant in 
Anatomy, Harvard Medical School. 

3. Dr. Franklin Dexter, Demonstrator of 
Anatomy, Harvard Medical School. 

4. Dr. B. B. Gallaudet, Demonstrator of 
Anatomy, Medical Department of Columbia 
College, New York City. 

5. Dr. R. H. Gregory, Jr., Demonstrator 
of Anatomy, St. Louis Medical College. 

6. Dr. C. J. Herrick, Acting Professor of 
Biology, Denison University, Granville, 
Ohio. 

7. Dr. P. C. Hunt, Assistant Demonstra- 
tor of Anatomy, Columbian Medical College, 
Washington, D. C. 

8. Dr. Woods Hutchinson, Professor of 
Anatomy, Medical Department, University 
of Iowa. 

9. Dr. W. P. Mathews, Demonstrator of 
Anatomy, Medical College of Virginia, 
Richmond. 

10. Dr. Hugene A. Smith, Professor of 
Anatomy, Niagara University, Buffalo, 
IN, Wo 

11. Dr. P. Y. Tupper, Professor of An- 
atomy, St. Louis Medical College. 

The Executive Committee, while not 
recommending affiliation with the Society 
of Naturalists, suggested that, as a rule, the 
Association should meet at the same time 
and place. This suggestion was discussed 
by Drs. Wilder, Spitzka, Dwight and Lamb, 
and was then adopted. 

Dr. Wilder, from the Committee on 
Anatomical Nomenclature, reported prog- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 11. 


ress. He also stated that Professor Stowell 
had resigned from the Committee. 

The report of the Committee on Ana- 
tomical Material was called for. In the 
absence of the Chairman, Dr. Mears, Dr. 
Dwight reported progress. 


~ 


The Committee on the Anatomical Pecul- 


iarities of the Negro also reported prog- 
ress. 

Dr. Huntington was elected to the yva- 
cancy on the Executive Committee, caused 
by the retirement of Dr. Spitzka. 

The following papers were then read : 

1. ‘The best arrangement of topics in a 
two years’ course of Anatomy in a medical 
school.’ Dr. Gerrish. Discussed by Drs. 
Huntington, Baker, Wilder, Bevan, Allen, 
Shepherd, Lamb and Dwight. 

2. ‘ History of the Development of Den- 
tine.’ Dr. Heitzmann. 

83. ‘On the Value of the Nasal and Or- 
bital Indices in Anthropology.’ Dr. Allen. 
Discussed by Drs. Wilder, Huntington and 
Dwight. 

4. ‘Loose characterizations of vertebrate 
groups in standard works.’ Dr. Wilder. 
Discussed by Drs. Baker, Dwight and Allen. 

5. ‘The comparative anatomy of the cere- 
bral circulation, with an exhibition of a 
series of anomalies of the circle of Willis.’ 
Dr. Leidy. Read by title in the absence of 
the author. 

6. ‘Convolutions of the hemispheres of 
Elephas Indicus.’ Dr. Huntington. Dis- 
cussed by Drs. Wilder and Baker. 

An inspection of the Medical Department 
of Columbia College was made in the even- 
ing, under the conduct of Dr. Huntington. 

On Saturday, the 29th, the President ap- 
pointed Dr. Gerrish to fill the vacaney upon 
the Committee on Anatomical Nomencla- 
ture, caused by the resignation of Professor 
Stowell. 

The reading of papers was resumed : 

7th paper. ‘ Classification of the tissues 
of the animal body.’ Dr. Baker. | Dis- 


Se ei BO de 
a 


A Ra Teo t= 


—_ 


ss, ae le 


Maxcu 15, 1895.] 


cussed by Drs. Heitzmann, Wilder, Dwight 
and Lamb. 

8. ‘ Anomalies—Their significance.’ Dr. 
Dwight. 

9. ‘Some muscular variations of the 
shoulder girdle and upper extremity, with 
especial reference to reversions in this re- 
gion.’ Dr. Huntington. 

10. ‘Some anomalies of the brain.’ 
Wilder. 

11. ‘The correlation between specific di- 
versity and individual variability, as illus- 
trated by the eye muscle nerves of the Am- 
phibia.’ Professor C. Judson Herrick. 

The discussion on papers 8 to 11, inclu- 
sive, was then opened by Dr. Baker, and 
continued by Dr. Shepherd (who illustrated 
his remarks with specimens), Dr. Wilder, 
Dr. Lamb (who also showed a specimen), Dr. 
Huntington, and concluded by Dr. Dwight. 

Dr. Wilder exhibited a brainless frog and 
made remarks thereon. 

On motion, the thanks of the Association 
were tendered to the College, and particu- 
larly to Dr. Huntington, for their hospital- 
ity. 

The following members were present at 
some time during the session: Allen, Ba- 
ker, Bevan, Bosher, Dwight, Ferris, Ger- 
rish, Hamann, Heitzmann, C. J. Herrick, 
Huntington, Lamb, Moody, Shepherd, 
Spitzka, Weisse, Wilder. Total, 17. 


Dr. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
A CARD CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC 
LITERATURE. 

Epiror or Scrence—Dear Sir: Your in- 
vitation to open in the columns of ScreNcE 
a discussion of the projected Catalogue of 
Scientific Literature to be prepared by in- 
ternational codperation, the claims of which 
were presented in your issue of February 
15, affords me a welcome opportunity to 

fall publicly into line with a great move- 
- ment that I believe destined to prove of the 
highest importance to scholarship. As a 


SCIENCE. 


297 


few of your readers are aware, I printed 
privately, last summer, a brief circular 
advocating a similar enterprise. At the 
time of doing so I was at an out-of-the-way 
spot in the country, where it was impossible 
to exchange inspirations, except by post, 
with friends whose interest in the scheme 
might have been counted upon; but upon 
canvassing the subject in my own mind I 
became so convinced that the learned world 
was in sore straits in this matter, and that 
the way out was clear, that I felt sure I 
should presently discover that other restive 
spirits were beginning to agitate in the 
same direction. Little did I expect, how- 
ever, to meet with so conspicuous and 
agreeable a confirmation of my premonition 
as came to me several weeks after the is- 
suance of my circular (though dated before 
it), in the printed report of the Harvard 
committee, which has now appeared in 
Scrence. (The original communication of 
the Royal Society I have seen for the first 
time, through your editorial courtesy, in the 
proof sheets of ScreNcE. ) 

Although several of the suggestions con- 
tained in my own little circular were 
promptly outgrown by me, it may appear 
not inappropriate, on the principle of com- 
paring small things with great, to reproduce 
here the contents of this highly aspiring 
but wholly unpretentious little document : 


UNIFORM CARD MEMORANDUM INDEX. 


The accompanying slip (size 244x3% inches, 5.7 x 8.9 cen- 
timetres), designed to be cut out and filed alphabetically in 
the manner of a card catalogue, is printed as a tentative 
specimen of a projected (niformn Card Memorandum In- 
dex, and is herewith privately submitted to representatives 
of a few of the leading universities, learned societies and 
publication agencies, with a view to securing influential ap- 
proval of the general plan, together with useful suggestions 
and criticisms as to its practical application. It is proposed 
that all the universities, learned societies and high-class 
periodicals of the world should coéperate (from January, 
1895) in the production of such a uniform memorandum in- 
dex, by publishing, as a supplement (or appendix, or both) 
to every number of their original publications, a brief slip- 
digest of the contents of each article —or even of important 
vortions of each article, aS May appear to be warranted. 

hese supplements could be easily prepared (the digests be- 
ing furnished in all or in most cases by the authors them- 
selves), would be inexpensive both in their original form of 
publication and as separate slips, and would incalculably 
facilitate both the distribution and the classification for in- 
stant reference of all the newest results of discovery and re- 
search. Those interested in such a project are earnestly re- 
quested to communicate on the subject, before September 
15, with the undersigned. 


298 


The specimen slip read as follows : 


KINETO-PHONOGRAPH. PHONO-KINETOGRAPH. PHONO-KINETOSCOPE, 
Edison, Thomas A., Invention of the Kineto-phonograph. 

Century Magazine, June, ’94, p. 206. 
“In the year 1887 the idea Occurred to me that it was 
possible to devise an instrument which should do for the 
eye what the phonograph does for the ear, and that, by a 
combination of the two, all motion and sound could be 
recorded and reproduced simultaneously. Thisidea, the 
germ of which came from the little toy called the Zoe- 
trope, and the work of Muybridge, Marié and others, 
has now been accomplished, so that every change of 
facial expression can be recorded and reproduced life 
size. The Kinetoscope is only a small model illustrating 
the present stage of progress, but with each succeeding 
month new possibilities are brought into view, ete., etc.” 


The above circular, though sent to but 
comparatively few persons, called forth a 
gratifying number of ‘adherences’ and 
of valuable suggestions. In particular, the 
president of one of the American universi- 
ties famous for activity in research and in 
the promulgation of knowledge undertook 
to have furnished, with the official impri- 
matur, summaries of the contents of all the 
publications of his university. 

The necessity of entrusting the organiza- 
tion of the enterprise to a great central 


bureau that would command universal con- 


fidence early became manifest, and an in- 
formal communication on the subject was 
addressed to one of the officers of the Smith- 
sonian Institution at Washington, who 
wrote in response: ‘I heartily favor the 
idea. When you have the matter in shape 
to make a formal proposition I shall have 
much pleasure in recommending it to the 
Secretary.” 

Meanwhile, from correspondence and con- 
ference with numerous scholars, various 
points involved in the success of the enter- 
prise have grown in distinctness. The 
problem of utilizing more effectively the 
ever-increasing mass of accumulated, scat- 
tered and current contributions to knowl- 
edge can no longer be shirked. The time 
is ripe for instituting widely concerted ac- 
tion for recovering mastery of the situation. 
The various efforts hitherto directed to this 
end have done great service ; but they have 
been devised almost exclusively to meet the 
requirements of reference and circulating 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. I. No. 11. 


libraries in their relations to broad classes 
of readers, rather than to serve the imme- 
diate needs of the individual scholar en- ~ 
gaged upon a learned specialty. 

All productive scholars, it would seem, 
must have devised or adopted for their per- 
sonal use some form of index rerum, some 
mode—systematic or unsystematic—of note 
making. It is safe to say that very many 
such scholars have adopted for this purpose 
the general idea of the alphabetical card 
index, the merits of which are at present 
almost universally recognized. The scholar 
of Anglo-Saxon race is fast becoming as 
wedded to, and as dependent upon, his 
reference slips as the German scholar has 
long been silently devoted to his Zettel or 
the French savant to his fiches. It now re- 
mains for the Anglo-Saxon, with his open- 
ness to new applications of old ideas and 
the proverbial genius of his race for practi- 
cal devices, to bring the power of the 
printing-press, as well as of scholarly co- 
operation, to bear upon the problem of 
multiplying indefinitely the benefits of the 
private card index. 

Just here I should like to emphasize a 
consideration that is unexpressed, though 
latent, in the masterly report of the Harvard 
committee. This is, that such a card cata- 
logue as is there projected, if based upon a 
wise choice in the size of card adopted, would 
render it possible for every member of the 
rapidly recruiting army of those employing 
the card system for private notes to incor- 
porate his own manuscript or type-written 
ecards and the printed cards (pertaining to 
his own specialty) of the codperative index 
into one homogeneous whole, ever-growing, 
ever abreast of the latest research. This 
consideration it was, with all the possibili- 
ties and problems of administration it opens 
up, that held the mind of the writer under 
a spell of fascination for almost a week of 
vacation leisure. For be it noted that the 
blessings of the proposed codperative card 


Marcu 15, 1895.] 


index are to flow directly into the lap of 
the individual scholar, seated at his own 
desk in his private sanctum, enabling 
him to discard (not inappropriate word) to 
the limbo of the great libraries everything 
that does not directly concern him, while 
filing within reach of his finger-tips abso- 
lutely everything (pardon the optimism of 
an enthusiast) that he may intimately de- 
sire. 

How can so Utopian a consummation be 
most speedily attained ? 

Let universities and colleges, and all 
manner of learned institutions and societies, 
at once appoint committees similar to the 
Harvard committee (though of course not 
limited to the natural and physical sciences, 
since the project of the Royal Society will 
form only a portion of the great undertak- 
ing), to accomplish three preliminary ob- 
jects : 

1. To arouse an intelligent and earnest 
interest in the subject. 

2. To induce the Smithsonian Institution 
to assume the American leadership of the 
movement. 

3. To convince publishers—primarily the 
publishers to the respective institutions con- 
cerned—of the importance of printing, on 
slips of the standard size, No. 33, of the 
American Library Bureau (74x124 em., 
3x5 in. approximately), summaries of their 
eurrent publications for distribution as 
publishers’ announcements. This size of 
slip is already widely in use, both publicly 
and privately, and may well prove to be of 
the dimensions ultimately adopted by the 
authorities of the projected international 
index. A beginning of these publishers’ 
announcements has already been made by 
Messrs. D. C. Heath & Co., at the personal 
request of the present writer, and has been 
favorably submitted to the attention of the 
Secretaries of the Royal Society by Profes- 
sor Bowditch, chairman of the Harvard 
committee. Other leading American pub- 


SCIENCE. 


299 


lishers have heartily favored the idea of 
these card announcements and have prom- 
ised to introduce them into use. 

Columbia College has within a few days 
appointed, through its University Council, 
a committee to further the interests of the 
proposed International Coéperative Cata- 
logue of Scientific Literature. 

Yours very truly, 
Henry ALFRED Topp. 
CoLUMBIA COLLEGE, March 2, 1895. 


PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS. 
Eprror oF ScrencE—Sir : 

In my letter of February 14th occur two 
expressions which need amendment. For 
the phrase ‘divergent roots,’ p. 240, 1st 
col., first line, read ‘ divergent root stems ;’ 
and for the phrase ‘is wider than long,’ p. 
240, 2d col., fifth line, read ‘is much wider 
than long.’ Yours truly, 

Harrison ALLEN. 

PHILADELPHIA, March 4th, 1895. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

Electrical Engineering, for Electric Light Ar- 
tisans and Students. By W.Stryeco and A. 
Brooker. New and revised edition, 
London, 1895. Longmans. Price, $3.50. 
The object of this work is to cover gen- 

eral electrical engineering, and, taken as a 

whole, it is probably the most successful at- 

tempt yet made in this direction. The de- 
mand for a satisfactory general treatment 
of the applications of electricity is a very 
large and important one, and anything 
which supplies this demand is more than 
welcome. It is very doubtful whether any 
single work is ever likely to be published 
which will completely set forth the numer- 
ous and rapidly developing branches of 
electrical science and industry. Nothing 
short of an encyclopedia of many volumes 
could be expected to accomplish this result. 

A general discussion of the most important 

principles and uses of electricity, particu- 


300 


larly if it is not attempted to cover all 
branches, is a far more practicable problem, 
as the success of this volume demonstrates. 

A work of this kind, however, is some- 
what limited in its scope, since it is not in- 
telligible to the ordinary untechnical reader, 
and is not of much use to the professional 
electrical engineer, who requires a more 
thorough and detailed study of each sub- 
ject than is possible in a general treatise. 
This work would therefore be suited to one 
who had a certain amount of technical 
knowledge but who was nota specialist in 
electricity, for example, a mining or me- 
chanical engineer, or a young man who had 
received a certain amount of electrical edu- 
cation at a technical or trade school and 
who wanted to learn more by his own ef- 
forts. It would also be useful as a text- 
book wherever a general course in electric- 
al engineering is given. But in the opin- 
ion of the reviewer, a general treatment 
running from one subject to another is not 
the best way to educate electrical engineers 
of the highest type. This requires a care- 
ful and special study of each branch, aided 
by lectures and laboratory work, and the 
text-books should be entirely devoted to 
one subject, or, in fact, several books, each 
devoted to a small part of any one branch, 
is often preferable. 

The authors of this book have had con- 
siderable experience as teachers and also 
the advantage of correcting and extending 
the contents of the first edition, which ap- 
peared in 1890, with the result that the new 
edition is well arranged and expressed and 
in most cases is brought reasonably well up 
to date. The first six chapters are devoted 
to general principles, units and methods of 
measurement. The next six chapters con- 
tain a treatment of dynamos and motors 
which is very satisfactory, considering the 
limitation of space. Transformers, second- 
ary batteries, are and incandescent lamps, 
are also well explained; but the last chap- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 11. 


ter, on ‘Installation equipment, fittings, 

etc.,’ is very meagre and the least satisfac- 

tory portion of the book. In fact, the prin- 

cipal criticisms would be that each element 

or device is explained as a separate thing, 
and no methods for combining these into 

systems are given. Nevertheless, it is a fact 

that the general design and arrangement of 
electrical apparatus is fully as important as 

the merits of each particular element. For 

example, the laying-out of a central station, 

or even a small isolated plant, determines 

its success or failure fully as much as the 

quality of the individual dynamos, lamps, 

or other particular parts of the plant. 

The various systems for transmitting and 
distributing electric power, which is prob- 
ably the most important branch of electrical 
engineering, are barely touched upon. In 
short, we may say that electrical engineer- 
ing in its broadest sense is not covered, and 
probably was not intended to be covered, 
by this work. The subjects of electro-chem- 
istry and electro-metallurgy, which now 
appear to be on the eve of important de- 
velopment, are not discussed. Telegraph 
and telephone apparatus and methods are 
not even mentioned. 

These omissions, which are doubtless 
intentional and probably necessary, indicate 
that a complete treatise on electricity and 
its applications is almost an impossibility. 

A few mistakes are noted ; for example, 
on page 17, the International Ohm, adopted 
at the Chicago Electric Congress of 1893, is 
defined in terms of a column of mercury 
106.3 centimetres in length and one square 
millimetre in cross section, whereas, the 
statement actually adopted was ‘a column 
of mercury at the temperature of melting 
ice, 14.4521 grammes in mass, of a con- 
stant cross-sectional area and of the length 
of 106.3 centimetres.’ This was intended 
to be exactly equivalent to a cross-section 
of one square mm., but it was put in this 
form because mass is more easily and ac~ 


; 


L 


Marcu 15, 1895.] 


eurately determinable than cross-section. 
Another somewhat serious mistake, since 
it is fundamental, is the statement on page 
18, that specific resistance is ‘ the resistance 
of any particular substance as compared 
with the resistance of a piece of some other 
conductor, such as silver, both being of unit 
dimensions.’ Asa matter of fact, specific 
resistance, which is a very important term, 
is the resistance in ohms of a unit volume, 
and is entirely independent of any particu- 
lar standard substance. The use of the 
term ‘ magnetic resistance,’ on pages 219 to 
221, is open to objection, since the term 
‘reluctance ’ is now almost universally em- 
ployed to distinguish this quantity from 
electrical resistance. 

Taken as a whole, however, the errors 
are not numerous, and the work is recom- 
mended as a text or reference book for 
those who desire to learn the principles, 
general construction and action of the 
various kinds of electrical machinery and 
instruments, with the exceptions already 
noted. F. B. Crocker. 


PHYSIOLOGICAL PHYSICS. 

On the Spontaneous Heating and Ignition of 
Hay. Brerruetor. Ann. Chim. Phys., 
7,2. p. 430. 1894. 

The author finds that poorly dried hay 
may ignite when the rise in temperature is 
only to 140° C. (280° Fh.). The evolution 
of heat necessary for this rise of temperature 
is due to the absorption of oxygen in spite 
of the interrupted sprouting, which will only 
take place when the hay is quite wet. The 
chemical process involving this absorption 
of oxygen may continue until the hay is 
thoroughly dry. 

Druck und Arbeitsleistung durch Wachsende 
Pflanzen. W. Prerrer. Abh. d. Math.- 
Phys. K1. der K. Sachsicher Gesellschaft 
der Wiss., 20. p. 235. 18938. 

Mr. Pfeffer investigated very carefully 
and ingeniously the pressure exerted by 


SCIENCE. 


301 


parts of plants in growth, and found, for 
example, that a root point could exert a 
pressure of 10-15 atmospheres. He ascribes 
these forces to osmotic pressure, and criti- 
cises the view concerning the growth of the 
cell-wall, which ascribes it to simple plastic 
expansion. 


R. Dusors Rev. 
p. 415 and p. 529. . 


La Lumiere Physiologique. 
gén. des Sciences, 5. 
1894. 

Part first contains a review of light emit- 
ting organisms, and a description of the 
organs involved. In part second the author 
treats the subject of the emission more 
thoroughly, describing the character of the 
light radiated, and finds that the brightest 
Pyrophorus radiates 1, 4% 10- calorie in 
ten minutes. 

The author summarizes his extensive in- 
vestigations as follows: 

Neither a perfect organ nor a perfect cell 
is necessary for the coming and going of the 
light. The cell produces the photogenic 
substance which, once formed, may light or 
not, according to the conditions surround- 
ing it. 

They must fulfill the conditions necessary 
for life, must contain oxygen and water, 
and have a suitable temperature. 

The light (luminous energy) is found to 
be 90% of the total energy radiated. 

Dubois made a fluorescent substance from 
the blood of Pyrophorus, which, like that 
from the animal itself, lost its peculiar prop- 
erty on being treated with weak acetic 
acid and regained it on treatment with am- 
monia. 

All the causes which excite or destroy 
the activity of the protoplasm have a simi- 
lar effect upon the production of the physio- 
logical light. 

The production of light depends upon the 
change of living protoplasmic granulations 
into the condition of lifeless crystalline 
matter. 


302 


It is to be remembered that the secretions 
of Orya barbarica are acid, thus in this case 
excluding the explanation of Radziszewski. 

WiLiiAm HALLocK. 


MATHEMATICS. 

The Principles of Differentiation in Space-Ana- 
lysis.* By A. Macrarnang, D.Sc., LL. D. 
According to Hamilton the differentiation 

of a function of a quaternion presents novel 
difficulties due to the non-commutative 
character of a product of quaternions. 
‘There is in general no derived function, and 
it is necessary to define the differential in a 
new manner. Under certain conditions 
there is an analogue to Taylor’s Theorem, 
but it is very complex, and no use is made 
of it. Hamilton does not differentiate the 
general transcendental functions, but only 
these functions restricted to a constant 
plane. 

The author shows that these anomalies 
are true of products of vectors, but not of 
functions of yversors. In versor analysis 
there is a derived function, satisfying a gen- 
eralized form of Lagrange’s definition ; and 
Taylor’s Theorem takes on a form similar 
to that in ordinary analysis, only the order 
of the two quantities must be preserved. 
Let x and h denote two versors, then 

f (x+h)=f (x)+f (x)h+3 f{/’ (x)h?+, ete., 
provided the order of the x and h be pre- 
served throughout. 

The author finds the derived functions of 
various transcendental functions in space. 
He also shows that there are two essentially 
different meanings of Y —1; one, when made 
definite, means a quadrant of rotation 

‘round a specified axis; while the other has 
no reference to direction, but distinguishes 
the area of a hyperbolic angle from the 
area of a circular angle. He also re- 
marks that the theory of functions must be 
imperfect, because it is based upon a complex 


* A paper read before the meeting of the American 
Mathematical Society, January 26, 1895. (Abstract. ) 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 11. 


number which is restricted to one plane; no 
account is taken of the two essentially 


different meanings of Y —1, and the idea of — 


the versor is not distinguished from that of 
the vector. 


METEOROLOGY. 

Neudrucke von Schriften und Karten weber 
Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus. 

Dr. G. Hellmann, of Berlin, has under- 
taken the republication of certain old and 
rare writings relating to meteorology and 
terrestrial magnetism which have an im- 
portant bearing on the history and deyelop- 
ment of these sciences. Very rare or typo- 
graphically interesting works are printed 
in facsimile. Each reprint is preceded by 
an introduction, containing a general de- 
scription of the book and its author. Al- 
though facsimile publications generally are 
so dear that only connoisseursare able to buy 
them, yet, owing to the aid of the German 
Meteorological Society and its Berlin 
branch, the reprints are offered at a relative- 
ly low price by A. Asher & Co., Berlin. A 
few copies may also be had of A. L. Rotch, 
Blue Hill Observatory, Readville, Mass., at 
the publishers’ prices. Hach year one or 
two of the reprints will be issued, but the 
whole number will not exceed twelve. The 
following have already appeared : 

No.1. Wetterbuechlein von wahrer Erkennt- 
miss des Wetters. Reynman, 1510. 41 
pages introduction and 14 pages fac- 
simile. Price 6 M. = $1.50. 

This is the oldest printed meteorological 
work in the German language and was 
very popular, having 34 editions in seven- 
teen years. Nevertheless, it is now so 
searce that hardly thirty-six copies can be 
found. 
No. 2. Récit dela Grande Expérience de’ Equil- 

ibre'des Liqueurs. BuAtse Pascan. Paris. 

1648. 10 pages introduction and 20 

pages facsimile. Price 3 M. = 75 cents, 

This little work is of the greatest impor- 


] 


‘ Marcu 15, 1895.) 
tance for the history of physies, meteor- 
: ology and physical geography, since it fur- 
_nishes proof of the existence of atmospheric 
_ pressure, and forms the basis of measure- 
ments of altitudes with the barometer. But 
three copies of the original are known to 
No. 3. On the Modification of Clouds. Luxe 
Howarp. London. 1803. 9 pages in- 
troduction and 32 pages facsimile with 
three plates. Price 3 M. = 75 cents. 
This was the first successful attempt at 
a cloud nomenclature on which all later 
schemes are based. The first edition of 
the original work is very rare. 
A. L. Rorcn. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
ENTOMOLOGY. 
Iris well to draw attention to two admi- 
rable brief illustrated papers published last 
year by Ch. Janet on Myrmica rubra, one on 
the morphology of the skeleton and espe- 
cially of the postthoracic segments (Mém. 
Soc. Acad. de 1’ Oise, xv.), the other on the 
anatomy of the petiole (Mém. Soc. Zool. 
France, 1894). We regret we have not 
‘space for a full analysis of each, but they 
will be found of great interest to morphol- 
ogists and hymenopterists. The clear il- 
lustrations are pretty sure to find their way 
into text-books. 

The annual presidential address before 
the Entomological Society of London by 
Capt. H. J. Elwes is on the geographical 
distribution of butterflies and deals largely 
with those of North America. 

Dr. Ph. Bertkau announces that his 
health obliges him to give up the admirable 
annual review of entomology which has ap- 

din the Archiv fiir naturgeschichte since 
1838 under different editors — Erichson, 
Schaum, Gerstaecker, Brauer and Bertkau. 


_ Entomologists are under great obligations 


to Dr. Bertkau for the excellence of his 
_ Stmmaries, their completeness and the 


SCIENCE. 


303 


promptness with which they have appeared. 
A still prompter method of rapid publica- 
tion in all branches of biology is now being 
planned, which is at the same time a prac- 
tical combination of all the current reviews 
—a consummation devoutly to be wished 
and helped forward. 

M. Emile Blanchard was retired Novem- 
ber last from the chair of entomology at the 
Jardin des Plantes, on account of age ; his 
first entomological paper was published 
nearly seventy years ago ; his successor has 
not yet been announced. 

Fire has committed ravages with our ento- 
mologists this winter. Mr. J. G. Jack lost 
his library and collection in Jamaica Plain 
by the destruction of the building in which 
they were kept; Prof. C. H. Tyler Town- 
send lost his valuable dipterological library 
(nearly complete for America and very full 
for Europe) by the burning of the warehouse 
at Las Cruces, N. Mex., while he was absent 
for a few weeks at Washington ; and now 
comes news that Rev. C. J. 8. Bethune’s 
school at Port Hope, Ont., has been burnt 
to the ground. His loss is estimated at 
eighty thousand dollars. 


GENERAL. 


Amone the articles of scientific interest 
in the popular magazines for March are the 
following : Hermann von Helmholtz; Thos. 
C. Martin— Century. The World’s Debt to 
Medicine ; John 8. Billings—The Chautau- 
quan. Weather studies at Blue Hill; Ray- 
mond L. Bridgman—New England Maga- 
Heredity; St. George Mivart—Har- 
per’s Magazine. The Direction of Educa- 
tion; N.S. Shaler—Aftlantie Monthly. 

Proressor CARHART will deliver the ad- 
dress at the dedication of the Hale scien- 
tific building of the University of Colorado, 
on March 7th. His subject is The Educa- 
tional and Industrial Value of Science. 


zine. 


THERE will be held at Vienna between 
the months of January and May, 1896, an 


B04 


historical exhibition intended to bring un- 
der view the social and industrial condition 
of the country at the beginning of the cen- 
tury. 


Arrancements have been made that will 
probably ensure the union of the Astor 
Library, the Lenox Library and the Tilden 
Endowment. This would supply New York 
with a Library whose property is valued at 
$8,000,000. 

A Commirter of the English House of 
Commons has been appointed to consider 
changes in the system of weights and meas- 
ures. 

Mr. Cuartes D. Watcorr has been 
awarded the Bigsby Medal of the Geologic- 
al Society of London. 

Lorp Ray etex is delivering a course of 
six lectures on Waves and Vibrations at the 
Royal Institution of London. On April 5th 
he will lecture on ‘Argon.’ 

THE Massachusetts Horticultural Society 
invites subscriptions for the erection of a- 
monument in honor of the late Francis 
Parkman. 

Dr. KosseLt, of Berlin, has accepted a 
call to the Professorship of Physiology at 
Marburg. 

Proressor C. L. Dooxirrie, of Lehigh 
University, has been called to the chair of 
Mathematics in the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, and Mr. A. P. Brown has been ap- 
pointed Assistant Professor of Geology and 
Mineralogy. 

Proressor JoHun B. CLARKE, of Amherst 
College, has accepted a call to a professor- 
ship of Political Economy in Columbia 
College. 

Dr. D. Hack Tus, editor of the Jowrnal 
of Mental Science, and well known for his 
writings on insanity, died in London, on 
March 5th, at the age of sixty-eight. 

Mr. J. W. Huxxs, President of the Royal 
College of Surgeons of England, died re- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vor. L No. 11. 


cently at the age of sixty-five. He was 
eminent as a surgeon and especially as an 
ophthalmologist. 


~ 


Mr. Hyman Montacus, known for his 
writings on numismatics, died in London 
on the 18th of February, at the age of fifty- 
one. 

Proressor LAvuTH, the eminent Egyptol- 
ogist, died at Munich, on February 11th, 
at the age of seventy-three. 

Tuer death is announced, at the age of 
eighty-five, of Sir Henry Rawlinson, the 
eminent Assyriologist. 

Macmititan & Co. announce two works 
on Physical Geography, by Prof. Tarr, of 
Cornell University—one an elementary 
and the other an advanced text-book. The 
same publishers announce: Lowis Agassiz, 
his Life, Letters and Works, by Jules Marcou. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, FEB. 23. 

Mr. F. E. L. Beat read a paper on the 
food habits of woodpeckers, based on the 
examination of more than 600 stomachs. 
He found that the Hairy and Downy wood- 
peckers (Dryobates villosus and pubescens) 
feed chiefly on insects, most of which are 
harmful species. They also eat wild fruits 
and seeds. The food of the flicker ( Colaptes 
auratus) consists largely of ants. Two 
stomachs contained each more than three 
thousand ants, and these insects formed 46 
per cent. of all the stomach contents ex- 
amined. The Flicker also ate other noxious 
insects and some wild fruit, such as dog- 
wood berries and wild grapes. The Red- 
headed woodpecker (Malanerpes erythroceph- 
alus) feeds largely on insects, all of whieh 
are harmful species except a few predacious 
beetles. The vegetable food of the Redhead 
comprises wild fruits and some corn and 
cultivated fruit. The Yellow Bellied wood- 
pecker, or Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius), 1s 


15, 1895.] 


= only one in which the vegetable food 
exceeds the animal. It feeds largely on the 
inner bark and sap of trees, and also on in- 
Hien More than two-thirds of the latter 
in the stomachs examined were ants. 

- Dr. C. Hart Merriam, commenting on 
this paper, said that one result of the study 
of birds’ stomachs by the Division of Orni- 

thology and Mammalogy of the Department 
of Agriculture had been to show a wider 
range of food than previously suspected. 
Each bird has its favorite foods, but when 
these fail it is usually able to find some- 
thing else on which it can subsist. Further- 

more, the food of most species varies in 
‘different localities and at different times of 
‘the year, so that the examination of a series 
of stomachs, however large, from a single 
Tocality i is utterly insufficient to furnish a 

iable index to the range of food of the 
"species. Thus, while the 600 stomachs of 
woodpeckers examined by Professor Beal 
failed to show a single beech-nut, it is 

‘nevertheless true that in northern New 
York beech-nuts form, during winters fol- 
lowing ‘nut years,’ the principal article of 

food of three of the five species men- 

tioned. 

Mr. L. O. Howard remarked that it had 
been queried whether or not ants were more 
' injurious than beneficial, and stated that as 
’ harborers of aphids and mealy-bugs they 
' indirectly cause much damage, and are to 
be considered on the whole as decidedly in- 
jurious. He gave an interesting illustration 
of the manner in which ants had placed 
' eolonies of mealy-bugs on the artificially en- 
i larged foliar nectar glands of certain Libe- 
_ rian coffee trees which had been placed in 
hot-house of the Department of Agricul- 


Mr. F. A. Lucas described the general 
iicinre of the tongue of woodpeckers, 
noting the great difference between the 

e of the sapsucker (Sphyrapicus) and 
of most woodpeckers. In the sapsucker 


SCIENCE. 


305 


the tongue was of moderate length and 
margined for some distance back from the 
tip with hair-like bristles, some standing 
out, others directed backward, thus form- 
ing a brush for securing syrup. In the 
other woodpeckers examined, the tongue 
was excessively long and armed towards 
the tip with a few sharp, reverted barbs, 
an arrangement which seemed admirable 
for extracting grubs from holes in trees. 

Mr. B. E. Fernow, in closing the discus- 
sion, said that he was glad to see the re- 
habilitation of the woodpecker, a bird which, 
once considered very beneficial, had been 
latterly condemned as injurious, while the 
evidence now presented seemed to be in its 
favor. 

Mr. F. A. Lucas exhibited some Abnor- 
mal Feet of Mammals, saying that abnor- 
malities in the way of digits could be mostly 
grouped under three heads, duplication of 
digits, irregular additions to the number of 
digits, the extra ones budding out from the 
others, and increased number of digits due 
to reversion. The latter he considered to 
be the rarest of the three, most of the extra 
digits of polydactyle horses being simply 
eases of duplication, as in the specimen 
shown. The feet of a pig exhibited illus- 
trated the irregular addition of digits, while 
two feet of a three-toed cow were thought 
to be cases of reversion. Feet of an old 
and young llama illustrated the transmis- 
sion of abnormalities. 

Mr. M. B. Waite gave notes on the flora 
of Washington and vicinity, which were 
the result of his own collecting. Two species 
were added to the flora, namely: Floerkia 
proserfinacoides, Willd. (already published), 
and Kyllingia primila, Michx. 

Selaginella rupestris, Spring, which had 
not been found for many years, was redis- 
covered at Great Falls. New localities 
were given for a number of rare plants. 
Attention was called to some spurious and 
doubtful additions to the local flora. The 


306 


tendency of some of the botanists to include 
in the flora cultivated plants or plants es- 
caped from cultivation which do not prop- 
erly belong there was criticised, as was 
also the practice of publishing plants in the 
lists of additions without seeing specimens 
and depositing them in some accessible col- 
lection. F. A. Lucas, Secretary. 


NEW YORK AGADEMY OF SCIENCES, FEB. 11. 
BIOLOGICAL SECTION. 

The following papers were presented : 

The Occurrence and Functions of Rhizobia. 
Dr. ALBERT ScHNEIDER. A discussion of 
the discovery of the adaptability of rhizo- 
bia to other plants than leguminous. Some 
conclusions based on investigations carried 
on at the Illinois experiment station were 
given to show that it is probable that rhizo- 
bia may be so modified as to grow in and 
upon roots of gramineous plants (ex. Indian 
corn). 

An Undescribed Ranunculus from the Moun- 
tains of Virginia. Pror. N. L. Brirron. 

On the So-called Devil’s Corkscrews of Ne- 
braska. Dr. J.L.Wortman. A visit to the 
locality during the past summer had enabled 
him to study many problems in connection 
with their occurrence, which tend to throw 
considerable light upon their nature. The 
formation in which they occur was posi- 
tively identified as the Loup Fork division 
of the upper Miocene, which is a true sedi- 
mentary deposit. The Diamonhelix occurs 
in a stratum of from 50 to 75 feet in thick- 
ness always standing vertically, and their 
tops are not confined to any one level. 
They vary much in size and character, but 
so far as observed always present the spinal 
twist. The fact that they occur in true sedi- 
mentary rocks, that their tops occupy many 
levels, together with the lack of evidence 
to show that there was any disturbance of 
level during the time the sediment was be- 
ing laid down, was considered to totally 
disprove the theory that they represent the 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 11.. 


burrows of animals, which has been so ex- 
tensively held in explanation of their curi- 
ous nature. The invariable presence of 
plant cells, together with other facts, leads 
to the conclusion that they very probably 
represent the remains of roots or stems of 
some gigantic water plant. 

The excretory System of Clepsine and Nephe- 
lis. Dk. ARNOLD GRAF. The results of H. 
Bolsius have proved to be erroneous. The 
different parts of the nephridium are classi- 
fied as follows: (1). Infundibulum, consist- 
ing in Nephelis of six bilobed ciliated cells, in 
Clepsine of a peduncle cell, pierced by a cil- 
iated canal, and two bilobed ciliated cells 
attached to the peduncle. (2). Recepta- 
culum excretorium. A vesicle which is in 
open communication with the funnel and in’ 
osmotic communication with the following 
parts of the nephridium. It is similar in 
both genera, and filled with disintegrating 
material. (3). Portio afferentia. The part 
of the gland, consisting of a single row of 
round cells, pierced by a sometimes bifur- 
cated canal, which gives off branched canals. - 
Similar in both genera. (4). Portio glandu- 
losa. Row of cells, pierced by a smooth 
canal without side branches or bifurcation. 
This part is the largest part of the whole 
organ. Similarin both genera. (5). Vesi- 
cula terminalis. In Nephelis a vesicle, lined 
by a ciliated epithelium, in Clepsine a sim- 
ple pouch of the epidermis, without cilia. 
(6). Canalis terminalis. The short canal by 
which the terminal vesicle communicates. 
with the exterior. Present in Nephelis. In 
Clepsine it is equivalent to the terminal 
vesicle. 

The cells formerly called Chloragogencells 
should now be called Evxcretophores. A pre- 
liminary account of these cells has been sent 
to the ‘ Zoologischer Anzeizer.’ The inyesti- 
gation has been carried out mainly on liy- 
ing tissues, and every source of error has. ; 
been eliminated. 

BasurorD Dran, Rec. See’y. 


15, 1895.] 


NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. 
CALENDAR, 1895. 

Feb. 8.—Topographic Forms: Mas. GrnBeRt 

_ Tuompson, Mr. Henry GANNETT, Mr. G. 

W. LirtLenares. 

Feb. 15.—Shakespeare’s Buglanil: Rey. G. 

_ ARBUTHNOT. 

Feb. 22. Practical Results of the Bering Sea 
Arbitration: Mr. J. Srantey-Brown. 
Mar. 1.—Recent Discoveries in Assyria and 
Babylonia: Rey. Dr. Francis Brown. 

Mar. 8. Mexican Boundary: Mr. A. T. Mos- 
MAN, Mr. Sreuman Forney, Cart. E. A. 

Mearns, U.S. A. 

Mar. 15.—Turkey: Rev. 

_ Sessur. 

far. 18.— Washington to Pittsburg and to Ni- 
agara Falls ; Across the Appalachians : 


Dr. Henry H. 


Dr. 
' Dayip T. Day. 
Side Trip to Niagara Falls: Mr. G. K. Gi- 


BERT. 
March 20. Reception at the Arlington Ho- 
tel, Washington, D. C., 9 to11 Pp. mu. 
far. 22. Pittsburg to Valuations National 
— Park ; Pittsburg to St. Paul, through the oil 
and gas regions: PRoressoR Epwarp Or- 


ar. 22.—The Alaskan Boundary: Mr. J. E. 

_ McGraru, Mr. J. F. Pratt, Mr. H. P. 

_ Rivrer. 

_ Mar. 25. Yellowstone National Park to Saera- 
mento; Yellowstone Park ; down the Columbia ; 

wisi to Mt. Rainier and Portland: 

Battey WIii1s. 

to Orater Lake; Mount Shasta and 

_ Sacramento: Mr. J. S. Diturr. 

‘ar. 29.—Sacramento to northern Arizona; Sac- 

ramento; the Golden Gate; Yosemite; Los 

ngeles ; San Bernardino: Mr. W. D. 

Jounson. 

San Bernardino across the deserts ; to San 

Francisco Mt., Arizona: Mas. J. W. 


Mr. 


SCIENCE. 


April 5.—Aeross the 


307 


April 1.—Grand Cation and Sonora, Mexico ; 
Salt Lake City to the Grand Caiion ; a winter 
in the depth of the Cation: Mr. CHar.es 
D. Waccorr. 

Prescott, Phenix and Tucson, to Sonora, Mexico; 
visit to the so-called cannibals: Mr. W J 
McGee. 

Rocky Mountains to 
Denver ; Northern Arizona, the Rio Grande, 
and across the mountains to Denver: PRor. 
A. H. Tompson. 

The Home of the Pueblo Indians: Mr. Frank 
HAmitton CusHIne. 

April 5.—Physical Geography of the Great 
Lakes: Pror. Mark W. Harrineton. 

April 8.—Denver to Washington; Denver to 
Pueblo, down the Arkansas river, and across 
the plains to St. Louis: Mr. F. H. NEwE tt. 

St. Louis to Washington, with visits to the great 
caves of Ky. and Va.: Masor Jep. Horcu- 
KISS. 

April 12.—Argentina,Columbian University, 
8:30 to 9:30 ep. m.: Dr. D. Esranistao S. 
ZEBALLOS. 

April 19.—The Geography and Geology of 

Vicaragua: Mr. Rosert T. Hix. 

April 26.—Antiquities and Aborigines of Peru : 
Mr. S. Maruewson Scorr, Mr. F. H. 
CUSHING. 

May 3.—Fredericksburg: Mr. W J McGer, 
Mas. Gitpert THompson, GEN. JOHN 
Gippon, U.S. A. 

May 4.—Excursion and Field-Meeting, 
Fredericksburg, Va., 9 A. M. to 6 P. M. 
May 10.—President’s Annual Address: Hon. 

GARDINER G. HUBBARD. 

May 17.—Annual Meeting for the Election 

of Officers. 


PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 
MARCH 2. 

On the Discovery of Marine Fossils in the Pam- 
pean Formation, by Dr. H. Von Ihering: 
Mr. Wo. H. Datu. 

Classification of Clouds; Mlustrated by lan- 
tern slides: Mr. ALEXANDER McApte. 


308 


The Army Magazine Rifle, Cal. 30: Mr. 
Rogers Birnie. 
Additional Note on Gravity Determinations : 
Mr. G. K. GiBErt. 
Wiuiam C. Wintocr, Secretary. 


BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
MARCH 6. 
The Geographical History of the Lower Missis- 
sippt: Mr. L. 8, Griswoxp. 

Some Features of the Coastal Plain in the Mis- 
sissippt Embayment: Mr. C. F. Marsur. 
Note on cusped Sand-bars of the Carolina 

Coast: Mr. CLEVELAND ABBE, JR. 
SAMUEL HENSHAW, Secretary. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 

THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, MARCH. 

The Appalachian Type of Folding in the White 
Mountain Range of Inyo County, Cal.: C. 
D. Watcort. 

Notes on the Southern Ice Inmit in Eastern 
Pennsyluania: E. H. Wiitams. 

The Succession of Fossil Faunas at Springfield, 


Missouri: S. WELLER. 
Distribution of the Echinoderms of Northeastern 
America: A. E. VERRILL. 


Drigt Bowlders Between the Mohawk and Sus- 
quehanna Rivers: A. P. BrigHaM. 

Scientific Intelligence; Chemistry and Physics ; 
Geology and Mineralogy; Botany; Miscel- 
laneous ; Obituary. 


AMERICAN CHEMICAL JOURNAL, MARCH. 

On the Cupriammonium Double Salts: THE0- 
DORE WiLLiam RicHarps and ANDREW 
HENDERSON WHITRIDGE. 

The Composition of Athenian Pottery: THEO- 
DORE WILLIAM RICHARDS. 

A Redetermination of the Atomic Weight of 
Yttrium: Harry C. Jones. 

Separation of Nickel and Iron: EH. D. Camp- 
BELL and W. H. AnDREWs. 

Researches on the Complex Inorganic Acids: 
Wotcorr Gisss. 

OCupric Hydride: Epwix J. Bartierr and 
Water H. MERRILL. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 11. 


Action of Light on Lead Bromide: R.S. Norris. 
The Action of Ammonia upon Dextrose: W. B. 
STONE. ~ 
The Carbohydrates of the Gum of Acacia De- 
currens: W. H. Stone. 
Reviews and Reports ; Notes. 


BULLETIN OF THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB, 
FEB. 

New Species of Ustilagineew and Uredinew: FP. 
B. Exuis and B. M. Everwarr. 

Contributions to American Bryology—LX: 
EizABeta G. BRITTON. 

Japanese Characee—IT: 'T. F. ALLEN. 

Tradescantia Virginica var. villosa Watson : 
E. F. Hi. 

Some new hybrid Oaks from the Southern States 
Joun K. SMALL. 

‘Family Nomenclature: V. HAVARD. 

Reviews. 

Proceedings of the Club. 

Index to Recent Literature Relating to American 
Botany. 


NEW BOOKS. 

Antisepsis and Antiseptics. CHARLES MILTON ~ 
Bucwanan. Newark, N. J., The Ter- 
hune Co. 1895. xvit352. 

A Laboratory Guide in General Chemistry. 
GEORGE WILLARD Benton. Boston, D. 
C. Heath & Co. 1894. Pp. 163. 

A Laboratory Manual in Organic Chemistry. 
W.R. Ornporrr. Boston, D. C. Heath & 
Co. 1894. 82 experiments. 

First Lessons in Chemistry. G. P. PHENIX. 
Boston, D. C. Heath & Co. 1894. Pp. 
41. 

The World of Matter a Guide to the Study of 
Chemistry and Mineralogy. HAartANn Hocun 
Bauarp. Boston, D. C. Heath & Co. 
1894. Pp. 264. 

Physical Laboratory Manual. 
Boston, D. C. Heath & Co. 
vi + 213. 

Practical Methods in Microscopy. CHARLES: 
H. Crark. Boston, D. C. Heath & Co. 
1894. xiv+219. 


H. N. CuurTe. 
1894. Pp. 


ten Abbildungen, 486 S. 


SCAENCE. 


New SERIEs. 
Vou. I. No. 12. 


Fripay, Marcu 22, 1895. 


SINGLE CopPIrEs, 15 CTs. 
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ANDERSSOHN, AUREL. Physikalische Principien 
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ARcHIV FUR ENTWICKLUNGSMECHANIK DER OR- 
GANISMEN. Herausgegeben von Prof. Wilhelm Roux. 
Erster Band, Erstes Heft. Mit 7 Tafeln und 6 Text— 
figuren, 160 Seiten. 8°. M. 10. 


BARRILLOT, ERNEST. Traité de Chimie Légale. 
Analyse Toxicologique. Recherches Spéciales, 356 
pages. 8°. Fr. 6.50. 

BusJARD, Dr. ALFONS und Dr. EDUARD BAIER. 
Hilfsbuch fiir Nahrungsmittelchemiker auf Grund- 
lage der Vorschriften, betreffend die Priifung der 
Nahrungsmittelchemiker. Mit in den Text gedriick- 
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DriescH, HANs. Analytische Theorie der orga- 


nischen Entwicklung. Mit 8 Textfiguren, 184S. 8°. | 


M. 5. 


Drupe, P. Physik des Aethers auf elektromag- 
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hen. 322S. K1.8. M.6. 


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tik der Kahmpilze, der Monilia candida Hansen und 
des Soorerregers. Mit 2Tafeln. 52S. Gr. 8° M. 4. 


GARNAULT, E. Mécanique, physique et chimie. 
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Epitor1AL ComMITTEE: S. Newcoms, Mathematics ; R. S. WoopWARD, Mechanics ; E. C. PICKERING, As- 
tronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
JosEPH LE ConTE, Geology; W. M. Davis, Physiography; O. C. MARsH, Paleontology; W. K. 
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DANIEL G. BRINTON, J. W. POWELL, TE 


Fripay, Marcu 22, 1895. 


CONTENTS: 
Muegon: IRA REMSEN...........00--seeeceees: 309 
The Fundamental Difference shee Animals and 
Plants: CHARLES S. MINOT ........-...-.-- 311 


The Best Order of Topics in a Two-years’ Course of 
Anatomy in a Medical School: FREDERIC HENRY 


EREEDEER tale oc) e'siciejcie:e'e.s,. 0 + aiviemeiaieiatele weiss, oia\e 312 
‘Ourrent Notes on Physiography Ci W. M. 
NEM cia o.cip ciclo <0 00 <= se owiclemisninaisinale's vies 318 
Annual Reception of the New York eadeng 
THENRY F. OSBORN.........-.---. soc suc Ae 321 
MP een « aicvals atao so. cisaeieigels otee eee 324 


An International Scientific Catalogue and Con- 
gress: HORATIO HALE. 

Beientific Literature :— ........ 0.0. cccceceeecees 326 
Brinton’s Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics: FRED- 
ERICK STARR. Yeo’s Steam Engine: R. H. 
Tuurston. Life of Dean Buckland: A. 8. 
PACKARD. Geology. 

Notes and News :— 
Biology ; Welding of Iron; The Joint Commission 
of Scientific Societies of Washington ; General. 

Societies and Academies :—.....-..++++. alte iad cos DOE 
Biological Society of Washington. 

Scientific Journals ........+.+++ SR iea ales tole 335 

MES occ 0:5 0 0's v0 cislale siacioaisieseinisr 336 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
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ARGON. 

‘Tue plain facts concerning argon are 
these: For some time past Lord Rayleigh 
has been engaged on refined work involving 
the weighing of various gases. Last year he 
found that the nitrogen obtained from the 
air is a little heavier than that made from 
definite chemical compounds. This led him 
to further experiments and, at the same 


time, Professor W. Rane of University 
College, London, also undertook experi- 
ments with the object of explaining, if pos- 
sible, the discrepancy. The general method 
of work consisted in passing air, first through 
substances that have the power to remove 
those constituents that are present in small 
quantities, such as water vapor, carbonic- 
acid gas, ete., then through a heated tube 
containing copper. The oxygen of the air 
unites with the heated copper, and what 
has hitherto been regarded as nitrogen 
remains uncombined. This ‘atmospheric 
nitrogen’ was subsequently treated in three 
different ways for the purpose of removing 
the nitrogen from it. 

(1) It was drawn through clay pipes in 
the hope that, if the gas is a mixture, one 
of the constituents would pass through the 
porous material more easily than the other, 
and at least a partial separation be thus 
effected. While something was accom- 
plished in this way, the experiment was on 
the whole unsatisfactory. 


(2) The ‘atmospheric nitrogen’ was 
mixed with oxygen in a vessel con- 


taining caustic alkali, and electric sparks 
were passed through the mixture. Under 
these circumstances the oxygen united with 
nitrogen and formed a compound which is 
soluble in alkali. After no further absorp- 
tion of nitrogen could be effected by spark- 
ing, any unchanged oxygen present was re- 
moved, and there was then found a residue 


310 


of gas which was certainly not oxygen nor 
nitrogen. This proved to be the substance 
about which the world is now talking. 

In this connection it is of great interest 
to note that Cavendish, in 1785, probably 
had this same substance before him free 
from nitrogen. He performed the experi- 
ment above described, and noticed the resi- 
due, and says in regard to it: ““We may 
safely conclude that it is not more than 35 
of the whole.”’ Thisis very nearly the truth 
as regards the relative amount of argon in 
the air. 

(3) The most satisfactory method for ob- 
taining the gas on the large scale consists 
in passing ‘atmosphere nitrogen’ over 
highly-heated magnesium, which has the 
power of uniting with nitrogen, while the 
newly-discovered gas has not this power. 
But, even by this method, the preparation 
is very slow, and, up to the present, the gas 
cannot easily be obtained in large quantity. 

The new substance is heavier than nitro- 
gen. The density of hydrogen being taken 
as unity, that of nitrogen is 14, of oxygen 
16, and of argon 19.7. 

Perhaps the most remarkable property of 
argon is its inertness. It has not been pos- 
sible thus far to get it to combine with any 
other substance, so that anything more than 
a general comparison with known substances 
is out of the question. It owes its name to 
its inertness, argon being derived from two 
Greek words signifying ‘no work.’ 

A determination of the ratio of the 
specific heat of argon at constant pressure 
to that at constant volume was determined 
by means of observations on the velocity of 
sound in the gas, and the ratio was found 
to be 1.66. This is of much importance as 
showing that the particles of which the gas 
is made up act as individuals. If this con- 
clusion is correct, it follows further that 
argon must be either a single element or a 
mixture of elements, and that, if it is a 
single element, its atomic weight must be 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 12, 


nearly 40, as its density is 19.7 and its atom 
is identical with its molecule. 

Professor Crookes has studied the spectra 
of argon and, in an article giving his results 
in detail, hesays: ‘I have found no other 
spectrum-giving gas or vapour yield spectra 
at all like those of argon.” * * * “ As far, 
therefore, as spectrum work can decide, the 
verdict must, I think, be that Lord Rayleigh 
and Professor Ramsay have added one, if 
not two members to the family of elemen- 
tary bodies.”’ 

Finally, Professor Olszewski, of Cracow, 
the well-known authority on the lique- 
faction of gases has succeeded in both liqui- 
fying and solidifying argon. It was found 
to boil at 186.9° C., and to solidify at 189.6° 
C., forming a mass resembling ice. 

To quote from Professor Ramsay’s article 
read before the Royal Society: “ There is 
evidence both for and against the hypothesis 
that argon isa mixture: For, owing to Mr. 
Crookes’ observations of the dual character 
of its spectrum ; against, because of Profes- 
sor Olszewski’s statement that it has a defi- 
nite melting point, a definite boiling point, 
and a definite critical temperature and pres- 
sure; and because, on compressing the gas 
in presence of its liquid, pressure remains 
sensibly constant until all gas has condensed 
to liquid.” 

The above is a brief account of all that is 
known about argon, and it would evidently 
be premature to indulge in speculation re- 
garding its position in the system. It may 
as well be said at once that, if it is an ele- 
ment or a mixture of elements, it will ap- 
parently be difficult to find a place for it on 
Mendeléeft’s table. It will be well to await 
developments before worrying on this ac- 
count. Ifthe time should ever come when 
Mendeléeff’s table has to be given up, some- 
thing better will take its place. 

The suggestion has been made repeatedly 
that argon is perhaps an allotropic form of 
nitrogen. The strongest argument against 


: 


- ‘Marcu 22, 1895.] 


this view is the established fact that the gas 
_ conducts itself as if made up of individual 

particles, while any allotropic form of nitro- 
_ gen, which is heavier than this, must, ac- 

cording to all that we know of such mat- 

ters, consist of more complex molecules 

than nitrogen itself. 

TrA Remsen. 
JoHNS Hopkins UNIVERSITY. 


THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BE- 
TWEEN PLANTS AND ANIMALS* 

To the advanced student, as to the inves- 
tigator, the question of a definite and ac- 
-eurate distinction by which all true plants 
ean be distinguished from all true animals, 
is a question of minor interest. To the be- 
ginning student the question, on the con- 
trary, is a pressing one for which the an- 
swer is urgently claimed. Thus I am led 
to believe that the definition given below, 
though it cannot add anything essential to 
the conceptions of investigators, will never- 
theless prove valuable to teachers of biology. 
The usual method of drawing a contrast 
between the animal and vegetable king- 
doms, for the purpose of establishing some 
‘sort of definition of the two in students’ 
minds, is to leave out of consideration the 
lower forms, and to take into consideration 
only the higher forms, on the one side plants 
with chlorophyll, on the other the multicel- 
Tular animals or so-called Metazoa. It is 
then easy to establish a difference in the 
physiological nutritive processes, emphasiz- 
ing the synthetic processes, particularly the 
‘power of bringing free nitrogen into com- 
binations on the part of plants and the ab- 
‘Sence of the synthetic process among ani- 
mals. It is much to be regretted that this 
method of defining animals and plants has 
been and still is very widely used, for it 
leads to inevitable perplexity, because the 
“next thing almost which the student must 


* Read before the American Society of Morpholo- 
‘gists at Baltimore, December, 1894. 


SCIENCE. 311 


learn is that the distinction does not hold 
true. On the one hand, he learns that 
among plants there are many forms without 
chlorophyll and that these cannot bring 
nitrogen into combination and must secure 
proteid food. On the other hand, he learns 
that among animals numerous synthetic 
processes occur, and if he takes up the 
study of medical physiology he learns many 
instances of synthetic chemical work on the 
part of the mammalian body. Dr. F. Pfaff 
has kindly indicated to me two striking in- 
stances of synthesis in the mammalian body, 
first, the formation of glycuronic acid after 
the administration of camphor or turpen- 
tine, and second, the formation of hippuric 
acid after the administration of benzoine. 

Another distinction often drawn between 
animals and plants is that of the presence 
or absence respectively of internal digestive 
organs. But this again soon leaves the 
student in the lurch, for the first amcebea 
he examines knocks that distinction out of 
the ring. 

We may, however, I think, rightly define 
the two primary divisions of the living 
world thus: 

Animals are organisms which take part 
of their food in the form of concrete parti- 
cles, which are lodged in the cell proto- 
plasm by the activity of the protoplasm 
itself. 

Plants are organisms which obtain all 
their food in either the liquid or gaseous 
form by osmosis (diffusion). 

There are certain facts which appear to 
invalidate these definitions. The most im- 
portant of such facts, so far as known to 
me, is afforded by the Myxomycetes, which, 
as well known, while in the plasmodium 
stage of their life-cycle, take solid particles 
of food very much after Ameceba-fashion. 
Through the kindness of Professors W. G. 
Farlow and G. L. Goodale, I have learned 
that there are no other plants which at the 
present time are known to take solid food 


312 


at any stage. J understand also that 
botanists are by no means agreed to accept 
the Myxomycetes as veritable plants. One 
eannot but ask, Have we not here organ- 
isms which connect the two kingdoms? 
Certainly, in using the above definitions in 
teaching, it will always be easy to specify 
the one exception offered by the Myxo- 
mycetes and still leave a clear and avail- 
able conception in the student’s mind. 

Other facts, which stand in the way of 
strictly upholding the two definitions, are 

-encountered among animal parasites. For 
example, a tape-worm in the intestine does 
not apparently take up any solid food, but 
is nourished by absorption through the sur- 
face of its body of food material in solution. 
But in these cases we have evidently second- 
ary modifications due to the parasitic life, 
and in the near relatives of the tape-worms, 
the trematods and planarians, solid food is 
taken up. It is to be remarked, too, that it 
is possible, though perhaps not probable, 
that even tape-worms will be found on more 
careful study to take up solid food. 

The extent to which it has now been 
demonstrated that animals take up food in 
the form of diserete solid particles is not 
realized generally. The process has been 
observed with varying degrees of accuracy 
in the entodermal cells of the digestive 
tract of hydroids, ctenophores, planarians, 
trematods, annelids, crustacea, insects, am- 
phibia and mammals, and probably in other 
forms, which have not come to my notice 
in thisregard. There is here offered a rare 
opportunity for a valuable research, by 
making a comparative study of the absorp- 
tion of solid food. That the protozoa take 
up particles by means of their pseudopodia 
is certainly one of the most familiar and 
most be-taught facts of elementary biology. 

I believe that we can also safely teach 
that the absorption of solid particles of food 
is to be considered one of the most essential 
factors in determining the evolution of the 


‘SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vor. I. No. 22. 


animal kingdom. The plant receives its 
food passively by absorption, and the evolu-— 
tion of the plant world has been dominated 
by the tendency to increase the external 
surfaces—to make leaves and roots. The 
animal, on the contrary, has to obtain at 
least the solid part of its food by its own 
active exertions, and to the effects—through 
natural selection—of the active struggle to 
secure food we may, I think, safely attribute 
a large part of the evolution of locomotor 
nervous and sensory systems of animals. 
That it has been the only factor cannot be 
asserted of course for a moment, but it is 
presumably not going too far in speculative 
conclusions to look upon it as the most im- 
portant single factor. An equally impor- 
tant réle must be attributed to the taking of 
solid food in connection with the evolution 
of digestive organs, which are cavities which 
hold food material until it is absorbed by 
the cellular walls of the cavities. Indeed, 
we may expect to find that the entodermal 
cavity had originally no digestive function 
whatsoever, but was merely a receptacle to 
retain the food while the surrounding ento- 
dermal cells swallowed it at leisure. 

With these speculations I will close, ad- 
ding only that the speculations have in 
themselves little value, their only value be- 
ing to suggest lines of research, which ap- 
pear promising. The sober naturalistavoids 
the infernal dipsomania for sheer specula- 
tion, and in this article I have already 
yielded sufficiently to the temptation. 


CHARLES S. Mrnor. 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


THE BEST ORDER OF TOPICS IN A TWO- 
YEARS’ COURSE OF ANATOMY IN A 
MEDICAL SCHOOL.* 

Tracuers of anatomy differ so widely in 
their views as to the most useful arrange- 
ment of the various branches of the subject 

*A paper read at the annual meeting of the 
Association of American Anatomists, in New York, 
28th December, 1894. “|? 


Marcu 22, 1895.] 


-that it is desirable to clear the field as far 
-as possible at the very beginning of our dis- 
eussion by the elimination of those points 
upon which there is substantial agreement. 
-Lassume that there is no diversity of opin- 
ion on the places which should be occupied 
by histology and topography. It is to my 
mind perfectly manifest that the student 
eannot profitably or comfortably receive in- 
struction in gross anatomy until he has 
learned the elements of histology: has be- 
come familiar with the characters of the 
various textures which make up the parts 
and organs of the body, and to which, of 
necessity, references are constantly made 
in macroscopic anatomy. By identically 
the same method of reasoning the conclu- 
‘sion is reached that topography should be 
taken up latest of all ; for it cannot be in a 
high degree useful to the pupil to work at 
the relations in space which different organs 
sustain to each other, until he has acquaint- 
-ed himself with the facts of their shape, 
‘size and consistency. To attempt descrip- 
tive anatomy without histological knowl- 
edge is comparable to studying architec- 
tural structures in perfect ignorance of the 
qualities of building materials, such as stone, 
brick, wood, iron and mortar ; and to under- 
take regional, before being well grounded 
‘in systematic, anatomy is about as possible 
as reading sentences before acquiring words, 
or studying the relations of any other 
‘things without knowing something about 
the things themselves. Besides, there is a 
‘marked advantage in the incidental, but 
‘searching, review of every preceding por- 
tion of gross anatomy involved in the pur- 
‘suit of typographical; and all teachers 
recognize the vast importance of such repe- 
titions for the student, even if they do not 
admit that they themselves retain their fa- 
-mniliarity with this science of innumerable 
‘details only by virtue of incessant review 
in one way or another. 
- There is certainly room for difference of 


SCIENCE. 313 


opinion concerning the most advantageous 
marshaling of the remainder of the topics 
with which we have to deal; but our de- 
cision should probably be in largest measure 
determined by the circumstances in which 
it is necessary to pursue the study. If the 
pupil is to devote himself to anatomy only, 


no great objection is to be raised to the order 


of subjects adopted in the text-books in 
most common use—the order which, I 
think, the majority of teachers employ—be- 
ginning with osteology, and following in 
regular succession with arthrology,myology, 
angiology, neurology and _ splanchnology. 
Much can be said in support of this arrange- 
ment. The knowledge of vessels, their 
origins and terminations, can be of little 
avail, if there is not a precedent acquaintance 
with the muscles and other structures which 
they flush with nourishing blood, or drain 
of unneeded and effete material; and so, 
before undertaking angiology, we need 
especially to study muscles, which consti- 
tute so large a part of the human bulk out- 
side of the great cavities, and in which are 
found so considerable a proportion of the 
tubes of supply and waste with which we 
have to deal in the practice of medicine and 
surgery. The nerves, too, cannot be studied 
to advantage without antecedent familiarity 
with the muscles, which are the objective 
point of their motorial function. In their 
turn, also, the active organs of locomotion 
are never learned unless there is a well-laid 
foundation of skeletal knowledge, upon 
which to build them ; for, in absence of this 
basis, they are but impotent, flabby, almost 
shapeless masses of flesh, but little amen- 
able to description, and quite elusive of com- 
prehension. Arthrology is plainly out of 
the question without osteology, which should 
immediately precede it. The study of the 
viscera and organs of special sense concludes 
the series. 

This arrangement is not altogether free 
from objections. For instance, even after 


314 


one knows the skeleton and the muscles 
clothing it, he finds in his study of the ar- 
teries much that he cannot fully comprehend 
from lack of acquaintance with the viscera. 
But no method can be absolutely perfect : 
one needs to know all of his anatomy—the 
whole of everything—in order to under- 
stand any one organ perfectly. The prob- 
lem, therefore, for us, as teachers, is to dis- 
cover that plan which reduces to the mini- 
mum this necessity of knowing a good deal 
of every department of our great science be- 
fore entering upon the study of any one of 
them; and particularly the scheme which 
makes this need least conspicuous in the 
earlier portion of the course, when every- 
thing is new ; for, since the growth of one’s 
anatomical knowledge makes further acqui- 
sition in the same line progressively easier 
day by day, because he is all the time getting 
nearer to the goal of knowledge of the 
whole, the last part of the course is natu- 
rally that in which there is the least occa- 
sion for such help as can be derived from a 
wise order of topics. After all, however, 
the arrangement in question is useful, per- 
haps as good as any other, provided that 
there is an observance of the condition 
which I have attached to my commenda- 
tion of it; but without this provision it 
seems to me to be clumsy, obstructive, 
wasteful and irrational. 

The condition is that the student is at- 
tempting nothing else than anatomy. Prac- 
tically this is a state of affairs which never 
obtains in the schools, and is not in the 
least likely to occur; always physiology is 
studied synchronously, and usually, also, 
general chemistry—the latter a branch with 
no more claim to be regarded as a legitimate 
topic of medical study than have botany 
and zoélogy, and, in all fairness to student, 
school and community, should be required 
as a preliminary to the medical course. We 
may confidently count upon finding the 
first-year student occupied equally with 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 12, 


physiology and anatomy. Now, it is so ob- 
vious as to require no argument that the 
action of an organ can never be studied with — 
complete satisfaction until its structure is 
well understood. Consequently, the anat- 
omy of each part should be learned before 
its function is presented, in order that the 
pupil may work intelligently and be spared 
much difficult and unproductive effort. If 
the professor of anatomy does not aid him 
in this matter, the physiologist is driven to 
perform the task, although it is outside of 
the proper sphere of his work, and involves 
the expenditure of much time which he 
needs for affairs in his own peculiar field. 
The physiology which we most require is a 
knowledge of the offices of the viscera, and 
the teachers of this branch necessarily de- 
vote the greater part of their instruction to 
the consideration of the action of these or- 
gans, which, according to the conventional 
order of topics in the anatomical course, are 
not touched until all other portions of sys- 
tematic anatomy have been disposed of. 
Asa result of this, in the early part of the 
course the anatomist is teaching a vast 
number of things which are of the smallest 
possible help to the student of physiology ; 
and, in almost the last part, he goes over 
ground which has been traversed long be- 
fore by a suffering colleague, who has been 
forced into this unwilling usurpation by the 
unhappy arrangement of the anatomical 
schedule. In other words, a large and im- 
portant (to my thinking, the most impor- 
tant) section of anatomy is not taught by 
the professor of this branch at a period 
when it is most urgently required by the 
student, and is presented by him long after 
it has been already learned. 

Surely this state of affairs is, to say the 
best of it, deplorable, and should not be per- 
mitted to continue, if it can be abolished 
without injustice to the interests of the 
science to which we dedicate so much of 
our lives. Each one of us should bear con- 


a 


MARCH 22, 1895.] 


stantly in mind that he is not merely an 
instructor in a special branch, but is, besides 
this, a member of a faculty, the purpose of 
which is to give to medical students the 
most complete, well-rounded, professional 
education possible with the available means. 
On the old lines, which schools have followed 
far too long, and which are not yet aban- 
doned by all institutions, every professor 
discoursed to the entire class—a higgledy- 
piggledy arrangement (perhaps derange- 
ment would be the more appropriate desig- 
nation for so lunatic a scheme) which 
would not be tolerated for a week in a 
common school of the lowest grade. Grad- 
ually faculties are becoming converted to 
the idea that a grading of the course is 
essential to the best results; and those 
branches which are natural stepping stones 
to others are completed before advanced 
studies are undertaken. But much still 
remains to be done before the most useful 
system is formulated, and the part of this 
work which most concerns us is the proper 
adjustment of our topics to the needs of 
our colleagues who teach physiology. The 
plan which I am about to propose is designed 
especially to attain this end, and will be 
seen, I trust, to be the most advantageous 
in other respects, also. It is devised in the 
spirit which should actuate every individual 
in a body which is formed to accomplish 
a given purpose; each one is bound not 
simply to do these things which will make 
his department a success, but to do them 
in such a way as to promote the interests of 
every other chair. There should be per- 
fect coérdination in teaching—the faculty 
should work alwaysas a ‘ team,’ if a popular 
expression may be used. In no other way 
can the highest results be achieyed. 

_ Inthe first place I would have the anato- 
mist ascertain the exact order of topics in 
the course of his physiological colleague. 
Let us suppose that the latter purposes, after 
a little time spent in necessary preliminary 


SCIENCE. 


315 


considerations, to conduct his class into the 
realm of the circulation. The anatomist 
will precede him by a day or two with the 
study of the organs by means of which cir- 
culation is performed. The structure of the 
heart will be presented with as much of de- 
tail as is requisite for the ready comprehen- 
sion of its action, and this will be followed 
by the physiological anatomy of the blood 
vessels: the materials of which they are com- 
posed, the arrangement of these, and the 
variations in their proportions in the large, 
medium, and small vessels respectively ; the 
physical qualities of the walls ; the style of 
division and union: how the great arterial 
trunks branch and divide until the most 
diminutive twigs terminate in capillaries, 
and how the venous radicles begin in the 
midst of the tissues and by successive and 
innumerable conjunctions form larger tubes 
until the great tap-roots of the system are 
reached; in short, all those points which 
aid in the understanding of the function of 
these organs. He makes no attempt at this 
stage of the course to present the systematic 
anatomy of the arteries and veins ; perhaps 
not a single vessel of the great multitude is 
called by name, except those which, being 
attached to the heart, must be specifically 
designated in order to make the description 
of that organ intelligible. He does not 
undertake to describe the relations in space 
which the heart and principal vessels sus- 
tain to the parts by which they are sur- 
rounded ; for he knows that these relations 
might be very different without essential 
modification of their action, and that there- 
fore they need not be introduced at this 
period of the curriculum. Thus, the stu- 
dents are well equipped to receive instruc- 
tion on the circulation from the professor of 
physiology, and the latter is free to devote 
his energies entirely to the work which alone 
he should be expected to undertake. 

This example is no more striking than 
any other; but it serves well to illustrate 


316 


on the physiological side the benefits com- 
ing from the adoption of the order which I 
advocate. In this manner the course pro- 
ceeds ; and no portion of the field is entered 
upon by the physiologist which has not 
been explored and surveyed as far as struc- 
ture is concerned by the anatomist in com- 
pany with the same set of pupils. After 
the study of the viscera, including the cere- 
bro-spinal centres and the organs of special 
sense, comes the consideration of the re- 
maining branches of systematic anatomy, 
beginning with the skeleton and proceeding 
in the conventional order. 

That much advantage accrues to the 
class in physiology by the execution of this 
plan seems to me to be perfectly clear. 
That any anatomical sacrifice is made by it 
I do not believe. On the contrary, a dis- 
tinct benefit is gained even in anatomy; 
for the learning of the function of an organ 
immediately after the study of its structure 
serves to emphasize and deepen the impres- 
sion made by the earlier lesson, and quick- 
ens with a living interest what otherwise 
might remain in the mind only as dry and 
arbitrary fact, if, indeed, it did not lapse 
altogether from memory because of its lack 
of significance. 

Incidentally, too, there results great profit 
of a practical kind, which is lost in follow- 
ing the common order. Students usually 
know less about visceral anatomy than 
about any other section of the science. This 
comparative ignorance depends upon three 
causes. The first is the fact that the ordi- 
nary text-books are far less accurate in the 
description of the viscera than in that of 
other parts—a statement which it is un- 
necessary to substantiate in this learned 
presence. Second, the study of the viscera 
is much more difficult than that of other 
parts. In their best estate they present ap- 
pearances which are liable to be misleading 
even to the most careful and experienced 
observers, as witness the conspicuous errors 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vox. I. No. 12: 


which for generations passed muster regard- 
ing the form of the liver and the position 
of the stomach—points still misstated in_ 
some of the text-books of the day. But 
another obstacle is often more serious 
than this. If the organs are fresh, much 
that is valuable can be learned from them ; 
but when they are the seat of advanced 
putrefactive changes, as often happens when 
the muscles and associated parts are still 
useful for somewhat prolonged examination, 
they must be removed speedily, without af- 
fording the slightest opportunity for care- 
ful observation. Third, as the subject of 
the viscera is usually placed last in the 
study of systematic anatomy, it is more 
likely than anything else to be slighted. 
We all doubtless know from observation, 
and some of us probably from personal ex- 
perience, that the enthusiasm of a novice 
in a study rarely is sustained to the end. 
In fact, it may be said without incurring 
the imputation of exaggeration that a large 
majority of students in any class flag very 
noticeably towards the close of the term, 
however eagerly they may have started out. 
Unquestionably most medical men, young 
or old, know more about osteology than 
about any other branch of anatomy. The 
reasons of this are not far to seek. The 
skeleton is less perishable than the soft 
parts and hence the opportunities for the 
study of it are vastly greater; and, what 
seems to me to be of quite as deep signifi- 
cance, it is generally the first branch of our 
science which the student attacks. It is 
his memorable, first step inside the mighty 
and mysterious domain of medicine, and, 
consequently, every detail makes a power- 
ful impression on his plastic mind. Al 
though he sees that his book contains much 
besides osteology, this is the first and, by 
inference, the most important of its con- 
tents. The common people sometimes speak 
of a skeleton as an anatomy ; and the young 
student almost deludes himself with the 


MARCH 22, 1895.] 


notion that he knows the bulk of anatomy, 
when he has acquired a very general con- 
ception of the bones. Of course, his ideas 
are silly and childish, and have to be cor- 
rected ; but we must take human nature as 
we find it, and, if possible, turn its very 
weaknesses into useful channels. Now, with- 
out having the smallest disposition to belit- 
tle the advantage of an accurate knowledge 
of the skeleton, it has long been a convic- 
tion with me that visceral anatomy should 
be ranked first in the list of topics, consid- 
ered from the purely utilitarian point of 
view: that the subject of which our stu- 
dents generally know least is precisely that 
of which they ought to know most. They 
come to us in order to be equipped as prac- 
titioners. Whatever may be their callow 
aspirations, however much they may be 
dazzled and charmed by the brilliant per- 
formances of surgery, we and all of our 
colleagues know that the enormous ma- 
jority of them must be general practitioners, 
doing almost no surgical operations, except 
the strictly minor; having a great many 
obstetric cases; seeing a multitude of sick 
infants, a good many ailing women, and not 
a few acutely ill adults of both sexes. What 
is the greatest anatomical need of such men? 
Ts it not undeniable that, for one case de- 
manding in them a knowledge of bones, 
muscles, blood vessels or nerves, they have 
at least a score in which they must know 
something definitely about the structure of 
lungs, heart, stomach, bowels, liver, kid- 
neys, uterus or brain? If, then, visceral 
anatomy far surpasses all other portions of 
the field in importance to the enormous ma- 
jority of practitioners of the healing art, it 
should be placed first chronologically in the 
course of systematic anatomy, so that it 
shall be taught at the time when the 
learner’s mind is most eagerly receptive 
and most faithfully retentive—provided, of 
course, that this assignment of position does 
- not conflict with the rights of other things. 


SCIENCE, 317 


Unless my argument has utterly miscarried, 
it is established that the proposed order not 
only does not sacrifice anything on the 
physiological side, but is even of conspicu- 
ous advantage to it; and I have been un- 
able to discover any way in which it can 
affect unfavorably the welfare of any depart- 
ment whatsoever. There is no occasion for 
anxiety lest the postponement of osteology 
will result in its being ignored or slighted. 
The facilities for its study are so compara- 
tively abundant, the conventional concep- 
tion of its importance is so deeply rooted, 
and the natural and inevitable attraction 
which it exercises on the student is so strong 
as to insure the bestowal upon it of a sufti- 
cient share of his attention.* 

With me the order advocated is not 
merely a theory: it is a long accomplished 
fact. For about fifteen years I have had 
the plan in practical operation, and have 
not yet observed a single thing which has 
caused me to regret the change from the 
ancient system. It appears to me now, as 
in the beginning, to be the most rational, 
economical, facile, attractive and useful 
succession of topics. During this prolonged 
trial of the order I have had as fellow- 
members of the Bowdoin faculty in the 
chair of physiology three gentlemen, of 
whom two, Drs. B. G. Wilder and C. D. 
Smith, are members of this Association, and 
can testify as to the usefulness of the plan. 


*Tt would be foolish to disparage the cultivation 
of any portion of the field of human anatomy ; the 
more thoroughly the physician knows every part of it, 
the better equipped will he be as a practitioner. 
Vastly more blunders than are ever recognized depend 
upon ignorance of easily known facts of structure. 
But the tremendous insistence upon the supreme 
value of osteology, which characterizes the method of 
some teachers of anatomy, seems to me to demon- 
strate a lack of sense of proportion, which, while 
easily enough accounted for by the student of medical 
history, who appreciates also the dominating (some- 
times almost domineering) influence of habit and 
suggestion upon the mind, is none the less peculiarly 
unfortunate in its effect. 


318 


The third, Dr. Henry Hastings Hunt, has 
within a month ceased from his labors, and 
been borne to his honored grave; but I feel 
justified in giving his testimony emphatic- 
ally in its favor. 

My plan, slightly detailed, is as follows : 
Beginning with some explanations of a gen- 
eral character, and the definition of certain 
terms which are so technical that the novice 
cannot be expected to know them, I give 
the names, both English and Latin, and the 
limits of extension of all of the superficial 
parts; for I have learned that it is not safe 
to count on anybody’s knowing what an 
anatomist or surgeon means by various 
terms applied to parts which are visible 
without dissection, and have vernacular ap- 
pellations. Histology is then presented in 
an elementary way, and the student is 
taught the essential truths about the simple 
tissues. The different kinds of membranes 
are discussed, and the structure of glands 
in general is naturally given the next place. 
The student is now fairly equipped for the 
study of the viscera, and these are taken up 
in whatever order the physiologist of the 
institution prefers. In one important par- 
ticular my course at this period differs from 
visceral anatomy as presented in most of 
our books; the brain and spinal cord, the 
noblest and most interesting of all entrails, 
are included in the company of the viscera, 
and not, as ordinarily in the text-books, 
with the nerves. After this come in regu- 
lar, conventional style the bones, ligaments, 
muscles, arteries, veins, lymphatics and 
nerves ; and, last of all, topographical, or, 
as I prefer to call it, relational anatomy. 

In this scheme no separate place is as- 
signed to embryology, a subject usually 
treated in obstetrical and physiological 
works, as well as in anatomical. By agree- 
ment with my colleague in physiology, its 
systematic presentation is made by him ; 
but all through my course the facts of de- 
velopment are introduced, not only to in- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 12. 


form the student upon points of practical 
moment, but also to illustrate and enforce 
many features of adult structure. a 

At the end of his first year in the school the 
student is required to pass a satisfactory 
examination in histology, splanchnology, 
and osteology, and he is not permitted to 
enter upon second-year studies until he 
has so passed. At the end of his second 
year he is examined on the remainder of 
systematic and all of relational anatomy, 
failure excluding him from his third year. 

It will be observed that I have confined 
my remarks strictly to the subject an- 
nounced, and have refrained from discuss- 
ing the relative merits of various methods 
of imparting instruction, as by lectures, 
recitations, demonstrations, and so forth. 
I wish it to be understood, however, that, if 
any expression of mine has seemed to im- 
ply that the old-time method of teaching by 
lectures holds the first place in my esteem, I 
have unwittingly done an injustice to a cher- 
ished conviction; for the lecture system, 
as an exclusive, or even principal, method 
of instruction, has long seemed to me to 
be the worst which has been devised. 


FREDERIC HENRY GERRISH. 
BowpDoIn COLLEGE. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY (IV). 
MERRIAM ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS — 
AND PLANTS. 

A stupy that is admirable, alike in its 
quality and its results, has been presented 
by Dr. C. Hart Merriam in a vice-presiden- 
tial address to the National Geographical 
Society of Washington, under the title, 
‘Laws of temperature control of the geo- 
graphical distribution of terrestrial animals 
and plants’ ( Nat. Geogr. Mag., VI., 1894, 
228-238 ). The life zones of the United 
States, as mapped two years ago (Ann. Rep. 
Sec’y Agriculture, 1893), are now shown to 
be limited northward by the total quantity 
of heat during the season of growth and re- 


Marcu 22, 1895.] 


production ; and southward by the mean 
temperature of the hottest part of the year. 
The ‘ total quantity of heat’ is measured 
by the sum of the excesses of mean daily 
temperature over 43°; this temperature be- 
ing taken as marking ‘the inception of 
physiological activity in plants and repro- 
ductive activity in animals.’ The ‘ hottest 
part of the year’ was arbitrarily limited to 
the six hottest consecutive weeks of sum- 
mer. The life zones, the northward con- 
trol, and the southward control are shown 
on three maps ; and the accordances between 
the controls and the zones are truly sur- 
prising. The peculiar over-lapping of boreal 
and austral types along the Pacific coast, 
hitherto not clearly understood, is thus 
shown to obey the same controls as those 
which elsewhere keeps these types apart ; 
the western coast being exceptional in hay- 
ing a great total quantity of heat, but a very 
mild summer. The dependence of these 
temperature controls on general geographi- 
eal features offers a beautiful illustration of 
the general principles of climatology. 

HARRINGTON’S RAINFALL CHARTS OF THE 

UNITED STATES. 

A Quarto paper of text and tables and a 
large atlas of charts, entitled ‘ Rainfall and 
Snow of the United States, Compiled to the 
end of 1891,’ by Mark W. Harrington, 
chief of the Weather Bureau, has lately 
been issued as Bulletin C, of that office. It 
is based on all available records, of very 
different periods and values, but constitu- 
ting the best body of material now in hand 
for the study of precipitation in this coun- 
try. The charts exhibit the monthly, sea- 
sonal and annual rainfall, monthly maxima 
and minima, and many other details. The 
text calls attention to the chief features in 
the distribution of precipitation, both in 
placeand season. The unusually heavy rain- 
fall in the southern Appalachians, averag- 
ing over sixty inches, and exceeding ninety 
inches in 1892 at one station, is a new fea- 


¥ 


SCIENCE. 


319 


ture. It may be doubted whether the rain- 
fall of the more mountainous belts is in 
general sufficiently represented. For ex- 
ample, Pike’s peak is the only mountain 
meteorological station in Colorado, and its 
rainfall (30’) is greater than that of any 
other station. It might therefore be taken 
as indicating the rainfall on the mountains 
of Colorado in general ; but, although there 
are many other lofty peaks, the isohyetal 
line of 30 inches does not include them. 
One might, to be sure, in the absence of di- 
rect observations, feel some hesitancy in as- 
serting that these other summits actually 
have a 30-inch rainfall ; yet one might feel 
equal hesitancy in asserting, as the charts 
do so emphatically, that the high peaks in 
general have nota 30-inch rainfall. It is 
stated that ‘in general the rainfall de- 
creases also with the elevation above sea 
level ;” and the decreased precipitation in 
passing westward across the Great Plains 
is taken as an illustration of this generali- 
zation. It is questionable whether the il- 
lustration is pertinent ; for other controls, 
such as distance inland and relation to 
mountain ranges, are here presumably of 
much greater importance than increasing 
elevation. It is to be regretted that, in the 
interests of a consistent terminology, Flor- 
ida should be cited as a region of ‘ subtrop- 
ical’ rainfall. Florida is a region of sum- 
mer rains; while regions of subtropical 
rainfall always have their maximum in 
winter, as in the region originally so named 
by Dove, around the Mediterranean, and 
again with equal distinctness in California, 
Chili, South Africa and South Australia. 
The southeastern coast of Asia has a sum- 
mer rainy season, like Florida; and Flor- 
ida might therefore with some justice be 
likened to the regions of monsoon rainfall, 
but this would hardly do justice to its other 
relations. As a matter of fact, no techni- 
cal name has yet been suggested for sea- 
sonal rainfall of the Florida kind. 


320 


BAROGRAPH RECORD DURING A TORNADO. 

Tue general fall of pressure during the 
passage of cyclonic storms is an old obser- 
vation. The short-lived rise of pressure 
during the onset of a thunderstorm is of 
more recent detection. The inferred very 
low pressure in the funnel of a tornado has 
never been tested by direct observation, un- 
less the tracing of a barograph at Little 
Rock, Arkansas, on October 2, 1894, may 
show an effect of this kind. The tornado 
passed over the Weather Bureau station at 
8:28 p. mM. of that day, and although the 
upper story of an adjacent building was 
blown upon the station, the instruments on 
its roof generally destroyed, the windows 
blown in and the furniture drenched with 
rain, the barograph bravely continued its 
record; and its interesting curve is repro- 
duced in the Monthly Weather Review for 
the month in question. As the tornado 
passed there was a momentary fall and rise 
of 0.38 inch. Shortly afterwards the storm 
passed over the gas works, and all the lights 
in the city went out as if by relief of pres- 
sure from the gasometer. As soon as the 
cloud passed, the tank settled again, the 
pressure was resumed, and the gas jets could 
be lighted. Professor Abbe, editor of the 
Weather Review, points out that the sudden 
change of pressure recorded on the baro- 
graph curve may have been merely a local 
effect of decrease of pressure by wind suction 
up the chimney, followed by restored pres- 
sure when the windows were broken in ; 
so the inferred low pressure of the tor- 
nado funnel still eludes unquestionable 
record. 


NEW YORK STATE WEATHER SERVICE. 


Tue fifth annual report of the New York 
State meteorological bureau and weather 
service, of which Professor EH. A. Fuertes, 
of Cornell University, is director, is perhaps 
the most elaborate and valuable of any of 
the State service reports yet issued. Be- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 12. 


sides the summaries of monthly reports for 
all stations for 1893, with good charts of 
temperature and rainfall from records at — 
about one hundred stations, there is a com- 
prehensive chapter on the climate of the 
State, by E. T. Turner, meteorologist to the 
State service, with a number of interesting 
plates and charts. For example, the curves 
of daily mean temperatures and pressures 
exhibit to a nicety the greater fluctuations 
of these elements in the winter, when cy- 
clonic action is increased, than in summer, 
when it is diminished. A neatly tinted 
map, shaded for elevation, gives a clear 
idea of the general relief of the State. The 
few elevated stations in the Adirondacks 
have a higher mean winter temperature 
than those in the St. Lawrence valley, more 
than a thousand feet lower; a notable ex- 
ample of this inversion having occurred un- 
der an anticyclone on December 8, 1890, 
which is illustrated by a special chart. 
Nocturnal winds, flowing northward past 
Ithaca to Cayuga Lake, are described as 
characteristic of the valleys of the southern 
plateau ; they occur on clear nights, both 
winter and summer, beginning one or two 
hours after sunset and reaching a velocity 
of about eight miles an hour before morn- 
ing. The thickness of this current, as de- 
termined by balloons, is only from fifty to 
a hundred feet. Apart from the immediate 
value of so well managed a service as this, 
in the way of displaying weather signals 
and distributing crop reports, it deserves 
hearty support from the State in its long 
task of collecting and discussing authentic 
climatic data. The number of reporting 
stations should, however, be largely in- 
creased, and for this purpose the service 
cannot do better than foster the adequate 
teaching of meteorology in the public schools, 
both by the publication of special articles 
serviceable to teachers, and by making these 
articles known at teachers’ and farmers’ 
institutes. 


MARCH 22, 1895.] 


ARGENTINE METEOROLOGICAL REPORTS. 


Amoneé the most elaborate discussions of 
meteorological observations published in 
America are those of the Argentine Meteoro- 
logical Office, under the direction of Walter 
G. Davis, whose headquarters are at Cor- 
dova, in the middle of the pampas. The 
latest volume issued, number IX., is in two 
parts ; the first giving the original observa- 
tions at Cordova since 1872, the second giy- 
ing the mean values determined from this 
important series of records. A notable 
climatic feature is the occurrence of a wet 
summer, October to March. and a dry 
winter, April to September, The summer 
rains are chiefly supplied by thunderstorms, 
yet curiously enough the rains exhibit both 
in quantity and in number of occurrences a 
distinct afternoon minimum and an early 
morning maximum ; but the scale of cloudi- 
ness has its maximum toward midday, and 
in January in mid-afternoon. High baromet- 
rie pressure confirms the continental qual- 
ity of the winter dry season. Westerly 
winds are rare; northeast and southeast are 
common, the latter flowing feebly through 
the night, the former actively through the 
afternoon ; and thus indicating the left- 
handed or austral deflection that might be 
expected with increased velocity in the 
southern hemisphere. The strong diurnal 
winds last from ten to five o’clock in late 
summer, but only from noon to three in 
midwinter; while the duration of the quiet 
winds of night plainly varies with the period 
from sunset to sunrise. Although the text 
and tables are most elaborate, the treatment 
of the subject is local, numerical and clim- 
atic, rather than general, descriptive and 
meteorological. 


THE SPECIOUS TERM, ‘ REFORESTATION.’ 

Tue hard times lately reported as aftlict- 
‘ing some of the Western States in the 
debatable belt, where agriculture is an un- 
certain occupation, recall by contrast the 


SCIENCE. 


321 


over-confident opinions, so freely uttered 
by ‘ experts ’ before Congressional commit- 
tees, concerning the improved climatic con- 
ditions that might be expected over the 
Great Plains as settlement advances. Goy- 
ernmental science will, we fear, suffer 
severely when the inaccuracies of this quasi 
scientific testimony are understood. Hardly 
less misleading than the loose phrases con- 
cerning ‘ the underflow,’ from which an in- 
exhaustible water supply has been looked 
for, is the term ‘reforestation,’ used with 
the implication that the barren plains of 
to-day have been forested in the past. One 
official has testified: “By the destruction 
of the forest which originally covered this 
region, the very condition of its existence 
and of its natural recuperation was de- 
stroyed ; and thus, in a reverse manner, re- 
forestation of parts by artificial means may 
make natural reforestation over the whole 
area possible by and by. . .. Reforestation on 
the plains and forest preservation on the 
mountains is of greater national concern 
than the location of irrigation reservoirs.” 
There is no shadow of evidence that the 
Plains have ever been forested since their 
geographical surroundings were like those 
of to-day. It is a most gratuitous assump- 
tion to use the term ‘reforestation’ in writ- 
ing of the Plains. It does harm to those 
who are tempted to settle there by these 
and other over-favorable views concerning 
the climate of the sub-arid region ; and it 
discredits governmental science by exposing 
it to so easy contradiction. 
W. M. Davis. 


HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


ANNUAL RECEPTION OF THE NEW YORK 
ACADEMY. 

Tur New York Academy of Sciences last 
year instituted a series of annual receptions, 
suggested by the famous conversazione of 
the Royal Society of London. The first 
Reception was held in the Library of Co- 


322 


lumbia College. The second, held upon 
March 14th, in the Galleries of the Ameri- 
ean Fine Arts Society, was much larger and 
more successful than the first, including 331 
separate exhibits, grouped under sixteen 
branches of Pure and Applied Science. In 
the South Gallery were placed Physics, Elec- 
tricity, Astronomy, Mechanics and Chemis- 
try; in the Middle Gallery, Photography, 
Psychology and Mineralogy; and in the 
Vanderbilt Gallery, Zodlogy, Paleontology, 
Human and Comparative Anatomy, Bot- 
any and Geology. Each branch was under 
a Chairman who had entire control of the 
the general arrangements, and while the 
exhibits were largely from the educational 
institutions and museums in and around 
New York a number of most interesting ob- 
jects were sent from considerable distances, 
such as the photographs from the Allegheny 
and Lick Observatories. Among the very 
large number of excellent exhibits it is only 
possible to mention a few of the most novel. 

Mr. Charles A. Post, of the Strandhome 
Observatory, had charge of the astronomy, 
in which he displayed photographs of star 
spectra between F. and D. from the Alle- 
gheny Observatory, glass positives of comets 
and the Milky-Way from the Lick Observa- 
tory, and a number of new spectroscopic 
and other astronomical instruments. Pro- 
fessor Mayer, of Stevens’ Institute, had 
charge of the physical section, in which 
were shown his series of Chladni figures pre- 
served in sand, illustrating the errors of 
older figures and the accuracy of Lord Ray- 
leigh’s theoretical deductions. A number 
of new physical instruments for spectro- 
scopic and sound measurement were exhib- 
ited in operation by Professor Hallock from 
the Columbia Physical Laboratory. Pro- 
fessor Crocker had charge of electricity, in 
which were shown Professor Pupin’s ma- 
chines for producing alternating currents 
for multiplex telegraphy and other purposes, 
also E. H. Dickerson’s acetylene illuminat- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 12. 


ing gas produced from calcium carbide made 
in an electric furnace. The mechanical ex- 
hibit was in charge of Professor R. S. Wood-~ 
ward, and included models of the interna- 
tional prototype metresand kilogrammes,and 
several pieces of new mechanical apparatus. 
In the mineralogical exhibit, arranged by 
Dr. L. P. Gratacap, of the American Mu- 
seum, was a series of Babylonian and Assyr- 
ian cylinders, illustrating the different min- 
erals employed between 4000 and 300 B. 
C.; also an extensive display of new types 
of American minerals. The photographie 
exhibit, in charge of Dr. Edward F. Leam- 
ing, besides new apparatus from Zeiss of 
Jena, included all the recent applications of 
photography in color printing, and the 
combination of colors in lantern projection 
shown by the inventor, Frederic E. Ives, of 
Philadelphia. Dr. Leaming’s micro-photo- 
graphs of nervous and cellular tissues and 
of bacteria formed an important feature of 
this exhibit. The exhibit in experimental 
psychology was contributed by the depart- 
ment of experimental psychology of Colum- 
bia College. The apparatus has been re- 
cently made for the college, and with the 
exception of the harmonium was designed 
by members of the department. The har- 
monium was designed by von Helmholtzand 
Ellis to give pure intervals in place of the 
equal or tempered intervals used in musical 
instruments with fixed keys. The other 
apparatus shown was: (1) an instrument 
which measures the duration, intensity and 
area of lights, now being used for the 
investigation of after-images; (2) an in- 
strument which measures the time (to 
0.0001 sec.) objects are exposed to view, 
now being used to study the legibility of 
letters and types, and in an altered form to 
measure the perception, memory and atten- 
tion of school children; and (3) a new 
chronograph of very high speed with fixed 
drum and movable carriage. Physiology — 
was represented by a number of special ex- 


MARcH 22, 1895. ] 


hibits made by the Chairman, Prof. J. G. 
Curtis, and by Professor Thompson, of the 
New York University. The botanical ex- 
hibit, arranged by Dr. Carlton C. Curtis, 
included an extensive display of new plants 
from North and South America, Dr. Schnei- 
der’s studies of lichens, and the morphologi- 
eal and embryological studies carried on 
under the direction of Dr. Curtis, by the 
students of Dr. Curtis and of Professor 
Gregory of Barnard College. 

_ The American Museum contributed two 
extensive exhibits in Zodlogy and Palzon- 
tology, arranged by Professor Allen and Pro- 
fessor Osborn. The Zodlogical exhibit illus- 
trated the rapid improvement in the modern 
methods of taxidermy by a series of com- 
parisons of specimens of work just com- 
pleted and that of ten years ago, the most 
notable being the preparation of the chim- 
panzee ‘Chico’ by Mr. Rowley. The re- 
sults of the current field explorations of the 
Museum and the natural methods of group 
mountings were also shown by extensive 
exhibits. In vertebrate Paleontology the 
chief feature was three panels showing the 
Stages in the evolution of the horse; first, of 
the modern skeleton in comparison with 
that of Hyracotherium venticolum, from the 
Cope Collection recently acquired by the 
Museum ; second, a complete series of feet, 
and third, a complete series of skulls. Two 
newly discovered ancestral forms of Titano- 
theres from the Eocene were also shown, 
displaying the first rudiments of the great 
horns which characterize the latest survi- 
ying members of this group. The most note- 
worthy feature in invertebrate Paleontol- 
Ogy was the collection shown by Messrs. 
Van Ingen and Matthew, of what appears 
to be a sub-Olenellus fauna from the lower 
Cambrian, in other words, the oldest fauna 
thus far discovered. Under Geology, as ar- 
ranged by Professor J. J. Stevenson, was 
shown an extensive series of eruptive rock 
from the pre-Cambrian volcanoes along the 


4 


. 


SCIENCE. 


323 


Atlantic coast, besides many results of 
Prof. Kemp’s field work. The Columbia 
biological laboratory contributed to the 
zoological exhibit a full series illustrating 
the Golgi silver nitrate nerve-cell prepara- 
tions, together with the results obtained 
by the ‘lithium-bicromate’ and ‘ forma- 
lin’ modification introduced by Mr. Strong, 
exhibitor. Professor E. B. Wilson, dis- 
played his new series of fertilization stages 
of the Sea-Uchin, proving that the arch- 
oplasm is entirely derived from the sper- 
matozoon. All of these cytological ex- 
hibits were accompanied by micro-photo- 
graphs taken by Dr. Leaming. Dr. T. H. 
Cheeseman had charge of the bacterial ex- 
hibit, including principally a display of prep- 
arations by the new formalin method, and 
an illustration of the stages in the prepara- 
tion of the anti-toxine treatment of diph- 
theria. In Anatomy, Professor Huntington 
displayed a unique series of 194 prepara- 
tions, showing the comparative anatomy 
of the caecum and vermiform appendix 
throughout the vertebrata. 

The Exhibit was open throughout the 
afternoon to students, and throughout the 
evening to guests of the Academy. The 
admirable arrangements were largely due 
to Professor Hallock, Chairman; Dr. Dean, 
Secretary, and Professor Lee, Chairman of 
the Reception Committee. The event fully 
justified the large amount of time and care 
which was given to its preparation, and in 
the opinion of all those who were present 
will prove a great stimulus to the various 
branches of research now in progress in New 
York. It has been informally decided to 
renew these receptions from year to year, 
and to attempt to give them a more national 
character by inviting exhibits from other 
parts of the country. The galleries of the 
Fine Arts Society, with unlimited wall space 
for the exhibition of charts and diagrams, 
with admirable means for electrical illumin- 
ation for microscopic and other purposes,and 


324 


with very extensive floor space for tables, is 
exceptionally adapted to the needs of an ex- 
tensive exhibition of the annual progress of 


science. Henry F. Osporn. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
AN INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE 


AND CONGRESS. 


Eprror or Scrence: Dear Sir :—In consid- 
ering your very courteous invitation to con- 
tribute something of present interest to your 
valuable journal, it has occurred tome that 
I could not perhaps do better than to follow 
the example set in your issue of Feb. 15th, 
by the distinguished representatives of my 
alma mater, Prof. Bowditch and his commit- 
tee, in their report to the Harvard Uni- 
versity Council on the circular of the Royal 
Society, respecting the proposed Interna- 
tional Catalogue. My letter of reply to this 
circular does not, as you will see, in any 
way conflict or interfere with the recom- 
mendations made in that excellent report. 
It deals almost entirely with other points in 
the circular which are not directly noticed 
in the report. 

Should the suggestions which I have ven- 
tured to make, especially in regard to the 
meetings of an International Congress of 
Science in connection with the proposed 
Catalogue, be finally approved and carried 
into effect, they may lead to practical re- 
sults of great importance. Such meetings, 
held from time to time—perhaps in various 
cities of the two continents—may not only 
bring together from all parts of the globe 
the most eminent votaries and friends of 
science in fraternal conference, but may 
help not a little, with other influences which 
are now constantly at work, in converting 
Tennyson’s ‘ parliament of man’ and ‘ fed- 
eration of the world’ from a poetical vision 
into a beneficent reality. 


Yours faithfully, 
Horatio HALE. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S.. Von. I. No. 12. 


Ciinton, ONTARIO, CANADA, 
May 30, 1894. 

GENTLEMEN: As you have honored me 
by addressing to me a copy of your impor- 
tant circular letter, in which you solicit from 
the recipient the expression of his views re- 
specting the establishment of a ‘ Central 
Office or Bureau,’ by ‘ international codper- 
ation,’ for the purpose of preparing and pub- 
lishing, at brief intervals, a catalogue of all 
scientific publications of every description 
(whether appearing in periodicals or inde- 
pendently), I cannot, in due courtesy, de- 
cline to offer in response such considerations 
as occur to me, however inadequate they 
may seem in comparison with others which 
will reach you from better qualified corre- 
spondents. 

That the proposed scheme is both highly 
desirable and abundantly feasible cannot 
reasonably be doubted by any one who is 
aware of the immense increase in the num- 
ber of scientific publications of late years, 
and the equally rapid increase of scientific 
associations, public libraries and high insti- 
tutions of learning, for most of which such 
a catalogue will be found of very great ad- 
vantage and ultimately a necessity. The 
most convenient ‘method of inaugurating 
the scheme” would seem to be by first ascer- 
taining the probable annual cost, which can 
readily be judged through the experience 
already gained by the Royal Society in the 
publication of its annual ‘ Catalogue of Scien- 
tific Papers,’ and then by appointing in each 
(presumed) contributing country, under 
some appropriate title, an ‘Aid Bureau,’ 
which should be an existing institution of 
high standing, and one that either is already, 
or can easily be placed, in touch with the 
chief scientific associations, colleges and 
public libraries of the country, and can ascer- 
tain the amount of contributions which 
could be obtained from them. In the United 
States, for example, such a suitable Aid 
Bureau at once presents itself in the Smith- 


Marcu 22, 1895.] 


sonian Institution. In Canada and in each 
of the other British colonies which possesses 
a Royal Society, this Society will naturally 
assume the office. In every other country 
some institution of similar position and char- 
acter will readily be found. 

As to the place of the Central Bureau, 
and the directing authority under which it 

should be inaugurated, one would suppose 
that there can hardly be two opinions. 
That this place should be London, and this 
authority the Royal Society of England, 
would seem to be necessary conclusions 
from the existing circumstances, at least at 
the outset. Both place and directory might, 
of course, be changed hereafter, if this 
should be found desirable. 

It would seem specially advisable, for the 
purpose of arousing and maintaining an in- 
terest in the object in view, and of ensuring 

_ the cordial coéperation of all concerned in 
_ the work, that general meetings should be 
held—either annually, or biennially, or tri- 
ennially, as might be found most convenient 
—of representatives of all the contributing 
bodies, or at least of all that contribute a 
certain defined amount to the fund. Such 
meetings might be held either at the place 
of the central office or at other places, as 
might be decided, from time to time, by the 
assembled representatives. Such an assem- 
blage would constitute an International 
Congress of Science, possessing much of the 
character of those congresses of geologists, 
of anthropologists, of Orientalists, of Ameri- 
eanists and the like, which have of late 
years been found so popular and useful, 
but differing from them in possessing to 
some extent a representative character, and 
with it a defined purpose and authority. 
Its purpose would be that of maintaining a 
connection among the students of all the 
sciences throughout the globe, not only by 
‘personal acquaintance or correspondence, 
butalso and especially through the medium 
of the Central Bureau and the Catalogue, 


SCIENCE. 


325 


which would be directly under the author- 
ity of the Congress. In general it may be said 
that this Congress would speedily become 
for the whole civilized world what the mod- 
ern Association for the Advancement of 


. Science is for its own country ; with the 


important difference, however, that the 
Congress, besides the personal influence of 
its meetings and the interest that would at- 
tach to the volume recording the proceed- 
ings of each meeting, would have the much 
greater influence and usefulness resulting 
from the permanent activity of its Central 
Office and the frequent issue of its catalogue 
of scientific publications. 

As regards the ‘ character of the work to 
be carried on in the central office,’ there 
seems little to be added to the suggestions 
of the circular. The final paragraph, in 
which itis suggested that ‘“ arrangements 
might be made by which, in addition to 
preparing the catalogue, scientific data 
might be tabulated as they come to hand in 
the papers supplied,” could perhaps be en- 
larged, with much advantage, into the 
creation of a special ‘ Bureau of Scientific 
Correspondence,’ to which any member of 
a contributing body might apply for in- 
formation on questions of fact. As is well 
known, it constantly happens that through 
the unavoidable ignorance in which, to a 
large extent, students of science have here- 
tofore remained of one another’s actions, 
supposed new discoveries are announced 
and resulting theories suggested, which 
have been already made known elsewhere. 
Every such student will appreciate the 
advantage of being able to refer to a bureau 
of specialists for information on doubtful 
points of this description. 

On the question of ‘ the language or lan- 
guages in which the catalogue should be 
published,’ there would seem to be little 
difficulty in deciding. If English and 
French should be jointly selected for this 
purpose, there would probably be no ob- 


326 


jection from any quarter. There are very 
few students of science who are not familiar 
with one or other of these idioms. And 
the choice will be made generally accept- 
able by the fact that they very fairly repre- 
sent the two great Indo-European branches 
of language, the Teutonic and the Romanic, 
in which at least nineteen-twentieths of all 
scientific publications are likely to appear 
for many years tocome. If the time should 
arrive when the addition of another lan- 
guage may seem advisable, it can readily 
be made by the proposed congress or any 
other authority then governing the Central 
Bureau. 

It would, of course, be understood that 
the deliberations of the congress and of its 
sections, and the papers read before them, 
would not necessarily be restricted to the 
two idioms of the catalogue, but might be in 
any language which the congress or any 
section should at the time decide to admit. 
This decision, it may be assumed, will 
always be considerate and liberal to the 
largest possible degree. 

I am your obedient servant, 
Horatio HALE. 


The Secretaries of the Royal Society, 
BURLINGTON HousE, LONDON. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics: By DANIEL 
G. Brinton. Ginn & Co., Boston. 1895. 
8°, pp. 152. 

The public mind is becoming more and 
more interested in the archeology of Mexico 
and Central America. At once symptomatic 
of and a cause of increasing this interest 
are the numerous explorations of recent 
years, the exhibition from this region collect- 
ed for the Exposition, and the notable works 
published in Mexico, Spain and Germany in 
connection with the Quadri-centennial cele- 
bration of America’s discovery. 

Nevertheless, students in our own country 
are somewhat at a disadvantage in this 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 12. 


matter. The literature of the subject is not 
only scattered, but is in various languages, 
—Spanish, French and German—and it is 
not easy to keep track of progress. This 
little volume, by one who has devoted years 


. to the study of ‘the American Race,’ and who 


is a specialist in the languages, literature 
and life of Isthmian people, will therefore be 
particularly welcome. It not only summa- 
rizes the work done, but is a guide to the or- 
iginal publications wherein discussions have 
been published. 

The Mayan hieroglyphic system was in 
wide-spread use, being represented on monu- 
ments of Yucatan, Tabasco, Chiapas, Gua- 
temala and Western Honduras. Though so 
often compared with that of the Aztecs, itis 
certainly more fully developed. On the 
whole, it can not be said to comprise a very 
great number of simple elements ; these, 
however, are variously combined and united, 
and the composite glyphs are many. The 
material for study varies. There are books 
—Codices—written on long strips of paper, 
which were folded screen-wise. Four such 
codices are known, called the Codex Troano, 
C. Cortesianus, C. Peresianus and C. Dres- 
denis; they are in libraries at Madrid, 
Paris and Dresden. There are also mural 
inscriptions cut in stone ; elaborate series 
of caleuliform characters chiseled on altars 
and monoliths ; pretty cartouches engraved 
on amulets or ornaments ; symbols or char- 
acters painted on pottery ; glyphs on hard, 
firm grained boards of wood like those 
from Tikal. 

Are these characters ideograms or pho- 
netic? There are those who believe they are 
entirely the former; there are others who 
claim that many are phonetic. Some ad- 
mit that both occur. Brinton himself m- 
vented, years since, the word ikonomatic. 
He believes that thereare some true ideo- 
grams in the Mayan texts; very many of 
the characters, however, he believes are in 
the nature of rebuses. They still betray 


j 


- MARCH 22, 1895. ] 


their origin as pictures, but are not to be 
considered as pictures but as characters 
representing sounds—either the name of the 
object pictured, used as a phonetic element, 
or a sound suggested by that. Looking at 
the whole field he recognizes three groups of 
elements : 

1°. Arithmetical signs, numerals, numer- 
ical computations—Mathematical elements. 

2°. Pictures of men, animals, fantastic 
beings, ceremonies, objects, ete.—Pictorial 
elements. 

3°. Graphic elements, proper. 

To each of these our author devoted a 
division of his work. 

Numbers, day signs, month signs, are so 
common in the Codices as to suggest that 
these are mainly time-counts. The Mayas 
counted by twenties, and had distinct terms 
for higher orders of numerals up to at least 

the sixth power of twenty. 
to write numbers, even the highest ; dots 
were units, lines were fives, and there were 
special characters for the score and for 
higher orders. Férstemann appears to have 
found that they had a zero sign, and that 
numbers were written upward, a higher or- 
der of units being indicated by position. 
Maya time divisions are complicated, and a 
variety of numbers are used in their tables. 
‘Thus the numbers 4, 5,138, 20, 24, 52, 65, 
104, 115, 260 and others occur in grouping 
days and months into years, cycles, Xe. 
The Maya idea of a complete number seems 
to have been the multiple which should con- 
tain all these numbers used in reckoning 
days. Férstemann claims to find the number 
1,366,560 days ( = 3744 years) in the 
Dresden Codex. The eminent German be- 
lieves the Codices were largely astronomical 
treatises, and in this opinion Brinton agrees. 
This is, as he says himself, world-wide dis- 
tant from the theories of Seler or Thomas. 
Aside from theories, however, Brinton pre- 
sents the necessary information, which is 
gained so far, regarding numbers as they 


SCIENCE. 


They were able , 


327 


occur in the Codices ; he also presents brief- 
ly and simply a sketch of his own and 
Foérstemann’s astronomical views, and calls 
attention to the fact that other views exist. 

The bulk of the pictorial elements have 
to do apparently with religious ideas and 
represent deities, ceremonies or religious 
objects. Schellhas’ paper upon the repre- 
sentations of the gods in the Maya writings 
will ever remain the foundation for such 
study. In some cases Brinton agrees with 
Schellhas ; in others he reaches a different - 
identification. A considerable number of 
the gods are satisfactorily made out; that 
is certain. Influenced as he is by Forste- 
mann’s strongly astronomic views, Dr. Brin- 
ton feels that among these representations 
of deities there should be some of the planet 
Venus. In all parts of the Codex Troano 
there are many curious representations of a 
bee; this he connects with Venus as the 
evening star and merges the latter into the 
old woman, so often represented with Cu- 
culean, as the earth goddess. In all the 
Codices, Brinton counts 825 representations 
of male deities and 125 of females; he be- 
lieves that 638 of these have been made 
out. He says: ‘ This is a satisfactory re- 
sult and shows that, as far as these picto- 
graphs go, the contents of these once mys- 
terious volumes are scarcely an unsolved 
enigma.”’ 

The graphic elements are and long must 
be the most difficult. The signs of the 
days and months have long been known ; 
those of the cardinal points have recently 
been pretty surely identified ; the ‘mono- 
grams’ of the gods are fairly agreed upon. 
In studying the graphic elements the com- 
posite glyphs must be analyzed. They 
consist usually of one main element, with 
infixed, prefixed, superfixed, postfixed or 
sub-fixed secondary elements. Then one 
must, if possible, find the things which 
these simple elements originally represented. 
The ideogrammatic foree may be gone, but 


328 


the name of the thing pictured may suggest 
the phonetic value. The work is not easy. 
Brinton takes up one after another such as 
have been most studied, or for which he 
has a meaning to suggest. That we are 
still far from final conclusions is shown by 
the variation in interpretations of different 
authors. A group of signs which Seler con- 
siders are derived from ‘man’ and signi- 
fying ‘person,’ others. distribute among 
crescent, ear, a serpent’s mouth, eye and 
. eye-lash, comb, claw, feather, part of a 
plant, etc. One of the commonest of 
glyphs, believed by Brinton to be derived 
from a picture of a feather ornament, and 
with the phonetic value of yax, and mean- 
ing (by metaphor) green, new, young, 
strong, fresh, virile, ete., is by others 
variously identified as representing a gourd, 
a tree, a zapote fruit, the phallus, etc. Such 
diversity of opinion is not discouraging ; it 
only shows that much remains to do. 

Our author does not slavishly follow 
authority. The bee-god sign and the yaa 
character already mentioned show independ- 
ence. His recognition of the pax (drum) 
sign is ingenious and probably strong. He 
introduces much new argument in identify- 
ing the deities. His suggestions in refer- 
ence to day and month signs are thoughtful. 

In so new a field we must have conflict of 
ideas. Dr. Brinton fairly aims to present 
all sides. The Primer shows the real posi- 
tion of knowledge on the question as result- 
ing from the labors of Seler, Thomas, Schell- 
has, Foérstemann and a host of other stu- 
dents. . It is a good summary of present 
knowledge with a considerable addition of 
new and thoughtful material. It points the 
way, gives suggestion and help. The be- 
ginner must have the book, and every 
worker must recognize that Dr. Brinton by 
its publication puts all under genuine ob- 
ligation, whether they agree with all his ar- 
guments or not. FREDERICK STARR. 

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Feb. 16, 1895. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No: 12; 


Steam and the Marine Steam Engine. 

Yro. Londonand New York, Macmillan 

& Co. Tlustrated. 105 Engravings. 

Pp. xiv, 196. 8vo. $2.50. 

This isa book written by a Fleet Engineer 
of the British Navy, for use at the Royal 
Naval College and elsewhere, embodying 
lectures prepared by Mr. Yeo for a course 
addressed to Executive Officers. It is 
thought that it may prove also useful for 
officers of the merchant service, and for stu- 
dents in engineering. It is a very compact 
presentation of the subject, and, as might be 
expected, coming from an officer of long 
service, abounds especially in well-made 
illustrations exhibiting the construction of 
the marine engine in its various usual forms 
and all its details. Of these engravings we 
can hardly speak too highly. They are 
largely reproductions of the diagrams and 
drawings employed in the lecture-room, and 
reductions of working drawings made especi- 
ally for the book. The introduction gives an 
abridged account of the history of the marine 
engine, from the time of Watt to the pres- 
ent, and indicates, in a general way, the 
methods of improvement which have 
brought about the enormous gain, mean- 
time, in economy and power of steam- 
ships. 

The structure of engines and boilers, and 
of all their minor parts and accessories, in- 
cluding the slide-valve and its gearing, in- 
dicator-diagrams and their interpretation, 
and the condenser, the screw, and the 
powering of ships, are subjects treated of 
with evident knowledge and with brevity 
and accuracy. Little space is given to the- 
oretical discussions of the thermodynamics 
or of other principles, mathematical or phy- 
sical, illustrated by the action of the steam 
engine, and the special value of the book 
lies in its presentation of the forms of parts 
and its descriptive account of the machine. 
It is well made; paper, type, style and bind- 
ing all being excellent; and the publishers 


By Jonny 


F Manrcn 22, 1895.] 


are to be congratulated on their good work 
in this respect. R. H. Tuurston. 


The Life and Correspondence of William Buck- 
land, D. D., F. R.S. Some time Dean of 
_ Westminster, twice President of the Geo- 

logical Society, and First President of the 

British Association. By his daughter, 
_ Mrs. Gorpon. With portraits and illus- 
_ trations. New York, D. Appleton & Co. 
- 1894. Post 8°. Pp. 288. $3.50. 

To those who were ‘brought up,’ geologi- 
cally speaking, on perhaps the most weighty 
and yet brilliant of the Bridgewater 
Treatises, ‘Geology and Mineralogy con- 
sidered with reference to Natural Theology,’ 
and are familiar with the prolonged strug- 
gle for existence undergone by the ‘noble 
subterranean science’ in the first half of 
our century, this life of the English partici- 

pant in the contest will show what a force 
he must have been in the intellectual and 
scientific life of his time. 

Dean Buckland was one of the creators 
of the science. Himself inspired by the 
teachings, though at second-hand, of Wil- 
liam Smith, ‘the father of English Geology,’ 
he became the teacher of Lyell, of Murchi- 
son, of Etheridge, Daubeny, Egerton and 
Lord Enniskillen. As early as 1809, when 
a Fellow at Oxford, he had by his energy 
in collecting, his contagious enthusiasm, 
and his bold and effective advocacy of the 
infant science, produced a sort of panic 
in the minds of those who would have 
gladly strangled this newly born science. 

_ The philosophic calm and classical se- 
renity of the Oxford dons was sorely vexed 
and disturbed by the young savant. “Some 
dreaded lest his example should drive the 
amenitates academice out of fashion.’? When 
his shorter journeys on British soil finally 
led to a longer excursion to the Alps and to 
Italy, one of the elders is said to have ex- 
claimed : “ Well, Buckland is gone to Italy ; 
‘80, thank God, we shall hear no more of 


SCIENCE. 


329 


this geology.” But young Buckland’s zeal, 
energy, overflowing humor and eloquence, 
led to his appointment in 1813 to the Read- 
ership of Mineralogy, and in 1819 a Pro- 
fessorship of Geology was created for him. 

He went on triumphantly in his career 
of advancing and popularizing his favorite 
science, overcoming objections and theo- 
logical narrowness either by a joke, a 
hearty laugh, a_ strain of lofty elo- 
quence, or by earnestly insisting that the 
study of geology, so far from being irre- 
ligious or atheistic in its consequences, had 
a tendency to confirm the evidences of 
Natural Religion, and that there could be 
no opposition between the works and the 
word of God. 

His humor, quick wit and overflowing 
jollity or playful fancy in the lecture room 
were contagious. His field lectures were 
largely attended, and many are the stories 
told of his apt illustrations on these occa- 
sions, as well as of some of his adventures 
on his geological excursions. They are il- 
lustrated by rhymes and by comic pictures 
from the pen and pencil of his fellow geol- 
ogists. As an example of his graphic mode 
of explaining the earth as understood in his 
day, it is said ‘‘ He compared the world to an 
apple-dumpling, the fiery froth of which 
fills the interior, and we have just a crust 
to stand upon; the hot stuff in the centre 
often generates gas, and its necessary ex- 
plosions are called on earth, volcanoes.” 
When riding towards London with a friend 
ona very dark night, they lost their way. 
“ Buckland therefore dismounted, and tak- 
ing up a handful of earth, smelt it. ‘ Ux- 
bridge,’ he exclaimed, his geological nose 
telling him the precise locality.” Mr. 
Etheridge tells the story of Buckland when 
travelling in Scotland, “in order not to 
shock the feelings of the Scotechmen on Sun- 
day, carrying his hammer up his sleeve.” 
Ruskin, who was an undergraduate of 
Christ Church when Buckland was not only 


330 


the Professor of Geology, but also a Canon 
of the Cathedral, writes in his ‘ Preeterita :’ 
“Dr. Buckland was extremely like Sydney 
Smith in his staple of character ; no rival 
with him in wit, but like him in humor, 
common sense, and benevolently cheerful 
doctrine of Divinity . . . Geology was only 
the pleasant occupation of his own merry 
life.”’ 

With these characteristics of head and 
heart, a sane mind in a sound body, it may 
be imagined what an immense impetus 
Buckland gave to the growth and develop- 
ment of the young science. He was the 
first president of the Royal Geological 
Society, and the first president of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science, 
which he invited to meet at Oxford. His 
papers and memoirs were not numerous, 
though upwards of fifty, besides three 
general works; perhaps his volume on 
Caves, ‘ Reliquize Diluviane,’ was of most 
lasting value. He was, though at first 
rejecting Agassiz’s theory, one of the first 
to recognize the fact of the former existence 
of glaciers in Great Britain. 

Buckland was born in 1784 and died in 
1856. His last scientific paper appeared in 
1849. In 1845 he was appointed by Sir 
Robert Peel to the deanery of Westminster, 
and one of the first things he did was to in- 
troduce a system of pipe-drainage in West- 
minster Abbey, the first of its kind ever laid 
down in London, and which led to the 
disuse of cesspools and brick sewers through- 
out that city. He was, then, not only dean 
and a doorkeeper in that palatial house of 
the Lord, but he applied his scientific 
knowledge to the thorough cleansing of its 
foundations. Cleanliness with the good 
dean was evidently a synonym of godliness. 
His sermon delivered in 1848 on the words, 
“Wash and be clean,’ was almost the first 
contribution to sanitary science, a subject 
in which he was far ahead of his time. His 
interest in medical science, in general 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. I. No. 12, 


charity and philanthropy, in building 
churches and schools, was informed and 
enlightened by his early geological training 
and advanced ideas. When, in 1846, the 
famine crept over Ireland, and even into 
England, he met the difficulty while living 
in his summer house at Islip, and among 
other wise and kindly acts he supplied the 
village shops with sacks of hominy and 
Indian corn. Here also he built a reere- 
ation room for the village lads, the fore- 
runner of our boys’ clubs and kindred 
associations. 

The story of Buckland’s brilliant and 
useful life is in most respects well told; the 
illustrations are amusing and often in- 
structive, and we warmly recommend the 
book as most entertaining reading for 
geologists, young and old, and indeed for 
all lovers of nature. A. §. Packarp. 


GEOLOGY. 
Report on the Iron Mountain Sheet, by Arthur 
Winslow, E. Haworth, Frank L. Nason and 
others. ARTHUR WINSLow, State Geolo- 

gist, Mo. Geol. Sury. 1894. 

This is the third number of the same 
series of reports as the Bevier sheet and 
covers an area of about 250 square miles in 
portions of Iron, St. Francois and Madison 
counties. As in the others, the principal 
feature is the map showing the topography 
and the geology. This was constructed by 
Messrs. Haworth, E. H. Lonsdale and C. F. 
Marbut and is similar in scale and contour 
interval to the one described above. It is 
also accompanied by a sheet of columnar 
and cross sections, showing the structure 
of Iron mountain and Pilot knob. In the 
text the peculiar topography of the region, 
as well as the other physiographic features, 
are described by Mr. Winslow. Mr. Ha- 
worth contributes the portion on the geol- 
ogy of the crystalline rocks and Mr. Win- 
slow that on the geology of the Paleozoic 
rocks. The economic geology of the iron 


] 


; 
' 
| 


; 
: 


j 


7 
e) 


Marcu 22, 1895.] 


ores is treated of by Mr. Frank L. Nason, 
the author of the report on Iron Ores, 
published by the Missouri Survey in 1892. 
The report on the building stones is by Mr. 
>G. E. Ladd. 
The first of this series, viz., the Higgins- 
yille sheet, was issued in folio form, the 
text being printed on large sheets of the 
same size as the maps, somewhat similar to 
the sheet reports issued by the United States 
Geological Survey, except that the former 
was stitched. In these later reports the text 
is printed in octavo form, while the map with 
the sheet of sections and a sheet of brief ex- 
planatory matter is issued in a folio cover 
separately. A portion of the edition, how- 
ever, has the map and sheet of sections 
printed on thin paper, folded and inserted 
at the end of the pamphlet. Thus this 
series of reports have been issued in three 
_ forms, which may serve to assist in deciding 
the best form for publication of future re- 
ports for different purposes. 
J. D. R. 


Preliminary Report on the Rainy Lake Gold 
Region. By H. V. Wincuett and U.S. 
Grant. Geol. and Nat. Hist. Survey of 
Minn., 23rd Ann. Rept., pp. 36-105. 
Jan., 1895. 

Considerable excitement has been caused 
during the last year by the reported dis- 
coveries of rich gold-bearing veins at Rainy 

Lake, on the northern border of Minnesota, 

and accordingly an examination of this re- 
gion was made by the Geological Survey of 
the State. The veins occur in more or less 
erystalline rocks of Pre-Cambrian age, and 
ean be classed as: (a) fissure veins, (b) 
Segregated viens and (c) fahlbands. The 
most promising part of the district is in 
what is known as the Seine River country, 
in Canadian territory, where there are true 
fis veins which furnish a good quality of 
free-milling ore. Actual mining was con- 
Photed during the last summer in but one 


SCIENCE. 331 


place—at the Little American mine, in 
Itasca county, Minn.; but prospecting and 
exploitation have been carried on in a num- 
ber of other places. As yet the development 
is insufficient to warrant the positive asser- 
tion that profitable gold mining can be con- 
ducted in the Rainy Lake district, but in 
several localities the prospects are full of 
encouragement and promise. The report 
is accompanied by a geological map of the 
region. 
NOTES AND NEWS. 
BIOLOGICAL. 


Tue January number of the Geological 
Magazine contains a note by Professor H. G. 
Seeley, on the skeleton of Pareiasaurus baini. 
This remarkable animal is one of the Ano- 
modontia which Professor Seeley has been 
making known to science from the Karoo 
or Upper Triassic beds of South Africa. 
He observes that while there are super- 
ficial characters which parallel the laby- 
rinthodont amphibia, there is no doubt 
the animal finds its place among true rep- 
tilia. Itis remarkable for the number of 
sharp recurved teeth upon the palate, to- 
gether with the teeth in sockets on the alve- 
olar margins of the jaw. Notwithstanding 
the extremely heavy build of the animal, 
there is much that recalls the lowest mam- 
malia in the shoulder girdle and the fore 
and hind limbs. It is the shoulder chiefly 
which indicates this affinity with the Mono- 
tremata. The new knowledge which this 
animal supplies gives a meaning to the or- 
dinal term by showing the resemblances in 
the teeth to various groups of animals which 
would not have been suspected from the 
reptilian structure of the skull, or the mam- 
malian structure of the extremities. The 
skeleton is figured, as it now appears 
mounted in the British Museum, of a total 
length of seven feet, nine inches. It would 
be difficult to imagine a more grotesque 
quadruped. Those who have had experi- 


332 


ence in mounting stone skeletons realize 
what an extremely difficult undertaking it 
-is, and will judge of this particular mount 
with leniency ; at the same time, an exam- 
ination of the figure, or still more of the orig- 
-inal specimen in the Museum, shows that 
the limbs have been placed in an unneces- 
sarily awkward and impossible position. 
There was no necessity for placing the hind 
limbs so far in front of the center of grav- 
ity of the posterior half of the body, or for 
turning the fore feet so far inward that lo- 
comotion in a forward direction would be 
rendered impossible. 


Tue latest Bulletin from the Museum of 
-Comparative Zodlogy is Professor Agassiz’s 
“ Reconnorssance of the Bahamas and of the 
elevated coral reef of Cuba in the steam yacht 
Wild Duck, January to April, 1893,’ covering 
-200 pages, 47 plates, and a large number of 
illustrations in the text. It contains a com- 
plete survey of this remarkable coralline 
region, and is not only full of original ob- 
servations and notes of great value, but 
brings the region far more easily within the 
reach of future biological and geological 
exploration. As the survey in the Wild 
Duck continued over only four months, it 
has rather the reconnoissance character of 
that made by Professor Agassiz in the ‘ Al- 
batross,’ on the west coast of South America, 
than the thoroughness of the author’s work 
upon the Blake. The Wild Duck was placed 
at Mr. Agassiz’s disposal by Mr. John M. 
Forbes, and while not fitted like the Govern- 
ment vessels for deep sea work, proved to 
be admirably adapted for cruising on the 
Bahama banks, her light draft enabling her 
to go to every point of interest and to cross 
and recross the banks where a larger vessel 
could not follow. The greater part of the 
Bulletin is descriptive. A number of im- 
portant problems are discussed, the author 
closing with an expression of his own views 
“upon the formation of coral reefs, as con- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 12. 


firmed by this exploration of the Bahamas; 
“Substitute subsidence for rising land and 
remembering that reef coral will not grow 
at a greater depth than twenty fathoms, we 
eliminate subsidence as a factor unless we 
are prepared to accept or imagine a syn- 
chronism between the growth of corals and 
subsidence in a great number of the districts 
in which they flourish, of which we have no 
proof.”’ 


WELDING OF IRON. 


Ar the last meeting of the Royal Society, 
according to the London Times, a paper on 
Tron and Steel at Welding Temperatures by Mr. 
T. Wrightson, M. P., was read. The ob- 
ject of the paper was to demonstrate that 
the phenomenon of welding in iron is 
identical with that of regelation in ice. 
The author recapitulated some experiments 
which were made by him in 1879-80 upon 
east iron, and proved the fact that this 
form of iron possesses the property of ex- 
panding while passing from the liquid to 
the plastic state during a small range of — 
temperature, and then contracts to the 
solid state, and that the expansion amounts 
to about 6 per cent. in volume. This prop- 
erty of iron resembles the similar property 
of water in freezing, which, within a range 
of about 4° C., expands about 9 per cent. 
of its liquid volume, and then contracts as 
the cooling proceeds. Subsequent investi- 
gations at the Mint appeared to prove that 
wrought iron at a welding temperature pos- 
sesses the same property of cooling under 
pressure which was proved by Lord Kelvin 
to exist in freezing water, and on which 
demonstration the generally received theory 
of regelation depends. The author distin- 
guished the process of melting together of 
metals from that of welding. Either pro- 
cess forms a junction, but the latter takes 
place at a temperature considerably below 
the melting point. The well-known and 
useful property of welding in iron appeared, 


se 


7 


MARCH 22, 1895. ] 


‘therefore, to depend, as in the case of rege- 
Jation in ice, upon this critical condition, 
which exists over a limited range of tem- 
‘perature between the molten and the plastic 
state. An interesting discussion followed, 
in which Lord Kelvin, Professor Roberts- 
Austen, Professor Silvanus Thompson and 
others joined. 


THE JOINT COMMISSION OF THE SCIENTIFIC 
SOCIETIES OF WASHINGTON. 

Ara meeting of the Joint Commission of 
the Scientific Societies of Washington, on 
January 25th, recommendations were made 
which have since been adopted by the 
Societies represented on the Commission, 
which are: The Anthropological, the Bio- 
logical, the Chemical, the Entomological, 
the Geological, the National Geographic, 
and the Philosophical Societies. 

The resolutions adopted are as follows : 


he The Joint Commission of the Scientific Societies of 


“Washington, believing that fuller codperation of the 
Societies is desirable, and that it can advantageously 
be provided for by enlarging the powers of the Joint 
Commission, recommend to the Socities the adoption 
of the following: 

The Joint Commission shall be composed of the 
officers and administrative boards of the several com- 
ponent Societies 
~ The Commission shall have power: 

a. To provide for joint meetings of the Societies ; 

__b. To conduct courses of popular lectures ; c. To pre- 
pare a joint directory of the members of the Societies; 
4d. To distribute to all members of the Societies peri- 
odie advance notices of the meetings of the several 
Societies ; e. And to act in the interest of the com- 
‘ponent Societies at the instance of any of them. 
_ The following officers have been elected : 
_ President, Gardiner G. Hubbard; Vice- 
President, G. Brown Goode; Secretary, J. 
S$. Diller; Treasurer, P. B. Pierce; Mem- 
bers at Large of the Executive Committee, 
J. W. Powell, William H. Ashmead, 
George M. Sternberg, G. K. Gilbert, W. H. 
Dall, Charles E. Munroe and C. D. Walcott. 
ay GENERAL. 


- Tue Educational Review for March should 
iy read by all who are interested in elemen- 


SCIENCE. 


333 


tary and secondary education. The number 
consists of the report of ‘The Committee of 
Fifteen’ appointed by the Department of 
Superintendence of the National Educa- 
tional Association and submitted at Cleve- 
land, February 19-21. The three sub-com- 
mittees report respectively, ‘On the training 
of teachers,’ ‘On the correlation of studies 
in elementary education,’ and ‘On the or- 
ganization of city school systems. 


Mr. T. C. Martin contributes to the 
March number of The Century Magazine an 
article on Hermann yon Helmholtz well 
calculated to impress the general reader 
with the magnitude of Helmholtz’ genius. 
The article is accompanied by a portrait of 
Helmholtz, as he appeared during his visit 
to America in 1893, which should be pre- 
served by all men of science. 

THe American Book Company has just 
published a fourth edition of Dana’s Manual 
of Geology, the work being enlarged by 150 
pages. The entire manuscript, extending 
to 1000 pages of printed matter, is in Pro- 
fessor Dana’s own hand-writing, which is 
remarkable in the case of an author in his 
eighty-third year. 

A TELESCOPE is being constructed for the 
Berlin Industrial Exposition, to be held 
next year, in which the lenses, made by 
Steinheil of Munich, will be 110 em. in 
diameter. 

Heitmuortz’ library has been bought by 
the German Government for the Physico- 
Technical Institute. 

THE annual appropriation for the Univer- 
sity of North Carolina has been made by 
the Legislature. It had been feared that 
this might not be done. The recent Legis- 
lature has reorganized the Board of Regents 
of the West Virginia University and has 
reduced it from thirteen to nine, requiring 
all the members to be appointed from the 
two leading political parties, as nearly 
equally divided between them as practi- 


O04 


cable; its members are appointed for a 
period of six years, one-third changing ey- 
ery two years. Owing to former dissen- 
sions in the faculty of the University, the 
time of all the professors expires on June 
15th ; and the Board, at its meeting in June, 
will elect an entire new faculty, including 
president and professors. This applies only 
to the professors of the University, not to 
members of the Agricultural Station Staff. 
Dr. Rudolph J. J. de Roode, Chemist of the 
Station, resigned the first of February, to 
accept a more lucrative position in New 
York. His position has been filled by the 
appointment of B. H. Hite as chemist and 
G. Wm. Gray as assistant chemist, both of 
Johns Hopkins University. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 

Av the meeting held March 9, 1895, the 
papers were presented, of which abstracts 
are here given. 

Dr. C. W. Styles spoke of A double-pored 
Cestode with occasional single pores.* Great 
stress has been laid upon the arrangement 
of the genital pores in the classification of 
the Cestoda, but this character alone is not 
of generic value. Stiles has already shown 
that although Thysanosoma Giardi generally 
possesses alternate genital pores, it occa- 
sionally possesses double pores in its seg- 
ments. In American rabbits, the speaker 
finds two species of tapeworms, one of 
which possesses irregularly alternate geni- 
tal pores and a peculiar arrangement of the 
eggs in capsules—such as is found in the 
genus Darainea ; this makes it possible that 
this species is the adult stage of the armed 
eysticercois described from the intestine of 
rabbits in his Note 31; if this be so, the 
parasite would be classified with the genus 
Darainea, although, according to Railliet’s 

*To be published as ‘Notes on Parasites, 36: A 


double-pored Cestode with occasional single pores 7 in 
Centralblatt fiir Bact. u. Parasitenkunde, 1895. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 12. 


present classification, based upon the ar- 
rangements of the pores, it is an Andrya. 
The second tapeworm possesses double geni- 
tal pores. If classified on its pores alone, it 
is a Ctenotenia Rail. It differs from the 
type of the genus (Ct. marmote) in possess- 
ing a double uterus instead of a single 
uterus. One strobila of this rabbit tape- 
worm ( Ctenotenia sp.?) was found in which 
most of the segments possessed double pores, 
but thirteen segments were found with ir- 
regularly alternate pores. This anomaly is 
extremely important, both from a morpho- 
logical and a systematic standpoint, and the 
speaker expressed the opinion that a thor- 
ough study of a large series of Cestoda im 
any group would result in greatly modify- 
ing the present classification and in sup- 
pressing a large number of species. 

Dr. Theo. Holm discussed Gidema of Violet 
Leaves. Leaves of a cultivated garden ya- 
riety of Viola odorata affected with this dis- 
ease were studied, and their anatomical 
structure showed several points of interest. 
The diseased parts of the leaf showed brown- 
ish, wart-like swellings on both faces of the 
blade, above and between the nerves. The 
following changes were observed in the 
tissues: The epidermis became very thick- 
walled, and the stomata modified into nar- 
row, irregular openings. The palisade tis- 
sue showed numerous (three or even four) 
tangential divisions, and swelled up very 
considerably, pushing out through the epi- 
dermis. The pneumatic tissue, which 
seemed to be the most affected, had in- 
creased in size, the cells having divided 
themselves very considerably so as to form 
a loose, open tissue of large, roundish cells. 
The petiole showed similar symptoms of the 
disease, especially along the keel and the 
wings. The collenchymatic tissue under- 
neath the epidermis, the bark parenchyma, 
and the endodermis showed numerous diyi- 
sions, so that similar swellings were pro- 
duced like those observed on the leaf blade. 


A 
7 MARCH 22, 1895. ] 


Dr. Geo. M. Sternberg read a paper en- 
titled Explanation of Acquired Immunity from 
Infectious Diseases, an account of which will 
be printed in the next issue of ScrENcE. 

M. B. WAITE, 
Recording Secretary. 
SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
THE JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY. 

Tue latest number of the Journal of Mor- 
phology is of exceptional importance. Mr. 
Frank Lillie’s article upon the Embryology of 
the Unionidie contains a most careful inves- 
tigation of the relations of the earliest cells 
in the embryonic cleavage to the adult 
organs of the body. This is followed by 

_ Oliver 8. Strong’s memoir upon the Cranial 
Nerves of the Amphibia, which opens up a new 
and thoroughly philosophical interpretation 

_ of the cranial nerves, based not upon their 

- numerical relations, but upon their physio- 
logical components. This is the result of an 
investigation of a very difficult character 
which has been under way for the past five 
years. The third paper, by Pierre A. Fish, 
upon the Adult Nervous System of the Sala- 
mander, is followed by a brief but interesting 
paper from Professor W. K. Brooks upon 
the Sensory Clubs of Certain Calenterates. 
The most important feature of this num- 
ber, however, is contained in three short 
preliminary papers at the end of the Journal, 
“occupying only a few pages, but apparently 
establishing a new law in the field of fertili- 
zation phenomena. The discovery has been 
made independently by Dr. Wheeler and by 
Dr. A. D. Mead, of the University of Chi- 
cago, and by Professor E. B. Wilson and 
Mr. A. T. Matthews, of Columbia College. 
In course of correspondence the authors of 
these papers learned that they had inde- 
pendently reached the same unexpected con- 
clusion, and it was arranged by the editor 
that their three communications should ap- 
pear together. While they mark an im- 
portant step forward in our knowledge of 


2 


SCIENCE. 


339 


fertilization, at first sight the results ob- 
tained by Dr. Wheeler and Professor Wilson 
are directly contradictory. Dr. Wheeler 
proves conclusively that in the fertilization 
of Myzostoma (a parasitic form of Annelid) 
there are no traces of the archoplasm or 
dynamic substance in the spermatozoon, and 
that this element is entirely resident in the 
ovum. Professor Wilson, on the other 
hand, independently working on the eggs 
of the echinoderm Zoxopneustes, proves that 
there is no trace of the archoplasm in the 
ovum, but that it is entirely resident in the 
spermatozoon. It is too soon to make a 
general induction from these observations, 
but at present they appear to wholly set 
aside the brilliant announcement of Fol in 
1891, which has been supported by Guig- 
nard and Conklin, that both the ovum and 
spermatozoon contain archoplasm, and that 
one feature of segmentation is a ‘ quadrille 
of the four centers’ derived from these male 
and female archoplasmic masses. These 
observations do prove, however, that the 
archoplasm may be derived exclusively 
either from one sex or the other, and they 
show that Fol’s law was based upon de- 
fective preparations. They tend also to 
show that the archoplasm is not a bearer of 
the hereditary qualities, but necessarily a 
purely neutral dynamic agent. 


THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, MARCH. 

THE current number is largely taken up 
with the Princeton meeting of the American 
Psychological Association, already reported in 
Science (January 11). Authors’ abstracts 
are given of sixteen papers presented, and 
the address of the President, Prof. William 
James, is given in full. Mrs. Franklin’s 
paper on Normal Defect of Vision in the Fovea 
was also read before the Association. The 
only remaining paper consists of Contribu- 
tions from the Psychological Laboratory of 
Columbia College. Dr. Griffing describes 
experiments on the relations between der- 


336 


mal stimuli and sensations, and Mr. Franz 
gives an account of measurements of the 
light which is just sufficient to produce an 
after-image. In addition to discussion and 
notes, there is an extended survey of recent 
psychological literature prepared by Profs. 
Sully, Ormond, Fullerton, Dewey, Baldwin, 
Donaldson, Cattell, Angell, Gardiner and 
Duncan, and Drs. Binet, Kirschmann, 
Tracy and Noyes. 

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, MARCH. 

Tur number opens with an interesting 
account of The Birth of a Sicilian Volcano by 
Prof. Packard, describing an ascent of 
Monte Gernellaro, a crater on Mount Etna 
formed in 1886. In the second paper Dr, 
Bela Hubbard dwells on the importance of 
the forests and the need of legislation to 
prevent destruction by fire. An article by 
Dr. 8. Millington Miller discusses the edu- 
cation of the blind and of the deaf and 
dumb and their careers. The number in- 
cludes articles on engraving and bookbind- 
ing, two articles on scientific education, 
and accounts of Tyndall’s work and of 
Thomas Nuttall (with a portrait). 


THE ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, MARCH. 


Notes on the Atmospheric Bands in the Spectrum 
of Mars: Wiii1am Hueerns. 

Recent Researches on the Spectra of the Planets : 
H. C. VocxEt. 

Solar Observations made at the Royal Observa- 
tory of the Roman College in 1894: P. 
TACCHINI. 

On a very large Protuberance Observed Decem- 
ber 24, 1894: J. FENYI, 

On the Distribution of the Stars and the Distance 
of the Milky-Way in Aquila and Cygnus: 
C. EAsTon. 

Preliminary Table of Solar Spectrum Wave- 


Lengths. III.: H. A. Rowianp. 
The Modern Spectroscope: F. LL. O. WaAnDs- 
WORTH. 


Minor Contributions and Notes; Reviews; Re- 
cent Publications. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No, 12.. 


BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL 
SOCIETY, FEB. 

On a Certain Class of Canonical Forms = 
Raxpeu A. ROBERTS. : 

Hayward’s Vector Algebra: Maxime BOcHER. 

Apolar Triangles on a Conic: F. Morey. 

An Instance Where a Well-known Test to Prove 
the Simplicity of a Simple Group is Insufji- 
cient: GErorGE S. MILLER. 

Briefer Notices ; Notes ; New Publications. 


THE AMERICAN GEOLOGIST, MARCH. 
Development of the Corallum in Favosites forbesi, 
var. occidentalis: GEORGE H. Girry. 
Early Protozoa: G. F. Marranw. 
The Stratigraphic Base of the Taconic or Low- 
er Cambrian: N. H. WINCHELL. 
The Second Lake Algonquin: F. B. Taytor. 
Editorial Comment; Review of Recent Geologi-— 
cal Literature; Correspondence ; Personal 
and Scientific News. 


_ NEW BOOKS. 

Guide to the Study of Common Plants. VOLNEY 
M.Spatpinc. Boston, D. C. Heath & Co. 
1895. vii+ 294. j 

Government of the Colony of South Carolina. 
Epson L. Wuirney. Baltimore, The 
Johns Hopkins University Press. 1899. 
Pp. 121. 75 cents. 

Theoretical Chemistry. W. Nernst. Trans- 
lated by Charles Steele Palmer. London 
and New York, Macmillan & Co. 1895. 
Pp. xxv + 697. $5. 

Mechanics. Dynamics. R. 8. GLAZBBROOK. 
Cambridge University Press. New York, 
Maecmillian & Co. 1895. Pp. xii + 251. 
$1.25. 

Diary of a jowrney through Mongolia and Tibet. 
Wittram Woopvitte Rockaitn. Wash- 
ington, Smithsonian Institution. 1894, 
Pp. xx + 413. 

Nowious and Beneficial Insects of the State of 
Illinois. S. A. Forpes. Springfield, Til. 
1894. Pp. xi+ 165 + xii. 


SCIENCE. 


New SERIES. 
Vou. I. No. 15. 


Fripay, Marcu 29, 1895. 


SINGLE COPIES, 15 CTs. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00, 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


ANDERSSOHN, AUREL. Physikalische Principien 
der Naturlehre. 93 Seiten. 8°. M. 1.60. 

ARcHIV FUR ENTWICKLUNGSMECHANIK DER OR- 
GANISMEN. Herausgegeben von Prof. Wilhelm Roux. 
Erster Band, Erstes Heft. Mit 7 Tafeln und 6 Text— 
figuren, 160 Seiten. 8°. M. 10. 


BARRILLOT, ERNEST. Traité de Chimie Légale. 
Analyse Toxicologique. Recherches Spéciales, 356 
pages. 8°. Fr. 6.50. 

Busarp, Dr. ALFoNS und Dr. EDUARD BAIER. 
Hilfsbuch fiir’ Nahrungsmittelchemiker auf Grund- 
lage der Vorschriften, betreffend die Priifung der 
Nahrungsmittelchemiker. Mit in den Text gedriick- 
ten Abbildungen, 486 S. K1. 8°. Gebunden, M. 8. 
_DriescH, Hans. Analytische Theorie der orga- 
— Entwicklung. Mit 8 Textfiguren, 1848. 8°. 

5. 


DrupeE, P. Physik des Aethers auf elektromag- 
netischer Grundlage. 8°. Mit66 Abbildgn. Mk. 14. 


EPHRAIM, Dr. JuLiIus. Sammlung der wichtig- 

sten Original arbeiten iiber Analyse der Nahrungsmit- 

zusammengestellt und mit Anmerkungen verse- 
hen. 322S. Kl.8°.. M.6. 


_Fiscner, Pror. Dr. BERNHAKD und Dr. CARL 
BREBECK. Zur Morphologie, Biologie und Systema- 
tik der Kahmpilze, der Monilia candida Hansen und 
des Soorerregers. Mit 2Tafeln. 52S. Gr. 8°. M. 4. 
_GARNAULT, E. Mécanique, physique et chimie. 
Paris, 1894. 8°. Avec. 325 fig. 8 fr. 
_GRAWINKEL, C. und K. STrRECKER. Hilfsbuch 
fiir de Elektrotechnik. Unter Mitwirkung von Fink, 
er, Pirani, v. Renesse und Seyffert. Mit 
ahireichen Figuren im Text. Vierte vermehrte und 
Verbesserte Auflage. 670 S. Kl. 8° Gebunden. 
M. 12. 
Henn, Victor. Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere 
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linguistische Skizzen. Sechste Auflage neu herausge- 
geben von I. Schrader. Mit botanischen Beitriigen 
von A. Engler. 6258S. Gr. 8%. M. 12. 

Impert, ARMAND. Traité lémentaire de phy- 
sique biologique. Avec 399 figures dans le texte et 
une planche colorée. X. 1084 pp. in 8°. fr. 16. 
| Kapp, GISBERT. Dynamomaschinen fiir Gleich- 

_ und Wechselstrom und Transformatoren. Autorisirte 

e Ausgabe von Dr. L. Holborn und Dr. K. 

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Loos, Dr. A. Ueber den Bau von Distomum 
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Loew, Dr. E_ Bliitenbiologische Floristik des 
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MEYER, PROF. Dr. ERNST yON. Geschichte der 
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NEUREITER, FERDINAND. Die Vertheilung der 
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PSYCHOLOGISCHE ARBEITEN. Herausgegeben von 
Prof. Emil Kraepelin. Erster Band, 1 Heft. 208 
Seiten. 8° M. 5. 

RICHET, CHARLES. 
Tome premier, fasc. 1. 


Dictionnaire de physiologie. 
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RorHert, Dr. W. Ueber Heliotropismus. Mit 60 
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VoIcHt, Pror. Dr. WoLDEMAR. Kompendium 
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ii SCIENCE.—ADVERTISEMENTS. 


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ure the reader experiences as he is conducted through the strong, dignified, and courteous discussion. From a scientifie 
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of Species.’ It is indeed only an application of the laws of evolution there enounced; but it is so wide in survey, so pene- 
trating in its insight, so sustained and masterly in its argument, and so surprising in its conclusions, that for intellectual 
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Life of Adam Smith, author of «The | Steam-power and [lill=-work Principles 
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Steam and the Marine Steam Engine. neers. 12mo, Cloth, pp. 886. Price, $4.50, net. 
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cases useful forecasts are possible. The method is based chiefly on statistics of the observed condition of the 
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MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, 


SCIENCE. 


EpIToRIAL CoMMITTEE : S. NEwcoms, Mathematics ; R. S. WoopwARp, Mechanics ; E. C. PICKERING, As- 
tronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
JOSEPH LE ConTE, Geology; W. M. DAvis, Physiography; O. C. MArsu, Paleontology; W. K. 
Brooks, Invertebrate Zodlogy ; C. HART MERRIAM, Vertebrate Zodlogy ; N. L. Brrrron, 

Botany ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, General Biology ; H. P. Bownircu, Physiology ; 

J. S. Brniines, Hygiene ; J. McCKrEN CATTELL, Psychology ; 

DANIEL G. BRINTON, J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Fripay, Marci 29, 1895. 


CONTENTS: 


The Mesozoic Flora of Portugal compared with that 

of the United States: Lester F. WARD ...... 337 
Explanation of Acquired Immunity from Infectious 

Diseases: GEORGE M. STERNBERG.......... 346 
Remarking the Mexican Boundary: O.....--..+-. 349 
The Nature of Science and its Relation to Philosophy : 

BINA DCEIPTURE <2. 00... ss cece rinnccrees 350 
SSE SRS SS SO ava cRede 352 
MMMMREBDONGENCE > — 0. eece cece ecw escesee tes 353 


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THE MESOZOIC FLORA OF PORTUGAL COM- 
PARED WITH THAT OF THE UNITED 
STATES. 


HISTORICAL NOTICE. 
_ Tue earliest studies in the Mesozoic de- 
posits of Portugal seem to have been made 
by Mr. Daniel Sharpe, who read a paper 
before the Geological Society of London on 
April 11, 1832, describing certain beds in 
the vicinity of Lisbon and Oporto; in the 
former of which were included strata re- 


i 


ferred by him to the Oolite. On the 9th 
and 23d of January, 1839, he presented a 
second paper describing more fully the sec- 
ondary formations in the vicinity of Lisbon.* 
On November 21, 1849, Mr. Sharpe read 
still a third paper before the same society+ 
of a much more extended nature and de- 
voted entirely to the secondary formation. 
In this paper is a full list of all the fossils 
known down to that date carefully deter- 
mined by Mr. John Morris. Included in 
these was a single fossil plant regarded by 
Mr. Morris as a variety of a species of the 
Yorkshire Oolite called by Phillips Cycadites 
gramineus. It was found at Cape Mondego, 
and from this circumstance was given the 
varietal name Munde. As Mr. Morris re- 
ferred Phillips’ plant to the genus Zamites, 
the Portuguese plant was made to bear the 
name Zamites gramineus var. Munde. 

In 1858 Sr. Charles Ribeiro published a 
series of elaborate papers on the Geology of 
Portugal,{ treating chiefly of the Carbon- 
iferous; but in two of these$ he considers 
the Lias and Oolite, mentioning the plant 
above referred to from Cape Mondego and 


* Geol. Soc. Lond., Proc., Vol. I., p. 395; Vol. IL., 
p- 31; Trans., 2d Ser., Vol. VI., p. 115ff. 

tT Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., Vol. VI., pp. 135- 
201. 

t Mem. Acad. Real. Sci. de Lisboa, New Ser., Vol. 
Il. 

4 Mina de Carvdéo de Pedra do Cabo Mondego, do dis- 
tricto de Leiria; op. cit., Pt. Il., Third and Fourth 
Memoirs (these memoirs are separately paged ). 


338 


four other species from this and other local- 
ities. 

Meantime other collections were being 
made, and in 1880 M. Paul Choffat pub- 
lished a somewhat elaborate report on the 
geology of the Jurassic of Portugal* in which 
the fossil plants were considered as far as 
available. The collections were sent by 
Choftat to Professor Oswald Heer, and a 
preliminary report upon them was received 
in time to be inserted as an Addendum. 
Heer’s full report appeared a year later} and 
constitutes the first important contribution 
to the Mesozoic flora of Portugal. It also 
includes a large number of Tertiary plants. 
The horizons are here regarded as embra- 
cing : first, the Rhetic ; second, the Jurassic, 
subdivided into Lias, Oolite or Dogger, and 
Upper Jurassic or Malm; and third, the 
Cretaceous, which was largely compared 
with the Wealden of other parts of Europe. 
Heer found in these collections 5 Rhetic, 
18 Jurassic, and 23 Cretaceous forms. The 
Cretaceous plants consisted chiefly of ferns, 
eyeads and conifers, but two of them were 
referred to the monocotyledons. No traces 
of dicotyledons were discovered. 

M. Choffat continued his investigations 
and after Heer’s death sent the plant-im- 
pressions to the Marquis Saporta at Aix; 
the latter was greatly interested in them 
and published three preliminary reports.{ 
What specially attracted him was the pres- 
ence of certain peculiar forms from this 
Lower Cretaceous horizon that he regarded 
as prototypes of the existing dicotyledonous 


* Etude stratigraphique et Paléontologique des terrains 
Jurassiques du Portugal. Premiére livraison. Le Lias 
et le Dogger au Nord du Tage. Section des travaux 
géologiques du Portugal, Lisbonne, 1880. 

ft Contributions & la flore fossile dw Portugal par le 
Dr. Oswald Heer. Section des travaux géologiques 
du Portugal, Lisbonne, 1881. 

{ Comptes Rendus Acad. Sci. de Paris, Vol. CV1., 
May 28, 1888, pp. 1500-1504; CXI., December 1, 
1890, pp. 812-815 ; CXIII., August 3, 1891, pp. 249— 
203. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 13, 


flora. No dicotyledons had thus far been 
reported from any Lower Cretaceous deposit 
in Europe, and it had long been supposed 
that the Cenomanian was the earliest horizon 
at which this type existed. The several in- 
stalments embraced in these papers were 
from horizons in the Cretaceous, some of 
which were the same as those containing 
the plants described by Heer, while others 
were considerably higher. They contained 
a number of very remarkable forms, and the 
Marquis could not doubt that they repre- 
sented ancestral dicotyledons. The full re- 
port upon these interesting collections has 
been waited for with great impatience, espe- 
cially by American geologists familiar with 
our Potomac formation, in which the case is 
so nearly paralleled. In fact the present 
writer, having learned through correspond- 
ence with the Marquis that large collections 
were in his hands, and not knowing how 
soon his report would appear, was so de- 
sirous of learning more in regard to them 
that while in Europe during the past sum- 
mer, by previous arrangement with him 
and at his urgent request, he paid a visit to 

the veteran paleobotanist at Aix, in the — 
South of France, and through his extreme 
courtesy was not only permitted to examine 
these collections, but enjoyed the great favor 
of discussing with him a large number of 
the most interesting questions to which they 
give rise. It was then that he learned that 
the final report was already in press and 
would soon appear, and proof sheets of the 
text and plates were then in the possession 
of the author, so that it was possible to ex- 
amine the work in immediate connection 
with the specimens. This work has now 
appeared* and copies of it are in the 
hands of American geologists; but it may 


* Flore fossile du Portugal. Nouvelles contributions 
4 la flore Mésozoique par le Marquis Saporta. Ac- 
compagnées d’ une notice stratigraphique par Paul 
Choffat. (Avec 40 planches.) Direction des travaux 
géologiques du Portugal, Lisbonne, 1894. 


short of covering the 


MARCH 29, 1895.] 


as well be stated here that although a large 


and voluminous report containing 280 


quarto pages and 39 plates, it still comes far 
material that is now 
in the author’s hands. The collections were 
sent to him in instalments almost every year 
and are still arriving, but it was necessary 
to fix some limit to the publication, which 
was closed at a certain date and the work 
sent to press, since which time other col- 
lections have been received, which were also 
earefully examined on that occasion at the 
Chateau of Fonscolombe, the country. resi- 
dence of the Marquis, 16 kilometers north 
of Aix, and upon which he was at the time 


actively engaged. These will be reported 
upon in a subsequent memoir. 


The re- 
markable parallelism between the plant 


bearing deposits of the west coast of Portugal 


and those of the eastern part of the United 
States, and especially between the Lower 
Cretaceous of Portugal and our Potomac 


formation, gives an especial interest to this 


é 


memoir. 
THE JURASSIC FLORA. 
Iy America there is a decided time hiatus 


‘between the lowest Potomac beds and the 
next plant bearing horizon below, which is 


now regarded as belonging to the extreme 
Upper Triassic and as about the equivalent 
of the Keuper deposits of Lunz, in Austria.* 


In Portugal, on the contrary, there appear 


to be no plant bearing horizons in the Trias 


‘proper, but in the Jurassic, which is ab- 
Sent in this country, a considerable num- 


ber of such deposits have been found. M. 
‘Choffat, who prepared the geological part of 
‘this memoir, follows as closely as possible 
the nomenclature of the French geologists, 


and itis found that plant bearing horizons 


oceur in the Infralias, part of which may 
be as low as the Rhetic, and some of which 


is referred to the Sinemurian ; in the Lias; 


in several of the properly vita beds 


*See Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. IIT, 1891, p. 31. 


SCIENCE. 


339 


(Toarecian, Bajocian, Callovian, ete.); 
several members of the Corallian; in the 
Kimmeridgian, and in the Portlandian. 
The Jurassic deposits of Portugal consist of 
sandstones and limestones, the former pre- 
dominating below; and while all of them 
may not be of marine origin, so large a part 
is fossiliferous that by the aid of the careful 
stratigraphical investigations of the Portu- 
guese geologist it is possible to fix the posi- 
tion of the plant beds with relation to 
those holding animal remains, a fact which 
is of the utmost importance in deter- 
mining the validity of the evidence of 
fossil plants in such countries as Amer- 
ica, where, for the most part, no such guide 
exists. 

The Jurassic flora of Portugal, as em- 
braced in the present memoir and in that 
of Heer already mentioned, consists of 122 
species, of which 22 are Infralias, 1 Lias, 8 
Oolite, 8 Corallian and 88 Kimmeridgian. 
It is subdivided into 6 Algze, 6 Equiseta, 
70 ferns, 7 Cyeads, 24 Conifers and 9 Mo- 
nocotyledons. Of the ferns, which so largely 
predominate, 27 species belong to the genus 
Sphenopteris, 8 to Cladophlebis, 8 to Scler- 
opteris, and 4 each to Pecopteris and Hyme- 
nophyllites. Of the conifers, which come 
next in importance, 5 belong to Pagiophyl- 
lum, 4 to Brachyphyllum, and 3 to Thuyites. 
The cycads belong to the two genera Podo- 
zamites and Otozamites. Seven of the Mo- 
nocotyledons consist of small blades and 
culms of grasses, grouped under the genus 
Poacites. 

A comparison of this Jurassic flora with 
that of the American Trias reveals the fact 
that while only 3 species, Cheirolepis Miin- 
steri, Pagiophyllum peregrinum and Palissya 
Brownii, are common to the two, there are 
14 genera that occur in both. In the num- 
ber of species the two floras as now known 
are almost equal, that of the American 
Trias numbering 119, while that of the Por- 
tuguese Jurassic numbers 122. It is there- 


340 


fore important to note in what proportions 
these 14 genera occur in the two floras: 


GENERA COMMON TO AMERICAN TRIAS AND JU- 
RASSIC OF PORTUGAL. 


NUMBER OF SPECIES. 
GENERA. 


AMERICAN 
TRIAS. 


JURASSIC OF 
PORTUGAL. 


Balerae nein 
Brachyphyllum .. . 
Cheirolepis .. . . . 
Chondrites. .... 
Cladophlehis . 

Clathropteris . 

Equisetum 
Otozamites. .... 
Pagiophyllum 

Palissya.. ..... 
Pecopteris 
Podozamites .. . . 
Schizoneura.. ... 
Voltzia 


~~ 


FR OlLW Hd DB OW FW OO 
WRWHWOWOR Dee oe 


When we consider that the two horizons 
do not at all overlap and that more than 
three-fourths of the Portuguese plants come 
from the uppermost members of the Juras- 
sic, it is not to be expected that the corre- 
spondence will be very close; and accord- 
ingly we not only miss in the Portuguese 
flora some of the largest American genera, 
such as Acrostichites, Ctenophyllum, and 
Pterophyllum, but also some of the most 
striking and abundant forms, such as Macro- 
teeniopteris, while on the other hand no 
monocotyledons occur in the American 
Trias so far as known, and the two largest 
genera of ferns in the Portuguese Jurassic, 
Sphenopteris and Scleropteris, are entirely 
wanting in the American Trias. 


THE CRETACEOUS FLORA. 


THE Cretaceous flora of Portugal has 
much greater interest for the student of 
American paleobotany than the Jurassic 
flora, which has just been considered. 
First, because, as now known, it is consid- 
erably larger, numbering 199 species, but 
chiefly because we have in America a large 
number of plant bearing deposits that cor- 
respond so closely with those of Portugal 
that a comparison may be legitimately 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 13. 


made that furnishes valuable results. It is 
true that our American Lower Cretaceous 
flora has now been so extensively worked 
that it has assumed relatively large propor- 
tions, numbering, so far as known, over 
800 species. The Potomac formation alone 
furnishes no less than 737. The interest is 
still further heightened by the fact that in 
the Lower Cretaceous of both Portugal and 
America, the plant bearing beds occur at a 
number of distinct horizons, which may not 
without profit be directly compared in the 
two countries. For example, the Potomae 
formation now furnishes at least five distinet 
horizons from which fossil plants have been 
obtained, the lowest being that of the James 
River, which may extend as low as the top 
of the Jurassic. The next higher is that so 
well known at Fredericksburg, Virginia, 
and other points on the Rappahannock and 
Potomac Rivers. The third is the Mount 
Vernon clays which directly overlie the 
last named and have furnished a distinet 
flora. The fourth is well developed in the 
vicinity of Aquia Creek, the plant bearing 
beds near Brooke, Virginia. The fifth is 


undoubtedly much higher, and there appears — 


to be a considerable thickness of non-fossil- 
iferous deposits intervening between the 
last named and those plant bearing beds 
that have been discovered on the eastern 
side of the District of Columbia and at 
other points near Washington, on the 
Severn River, and on the Eastern Shore of 
the Chesapeake Bay, which have furnished a 
flora substantially identical with that of 
the Amboy clays on the Raritan River and 
of Staten Island, Long Island and Mar- 
thas Vineyard, as well as of the Tuscaloosa 
formation of Alabama. 

The Lower Cretaceous of Portugal is sub- 
divided into a very similar series of plant 
bearing deposits. One locality, Valle-de- 
Brouco, is referred by Choffat to the In- 
fravalanginian, which is at the very base of 
the Neocomian and corresponds well with 


| 


: 


MARCH 29, 1895. ] 


our James River series. An important 
plant bearing locality between Matta and 
Valle-de-Lobos is regarded as Valanginian 
or Neocomian. It may be compared with 
the Fredericksburg beds of the Potomac 
formation. The beds of Almargem, which 
have furnished many species, overlie the 
recognized Urgonian and probably belong 
to the upper portion of that subdivision, 
or possibly to the base of the next 
one called by the French geologists the 
Aptian. It corresponds quite closely with 
the Kome beds of Greenland and may be 
compared with the Mount Vernon clays of 
the Potomac formation, though it is probably 
higher. Then there isa series of beds in 
the vicinity of Torres-Vedras, viz., at S. 
Sebastiao, Quinta-da-Fonte-Nova, Forea, 
Quinta-do-Chafariz, Portella-da-Villa, ete., 
and another series in the vicinity of Cercal 
and Zambujeiro, which are classed as Aptian, 
between which and the last named there is 
a considerable interval, including marine 
deposits belonging to the Urgonian. Cer- 
tain other beds, as at Caixaria and Caran- 
guejeira, are less definitely fixed geologic- 
ally, but probably belong to about the same 
horizon. The Aptian of the French geolo- 
gists lies between the Urgonian below and 
the Albian above, and corresponds in the 
main with the lower Greensand of England. 
It may be compared with those deposits of 
the Potomac formation near Aquia Creek 
ealled the Brooke beds by Professor Fon- 
taine, which have yielded a large number of 
fossil plants, including such well-marked 
dicotyledons as Celastrophyllum and Sapin- 
dophyllum. 

_ Above these beds there is an abundant 
plant locality at Buarcos, which is classed 
as Albian, and still higher others at Naza- 
reth, Aleanede and Monsanto, also regarded 
as Albian, but as belonging to that upper- 
most member called Vraconnian. The Al- 
bian corresponds in a general way with the 
Gault and is the uppermost section of the 


>» 
~ 


SCIENCE. 


541 


Lower Cretaceous, the overlying beds being 
Cenomanian, which is the lowest subdivision 
of the Upper Cretaceous. These Albian 
plant bearing beds may be roughly compared 
with what has been called in America the 
Amboy clays, but which has recently been 
more correctly named by Professor William 
B. Clark the Raritan formation. In Amer- 
ica, as in Portugal, this deposit may also be 
divided into two parts, a lower and an upper, 
the former consisting of the beds along the 
Raritan, which themselves have a consider- 
able thickness and show marked changes in 
the flora, while to the latter belong the de- 
posits on Staten Island, Long Island and 
Martha’s Vineyard, which have yielded 
large collections chiefly from indurated no- 
dules formed in red clay. 

Finally, in the Valley of Alcantara, at 
Padro, Pombal and Villa-Verde-de-Tentu- 
gal, there are plant bearing beds belonging 
tothe Cenomanian. It is possible that these 
latter may not be higher than those of Long 
Island and Gay Head. 

The floras of the several horizons in the 
Lower Cretaceous of Portugal differ less in 
their abundance than those of the Jurassic; 
the largest is that of the Valanginian, 
amounting to 86 species or over 43 per cent.; 
the Urgonian has yielded only 25 species or 
12 per cent., the Aptian 42 species or a little 
more than 21 per cent., the Lower Albian 
58 species or over 25 per cent., and the Up- 
per Albian or Vraconnian 28 species or 14 
per cent. The striking coincidence of the 
parallelism between these horizons and those 
of the Potomac formation in America is still 
further heightened by the circumstance, ac- 
cidental perhaps, that the numerical pro- 
portion existing between the species now 
known at the corresponding horizons in 
America is very nearly thesame. The Basal 
Potomac, corresponding to the Vraconnian, 
has yielded 329 species or a little over 44 
per cent.; the Mount Vernon clays, which 
were compared with the Urgonian, 42 species 


342 


or somewhat less than 6 per cent.; the Aquia 
Creek beds, corresponding to the Aptian, 137 
species or rather more than 18 per cent.; 
the Raritan beds and their equivalents, com- 
pared to the lower Albian, 264 species or 
nearly 36 per cent.; and the uppermost beds 
of Marthas Vineyard, Long Island and 
Staten Island, which may be called the 
Island Series and compared to the Vraconni- 
an, 183 species or 18 per cent. These results 
may be put in the following tabular form : 


LOWER CRETACEOUS OF | POTOMAC FORMATION OF 
PORTUGAL. THE UNITED STATES. 
“ PER PER 
HORIZONS. aia HORIZONS. Cant 
Vraconnian . . ./ 14 | Island series. . .} 18 
Lower Albian . .| 29 | Amboy Clays, etc..| 36 
Aquia Creek 
Aptian. .... 2 (Brooke) Series.| 18 
Urgonian ..../| 12 | Mt. Vernon Clays.| 6 
James and Rappa- 
Neocomian.. ..| 43 vhannock Series .| 44 


It will be remembered that the Mount 
Vernon clays have been very little devel- 
oped as: yet, and when this florula is thor- 
oughly known it will probably fully equal 
that of the Almargem beds of Portugal, rel- 
atively to the total Potomac flora. 

Taking the Cretaceous flora of Portugal 
as a whole, exclusive of the Cenomanian, it 
is found to consist of 4 alge, 1 species of 
Isoetes, 3 of Lycopodites, 1 of Equisetum, 
80 of ferns, 15 of cycads, 26 of conifers, 4 of 
anomalous types, classed by the author un- 
der the head of Proangiosperms, 18 of mo- 
nocotyledons, 41 of dicotyledons, and 6 of 
forms of uncertain affinity. 

It will be seen that as in the Jurassic, so 
in the Cretaceous the ferns predominate ; 
and of these, 32 species belong to the genus 
Sphenopteris and 10 to Cladophlebis; 7 of 
the eycads belong to the genus Podozamites, 
and 3 to Glossozamites. “The conifers are 
much more evenly distributed, there being 
4 species of Brachyphyllum, and 3 each of 
Sphenolepidium and Thuyites, while a large 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S.. Vou. I. No. 13. 


number of genera have only one or two 
species ; among these are Abietites, Baiera, 


Cheirolepis, Frenelopsis, Pagiophyllum, 
Paleeocyparis, Paleolepis, Sequoia and 
Widdringtonites. The genera referred to 


the Proangiosperms are Changarniera, Eo- 
lirion, Yuccites, Delgadopsis and Protor- 
hipis, some of which will require special 
mention further on. Half of the monocot- 
yledons consist of grass-like objects referred 
to poacites, some of which he classes under 
the Proangiosperms, and others as true mo- 
nocotyledons. The dicotyledonous flora is 
here well developed, but most of the forms 
occur in the Albian. Seven species are refer- 
red to a new genus, Proteophyllum, a name 
too near Protophyllum of Lesquereux, and 
Protezephyllum of Fontaine, but the forms 
are different from both these; 4 to the new 
genus Dicotylophyllum, ana 3 each to 
Eucalyptus and Salix. 

In comparing the Cretaceous flora of 
Portugal with that of America it is true 
that we only find a few species that are 
common to the two countries, really only 
five, as follows: 

Pecopteris Brauniana Dunk. 

Sphenolepidium Kurrianum (Dunk.) 
Heer. 

Sphenolepidium Sternbergianum (Dunk. ) 
Heer. ; 

Sphenopteris Mantelli Brongn. 

Sphenopteris valdensis Heer, 
the last of which only occurs doubtfully in 
the Trinity of Texas. 

Add to these Sequoir subulata, of which a 
‘very near variety lusitanica, has been found 
in the Portuguese beds. : 

We should not, of course, expect the 
species to be common to any great extent, 
and the comparison is practically limited to 
the genera. Looked at from this point of 
view, we see that the resemblance is indeed 
close, a great number of the important 
genera occurring in both floras. There are — 
no less than 46 of these common to the two, 


: 


: 


7 


MARCH 29, 1895. ] 


though in some cases the author’s indi- 
viduality is probably alone responsible for 
slight differences of termination in the 
names. For example, forms referred to 
Baiera by one would be referred to Baieri- 
opsis by the other, and so with Ctenis and 
Ctenidium, Myrsine and Myrsinophyllum, 
Oleandra and Oleandridium, Salix and 
Saliciphyllum, Thuya and Thuyites, ete. 
Many of these genera, when we consider 
the difference in the size of the two floras, 
occur in both countries in nearly the same 
proportion. For example, of Aralia we 


have in Portugal 2 species, in America 11; of 


Brachyphyllum, in Portugal 4, in America 
9; of Cladophlebis, in Portugal 10, in 
America 25 ; of Frenelopsis, in Portugal 2, 
in America 6; of Laurus, in Portugal 2, in 
America 8; of Myrica, in Portugal 2, in 
America 11; of Podozamites, in Portugal 
7, in America 15; of Sphenolepidium, in 
Portugal 3, in America 9, ete. There are, 
of course, some cases in which the propor- 
tion isnot the same. Thus, only one species 
of Magnolia occurs in the Portuguese beds, 
while in America we have 12, and on the 
other hand the largest Portuguese genus, 
Sphenopteris, represented there by 32 
species, counts in America only 8 species. 
But here it may be supposed that the true 
representative in America of the Sphenop- 
teris type of Portugal is really that exceed- 
ingly abundant genus Thyrsopteris, which 
numbers 40 species in the American beds. 
This would restore the relative proportions. 
On the whole, then, it may be considered 
that the Lower Cretaceous flora of Portu- 
gal is botanically speaking a very close rep- 
etition of that of America; and in view 
of the fact that in both countries a number 
of distinct horizons showing the progressive 


_ change in the flora throughout that period 
_ haye yielded fossil plants in such a way 


that each of these florules may also be com- 
pared, the interest in the subject is almost 
fascinating. 


- 
) 
ae 


SCIENCE. 343 


ARCHETYPAL ANGIOSPERMS. 


Spacek will only permit the consideration 
of one other important aspect, viz., a com- 
parison of the dicotyledonous forms in the 
two countries, together with those ancestral 
types which the Marquis Saporta regards as 
prophetic of that great group of plants. 
This last question may be considered first. 
He finds among the specimens certain 
forms which he refers to the genus Protor- 
hipis of Andre. This genus was founded 
in 1855 upon some remarkable forms from 
the Lias of Steierdorf in Banat, Hungary,* 
which Andre regarded as a fern and placed 
under the Pecopteridex. He compares it 
with Jeanpaulia, which has since been 
proved identical with Baiera and correctly 
referred to the Conifers; also to Cyclop- 
teris, Comptopteris, Diplodictyum, and 
Thaumatopteris, among fossils, and to 
Platycerium, among living ferns. 

When I first saw the figure of his Pro- 
torhipis Buchii, I had grave doubts of its 
being a fern and fully believed that it rep- 
resented some higher type of vegetation. I 
am,therefore, not surprised that the Marquis 
Saporta has arrived at the same conclusion, 
and am highly gratified that he has had 
the courage to give it publicity, notwith- 
standing the fact that Schimper, Schenk, 
Heer and Nathorst have all been content to 
regard it as a fern of the type of Drynaria, 
Platycerium, Allosorus, Clathropteris and 
the other living and fossil forms already 
mentioned. 

In 1865 Zigno discovered another species, 
which, however, differs in a marked man- 
ner from the original of Andrx, having the 
margin entire. It isa small, deeply kidney- 
shaped leaf resembling that of some species 
of Asarum and was named P. asarifolia. 
This comes from the Oolite of Italy.+ 


*Lias-Flora von Steierdorf im Banate, by C. J. 
Andre, Abhandl. geol. Reichsanst., Vol. II., Abth. 
3, No. 4, 1855, pp. 35-36, pl. vili., fig. 1. 

+ Fl. Foss. Form. Oolithice, Vol. I, 1865, p. 180, 
pl. ix., fig. 2, 2a. 


344 


The forms described by Nathorst in 
1878,* though much smaller are otherwise 
similar to P. Buchii, and Nathorst at first 
proposed to refer one of them to that spe- 
cies, but later concluded that it was dis- 
tinct and made two species, P. integrifolia 
and P. crenata. j 

In 1880 Heer described another small 
cordate form from the Oolite of Siberia. It 
is similar to Zigno’s species and was named 
P. reniformis.t Two years later, however, 
he found another similar form in the Kome 
beds, Urgonian, which is rather cordate 
than reniform and which he called P. cor- 
data.{ Both these forms have the margin 
entire. 

Saporta in this work has revised all these 
forms and comes to the conclusion that 
they cannot be ferns, and although the 
original P. Buchii and both of Nathorst’s 
species so closely resemble dicotyledonous 
leaves and are somewhat comparable in 
nervation to Credneria and some fossil Vi- 
burnums, as well as to such living genera as 
Glechoma and Chrysosplenium, still he hes- 
itates to class them in that group. He has 
carefully refigured both of Nathorst’s speci- 
mens, and also one that Nathorst figured 
without naming but regarded as probably 
a monocotyledon, but which Saporata con- 
siders to belong to the same type and calls 
P. Nathorstti. And these he carefully com- 
pares with the Portuguese form which he 
names P. Choffati, and classes the whole in 
special group which he long ago created and 
denominated the Proangiosperms, as repre- 
senting the forerunners of both the mono- 
cotyledons and dicotyledons. The Portu- 
guese species comes from Cercal, which 
Choffat places in the Aptian; it is therefore 
probably somewhat higher than the Kome 


*FI. Bjuf. Heft 1, p. 42; Heft 2, p. 57, pl. ix., 
figs. 2, 4. 

T Fl. Foss. Arct., Vol. VI., Abth. 1, Pt. 1, p. 8, 
pl. 1, fig. 4a. 

tIbid., Abth. 2, p. 11, pl. iii, fig. 11. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 13. 


beds of Greenland from which Heer de- 
rives one of his species ; all the others, of 
course, are of far more ancient origin, viz., 
Jurassic, and it is not to be wondered at 
that no one should have ventured to refer 
them to any modern type. 

Of the other four genera referred to this 
group, viz., Changarniera, Yuccites, Delga- 
dopsis and Eolirion, the first two come 
from the Valanginian (Neocomian) of S. 
Sebatiao, the third from the Aptian of Cer- 
cal, and the last from the Albian of Buar- 
cos. They all seem to be ancestral mono- 
cotyledons. Delgadopsis occurs in two 
forms: first, as a sort of culm or broad stri- 
ate stem; and secondly,in the form of a 
jointed rhizome, the swollen joints emitting 
innumerable rootlets, which, when absent, 
leave peculiar scars. 

Choffatia Francheti, regarded by the author 
as a dicotyledon, is also a very remarkable 
plant, and has been aptly compared by him 
to certain euphorbiaceous forms, such as 
Phyllanthus. It also resembles some 
species of Euphorbia. It seems to be a 
floating aquatic, and specimens with the 
fibrous roots occur in the collection. In 
some of these descending fibers occupy one 
side of the stem or rachis, while the floating 
or aerial leaves occupy the other. 

Upon the whole, it cannot be said that any 
of these higher types, found below the 
Albian, and corresponding in age to our mid- 
dle and older Potomae, very closely resemble 
the plants of the same general class from 
the American beds of that age, and yet there 
are certain Potomac forms referred by Pro- 
fessor Fontaine to Menispermites, Hedere- 
phyllum, Protezephyllum and Populophyl- 
lum, whose areolate nervation somewhat re- 
sembles that of Protorhipis Chojfati. The 
new genus Dicotylophyllum, of which he 
finds four species in the Aptian of Cereal, 
and which he very properly regards as a 
true dicotyledon, somewhat resembles the 
Protorhipis, but lacks the peculiar areolate 


~~ — 


MARCH 29, 1895. ] 


nervation. These leavesare all quite small, 
but show a somewhat distinct midrib, and 
usually 2-4 lateral primaries. In form they 
recall some species of Vitis or Cissities, and 
D. cerciforme, while not resembling Cercis, 
as the specific name would imply, has many 
of the characteristics of Hedera. It may be 
roughly compared with Professor Fontaine’s 
Vitiphyllum from the Potomac of Baltimore, 
and except in size D. hederaceum and D. 
corrugatum are fairly comparable with Pop- 
ulophyllum reniforme (cf. Fl. Pot., pl. elvi., 
f. 3). 

In the Albian beds of Buarcos, and es- 
pecially in the Vraconnian of Nazareth, we 
begin to find some of the higher types. 
But the genus Proteophyllum has still a 
very ancient appearance with a more or 
less areolate neryation. It is a narrowly 


- lobed leaf, remotely recalling in its general 


form some species of Dewalquea. It may 
be possible to trace this form into his Aralia 
calomorpha from the same beds. His Adowxa 


_ preatavia is a very peculiar plant, which 


also reminds one of Vitiphyllum Font., al- 
though none of the species of the latter ge- 


nus which show the branching character 


have yet been figured. His Braseniopsis ve- 
nulosa has some of the characteristics of 
Protophyllum of Lesquereux, but is usually 
smaller and always entire; the nervation is 
also different, except at the base of the leaf, 
which has a large expansion below the sum- 
mit of the petiole, as in Protophyllum. 
Myrsinophyllum revisendum will doubtles have 
to be revised. It is much like Potomac 
forms that have been referred to Myrica (e. 
g., M. brookensis) and Celastrophyllum. It 
is entirely different from the Myrsine bore- 
alis of Heer, which, with two other species, 
occur in the Amboy clays and Tuscaloosa 
formation. His Geranium lucidum is an ex- 
eeedingly definite and handsome form, but 
it is hard to separate it generically from his 
Cissites sinuosus, and all of these seem to be 
analogous to our Vitiphyllum. His Menis- 


i 


SCIENCE. 345 


permites cercidifolius, though much smaller, 
is not unlike Professor Fontaine’s M. Vir- 
giniensis, especially the smaller forms which 
I have found in the Mt. Vernon clays. His 
Aralia proxima can scarcely be distinguished 
from M, Wellingtoniana of the Dakota group, 
more common in the Newer Potomac. 

It is only in the Nazareth beds ( Vracon- 
nian) that we find the typical Amboy Clay 
flora. Here we have the Eucalyptus, 
Laurus (Laurophyllum), Salix, Myrsino- 
phyllum, Sapindophyllum, ete., some of 
which are probably specifically identical 
with forms described by Newberry, and it 
is altogether probable that if the post- 
humous work of Dr. Newberry, now in 
press, had been in the hands of the present 
author a large number of the species would 
have been identified with American forms. 

I will only notice one other significant 
fact. In the Cenomanian beds which over- 
lie these last, as it would seem unconform- 
ably, but which may not be so widely 
separated from them as has been supposed, 
there occurs a large elongated leaf which 
the Marquis has called Chondrophyton lace- 
ratum. It agrees only in its finer nervation 
with C. dissectum Sap. and Mar., the only 
other species.* It has a very delicate 
nervation with small polygonal meshes, and 
an entire paryphodrome margin, but the 
remarkable fact is that it seems to have a 
deeply retuse summit. It is evident that 
from the specimen the author was unable 
to make this latter out with certainty ; but 
he has drawn the marginal lines so as dis- 
tinetly to indicate it. So desirous was he 
that this leaf snould be correctly repre- 
sented that he has given us two interpre- 
tations from drawings made at different 
times, figs. 4, 5 of pl. xxxvili. He states 
that he considers figure 5 to represent the 
form better than figure 4 ; and it is in this 

*L. Evolution du Régne Végétal. Par Saporta et 


Marion. Les Phan¢érogames, Vol. II., Paris, 1885, p. 
120, fig. 126. 


346 | 


that the terminal lobation is most clearly 
shown. A comparison of this figure with 
the numerous specimens of Liriodendropsis 
simplex of Newberry leaves no doubt what- 
ever that the Portuguese plant is at least a 
congener of the American plant, and it is 
just possible that it may belong to the same 
species. As this form has been three times 
published* it is a little surprising that 
Saporta did not think to compare it with 
the Portuguese plant. There are differences 
in the finer nervation, but this is also per- 
ceptible between bis two drawings of the 
same specimen ; these also differ in different 
specimens of the American plant, and one 
or two other species remain to be published. 
When all the material is illustrated most 
of these differences will disappear. If any 
remain it can be ascribed to difference of 
age and geographical position. 
Lester F. Warp. 
W ASHINGTON. 


EXPLANATION OF ACQUIRED IMMUNITY 
FROM INFECTIOUS DISEASES.+ 

Ir has long been known that, in a con- 
siderable number of infectious diseases, a 
single attack, however mild, affords protec- 
tion against subsequent attacks of the same 
disease ; that in some cases this protection 
appears to be permanent, lasting during the 
life of the individual ; that in others it is 
more or less temporary, as shown by the 
occurrence of a subsequent attack. 

The protection afforded by a single attack 
not only differs in different diseases, but in 
the same disease varies greatly in different 
individuals. Thus certain individuals have 
been known to suffer several attacks of 
small-pox or of scarlet fever, although, as a 

* Bull. Torr. Bot. Club, Vol. XIV., New York, 
Jan. 1887, p. 6, pl. lxii, figs. 2, 3,4; Am. Journ. 
Sci., Vol. XXXIX., New Haven, February, 1890, p. 
98, pl. ii., figs. 6, 7: Trams. N. Y. Acad, Sci., Vol. 
XI., 1892, p. 102, pl. ii., figs. 2-7, 9. 

{ Abstract of a paper read before the Biological 
Society of Washington, March 9, 1895. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 13. 


rule, a single attack is protective. Excep- 
tional susceptibility or insusceptibility may 
be not only an individual but a family char- 
acteristic, or it may belong to a particular — 
race. 

In those diseases in which second attacks 
are not infrequent, as, for example, in pneu- 
monia, in influenza or in Asiatic cholera, 
it is difficult to judge from clinical experi- 
ence whether a first attack exerts any pro- 
tective influence. But from experiments 
upon the lower animals, we are led to be- 
lieve that a certain degree of immunity, 
lasting for a longer or shorter time, is af- 
forded by an attack of pneumonia or of 
cholera, and probably of all infections due 
to bacterial parasites. In the malarial 
fevers, which are due to a parasite of a 
different class, one attack affords no pro- 
tection, but rather predisposes to a subse- 
quent attack. 

In those diseases in which a single at- 
tack is generally recognized as being pro- 
tective, exceptional cases occur in which 
subsequent attacks are developed as a re- 
sult of unusual susceptibility or exposure 
under circumstances especially favorable to 
infection. Maiselis has recently (1894) 
gone through the literature accessible to 
him for the purpose of. determining the fre- 
quency with which second attacks occur in 
the various diseases below mentioned. The 
result is as follows: 


Second Third Fourth 

Attacks. Attacks. Attacks. Total. 
Small-pox .. 505 9 0 514 
Scarlet fever . 29 4 0 33 
Measles ... 36 1 0 37 
Typhoid fever. 202 5 1 208 
Cholera .. . 29 3 2 34 


Recent researches indicate that the prin- 
cipal factor in the production of acquired 
immunity is the presence, in the blood of 
the immune animal, of some substance ca- 
pable of neutralizing the toxic products of 
the particular pathogenic microdrganism 


MARCH 29, 1895.] 


against which immunity exists, or of de- 
stroying the germ itself. 

The substances which destroy the toxic 
products of pathogenic bacteria are called 
antitoxins. As pointed out by Buchner in a 
recent paper, the antitoxins differ essentially 
from the so-called alexins, to which natural 
immunity is ascribed. The alexins are char- 
acterized by their germicidal and globulici- 
dal action—they destroy both the red cor- 
puscles and the leucocytes of animals belong- 

ing to a different species from that from 
which they have been obtained, and by 
their coagulability and _ instability — de- 
stroyed by sunlight and by a temperature 
of 50° to 55° C. On the other hand, the 
antitoxins best known (diphtheria and te- 
tanus) have no germicidal or globulicidal 
action ; they resist the action of sunlight 
and require a temperature of 70° to 80° C. 
for their destruction. 

Our knowledge of the antitoxins dates 
from the experiments made in the Hygienic 
Institute of Tokio, by Ogata and Jasuhara, 
in 1890. These bacteriologists discovered 
the important fact that the blood of an 
animal immune against anthrax contains 
some substance which neutralizes the toxic 
products of the anthrax bacillus. 

In the same year (1890) Behring and 
Kitasato discovered that the blood of an 
animal which has an acquired immunity 
against tetanus or diphtheria, when added 
to a virulent culture of one or the other of 
these bacilli, neutralizes the pathogenic 
power of such cultures, as shown by inocu- 
lation into susceptible animals. And also 
that cultures from which the bacilli have 
been removed by filtration, and which kill 
susceptible ariimals in very small amounts, 
have their toxic potency destroyed by adding 
to them the blood of an immune animal, 
which is thus directly proved to contain an 
antitoxin which comparative experiments 
show not to be present in the blood of non- 

_ immune animals. 


r 
i 


SCIENCE. 347 


During the past two or three years nu- 
merous additional experiments have been 
reported which confirm the results already 
referred to, and show that immunity may 
be produced in a similar manner against the 
toxie products of various other pathogenic 
bacteria—the typhoid bacillus, the ‘ colon 
bacillus,’ streptococcus pyogenes, staphylo- 
coecus pyogenes aureus and albus, ete. 

The Italian investigators, Tizzoni and 
Centanni, in 1892, published a preliminary 
communication in which they gave the re- 
sults of experiments which appear to show 
that in guinea-pigs treated with tuberculin, 
by Koch’s method, a substance is devel- 
oped which neutralizes the pathogenic po- 
tency of the tubercle bacillus. Professor 
Tizzoni and his associate, Dr. Schwarz, have 
also (1892) obtained evidence that there is 
an antitoxin of rabies. Blood-serum taken 
from a rabbit having an artificial immunity 
against this disease was found to neutralize, 
in vitro, the virulence of the spinal marrow of 
a rabid animal after a contact of five hours. 

Professor Ehrlich, of Berlin, in 1891, 
published the results of some researches 
which have an important bearing upon the 
explanation of acquired immunity, and 
which show that susceptible animals may 
be made immune against the action of cer- 
tain toxic proteids of vegetable origin, 
other than those produced by bacteria ; 
also that this immunity depends upon the 
presence of an antitoxin in the blood-serum 
of the immune animals. 

The experiments of Ehrlich were made 
with two very potent toxalbumins—one 
ricin, from the castor-oil bean ; the other, 
abrin, from the jequirity bean. The toxic 
potency of ricin is somewhat greater than 
that of abrin, and it is estimated by Ehr- 
lich that 1 gm. of this substance would suf- 
fice to kill one and a half million of guinea- 
pigs. When injected beneath the skin in 
dilute solution it produces intense local in- 
flammation, resulting in necrosis. Mice are 


348 


less susceptible than guinea-pigs, and are 
more easily made immune. This is most 
readily accomplished by giving them small 
and gradually increasing doses with their 
food. As a result of this treatment the 
animal resists subcutaneous injections of 
200 to 300 times the fatal dose for animals 
not having this artificial immunity. 

Ehrlich gives the following explanation 
of the remarkable degree of immunity es- 
tablished in his experiments by the method 
mentioned : 

“All of these phenomena depend, as may easily 
be shown, upon the fact that the blood contains a 
body—antiabrin—which completely neutralizes the 
action of the abrin, probably by destroying this 
body.”’ 


In a later paper (1892) Ehrlich has given 
an account of subsequent experiments which 
show that the young of mice which have an 
acquired immunity for these vegetable tox- 
albumins may acquire immunity from the 
ingestion of their mother’s milk; and also 
thatimmunity from tetanus may be acquired 
in a brief time by young mice through their 
mother’s milk. 

A most interesting question presents it- 
self in connection with the discovery of the 
antitoxins. Does.the animal which is im- 
mune from the toxie action of any particu- 
lar toxalbumin also have an immunity for 
other toxic proteids of the same class? The 
experimental evidence on record indicates 
that it does not. In Ehrlich’s experiments 
with ricin and abrin he ascertained that an 
animal which had been made immune 
against one of these substances was quite as 
susceptible to the toxic action of the other 
as if it did not possess this immunity, 7. e., 
the anti-toxin of ricin does not destroy 
abrin, and vice versa. 

We have also experimental evidence that 
animals may acquire a certain degree of 
immunity from the toxie action of the 
venom of the rattlesnake. This was first 
demonstrated by Sewall (1887), and has 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 13. 


been recently confirmed by Calmette (1894). 
In his paper detailing the results of his 
experiments the author last named says: 

“Animals may be immunized against the venom of- 
serpents either by means of repeated injections of 
doses at first feeble and progressively stronger, or by 
means of successive injections of venom mixed with 
certain chemical substances, among which I mention 
especially chloride of gold and the hypochlorites of 
lime or soda. 

“The serum of animals thus treated is at the same 
time preventive, antitoxic and therapeutic, exactly 
as is that of animals immunized against diphtheria or 
tetanus. 

“Tf we inoculate a certain number of rabbits, un- 
der the skin of the thigh, with the same dose, 1 
miller. of cobra venom, for example, and, if we treat 
all of these animals, with the exception of some for 
control, by subcutaneous or intraperitoneal injections 
of the serum of rabbits immunized against four 
millers. of the same venom, all of the control ani- 
mals not treated will die within three or four hours, 
while all of the animals will recover which receive 
5 ¢. ¢. of the therapeutic serum within an hour after 
receiving the venom.”’ 


As a rule the antitoxins have no bacteri- 
cidal action; but it has been shown, by 
the experiments of Gamaleia, Pfeiffer and 
others, that in animals which have an 
acquired immunity against the spirillum 
of Asiatic cholera and against spirillum 
Metchnikovi there is a decided increase in 
the bactericidal power of the blood-serum, 
and that immunity probably depends upon 
this fact. 

Certain important questions present them- 
selves in connection with the production of 
antitoxins and germicidal substances in the 
blood of immune animals, one of which is: 
Is the production of the antitoxin contin- 
uous while immunity lasts, or does it occur 
only during the modified attack which re- 
sults from inoculation with an attenuated 
virus, or of filtered cultures, the antitoxin 
being subsequently retained in the circula- 
ting blood? The latter supposition does 
not appear very plausible, but it must be 
remembered that these antitoxins do not 
dialyze—i. e., they do not pass through ani- 


Marcu 29, 1895. ] 


mal membranes—and consequently would 
not readily escape from the blood-vessels, 
notwithstanding the fact that they are held 
in solution in the circulating fluid. On the 
other hand, the passage of the tetanus anti- 
toxin into the mother’s milk would indicate 
a continuous supply, otherwise the immu- 
nity of the mother would soon be lost. Fur- 
ther experiments are required to settle this 
question in a definite manner, and also to 
determine the exact source of the antitoxins 
in the animal body and the modus operandi 
of their production. 


Gero. M. STERNBERG. 
WASHINGTON. 


REMARKING THE MEXICAN BOUNDARY. 


Mr. A. T. Mosman, assistant in the U. S. 
Coast and Geodetic Survey, one of the com- 
missioners on the part of the United States, 
presented an interesting summary of the 
work at a meeting of the National Geo- 
graphic Society in Washington on the 8th 
inst. 

At the initial meeting of the commis- 
sioners for the two countries, it was agreed 
that any of the old monuments recovered 
should be taken as defining the line; that 
new monuments should be interpolated be- 
tween them, so that no two monuments 
should be more than 8000 metres apart, as 
required by the new treaty. The line had 
been marked under the treaty of 1853, by 
52 monuments; the commissioners found 
38 of these standing in 1891. On the paral- 
lels the new monuments mark the curve of 
the parallel, but on the oblique lines the 
monuments recovered were not accurately 
located on the line joining their extremities, 
and the boundary on these lines as now 
marked is, therefore, a broken line. Old 
monuments were recovered at all important 
points on the boundary, including all points 
where the line changed direction, but the 
_ distances between them were unequal, and 
in one instance exceeded 100 miles. The 


SCIENCE. 


‘observations were made with 


349 


line from El Paso on the Rio Grande to San 
Diego on the Pacific, 700 miles, is now de- 
fined by 258 monuments. 

The field work required the redetermina- 
tion of the geographic positions of the old 
monuments recovered, and presents some 
interesting comparisons showing the facility 
and certainty of modern methods. The 
longitudes of the old monuments were de- 
termined by Emory from transits of the 
moon and moon culminating stars. In the 
relocation the longitudes were determined 
by the telegraphic method, connected with 
the geodetic work of the Coast Survey by 
coast survey parties working in conjunction 
with the commissioners. The greatest dif- 
ference developed from Emory’s positions 
was 4’ 34.3 with other differences of 34” 
and 54” and still smaller quantities show- 
ing the old work to have been remarkably 
good forthe method. The latitude stations 
in the new work were about 20 miles apart 
over the whole line, and at each station an 
azimuth was observed on Polaris near 
elongation to start the direction for the new 
tangent for the parallel and check the tan- 
gent ending at the station. The latitude 
the zenith 
telescope formerly used on the N. W. boun- 
dary, but improved with new micrometer 
and levels. The telescope has a_ focal 
length of 826 mm., and the objective a clear 
diameter of 67 mm. A new departure was 
made in mounting the instrument on a 
wooden pier constructed in a simple form, 
readily transported. Its stability proved 
as great as a brick or stone cemented pier, 
as it was not uncommon to secure a whole 
night’s work without relevelling, and the 
instrument invariably remained for several 
hours with level correction less than one 
div.—1’.28. The probable errors of the 
latitude determinations from the U. 8. ob- 
servers = + 0’.03 to 0.4. The Mexican 
observations have not yet been received. 
The plan of operations agreed upon required 


300 


independent determinations by the repre- 
sentatives of both governments. This was 
not practicable in the longitude determina- 
tions, but in the latitudes, running the 
parallels and locations of the numerous 
monuments, it was strictly carried out. The 
mean difference in the location of the 258 
monuments, was less than three-tenths of a 
metre ; the maximum difference was only 
1.8 m., which occurred in locating a point 
about midway between two old monuments 
100 miles apart, and over a very rough 
mountainous country, where the distances 
between water holes was over 60 miles. 
The angular variations of the lines run by 
the two parties at. this point was a little 
more than three seconds. 

The final results from the astronomical 
observations were required for immediate 
use on the ground; to permit the computa- 
tions the mean declinations for the stars for 
latitude had been furnished by Professor T. 
H. Safford, of Amherst. In this way the 
latitude and azimuth were always available 
within three or four days after the observa- 
tions were completed, a feature of such work 
that, it is believed, has not heretofore been 
attempted. 
list of the stars furnished by Professor Saf- 
ford, some 600, will be published in the re- 
port of the commission, to be available for 
future work in the same latitude. 

In locating the intermediate monuments 
the commission made use of the stadia, with 
gratifying results. On the parallel of 31° 
47’ for a distance of 100 miles both chain 
and stadia were used for the purpose of com- 
parison. It was found that the stadia was 
much more reliable than the chain, even on 
the desert, and in a rough country was much 
superior. The whole line was measured 
by both the American and Mexican engi- 
neers independently ; when the two results 
for any distance differed more than one part 
in 500, remeasurements were made by steel 
tape or triangulation to discover the error. 


SCIENCE. 


Mr. Mosman promises that a ° 


[N. S. Voz. I. No. 13. 


Many lines determined by triangulation 
were compared with the lengths determined 
by stadia, and the results showed that the 
stadia measurement could be relied on 
within one part in 1000. One line of 45 
miles measured over rolling sand hills dif- 
fered by one part in 1800 only. 

In addition to the astronomical work, a 
strip of topography was surveyed on the 
American side 24 miles wide, and a line of 
levels was run with the wye level from the 
Rio Grande to San Diego, giving the eleva- 
tion of each monument above mean tide of 
the Pacific Ocean. The levels were checked 
at Yuma with R. R. levels from San Fran- 
cisco, Showing the infinitismal discrepancy 
of two hundredths of a metre, probably an 
accident. At the Rio Grande there is a 
discrepancy of about two metres, but the 
datum plane for the R. R. levels at this 
place is not known. O. 


THE NATURE OF SCIENCE AND ITS RE- 
LATION TO PHILOSOPHY. 

Ir any one should ask me, ‘ What is phys- 
ics?’ I would tell him to study in the phys- 
ical laboratory for ten years and then 
what he had learned by the time he was 
through would be the nearest he could get 
to an answer to the question. So to the 
question, ‘ What is science ?’ I can give no 
other general answer than that to anyone 
itis just what he knows about it. I can, 
however, give as a particular answer what 
I have in my own experience found science 
to be. 

Science consists of weighing evidence and 
stamping each statement with an index of 
its reliability. That thesun moves around 
the earth is, according to the evidence at 
present produced, a statement with a relia- 
bility of 0. That the earth moves around 
the sun, we at the present day stamp as 
certain. That Mars contains living beings 
is to-day stamped as quite improbable. 
On the scale of probability where 0 means 


Z 


MARcH 29, 1895.] 


not at all probable, and 1 means secure, $ 
means indifferent, we might say that such 
a statement regarding Mars would have a 
probability perhaps of 5. 

The difference between the unscientific 
and the scientific mind lies in the extent of 
evidence. The woman who lately left a 
fund for a prize to the one who shall estab- 
lish communication with Mars had gathered 
enough evidence to give, in her mind, a 
high degree of probability to the supposi- 
tion of the possibility of such an under- 
taking. And yet the members of the 
French Academy who accepted the money 
in the sense that it should go to the one 
making the best contribution to our know- 
ledge of Mars were evidently in possession 
of enough further evidence to attach a very 
small degree of probability to the supposi- 
tion. 

This is the actual work of all the sciences. 


_ We eannot and dare not make statements 


except just so far as warranted by the facts. 

If you say that the act of discrimination 

- inereases the time of thought, the psycholo- 
gist must answer yes, with a high degree of 
probability, because carefully collected ex- 
perimental evidence points that way. If 
you say that consciousness is continuous 
during sleep, the psychologist must answer 
that reliable evidence is lacking, and that 
he is entitled to no opinion either way. 

We often hear, from philosophers of the 
old school, the statement that the facts of 
the universe are divided into classes, each 
of which is given over to a science for in- 
vestigation regarding details, while the gen- 
eral conclusions are reserved for the phil- 
osophers. 

I must object to the limitation of science 
to the investigation of individual facts. 
Many of the problems with which a scien- 
tist is most directly concerned are the most 
general of all. The subject of time is one 
to which the psychologist and the astrono- 
mer devote their special attention. There 


& 


2 


SCIENCE. 351 


can hardly be anything more general than 
the great independent variable, as it is 
called. Likewise space forms a problem 
for geometry, physics and psychology. 

As every scientist knows, an _ investi- 
gator in one science is forced to learn a 
dozen other sciences ; the more he special- 
izes, the more remotely must he go for his 
information. For example, the specialist 
in experimental psychology is obliged to be 
more or less familiar with the science of 
measurement, with the astronomical deter- 
mination of time, with portions of meteor- 
ology, with physics, with portions of organic 
chemistry and physical chemistry, with 
statistics, ethics, anthropology, ete., etc. 
The mediyal philosopher likes to bottle 
things up and label them, but the modern 
sciences are too lively specimens for that 
process. 

This brings me to the question of the re- 
lation of science to philosophy. According 
to Wundt the work of philosophy is to take 
up and discuss the most general questions, 
time, space, number, ete., which cannot be 
handled by the particular sciences. 

But let us consider a moment. Suppose 
the U. 8. Government wishes a report on 
Lake Tahoe. It would go to the geographer 
to learn where it is, to the U. 8. Survey to 
learn its measurements, to the chemist to 
know its composition, to the meteorologist 
to inquire about its weather, to the land 
owners for the price of land, to the boatman 
to learn the sailing qualities, ete., ete. It 
would print the reports all side by side for 
each reader to assimilate as he would or 
could. What it would not do would be to 
send out a special agent who should look 
into these matters himself and make his 
own report. We very well know that such 
agents filter through more of themselves 
than of the facts ; they see what they bring 
eyes to see, and no one can be master of a 
dozen sciences or trades. 

Suppose, however, it is desired to have a 


302 


treatment of the subject of ‘time.’ Wundt 
would propose that a special agent, called 
a philosopher, should gather up all he can 
from everybody and should present it as he 
thinks best. So with all the other funda- 
mental questions. The result is that we 
have as many systems of philosophy as we 
have writers. Would it not be better to 
get the astronomer to present his experience 
with time, then the physicist to present his, 
then the psychologist, and so on? The 
reader can then assimilate what he is able, 
instead of accepting it as previously assimi- 
lated by the philosopher, as a kind of ‘ pre- 
digested’ food. 

A somewhat similar thought was spoken 
by Paulsen some yearsago. I do not know 
if he has stated it in print. He considered 
that the day of philosophical systems was 
past ; there could be text-books of philos- 
ophy as well as text-books of all sorts of 
things, but philosophy itself would consist 
of monographs by specialists. 


Of course, on such conditions as these, . 


we should be obliged to conclude that phil- 
osophy has no relation to the sciences and 
that, having the astronomer, the mathema- 
tician, the physicist, the geologist, the 
psychologist, the economist and all the 
others, we can entirely dispense with the 
philosopher. 
E. W. Scrrerure. 
YALE UNIVERSITY. 


‘SCIENCE.’ 


[THE following article, contributed by 
one of the original supporters of ScIENCE, 
will prove of interest to those who are not 
acquainted with the earlier history of the 
journal. All men of science are under very 
great obligations to Mr. Bell and Mr. 
Hubbard for establishing a weekly journal 
of science in America at a time when the 
conditions were less favorable than at pres- 
ent; to Mr. Scudder for the high standard 
maintained during his editorship, and to 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 13. 


Mr. Hodges for his faithful and untiring ef- 
forts on behalf of the journal. 
J. McK. C.] 

In 1882 Mr. A. Graham Bell conceived 
the idea of establishing a scientifie journal, 
which should do for America what ‘ Nature’ 
does for England. For this purpose, he was 
willing to contribute, with the codperation 
of Mr. Gardiner G. Hubbard, the sum of 
twenty-five thousand dollars, which, in the 
estimation of good judges, would be suffi- 
cient to start a weekly paper and put it on 
a paying basis. Mr. Bell furnished the 
larger proportion of this sum. Mr. Samuel 
H. Scudder, of Cambridge, Mass., beeame 
the editor. President Gilman, of Johns 
Hopkins ; Major Powell, of the Geological 
Survey ; Professor Newcomb, of the Nautic- 
al Almanac; Professor O. C. Marsh, of New 
Haven ; and Professor Trowbridge, of Co- 
lumbia College, agreed to give their advice, 
and to act with Messrs. Bell, Hubbard and 
Scudder as a Board of Directors. This 
board, representing different interests and 
localities, possessed great weight with the 
entire community, and was believed to be 
generally acceptable to scientists. 

The first number of ‘Science’ appeared 
February 9, 1883, some six or eight months 
subsequent to the conception of the idea. 
Mr. Moses King, the first publisher, retired 
the succeeding September. Shortly after, 
Mr. C. L. Condit, formerly with the ‘ Nation,’ 
took charge of the publishing department 
and continued until the spring of 1886. Mr. 
Scudder retired from the editorship in 
1885 and was succeeded by Mr. N. D.C. 
Hodges, when the office was removed from 
Cambridge to New York. It was soon found 
that twenty-five thousand dollars was not 
sufficient, and Messrs. Bell and Hubbard 
continued to advance further sums until, in 
1886, they had expended about seventy-five 
thousand dollars, without having made the 
paper self-supporting. 

An arrangement was then made with Mr. 


MARCH 29, 1895.] 


Hodges to assume the entire charge of Scr- 
ENCE for a fixed annual sum. For three 
years M. Hodges had charge of the paper, 
under the advice of the Board of Directors. 
Mr. Hodges made large reduction in ex- 
penses of publication, but unfortunately 
made a larger reduction in the subscription 
price, from five dollars to three dollars and 
fifty cents a year. 

It was never the intention of Messrs. 
Bell and Hubbard to make a profit from the 
publication of Screncer, but they did expect 
its establishment to make a contribution to 
science. 

The circulation of the journal, under the 
management of Mr. Hodges, largely in- 
creased, and the changes made by him and 
his associate editors, Messrs. D. G. Brinton, 
of Philadelphia, and Charles Platt, of Balti- 
more, whose services were given gratuitous- 
ly were of great value. It was originally 
supposed that advertisements would con- 
tribute largely to its support, but they were 
not obtained, partly on account of the lim- 
ited circulation, and more largely because 
advertisers preferred to publish in special 
journals rather than in one intended to 
meet the wants of the scientific public. 

The publication of Scrence was stopped 
for a time a year ago, althongh its circula- 
tion was then larger than it ever had been, 
the stringency of the times preventing many 
from paying their subscriptions. 

At the meeting of the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science, at 
Brooklyn in 1894, the renewal of the pub- 
lication of Scrmncr was brought before the 
‘Association. A large committee was chosen 
to consider its usefulness, and the propriety 
of contributing towards its support. Mr. 
Hodges appeared and stated fully his views 

and plans ; the Association then voted that 
a contribution of fifteen hundred dollars 
should be made for the purpose of enabling 
Mr. Hodges to continue its publication. 
Immediately after Mr. Hodges decided that 


SCIENCE. 


353 


he could not continue the publication, and 
therefore this arrangement fell through. 

Subsequently the reorganization of Scr- 
ENCE was undertaken by Professor Cattell, 
of Columbia College, who will, we trust, 
make it a success. 

It would not be proper to close this ar- 
ticle without an acknowledgment of the 
great ability, untiring zeal and never flag- 
ging interest shown by Mr. Hodges in his 
connection with Screncr. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 

A CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

Eprror or Scrence:—The admirable 
plan for a card catalogue of scientific lit- 
erature recommended to the Royal So- 
ciety by the Harvard University Coun- 
cil (reprinted in the current volume of 
ScreNcE, pages 184-186). strongly com- 
mends itself to users of scientific literature, 
and has already been adopted with minor 
modification by at least one national scien- 
tifie society. A slight extension of the plan 
in one respect would seem, however, to be 
advantageous. 

The body of scientific literature is vast 
and constantly increasing, and scientific 
authorship and publication are rapidly ex- 
tending from country to country and from 
point to point in each country throughout 
the world. Population is increasing, and 
with it writing and printing increase ; civil- 
ization is spreading, and with it literature 
is expanding in an increasing ratio ; science 
is becoming increasingly important as a di- 
recting and controlling force in civilization, 
and so the growth of scientific writing out- 
strips that of non-scientific scripture ; the 
domain of science is widening rapidly as re- 
search concerning every conceivable subject 
pushes into and illumines the penumbra of 
half-knowledge, and thus the subject-matter 
of scientific literature is differentiated. 
Moreover, the fashion of scientific publica- 
tion is changing; few recent investigators 


3d4 


spend years on a book, the masterpiece of a 
decade or a lifetime; most keep pace with 
the rapid progress of the times by issuing 
their chapters or sections as completed from 
time to time in the form of articles or bro- 
chures ; and thus the average number of 
titles to be credited to individual authors 
is increasing. So the augmentation in sci- 
entific literature is many-branched and 
cumulative, and its rate is constantly aug- 
menting. With the multiplication of scien- 
tific literature the need for comprehensive 
cataloguing is multiplied; yet with the 
multiplication the difficulty of measuring 
the teeming flood from the scientific press 
is increased in still larger measure. The 
task before the Royal Society is one of great 
magnitude. 

It would seem that the success of the 
scheme for cataloguing scientific literature 
will depend largely on the intimacy of the 
relations to be established between the 
Royal Society, on the one hand, and (1) 
trade publishers, (2) non-commercial pub- 
lishers, and (3) individual authors, on the 
other hand. Now, the basis for the rela- 
tions between the central organization and 
trade publishers, and through them with 
the authors, is the simple one of financial 
interest ; it is set forth in a satisfactory 
manner in the report of the University 
Council, who point out that it would be to 
the interest of the writers, as it would be 
also to that of the publishers, to prepare 
summaries suitable for carding by the cen- 
tral organization. In the ease of this class 
of publishers, perhaps the leading interest 
would be that of the publishers themselves, 
who might accordingly be trusted to induce 
negligent authors to prepare the requisite 
summaries. 

The non-commercial publishers include 
those issuing (a) periodicals put forth with- 
out hope of profit and often at individual 
sacrifice, which it would be useless to ad- 
vertise in the ordinary way by reason of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 13. 


limited number of possible subscribers ; (b) 
proceedings, transactions and related serials 
published in limited editions by many scien- 
tific societies; (c) reports of official bureaus, 
like the U. S. Geological Survey and various ~ 
State institutions, to whom increased dis- 
tribution means no profit, but some loss in 
time, ifnot money; and (d) privately printed 
and irregularly published brochures, book- 
lets and leaflets, commonly issued by the 
authors themselves. All of these classes 
of publications are important in this and 
several other countries; collectively, in this 
country at the present time, at least, they 
probably contain the major part of the 
material which should be catalogued by 
the Royal Society. To bring their contents 
within reach of a central organization would 
involve a wide-reaching and constant co- 
operation, which manifestly cannot be 
brought about through the ordinary finan- 
cial stimulus, since the publication is not 
made on a commercial basis; it can be 
brought about, if at all, only through the 
inspiration of creative genius and authorial 
ambition. There are few scientific writers 
who would not be willing, indeed glad, to 
prepare summaries of their writings for the 
sake of securing wider publicity and more 
permanent record of their discoveries and 
ideas; for it is the laudable ambition for 
publicity and permanent record, for the 
good of men, that inspires the original writ- 
ing, if not indeed the research itself. Many 
of the non-commercial publishers them- 
selves are actuated by similar motives, and 
would be willing to incur the small tax of 
periodically sending summaries to the cen- 
tral organization, while others would doubt- 
less be stimulated thereto by the authors 
themselves; yet, itis probable that so far 
as the non-commercial publications are con- 
cerned, the stronger bond of connection 
would be that between the central organiza- 
tion and the authors; and since the more 
natural relation is the hierarchic one, first 


MARCH 29, 1895. ] 


from central body to the less numerous 
class and from this in turn to the more 
numerous, any device that would strengthen 
the relation between the central body and 
the publishers would be useful. Thus, it 
might be well for the Royal Society to 
furnish sets of cards pertaining to the 
specialty represented by the non-commer- 
cial publication, either in exchange simply 
for the periodical transmission of summaries 
or in return for such summaries and for 
printing in the advertising pages or else- 
where a standing notice of the Royal So- 
ciety catalogue. The codperation of the 
publishers in securing, and indeed in editing, 
the summaries would be highly desirable, 
partly because with most writers summaries 
or abstracts need editorial scrutiny more 
sadly than their ordinary writing. It may 
be noted also that in these days of the 
making of many bibliographies there is a 
special need for abstracts and summaries 
for a wide variety of purposes, and the re- 
cognition of this need will make easier the 
way of the Royal Society in putting its 
plans into execution. Partly for this reason 
there would seem to be a certain desira- 
bility in printing the brief summaries, per- 
haps in a distinctive type, in conjunction 
with scientific articles. 

The Geological Society of America re- 
cently concurred in a report to the Royal 
Society conforming to that of the Harvard 
University Council, with a brief addition 
designed to facilitate obtaining summaries 
of articles from non-commercial publishers 
of scientific literature, this addition having 
been suggested by the writer as one of the 
committee on the subject. 

W J McGee. 


TEACHING BOTANY ONE TOPIC AT A TIME, 
ILLUSTRATED BY SUITABLE MATERIALS 
AT ANY SEASON OF THE YEAR. 

Epiror or Scrence—Sir: The recent 
papers in Scrence concerning the manage- 


SCIENCE. 


ment of classes in botany prompt the follow- 
ing. In these times, of course, every true 
teacher of botany insists that his pupils shall 
study the objects before receiving much, if 
any, instruction from books or persons. I 
take it for granted that any teacher of a 
class beginning subjects that are treated in 
Gray’s Lessons would prefer to take them up 
in about the sequence there given, but he 
will find it impossible to procure at any 
season of the year enough suitable material 
that is fresh to fully illustrate many of the 
sections of the book. For example, he can- 
not procure at any one time suitable ma- 
terials to illustrate the section on stamens. 
The varieties there illustrated appear at dif- 
ferent dates some weeks apart. So of the 
forms of pistils, the torus, fruits, ete. My 
plan has been to collect quantities of stamens 
of the barberry, sassafras, lobelia, eypripe- 
dium, mallow, locust, dandelion, lily, tulip 
tree, blueberry, sage, milkweed, and in most 
cases preserve each kind by itself in twenty- 
five per cent. alcohol, or in formalin one 
hundred of water to one of formalin. These 
are ready when we want to study stamens. 
A specimen or more of each kind of the pre- 
served objects for illustrating any section of 
this subject can be placed ina small dish 
before each pupil in ease fresh specimens 
cannot be procured. In many instances, 
when not allowed to dry, these can be 
gathered up and used for several successive 
classes. 

In like manner, it is very satisfactory to 
be able, when fruits are to be studied, to 
have a good many kinds to illustrate the 
various sorts, such as half grown plums 
or cherries, the mandrake, bloodroot, violet, 
mulberry, winter-green, ete. Lessons in 
morphology can, in this way, be made more 
impressive than when some of the illustra- 
tions are used in one day and others in a 
week or a month. 

W. J. Beat. 


AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MICH. 


356 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

Nicoléi Ivénovich Lobachévsky.— Address pro- 
nounced at the commemorative meeting 
of the Imperial University of Kasan, 

- October 22, 1893, by Professor A. Vasi- 
LIEV, President of the Physico-Mathe- 
matical Society of Kasan.—Translated 
from the Russian, with a preface, by Dr. 
Gxrorce Bruce HaustEep, President of 
the Texas Academy of Science.— Volume 
one of the neomonic series.—Published 
at The Neomon, 2407 Guadalupe Street, 

- Austin, Texas, U.S.A. 1894. Sm. 8vo, 
pp. 8+40+17. 

Within the last thirty years the name of 
Lobachevsky has become widely known as 
that of one of the earliest discoverers in the 
field of non-Euclidean geometry, a subject 
_ which has not only revolutionized geomet- 
rical science, but has attracted the attention 
of physicists, psychologists and philos- 
ophers. 

Professor Vasiliev’s life of Lobachevsky, 
which we welcome here in an English trans- 
lation, is without question the best and 
most authentic source of information on 
this original mathematical thinker who 
spent his whole life in a remote Russian 
town, almost on the confines of civilization, 
and whose work began to be appreciated by 
the scientific world only after his death 
(1856). What lends a peculiar interest to 
the story of this uneventful life is its in- 
timate association with the growth of the 
University of Kazan. Lobacheysky entered 
this university as a student soon after its 
foundation, became, immediately after 
graduation, an instructor, and then a pro- 
fessor in it, was its president for nineteen 
years during its formative period, and con- 
tributed largely to its rise and progress 
through his administrative ability and un- 
tiring energy. This man, who is known 
abroad as an original investigator in one of 
the most abstruse branches of mathematics, 
endeared himself, moreover, to his towns- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 13, 


men in many respects as a progressive and 
public-spirited citizen, delivering popular 
lectures on scientific subjects, conducting 
evening classes in elementary science for_ 
workingmen, taking a most active part in 
the work of the Kazan Economic and Agri- 
cultural Society, and so on. 

It is due to these facts that the centen- 
nial celebration held by the Physico-Mathe- 
matical Society of the University of Kazan, 
in 1893, in commemoration of his birth, 
was participated in not only by professional 
mathematicians, but also by the whole uni- 
versity and the citizens of Kazan. Itis for 
this occasion that Professor Vasiliev pre- 
pared his biography. 

The celebration began with religious ser- — 
vices in the University chapel, on Loba- 
chevsky’s one hundredth birthday, Novem- 
ber 3 (or, according to the old calendar still 
used in Russia, October 22); at noon the 
University Senate assembled in solemn ses- 
sion, the foreign delegates were greeted by — 
the president of the university, letters and 
telegrams of congratulation were read, and 
several addresses were made commemora- 
ting the life and work of the great Russian 
geometer. On the next day the Physico- 
Mathematical Society held a public session 
for the reading of various papers on sub- 
jects connected with non-Euclidean geome- 
try. On the 5th of November the Munici- 
pal Council of the city of Kazan dedicated 
with appropriate ceremonies a memorial 
tablet, inserted in the front wall of the 
house in which Lobachevsky had lived. 
Another meeting of the Physico-Mathemati- 
cal Society brought the celebration to a 
close. A sum of several thousand rubles 
had been collected in the course of the year 
for the purpose of founding a Lobachevsky 
medal or prize to be awarded annually, and 
of erecting a bust of Lobacheysky at Ka- 
zan, in the public square that bears his 
name. 

It is well that this late justice should be 


MARCH 29, 1895. ] 


done to the memory of a man who during his 
lifetime never received any public recogni- 
tion for his scientific work. At the present 
time no competent mathematician doubts 
the value of Lobachevsky’s investigations 
in non-Euclidean geometry. For those not 
familiar with modern mathematical thought 
it is, however, difficult, if not impossible, to 
fully appreciate the true value of this sub- 
ject; they are inclined to attribute undue 
- importance to its possible bearings on non- 
mathematical questions and to neglect and 
underrate what is most valuable. 

The starting point for Lobachevsky’s re- 
searches, as for those of all the earlier 
writers on non-Euclidean geometry (Sac- 
cheri, Lambert, the two Bolyais), is given 
by the theory of parallels in elementary 
plane geometry which is based by Euclid 
on his fifth postulate (usually called his 
‘eleventh axiom’’). This postulate refers 
to two lines cut by a transversal, and states 

that if the sum of the interior angles on 
one side of the transversal be less than two 
right angles the lines will meet on this 
side if sufficiently produced. The numer- 
ous attempts that have been made to make 
a theorem of this proposition, and to prove 
it, have always remained as futile as the 
attempts to square the circle. They have 
only shown that it can be replaced by other 
postulates, such as that only one parallel 
can be drawn to a given line through a 
given point, or that the sum of the angles 
of a triangle is equal to two right angles, ete. 

Does it follow that these postulates ex- 
press an absolute necessary truth? Cer- 
tainly not. For it can be shown—and 
this is just what Lobachevsky did—that a 
perfectly consistent system of geometry can 
be constructed by rejecting Euclid’s postu- 
late and its equivalents, and assuming, say, 
that more than one parallel can be drawn 
to a given line through a given point, or 
‘that the sum of the angles of a triangle is 
less than two right angles. 


SCIENCE. 


357 


The question of the character of the so- 
called geometrical axioms thus assumes an 
aspect very different from the one it had at 
the beginning of the present century, when 
they were commonly regarded as necessary 
logical truths. It is, however, not for the 
mathematician to decide whether ultimately 
these axioms express facts of observation 
unconsciously acquired and made familiar 
through the constant perception of an actu- 
ally existing space. For him they represent 
mere assumptions selected for the purpose 
of defining his space or his methods of 
measuring this space. 

It would, of course, be very important to 
know which of the different spaces that the 
mathematician can thus define corresponds 
most closely to the facts of observation. 
But this question is difficult to decide; for 
while the ordinary Euclidean space appears 
in this respect to satisfy all demands, the 
non-Euclidean spaces do the same, at least, 
approximately within certain limits; and 
all our observations give only approximate 
results and are confined within a narrow 
range of space. 

What the mathematician has gained 
through the generalization of non-Euclidean 
geometry is a broader horizon and a vastly 
extended field ofresearch. The multifarious 
relations by which this new science is con- 
nected with the various banches of geometry 
are admirably set forth by Professor F. 
Klein, of Géttingen, in his Vorlesungen iiber 
nicht-Euklidische Geometrie (1889-90). These 
lectures also trace the historical development 
of the subject since the times of Gauss. A 
few more recent investigations were dis- 
eussed by him in the Evanston Colloquium 
(New York, Macmillan, 1894), in the 6th 
and 11th lectures. 

What Professor Vasiliev tells us about 
Bartels, who in his earlier years had inti- 
mately associated with Gauss, and later, as 
the first professor of mathematics at the 
University of Kazan, became the teacher 


358 


and protecting friend of Lobacheysky, con- 
firms the supposition that the first impulse 
to these studies came to him, at least indi- 
rectly, from Gauss. To the same source of 
inspiration must be traced the almost simul- 
taneous, but independent, researches of 
the Hungarian Wolfgang Bolyai and his 
son Johann. Gauss himselfnever published 
anything on the subject of non-Euclidean 
geometry ; but we know from his letters to 
Schumacher that he had spent much thought 
on these questions, which had occupied him 
from his earliest youth, and had arrived at 
practically the same results as Lobachevsky 
and the Bolyais. 

In the later developmeut of non-Euclid- 
ean geometry and the closely related the- 
ory of n-dimensional spaces or manifold- 
nesses we find among others the names of 
Grassmann, Riemann, Helmholtz, Cayley, 
Klein, Lie; and in these the uninitiated 
may find a sufficient guarantee for the value 
of the subject. 

In conelusion, a few words must be said 
of the present English translation. The 
original has been followed so faithfully that 
anybody possessed of an adequate knowl- 
edge of the Russian language will under- 
stand the translation very readily. The 
reading of such unidiomatic English is, 
however, exceedingly painful. Were it not 
for the direct statement on the title-page, 
we should never have ascribed this transla- 
tion to Professor Halsted, whose vigorous 
command of the English language is well 
known. It seems almost incredible that a 
person whose native language is English 
should have written, or even passed in the 
proof, such sentences as these: (p. 3) ‘‘So 
in celebrating this day to Lobachevsky, we 
must remember with gratitude his teach- 
ers.”’ (ib.) “His destiny was to be the 
teacher and protector not only of Loba- 
chevsky, but of the scientist of our century 
most influential on the development of 
mathematics, Gauss. (ib.) ‘‘The mathe- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 13. 


matical ability of the boy-genius awakened 
the attention of the science-hungry Bar- 
tels.”” (p.4.)  .. . he received the grade 
of ‘Magister’ July 10, 1811, for extraordi- 
nary advance in mathematics and physics.” 
(ib.) “ . . . the question of the lowering 
of the grade of a two-termed equation . . .” 
The transliteration of Russian names is 
faulty and inconsistent ; thus we find Pouch- 
kin for Pushkin, Demidef for Demidov, Ka- 
ramzen for Karamzin, Simenovy for Simonoy, 
ete. It is inconceivable why the name of the 
well-known astronomer Littrow should be 
persistently misspelled Lettrov. On p. 1, 
for ‘November 9, 1807’ read ‘January 9, 
1807.’ The statement in the preface, p. 
vii., that “‘in 1500 Copernicus was enjoying 
the friendship of Regiomontanus and fulfill- 
ing with distinction the duties of a chair of 
mathematics ” is smgularly incorrect. Re- 
giomontanus died in 1476, when Copernicus 
was three years of age; and, although Rhae- 
ticus, in speaking of the residence at Rome 
in 1500, refers to Copernicus as ‘ professor 
mathematum,’ it is now, in the absence of 
any direct evidence, generally accepted that 
the author of the De revolutionibus was never 
connected as teacher with any scientific in- 
stitution. ALEXANDER ZIWET. 
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 


Laboratory Exercises in Botany, designed for 
the use of colleges and other schools in 
which Botany is taught by laboratory 
methods, by Epson 8. Bastry, Am. Pro- 
fessor of Materia Medica and Botany and 
Director of the Microscopical Laboratory 
in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. 
Philadelphia. 1895. $2.50. 

In a review of this volume it should be 
considered for whom it was written and 
from that standpoint an estimate should be 
made whether the purpose has been really 
accomplished. Being designed for students 
who are beginners, it leads them from the 
simple to the complex, and does it, we think, 


MARCH 29, 1895. ] 


‘in a very satisfactory manner. As a labor- 
atory guide the work is perhaps a little too 
voluminous, 540 pages. It is divided into 
two portions, the first requiring work with 
the simple microscope, and consists of a 
series of lessons inductively arranged, which 
leads the student from a study of the root 
through the types of the largest families to 
a study of the seed and embryo. They are 
designed to give to the student a familiarity 
with the various forms, without burdening 
him with the technical descriptive terms, 
which are, however, summed up in tabulated 
plates for reference. The full-page illustra- 
tions of the first portion are numerous, 
very simple, excellently drawn and well 
printed. 

The second portion of the volume, 270 
pages, on vegetable histology, opens with a 
chapter on the compound microscope and 
the use of micro-chemical reagents, and is 
accompanied by excellent and practical 
tables of reagents and stains. The purpose 
of this volume limits its scope. It makes 
a good working guide to put into the hands 
of students who can give but a limited time 
to the study, but further than that, as a 
work upon vegetable histology, it is meagre. 

The arrangement of this portion of the 
work is less commendable than the first. 
Its numerous illustrations can be classed as 
most good, few bad and a number indiffer- 
ent, in general the simple elements of tissues 
being good, whereas those showing the 
tissues themselves, especially the more 
complex ones, are less to be approved. 

The work is one which is admirably 
adapted for the use of students in pharmacy, 
for which it was probably first intended, and 
in the hands of a guide whose methods were 
similar to those of the writer, we conceive 
it to be excellent. In general its scope is 
limited; it gives facts but fails, we think, to 
point out those logical sequences of growth 
and development that lead the student to a 
_ rounded conception of the science of botany ; 


SCIENCE. 


359 


it nevertheless is by far the best laboratory 
guide we have seen for directors of labora- 
tories who wish to give their students a 
practical elementary knowledge of botany. 
8. E. JELLIFFE. 


Principles and Practice of Agricultural Analy- 
sis—By Harvey W. Witey, Chemist of 
the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.—Easton, 
Chemical Publishing Co., 1894. Vol. I. 
We have already called attention to the 

first part of this admirable work, now being 

published in monthly installments by the 

Chemical Publishing Company, and need 

not again speak of its general excellence of 

plan. If any fault is to be found with the 
work it is with its limited title, which is 
rather apt to mislead some into a supposi- 
tion that the book will be of service only 
to the analyst, and as a laboratory manual 
alone. The twelve parts which have now 
appeared, nearly 600 pages in all, indicate a 
work of much broader scope, one which no 
scientific library can afford to omit from its 
catalogue. Of the first of the series we have 
already spoken. In No. 2 the subject of 
soils and soil formation is continued, the 
action of earth-worms, bacteria, air, ete., 
the qualities of the various soils and the 
discussion of certain peculiar soil types. 
An interesting chapter on sampling follows, 
and here is discussed in principle and prac- 
tice all of the accepted methods now in use 
in various countries and among the leading 
workers in agricultural science. The study 
of the physical properties of soils and the 
description of methods of mechanical and 
microscopical analysis, ete., occupies some 
200 pages, while the methods of chemical 
analysis, begun in No. 7 of the series, ex- 
tends to the present issue. We know of no 
other work approaching the present in com- 
pleteness and scientific value. The exhaus- 
tive treatment of the subject leaves nothing 
to be desired, and it would be difficult indeed 
to criticise any of its features. At the end 


360 


of each part is a Bibliography of works 
cited, and an inspection of these lists at 
once indicates the labor entered upon by 
the author, as well as that saved to those 
who have now the benefit of his research. 


PHILADELPHIA. CHARLES PLATT. 


Nitrogen and Water, or the Water Atoms and 
Their Relations. Part—The Earth’s Atmos- 
phere, by WiLLIAM CouTIE. 

The author of this polygraph of 31 pages 
is good enough to assure us that some 
things remain undiscovered, or at any rate 
we infer this to be his meaning. To dis- 
cover the real meaning of many of his 
sentences would require the application of 
the calculus, since his thoughts soar off into 
space in what are apparently curved lines. 
It is probable that minds of the earth, 
earthy, like that driving this pen, are in- 
capable of fully grasping the mighty 
thoughts here set forth. They are certainly 
startling and go to the root of all things. 

It appears that we have all been mistaken 
in our conception of the design of Creation, 
at least those who have ventured to form 
any such conception have been mistaken. 
The real reason is thus set forth: 

“Tt is evident that it is the law of change that 
gives the Creator some work to do and something that 
is new in all time. It is thus to Him the most im- 
. portant of all, for it is to Him preéminently omni- 
present, universal and in all things forever new, and 
without it time would be a monotony and a burden, 
almost everything would be old and He would have 
nothing to do.’ 

The following whack at our biological 
brethren is commended to their attention; 
their disgraceful Darwinian tendencies make 
it deserved, if somewhat severe : 

“Tf we now turn to the results in time we find 
that, first, horse in our knowledge was of the size of 
a fox and walked on his heels. Now all horses of 
every kind walk on the point of their longest toe, and 
they are all many times the weight of a fox. Now, 
why did all horses get on their toes at the same time, 
or how did they get on the tips of their toes at all? 
Darwinism is to mea compound of utilityand economy. 
But by what process of economy or utility did horses get 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 13. 


on the point of their toes? To me, it is evidently the 
exclusive result of their Maker’s will, and that the 
creation and government of the universe is an absolute 
despotism in all things.”’ 


This facer ought to settle the Darwinians; 
lest it should not, we subjoin another extract 
of like tenor: 


“T found that a butterfly is an insect ornamented 
by scales, and that they are divided into day flies and 
night flies, and again divided into six thousand day 
or butterflies and sixty thousand night or moth flies, 
and that butterflies are purely and exclusively (so far 
as they are butterflies) things made for beauty by an 
agent or Maker who sees beauty of colors in the night, 
for there are sixty thousand kinds of night flies and 
only six thousand day flies. This led me to the un- 
doubted belief that Darwinism applied to butterflies 
is worse than an error, for it leaves out the most im- 
portant and essential part of the whole, which is, that 
the origin of species is the direct exclusive result of 
an intelligent design.”’ 


To the initiated the following will per- 
haps explain how some of Mr. Coutie’s re- 
sults were obtained : 


‘¢ As the ways of this argument are so far from the 
ordinary beaten paths, my intent when writing it 
was to print in full along with it Newton’s four rules 
of reasoning, pages 384 and 385, Principia, to show 
that this is in full and exact accord with them.” 

“This design led to a full, careful review of the 
men, their method and their particular results, that 
I found that these rules are wholly insufficient for 
my purpose. They are perfect for his purpose, but 
insufficient when applied to this paper.”’ 

This, so far as we are able to understand 
it, looks black for Newton. 

Among other gems of style and statement, 
we have the following : 

“The history of origin leads us far back into the 
distant past.’’ 

“What this subject learns from this observation of 
the heavens is that the same rules that govern the 
atoms.”’ 

“‘The density of the air is the result of its own 
weight. ’’ 

The author has also discovered a few less 
important matters of detail. Among other 
things two new—what shall we call them ; 
not elements for they are, according to our 
present notions, compound. The first of 


MARCH 29, 1895. ] 


these new somethings is kirs. This is no 
common mangy kirs, but a new kind of kirs 
altogether. He or it—for the author says 
enough about the relations of the atoms to 
make one careful—is introduced to our 
notice as follows : 

*“ The most resultant discovery of all is that kirs 
is a hydrate of nitrogen, having the atomic form 
N,HN;.” 

The second something new is Stuart, 
which is N,H, it seems. According to the 
author this, as well as kirs, is unobserved. 
We understood that Curtius not many years 
since discovered a compound having the 
symbol of Stuart, but this is perhaps a mis- 
take. Carbon has been found to be AN., ice 
is Aq. and made up of Stuart, Cyanogen and 
more Stuart. Coke equals kars and A. 
We are nowhere informed what is meant 
by A, nor is it easy to see what difference 
there is between ‘combining constituents’ 
and ‘constituents’ except with the eye of 
faith. The author explains, however, that 
“The grand difficulty of the calculation is 
that the revelations at the end constantly 
contradict the premises at the beginning.”’ 

Everything about this wonderful pam- 
phlet is new, even the spelling is sui generis. 
For example: Flourine, Glucium, Rube- 
dium, Phosphorous, Telerium, Tantalium, 
Lanthanium, Paladium. 

We hope that E. H. Lisk, printer, Troy, 
N. Y., turned off a large edition of these 
pamphlets. . They will all be needed, and 
when obtained ought to be carefully pre- 
served as an illustration of the magnificent 
reach sometimes attained by the American 
intellect. Epwarp Hart. 


‘NOTES AND NEWS. 
BIOLOGY. 

Tue Tenth Annual Fish Commissioners’ 
Report from Michigan is entirely in the field 
of fresh-water biology. It is important to 
mark the rapid development of biological 
work in the central universities of this 


SCIENCE. 


361 


country, and to note that the work carried 
on by the State is so largely by the codper- 
ation of the biologists of the University. 
Thus two of the papers of this report are 
by Professor Jacob Reighard, the first being 
a study of the development of the wall-eyed 
Pike, the second a valuable résumé of the 
whole subject of artificial fertilization. The 
Bulletin, No. 4, of the Commission, which 
we receive at the same time, contains a pre- 
liminary account of the biological examina- 
tion of Lake St. Clair during the summer of 
1893. This was suggested by the continued 
decrease in the number of Whitefish, but 
very wisely the work extended over a 
broader field. The objects of this examina- 
tion are stated as follows: ‘“(1) To study 
carefully and in the broadest possible way 
the life in the lake. After examining the 
physical characteristics of the lake, such as 
the color, transparency and chemistry of the 
water, a study of this sort should include a 
determination of the kinds of animals and 
plants in the lake. Every species should be 
sought out, carefully described and figured, 
and a specimen of it preserved. Then the 
habits of each species should be known, its 
habitat, its food, its enemies and its para- 
sites. The numbers of animals and plants 
of each species in a given volume of water 
should be determined and the variations in 
these numbers in different parts of the lake 
and at different seasons of the year. Such 
a collection of data would form a complete 
picture of the biology of the lake.” The 
work was under the direction of Professor 
Reighard,assisted by Dr. Ward, of the Uni- 
versity of Nebraska, by Mr. Frank Smith, 
of the University of Illinois, and by several 
assistants from the University of Michigan. 
The materials collected were widely dis- 
tributed for determination, and the reports 
are by Dr. Blanchard, of Paris, Dr. E. A. 
Birge, of the University of Wisconsin, and 
others. The survey seems to have been 
carried on with all the thoroughness both 


362 


in the collection of littoral, pelagic and 
deep-lake types, which characterizes the 
best marine work, and the final results 
promise to be of the greatest interest and 
importance. 


Mr. Arruur Bispins, who has been en- 
gaged during the past year in investigating 
the fauna of the Potomac Formation, in the 
interest of the Woman’s College of Balti- 
more, has made a considerable collection of 
reptilian remains, mostly from the vicinity 
of Muirkirk, Md. The specimens represent 
the four species of Dinosaurs described by 
Professor Marsh under the names of Allo- 
saurus, Pleurocelus and Priconodon. A tibia, 
probably that of Allosawrus, measures 10 
inches in width and 32 inches in length, 
although the ends are lacking. A single 
tooth seems to be referable to Astrodon 
Johnsoni, Leidy, which was based on a tooth 
found at Bladensburg, Md. The conditions 
are very unfavorable for collecting, as the 
specimens occur in a tough clay, often ata 
considerable depth, and are much scattered. 


Dr. 8. W. Wittistron, of Lawrence, Kan- 
sas, has in press a work, entirely rewritten, 
on the classification and structure of North 
American Diptera. It will contain tables 
of all the North American genera, including 
those from Central America and the West 
Indies, together with descriptions of larve, 
habits, anatomy, etc. It will appear next 
autumn. In its preparation he has had the 
assistance of Messrs. Aldrich, Townsend, 
‘Snow and Johnson, who have kindly pre- 
pared or revised the tables of the families 
with which they are best acquainted. 


Ar the second open meeting of the Royal 
Society, on February 28th, Prof. W. F. R. 
Weldon opened a discussion on variation 
in animals and plants, his remarks being 
based on the report of a committee, consist- 
ing of Mr. Francis Galton, Mr. F. Darwin, 
Professor Macalister, Professor Meldola, 
Professor Poulton and Professor Weldon 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 13. 


himself, its object being to conduct statistical 
inquiries into the measurable characteristics 
of plants and animals. The first part of 
the report which was presented was de- _ 
scribed as ‘an attempt to measure the death 
rate due to the selective destruction of 
Carcinus menas (the shore crab) with respect 
to a particular dimension.’ Another paper 
bearing on the subject under consideration 
was presented by Mr. H. M. Vernon, on 
‘The Effect of Environment on the Develop- 
ment of Echinoderm Larvie: An Experimen- 
tal Inquiry into the Causes of Variation.’ 
An interesting discussion followed, in which 
Mr. Thiselton Dyer, Professor Ray Lankes- 
ter, Professor A. Agassiz, Mr. Bateson, Sir 
H. Howorth and the chairman took part. 
There seemed to be a prevailing doubt as to _ 
the suitability of mathematical methods in 
biological research. 

Pror. H. W. Conn contributes to the 
March number of the American Naturalist an 
account of the Cold Spring Harbor Biologi- 
eal Laboratory, of which he is the director. 
The article is illustrated by four plates, 
showing the buildings and location. The 
laboratory was organized by Prof. F. W. 
Hooper as a branch of the Brooklyn Insti- 
tute of Arts and Sciences, and held its first 
session in July and August, 1890, under the 
direction of Dr. Bashford Dean, now or 
Columbia College. The Cold Spring Labo- 
ratory does not rival the Wood’s Holl Lab- 
oratory in the amount of research work ac- 
complished, but offers exceptional facilities 
for students requiring instruction. 


APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE U. S. GEOLOGICAL 
SURVEY. 

THe appropriations for the U. S. Geologi- 
eal Survey for the fiscal year 1895-96, as 
made by Congress at its last session, will 
enable the bureau to continue its work un- 
der favorable circumstances. The appro- 
priations for topography, geology, paleon- 
tology and chemistry are the same as those 


> 
~ 
*. 


MARCH 29, 1895. ] 


for the present year, except that in the case 
of geology there is an additional appropria- 
tion of $5,000 for the specific object of the 
investigation of the gold and coal resources 
of Alaska. For the rest, there is an appro- 
priation for the preparation of the report on 
the mineral resources of the United States 
of $18,000, an increase of $3,000; and fur- 
ther was inserted in connection with this 
work, under the head of Public Printing 
and Binding, a clause providing for the 
printing of advance copies of papers on 
economic resources, and for this work an 
appropriation of $2,000 was made. Under 
the head of engraving and printing the 
geological maps of the United States, author- 
ity was granted the Director to sell copies 
of topographic maps, with a descriptive 
text, at cost, with ten per centum added. 
The object of this item is to provide for 
the preparation of a series of ten or more 
maps, with text, to illustrate the typical 
topographic features of the United States, 
for use principally in teaching. It is antici- 
pated that the maps and text will be prepared 
during the summer. To the appropriation 
for ‘ gauging the streams and determining 
the water supply of the United States, in- 
cluding the investigation of under-ground 
currents and artesian wells in arid and 
semi-arid regions,’ $7,500 was added, mak- 
ing the appropriation for this work $20,000. 

The total appropriation for the Survey, 


‘ineluding all field and office expenses and 


salaries, is $515,000. 

An appropriation of $200,000 was made 
for a survey of the lands of the Indian Ter- 
ritory, with the provision that the ‘“Secre- 
tary of the Interior may in his discretion 
direct that the surveys in the Indian Terri- 
tory, herein authorized, or any part of them, 
be made under the supervision of the Di- 
rector of the Geological Survey.’’ This 
work will result in the making simultane- 
ously of a land subdivision survey and a 
topographic map. 


SCIENCE. 


363 


GENERAL. 

Tue German Anthropological Society is 
publishing an extensive description of the 
anthropological collections of Germany. 
Sixteen parts (costing from 2-15 M.), pre- 
pared by competent authorities, have al- 
ready been issued. 

Tue Technologisches Worterbuch, edited by 
Gustay Eger and published by Vieweg, 
Brunswick, is a full English-German and 
German-English dictionary of scientific and 
technical words, which should have as large 
a sale in America as in Germany. 


THE first volume of the memoirs from the 
Department of Botany of Columbia College, 
a monograph of the North American Species 
of the Genus Polygonum, by John K. Small, is 
now in press. 

Dr. Ernst Macu, Professor of Physies in 
the University of Prague, has accepted a 
Professorship of Philosophy in the Univer- 
sity of Vienna, and will direct a Laboratory 
of Experimental Psychology. 

Proressor E. W. Hopxnss, of Bryn Mawr 
College, succeeds Professor Whitney in the 
chair of Sanskrit and Comparative Phi- 
lology, and Professor E. G. Bourne, of 
Western Reserve College, has been elected 
Professor of History, at Yale University. 

Pror. Wererstrass, of Berlin, has been 
elected Foreign Associate of the Paris Acad- 
emy of Sciences; he received forty-three 
votes, one being given to Prof. Frankland 
and one to Prof. Huxley. 

Pror. E. Dorn succeeds Prof. Knoblauch 
as Director of the Physical Laboratory of 
the University of Halle. 

Pror. M. K. RénrGen, of Wurtzburg, has 
been called to the chair of Physics in the 
University of Freiberg, vacated by Prof. E. 
Warburg. 

Dr. R. Bravuns has been made Professor 
of Mineralogy in the University of Tii- 
bingen. 


364 


Dr. A. Kosset has been made Professor 
of Physiology in the University of Marburg. 

Dr. K. BorpreKrr, Professor of Chemis- 
try in the University of Gottingen, died on 
February 22d, aged seventy-nine years. 

Sir Witiram Savory, an eminent sur- 
geon, and at one time Professor of Compar- 
ative Anatomy and Physiology at the Col- 
lege of Surgeons, died on March 4th, at 
London, in his sixty-ninth year. 

Dr. Grore von Gizycx1, Associate Pro- 
fessor of Philosophy in the University of 
Berlin, died early in the present month. 

Dr. Darwin G. Harton, formerly Professor 
of Natural History in Packer Institute, died 
on March 17th, at the age of seventy-two 
years. 

Pror. Peter H. VANDER WEYDE, editor 
of Manufacturer and Builder, and formerly 
Professor in Girard College and at the 
Cooper Institute, died at New York, on 
March 18th, at the age of eighty-two years. 

Dr. Henry Corrie, Acting President of 
Lehigh University, Professor of English Lit- 
erature in the University of Pennsylvania, 
1855 to 1866, and President of Lehigh Uni- 
versity, 1866 to 1875, died at Bethlehem on 
March 21st, at the age of seventy-five years. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
THE PHYSICAL REVIEW, MARCH-APRIL. 


On the Attractions of Crystalline and Isotropic 
Masses at Small Distances: A. STANLEY 
MACKENZIE. 

The Influence of Temperature upon the Trans- 
parency of Solutions: Kpwarp li. NicHoLs 
and Mary C. SPENCER. 

Determination of the Electric Conductivity of 
Certain Salt Solutions: AuBERT C. Mac- 
GREGORY. 

The Apparent Forces between Fine Solid Parti- 
cles Totally Immersed in Liquids, II: W. 
J. A. Briss. 

Minor Contributions ; New Books. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 13. 


THE AMERICAN NATURALIST, MARCH. 

In the Region of the New Fossil, Demonelia : 
FREDERICK C. Kenyon. 

The Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratory : 
H. W. Conn. 

Minor Time Divisions of the Ice Age: WARREN 
UPHAM. 

The Skunk as a Source of Rabies: W. WADE. 

The Classification of the Lepidoptera: VERNON 
L. KEL1oe. 

Recent Lnterature; Recent Books and Pam- 
phlets. General Notes:—Geography and 
Travels; Mineralogy: Geology and Palceon- 
tology; Botany; Zoology; Embryology ; Psy- 
chology ; Archeology and Ethnology. 


THE BOTANICAL GAZETTE, MARCH. 

Apparatus for Physiological Botany (With 
plates [X.—XII.): W. C. STEvEns. 

On the ‘ List of Pteridophyta and Spermatophyta 
of Northeastern America: B. LL. Ropryson. 

Flowers and Insects, XIII.: CHARLES ROBERT- 
SON. 

Noteworthy Anatomical and Physiological Re- 
searches. 

Briefer Articles ; Editorial ; Current Literature ; 
Notes and News ; Supplement. 


NEW BOOKS. 

Louisiana Folk-Tales. Collected and edited 
by AxucEE Fortipr. Boston and New 
York, published for the American Folk- 
Lore Society, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
1895. Pp. xit+122. $2. 

The Free Trade Struggle in England. M. M. 
TRUMBULL. 2d Edition. Chicago, The 
Open Court Publishing Co. 1895. Pp. 
288. 35 ets. 

Beitrage zur Kentniss des Wesens der Sdeular- 
Variations des Erdmagnetismus. Louis A. 
Baver. Berlin, Mayer & Miller. 1895, 
Pp. 54. M. 3. 

Field, Forest and Garden Botany. AsA GRAY. 
Revised and extended by L. H. Batmny. 
New York, American Book Co. 1895, 
Pp. 519. 


= oe 


SCA ONCE. 


New SERIES. 
Vou. I. No. 14. 


Fripay, Aprit 5, 1895. 


SINGLE COPIEs, 15 CTs. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 


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ANDERSSOHN, AUREL. Physikalische Principien 
der Naturlehre. 93 Seiten. 8°. M. 1.60. 

ARCHIV FUR ENTWICKLUNGSMECHANIK DER OR- 
GANISMEN. Herausgegeben von Prof. Wilhelm Roux. 
Erster Band, Erstes Heft. Mit 7 Tafeln und 6 Text-— 
figuren, 160 Seiten. 8°. M. 10. 


BARRILLOT, ERNEST. Traité de Chimie Légale. 
Analyse Toxicologique. Recherches Spéciales, 356 
pages. 8°. Fr. 6.50. 

BusaRD, Dr. ALFONS und Dr. EDUARD BATER. 
Hilfsbuch fiir Nahrungsmittelchemiker auf Grund- 
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Nahrungsmittelchemiker. Mit in den Text gedriick- 

_ ten Abbildungen, 486 S. Kl. 8°. Gebunden, M. 8. 
UY 


Driescu, Hans. Analytische Theorie der orga- 
nischen Entwicklung. Mit 8 Textfiguren, 1848. 8°. 
Mz. 5. 


_ Drupe, P. Physik des Aethers auf elektromag- 
 netischerGrundlage. 8°. Mit66 Abbildgn. Mk. 14. 
_ Epwrarm, Dr. Junius. Sammlung der wichtig- 
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tel zusammengestellt und mit Anmerkungen verse- 
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FISCHER, Pror. Dk. BERNHAkD und DR. CARL 

] ECK. Zur Morphologie, Biologie und Systema- 

_ tik der Kahmpilze, der Monilia candida Hansen und 

| des Soorerregers. Mit 2Tafeln. 52S. Gr. 8°. M. 4. 

GARNAULT, E. Mécanique, physique et chimie. 
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GRAWINKEL, C. und K. STRECKER. Hilfsbuch 
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linguistischeSkizzen. Sechste Auflage neu herausge- 
geben von I. Schrader. Mit botanischen Beitrigen 
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KApp, GIsBERT. Dynamomaschinen fiir Gleich- 
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Fripay, Aprit 5, 1895. 


CONTENTS: 

The Animal asa Machine and Prime Mover: R. H. 

SBERESEOON oleh lela = « ws os o rapmeten sata siareielae:« 365 
Harshberger on the Origin of our Vernal Flora: 

ISHARES ROBERTSON ......s0ccecctecsecenes 371 
Brisson’s Genera of Mammals, 1762: C. HArt 

BPR EERESEINM Soro. faiaraicis sai \- amma eagtaaleieteld «<5, 61s ° 375 
Agricultural Noles (I.): Byron D. HALSTED ...37 
muemreen Canadas J.T. C. ..cstatessesececins 379 
NN LENUCEL S iyo arose 5 v0 oon Stam hele sieYaio'u sb os 381 


Classification of Skulls: HARRISON ALLEN. 
Notes on the Biology of the Lobster: FRANCIS H. 
HERRICK. 


mesentanc Literattire — ......00. va sevceccsevess 382 
Haeckel’s Monism: W. K. Brooks. Life of 
Rafinesque: G. Brown GooprE. Lydekker’s 


Royal Natural History; The Book of Antelopes : 
C, HART MERRIAM. 


RMT IVOWIG 5. wa ceca cetdncccseb eves 390 
Societies and Academies :— ....0.eeceeeeeeeeeees 391 
_ The New York Academy of Sciences. 

MMMINELTIOTETULIS « sia's so 0.0.0 « Aue) je sinnisisiosie/de'ee-sle 392 
MN os civic.s.00.0 + 0 sctatpiiststolelsic pies ¢isle ei 392 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 

_ MeKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N, Y. 
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41 N. Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or 41 East 49th St., New York. 


THE ANIMAL AS A MACHINE AND PRIME 
MOVER.* 

Tue writer of these papers has been 
greatly interested in the study of the vital 
machine in its relations to the special work 
of the engineer and to the methods illus- 
trated by it in transformation of potential 


_ *Abstracted from The Animal asa Prime Motor ; 
N.Y., J. Wiley & Sons, 1894. Journal of the Frank- 
lin Institute, Jan.—-March, 1895. 


4% 


energies into the mechanical form for use- 
ful purposes in the industries. 

The value of this form of prime motor to 
the engineer is enormous, though rarely ap- 
preciated or realized. Until the introduc- 
tion of the steam-engine into mills and 
factories through the inventions and enter- 
prise of Watt and his partner, at the begin- 
ning of the century, horse-power and 
manual labor only were available for any 
work for which water-power could not be 
obtained, and hundreds of horses had even 
been employed, in earlier times, in draining 
of single mines. But, even at the present 
time, the horse is the prime motor for an 
enormous section of the industries ; and all 
transportation on short routes or available 
lines, all agricultural work nearly, and 
work of whatever kind on the highway and 
in the by-ways must rely on this vital 
machine for its performance. 

The theory of the machine and study of 
its methods of operation, of energy-conver- 
sion, and of economical application of power, 
is one of the most important subjects prac- 
tically presented to either the engineer or the 
man of science, and this for two quite dif- 
ferent reasons. In the first place, the vital 
machine has a higher efficiency than any 
steam-engine and involves methods of trans- 
formation, storage and application of energy 
which are as yet a mystery, and which, 
could they be discovered and simulated in 
engineering practice, might possibly prove 


366 


more enormously valuable as improvements 
upon current methods than was the inven- 
tion of the modern steam-engine and the dis- 
placement of the old machines of Worcester 
and Savery. Itis also possible that nature’s 
ways of producing light and electricity, as 
well as power, may be ultimately found 
immensely more economical than those of 
man. They certainly are quite different, 
and are inconceivably more efficient in 
themselves, as single transformations, than 
any processes yet discovered by science. 
In the second place, the laws of operation of 
the vital machine being fully revealed, it is 
possible that we may find ways of promot- 
ing the improvement of the machine in 
such a manner as to make the animal 
mechanism a more efficient and a better 
apparatus for the use of man, and even, 
perhaps, find ways of improving the instru- 
ment employed by the mind in its special 
operations, as well as the mechanism of the 
frame in which it is given a home and a 
vehicle. 

The outcome of the investigations made 
up to the present time may be stated 
perhaps in the briefest and most intelligible 
way in the form of a series of theorems, 
thus: 

(1.) The Vital Machine is not a thermody- 
namic engine, a heat-motor. 

Many writers have taken for granted the 
now obviously incorrect hypothesis that, 
since the machine is evidently a source of 
heat, and its energy is derived from com- 
bustible materials, it must, therefore, be a 
heat-engine and its operations necessarily 
thermodynamic. This is easily disproved. 
In any thermodynamic machine, of whatever 
class, among the heat-motors, the proportion 
of heat converted into work, the ‘ efficiency ’ 
of the machine is measured by the range of 
temperature, from the highest to the lowest 
in the cycle operated in by the thermody- 
namic mechanism, divided by the maximum 
absolute temperature in the cycle. For the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 14. 


animal machine this would ordinarily be 
the widest range of temperature attainable 
in thermodynamic conversion divided by 
about 300° C. But the machine is, in~ 
this case, a mass of circulating fluids of fair 
conductivity, mainly, and can have no sen- 
sible range of temperature, so far as can be 
seen; and, in fact, it is known that differ- 
ences of but one or two degrees, in different 
parts of the body, the only actual differ- 
ences of temperature, are produced by a 
slight warming of the venous blood by 
chemical action, or by proximity to or dis- 
tance from the epidermis. As a thermody- 
namic engine, even were it possible, there- 
fore, the machine should have an exceed- 
ingly low efficiency. The fact is that its 
efficiency exceeds that of any heat-engine 
known to man, under the most favorable 
possible practical working conditions. 

The vital engine is certainly not thermo- 
dynamic; its heat is a ‘ by-product.’ 

(2.) The machine is probably not electro- 
dynamic. 

Scoresby and Joule, and Sir William 
Thomson ‘ Lord Kelvin’ and others among 
later writers, have suggested that the ma- 
chine may be, as some have said, an electro- 
dynamic machine, others an electro-mag- 
netic engine. In support of this view it is 
pointed out that, in some cases, as in the 
gymnotus, the torpedo and some fifty other 
creatures, powerful electric batteries, accum- 
mulators, are found in the animal system; 
that all animals seem to have conductors, 
the nerves, and that electricity leakage is 
always to be detected in the living creature 
—currents passing in various directions 
through the body and leaking outward to 
the surface in all parts. The nerves termi- 
nate in ‘plates’ having close relation in 
form and structure to the more highly de- 
veloped cells of the storage batteries of the 
eel and similar animal producers of elec- 
tricity. 

A great variety of facts and considera- 


APRIL 5, 1895.] 


tions based upon research in this field con- 
spire to indicate, if not to fully prove, that 
the passage of the electric current along the 
nerve is the initial act in the motion and 
energy-production of the muscle. On the 
other hand, however, it may probably be 
stated, as conclusively ascertained, that 
there is no representative of the mechan- 
ism of our electro-dynamie machines, either 
of generator or motor, in the muscle, 
where, unquestionably, the applied en- 
ergy is set free and utilized. There is no 
equivalent of magnet, of solenoid, of field 
or of armature. On the other hand, it is 
indicated by numerous and varied investi- 
gations and observations that the electric 
eurrent has for its office, in the vital ma- 
chine, the promotion of the chemical actions 
which accompany all motion and develop- 
ment of force and power. The familiar ef- 
fects of currents having their origin outside 
the body afford illustrations of the fact and 
the method of action of these currents. 
The electric currents, so far as existing in 
the system, have light work to perform ; 
and where, as in the gymnotus, they are 
given more formidable tasks, they require 
for their production and application very 
large special organs, and occupy an exorbi- 
tantly large proportion of the body. 

The vital machine is probably not an 
electro-dynamic motor. 

(3.) The animal prime mover is very proba- 
bly an example of an exceedingly highly organ- 
ized and efficient chemico-dynamic motor. 

There are but three known forms of en- 
ergy available in conversion of the stored 
potential energy of the foods into dynamic 
form. Two of these have been seen to be, 
the one certainly, the other probably, un- 
utilized in the energy-conversion of the vi- 
tal machine. The third, until some as yet 
undiscovered process and energy is found 
to be available, must be assumed to be the 

source of all dynamic phenomena in the 
animal system. The machine is probably 


SCIENCE. 367 


a chemico-dynamic prime mover, in which 
the developments of energy in active form, 
their magnitude and their applications, are 
directed by the supreme authority of the 
system through a very perfect arrangement 
of electric apparatus, by means of which the 
necessary orders are telegraphed to the va- 
rious points at which energy is to be liber- 
ated and applied, and by the currents trav- 
ersing which apparatus the chemical reac- 
tions needed in transformation of the po- 
tential energy of the fats and glycose, and of 
the products of broken-down tissue, into 
active and useful form are inaugurated. 
Electricity, or some related energy, serves 
as the directing and stimulating power, and 
the resolution of fats and other substances 
into glycosic compounds and their oxida- 
tion, at the point at which power is to be 
developed, into carbon-dioxide and water, 
by chemical changes resulting in the trans- 
formation of potential into actual energies, 
supplies the working power of the system. 
The presence of electricity is always observ- 
able in the vital machine, and the chemist- 
physiologists have traced the processes of 
supply and transportation of potential en- 
ergy and of the liberation of active energies 
down to the very last, though still mysteri- 
ous, act of utilization. 

These authorities are now apparently 
substantially unanimous in declaring it 
well settled that the action of muscle, for 
example, is due to what is termed an ‘ ex- 
plosive’ chemical action in the mass of the 
organ, the outcome of which is mechanical 
energy and the liberation of carbon-dioxide. 
The physicist-physiologists are equally unit- 
ed in testifying that the provocation of this 
explosive action, at will and in proper 
quantity, is effected by a nerve-impulse 
which is more nearly like the electric cur- 
rent than any other known form of physical 
energy ; and the process of doing work by 
muscular action is likened to the firing of a 
charge of explosive in the mine by a current 


368 


sent over a wire, in this case along a nerve, 
and the provocation, by its action, of instan- 
taneous oxidation of carbon into carbon-di- 
oxide with change of the physical state from 
the solid or liquid form into gas liberated in 
a small space under high compression, and 
thus in a condition to perform maximum 
work by its expansion. 

(4.) In this chemico-dynamie machine, the 
energy displayed in its dynamic operations, as in 
its muscular work, is generated and applied 
locally. 

It has been supposed by some writers that 
the power of the muscular system was de- 
rived by transmission from some central or 
remote source to the point of application, by 
the nervous system, there to be utilized in 
the act of muscular stress. It is now well 
ascertained that not only is there no pro- 
vision for such transmission of energy, but 
that the liberation of energy occurs within 
the mass of the muscle itself, and within its 
tissue-cells. That the action is local is 
easily seen in the fact that the excised heart, 
an excised bit of intestinal muscle, the cor- 
puscles of the blood itself, and the amceba- 
form protoplasm of which the flesh is com- 
posed, in its minutest elements, possess this 
attribute of energy-development. The heart 
beats, often for hours in some cases, after 
removal from the body; the excised mus- 
cular tissue exhibits its rythmic pulsations 
visibly after isolation ; the white blood cor- 
puscle, even, propels itself independently 
into the locality in which it is to join its ener- 
gies and activities with those of the already 
built-up living substance; the elemental 
protoplasm everywhere exhibits these char- 
acteristics of what we call ‘ living * matter. 

Thus complete elemental vital systems are 
found distributed, in many forms, in all 
parts of the machine, with their directing 
and initiative forces as well as their energy- 
transforming apparatus. 

Further: It is now well settled and easily 
shown that the potential energy supplied 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 14, 


is tendered to the working system in the 
form of glucosic matter,-sugars, produced 
from fats and starches, and sent through 
the arterial pipe lines to the capillaries and_ 
thence into the very cells of the organs in 
which work is done. There they are re- 
solved into carbon-dioxide and water; the 
location and to some extent the nature of 
the energy-transformation being thus fully 
revealed. It is a local transformation of 
chemical into mechanical energy, directly 
or indirectly, at the very point and in the 
very cell, apparently, where the work of 
that elementary portion of potential energy 
is performed. The question remaining to 
be solved is whether this transformation is 
direct or indirect, a single step or a series 
of energy-changes, not whether it is effected 
locally or generally or within some special 
organ appropriated to that duty. Hach 
cell appears to be an elementary prime 
motor, an elemental vital machine; and the 
muscular mechanism is a combination of 
innumerable elements of similar composi- 
tion and method of action, in each of which 
a similar process of energy-transformation 
is conducted. 

This process is not thermodynamic, is 
probably not electro-dynamic, is presum- 
ably chemico-dynamic, by which is meant 
that the energy of chemical action is prob- 
ably directly transmuted into mechanical en- 
ergy, not, as in thermodynamic machines, 
first into heat and then into work. A ther- 
modynamic link in the chain would mean 
the loss of a large fraction of the whole 
supply; but it still remains to be ascer- 
tained how direct chemico-dynamic conyer- 
sion of energy can give the remarkable 
efficiency observed in the vital machine. 

(5) The Nerve-Impulse, the physical energy 
relied upon for communicating the voluntary and 
the automatic stimuli which determine the time 
and intensity of the action of the muscular motor- 
system, 1s probably a form of electric energy or 
some closely related physical action. 


| Apen 5,.1895.] SCIENCE. 


This is a system of telegraphy from nerve- 
ganglia, spine and brain which does not, as 
had been formerly supposed by some 
writers, transmit energy, but simply indi- 
eates where and when locally available 
stored energy is to be liberated and applied 
to definite purposes by appropriate muscles. 
Tt demands energy only in the manner and 

in the degree in which the electric current fir- 
_ ing amine expends energy in the initiation 
_ of the chemical action resulting in the tre- 
- mendous effects observed. The work is 
: done by the more or less complete transfor- 
- mation of the potential energy available in 
_ ehemical combinations into mechanical en- 

ergy, once the electric spark fires the 
charge. 
The passage of the electric current through 
the fresh muscle produces the same effects 
as the nerve-impulse, and these effects may 
| be reproduced again and again, until the 
muscle loses its store of glycose or until its 

t structure changes. At every effort, the 
flexed muscle consumes glycose and liber- 
_ ates carbon-dioxide, precisely as in its na- 
tural operation under the stimulus of the 
_nerve-impulse. This parallelism of action 
and effect may be taken as, perhaps, good 
- eircumstantial evidence. In every animal 
System, and in every mass of muscle within 

_ it, electricity-leakage, or other movements 
of electricity, may always be detected by 
the familiar methods of the electrician, and 
this everywhere distributed energy un- 
questionably originates in the system itself, 
and has place and purpose in its economy. 
‘Tn special cases, as in the gymnotus, Na- 
ture has magnified its work and given it 
Jarger place in the working of the machine 
than ordinarily, and thus has given us an 
opportunity to observe, on this magnified 
ante of working, both the form of the special 
; constructions for the production of this form 
Bd energy, and the method of its transmis- 
sion and application. We find the electric 
ystem of the gymnotus to be simply a 


369 


development of the nerves and terminal 
plates found in all animals. That they 
have a common office, though very different 
in relative magnitude and importance in 
the two cases, is undoubted. That the 
origin, however, of this form of energy, 
simply as required for telegraphy, is chem- 
ical is very certain, also, since it must find 
its source in the common store of potential 
energy supplied the whole system. That 
this chemical process may be somewhat 
different from that producing chemico-dy- 
namic effects is not improbable ; especially 
as the presence of combustible fats of pecu- 
liar composition seem always an essential 
to nerve action. But all chemical action is 
accompanied by electric phenomena, and 
Nature here seems to make the fact sub- 
servient to her plans. But she adopts 
singular methods, and possibly a peculiar 
form of this energy ; and the minute quan- 
tity detected by investigators, and the slow 
rate of progress along the nerve fibers, are 
elements of as yet unrevealed mystery. 
The familiar exhausting effect of continued 
nervous expenditure may be either due to 
large energy expenditure or to restricted 
supply of the special form of potential from 
which it is derived. 

(6.) The nature, source and methods of de- 
velopment and transformation of brain and 
nerve power do not appear to have been yet dis- 
covered, or even surmised. 

The fact that such energy is subject to 
exhaustion and renewal by precisely the 
same processes, so far as can be observed, 
certainly under the same conditions as pro- 
duce fatigue or favor recuperation of mus- 
cular power would seem to justify the in- 
ference that the potential energy of the food 
and the processes of nutrition and of devel- 
opment of active physical energies in the 
brain, spine and nerves are so modified in 
these glands as to give a special product in 
the form of vital energy, and perhaps of 
brain-power, and of those initiative forces 


370 


of the whole nervous system which inaugu- 
rate and direct, automatically or intelli- 
gently, the currents of nerve-impulse and 
set in operation and sustain the whole com- 
plicated life-system. But how the mind 
seizes upon these forces and compels these 
energies to work its will, or how the spine, 
and automatic mechanism, generally, is set 
in communication with the mind on the 
one side, and the organism of the machine 
on the other, remains a mystery challen- 
ging every resource of talent and the high- 
est genius in the investigator. So far asa 
judgment or even a surmise is permitted, 
it may probably be assumed that, like all 
other energies of the vital machine, those 
of brain and spine and nervous system have 
a definite, quantivalent relation with the 
familiar physical energies, and fall within 
the province of modern scientific research. 
They demand, beyond a doubt, their pro- 
portion of the potential energy supplied in 
the daily ration. 

(7.) Observed phenomena and statistical data 
upon which these deductions are founded may be 
summarized as follows : 

Taking the human vital engine, in illus- 
tration, the amount of potential energy sup- 
plied the average individual may be taken at 
2,500 or 3,000 calories when doing no exter- 
nal muscular work, 4,000 calories when per- 
forming a full day’s work as a laborer. 
This corresponds to 10,000 to 16,000 British 
thermal units, to from 8,000,000 to 12,500,- 
000, nearly, British dynamic units, foot- 
pounds per individual per day, of which 
supply a part is wasted by defective diges- 
tion and assimilation and a portion by vari- 
ous defects of the machine itself. Taking 
the energy-supply of the vital machine as 
8,000,000 foot-pounds for the man of seden- 
tary habits and performing brain-work and 


*Pavy on Foods; Mott’s Manual; Thurston’s 
Animal as a Prime Mover; Year Book of the New 
York State Reformatory, 1894 ; Reports of the Conn. 
Agricultural Station. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 14. 


10,000,000 for a steady and hard-working 
laboring man, who does much muscular 
labor and little thinking, we have the basis 
of estimates which, though probably not_ 
very precise, may yet answer present pur- 
poses in giving general conclusions. 

Of this eight or ten millions of foot-pounds 
of energy supplied the machine in potential 
form, in the foods, not less than fifteen per 
cent. must be reckoned for deficiency of 
digestion and transformation into available 
form in the chyme and chyle, the solutions 
from which the system draws it for its vari- 
ous special purposes. This seems the mini- 
mum usual loss, and an excess is commonly 
observed, which is furnished by larger food- 
supply than the assumed figures as here 
given. A good ‘digestion coefficient’ is 85 
per cent. 

Of the 8,000,000 foot-pounds of energy 
furnished in the food of the brain-worker, or 
10,000,000 supplied the day laborerer, some- 
thing like 7,000,000 in the one ease, and 
8,500,000 in the other, pass into the reser- 
voirs of potential energy of the vital ma- 
chine, and circulate in the blood through 
all its organs ; giving up to each that pecu- 
liar form of nutriment needed for its work 
or for its own maintenance. The muscles 
draw upon it for energy to be converted into © 
the work of external labor or of internal 
operations essential to life; the various 
glands elaborate from it those special com- 
positions required for their purposes; the 
brain and nervous system absorb from it the 
material for consumption in the operations 
directed by the mind or automatically con- 
ducted by the vital powers of the animal 
system. Of the 8,500,000 foot-pounds of 
energy thus furnished the mechanism of the 
laboring man, in the best cases of applica- 
tion, under most favorable conditions, about 
2,000,000 are applied to the performance of 


*Flint’s Muscular Power ; Woods’s Digestibility 
of Feeding Stuffs, Awater’s Studies of Dietaries, 
Report of Conn. Ag. Experimental Station, 1893. 


APRIL 5, 1895.] 


the day’s work ; which is equivalent to say- 
ing that the efficiency of this vital machine, 
considered simply as prime mover, is 23} 
per cent. If efficiency of conversion of 
potential into dynamic energy of muscular 
work, internal as well as external, is con- 
sidered, it is very possible that this figure 
may be doubled, and the efficiency to be 
taken in comparison with that of heat- 
engines may be somewhere between forty 
and fifty per cent. If the internal work of 
thought and of brain and nerve power is 
considered useful work, and the total com- 
pared with the energy supply, the efficiency 
will be a still higher figure, perhaps fifty or 
even sixty per cent.* 

But the highest total efficiency of the 
best steam-engine yet constructed is but 
about twenty per cent., with its thermody- 
namic range of about 200° F. (111° C.) 
degrees, Fahr., and that of the best gas-en- 
gine is but about the same, with a range 
of ten times that extent. If the vital ma- 
chine be a thermodynamic engine, there- 
fore, its known efficiency, with no recog- 
nized temperature, range of heat ‘ let down,’ 
is not less than twenty-five per cent. higher 
than, and may be twice as high as, the best 
heat-engines constructed by man. This is 
recognized by engineer and thermodyna- 
mist alike, as a reductio ad absurdum, and the 
vital engine is certainly not a heat-engine. 

The facts regarding the distribution of 
potential energy to the various organs of 
the body; the development by each organ 
of its special form of product in new compo- 
sitions or in a special energy; the localiza- 
tion of energy-transformations in the cells 
of the muscle, or other energy-producer; 
the accompanying liberation of carbon- 
dioxide from consumption of glycosic ma- 
terial; the utilization of a telegraphic, or 
rather a semaphoric, system communication 

* Weisbach’s Mechanics of Engineering ; Rankine’s 


_ Prime Movers ; Thurston’s Animal asa Prime Motor ; 
_ Reynolds’ Memoir of Joule. 


SCIENCE. 


o71 


between the mind or the interior automaton 
of the spine and cerebellum and the point 
of useful application of energy all : these 
are familiar to all physiologists.** Beyond 
these known phenomena lie the mysteries 
which the engineers, if possible more than 
the physiologists themselves, most desire 
to see completely solved. When they are 
thoroughly investigated and the operations 
of the vital machine become fully known, 
in all their details of energy-transformation, 
it may be possible to secure new prime 
movers of similarly high efficiency and thus 
to double the life of the race by prolonging 
the period marking the endurance of our 
supplies of potential energy in the coal- 
fields of the world. Should it prove that 
only by preliminary manufacture of fuel, 
in the form of sugars, can this result be 
attained, it may seem unlikely that, even 
when these operations are no longer mys- 
teries, commercial applications of nature’s 
methods can be expected to prove success- 
ful; yet when it is considered that the 
sugars are simply carbon and water, it will 
not be denied by either engineer, chemist 
or physiologist that a possibility still re- 
mains of effecting so enormously important 
an advance in the prime motors. If, further, 
nature’s economies in light-production can 
be paralleled, the engineer may ultimately 
furnish heat, light and power, the three 
great products of his special labors of most 
value to the race, with insignificant wastes 
and approximately perfect efficiency and 
maximum cheapness. Given perfect effi- 
ciency of power-production and the main 
problem is solved. R. H. Tuursron. 


CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 


HARSHBERGER ON THE ORIGIN OF OUR 
VERNAL FLORA, 
By way of a review of a paper by Mr. 
Henry L. Clarke, in the American Natural- 
*Foster’s Physiology; Encyclopedia Britannica, 
Art. Physiology; Chauveau’s Le Travail Musculaire. 


372 


ist for September, 18938, XX VII., 769-781, 
entitled ‘The Philosophy of Flower Sea- 
sons,’ I have just contributed an article to 
the same journal, Feb., 1895, X XIX., 97- 
117, giving the results of local observations 
on the same subject. After my paper was 
in type, I found a short article in Nature, 
XXVIJI., 7, by J. E. Taylor, entitled ‘The 
Origin of our Vernal Flora,’ which sug- 
gested some reflections bearing upon the 
problem. These, with other thoughts re- 
lating to the subject, were too late to be in- 
corporated in an article which was already 
of considerable length. A consideration of 
these items, however, may not be out of 
place in connection with an examination of 
the article by Mr. Harshberger, in ScreNncr, 
Jan. 25, 1895; New Series, I., 92-98. 

Commenting upon the fact that it is usual 
to assign an Arctic origin to our mountain 
flora, but without giving references, Mr. 
Taylor says: “Seemg that temperature is 
so largely influential in explaining the dis- 
tribution of flowering plants, it occurs to me 
that not only may height above the sea- 
level answer to northern distribution, but 
seasonal occurrence as well.” Briefly, this 
covers Mr. Harshberger’s propositions num- 
bered 1, 2 and 3 on page 95. 

Mr. Taylor observes that the early flow- 
ering plants blossom two or three months 
earlier in Great Britain than within the 
polar circle. For example, Chrysosplenium 
oppositifolium and C. alternifoliwm bloom ‘in 
March or April; within the Arctic circle 
not until June and July, and even so late 
as August.’ This suggests a general re- 
tardation of flower seasons as we go north- 
ward, and I have used this assumption as 
in part explaining the late blooming of some 
of the luxuriant, highly specialized groups, 
which MacMillan* calls ‘north-bound.’ In 
many of these, flowering is preceded by a 
long vegetative period. Im the northward 
movement, if the vegetative period remains 

*Higher Seed-Plants of the Minnesota Valley, 1892. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. I. No. 14. 


of the same length, it seems probable that 
the flowering would be later in consequence 
of this period beginning later. 

Mr. Clarke’s paper is an elaboration of the 
idea of the preponderance of the less-special= 
ized flowers in the early part of the season 
and of the more highly specialized flowers. 
in summer and autumn, and I have eriti- 
cised this theory from the standpoint of the 
local flora of my neighborhood, and haye 
undertaken to account for flower seasons as: 
a result of the competition of flowers among 
themselves and in correlation with the 
flight of the anthophilous insect fauna. 
The reader is referred to these papers for a 
more extended discussion of the relations of 
flower seasons and the specializations of 
floral structure. 

Mr. Harshberger’s observations upon the 
lull or break in the continuity of the floral 
procession, which he says at times occurs, 
is quite interesting. He says: ‘Such a 
break seems to occur in the neighborhood 
of Philadelphia between the twenty-fifth 
day of May and the tenth or fifteenth day 
of June, when the first true summer plants 
appear. Curiously enough, this period cor- 
responds with the time of the ice saints in 
the United States, when there is a possi- 
bility of frost over a large portion of our 
continental area.” : 

There isa lull, however, which, atleast as 
regards the entomophilous flora, takes place, 
not ‘at times,’ but regularly. The frost 
may, indeed, in many cases have a very 
definite effect in preventing plants from ad- 
vancing into the spring months, probably 
indirectly, however, through its influence 
upon the vegetative state which precedes 
flowering. The time of the ice saints, ae- 
cording to Harrington,* is from May 19th 
to 24th, while the floral depression is later. 

In the neighborhood of Carlinville, Ill., 
the entomophilous flora shows a slight de- 


*Harper’s Monthly, LXXXVIII., 878. 1894. Ar — 
ticle cited by Harshberger. 


APRIL 5, 1895.] 


line in June, and many of the groups show 
well marked June depressions, as will be 
seen from my curves (in article cited). 
The dominant families show maxima before 
June or after, but not one of them shows a 
June maximum. The depression some- 
times occurs in very homogeneous groups, 
_ as the Scrophulariacez, there being no par- 
ticular distinctions between the early and 
late ones. The gap sometimes separates 
species of the same genus. As a rule, the 
vernal flowers belong to plants of low habit 
which bloom in the woodlands, which are 
now warm and sunny, or upon the open 
grounds. About June the former become 
overshadowed by the leaves which have ap- 
_ peared on the trees, and the latter by the later 
‘more luxuriant vegetation. Thus the species 
of Viola and Lithospermum produce attractive 
flowers until about this time, when they 
_ either stop blooming altogether, or resort to 
_ the production of cleistogamic flowers. 

One fact, which was not mentioned in my 
paper, but is shown in my curves, is that 
the groups of anthophilous insects show 
the same tendency to form early or late 
maxima, which emphasizes the importance 
of the correlations of the two sets of more 
or less mutually dependent organisms. 
‘The Syrphids, Empide and Andrenide 
show early maxima, while all of the other 
_ families show late ones. In the case of the 
dominant genera of bees, Anthophora, Synha- 
lonia and Osmia reach their maxima early, 
but the other genera predominate late. 
_Nomada breaks into a large early group and 
a small late one, just like Andrena, upon 
Which it is parasitic. 

In the case of our trees, I suspect that 


anemophilous pollination. Mr. Harshber- 
ger certainly seems very wide of the mark 
in explaining the retention by trees of their 
Japtation for wind aid in transferring their 


SCIENCE. 


37d 


pollen. In the first place, their height ex- 
poses them to the wind in such a way as 
to make wind pollination quite favorable, 
while the wind may also interfere with in- 
sect visits. The fact that the most highly 
specialized flower visiting insects are not 
so abundant in spring will not do, for they 
are not the insects which are most likely to 
favor incipient stages of entomophily. The 
less specialized bees (Andrenide) and the 
flower flies (Syrphide) are most abundant 
in spring, and they would be the most fa- 
vorable guests in the less specialized states 
of insect-adaptation. Moreover, flower- 
loving insects are very abundant in the 
woodlands in the spring before the leaves 
appear, and that is the very time that the 
wind pollinated trees are in bloom. By re- 
sorting to entomophily, the trees would only 
come in competition with the terrestrial 
flora, which is more favorably situated for 
insect visits and is very attractive to the 
early insect fauna. 

The author states that ‘“ Trees of abnor- 
mal habit frequently show atavism, flower- 
ing in the late autumn, if exceptionally 
warm.’ Such cases as Hamamelis are ex- 
amples. I am inclined to Foerste’s* view 
that the autumnal blooming is a case of 
precocious development of a spring flower. 
According to him, Hamamelis has distinct 
hibernacula and in cold autumns holds over 
until next spring. 

If the generally accepted flower theory is 
true, one would expect to find the highest 
specialized flowers at that part of the sea- 
son when the most highly specialized flower 
visiting insects are most abundant. But it 
is hard to understand how Mr. Harshber- 
ger could attribute this modification to 
the Lepidoptera. As far as adaptation for 
flower-pollination is concerned, the bees are 
beyond question the most highly special- 
ized. Miller} says: “ Bees, as the most 

* Bot. Gazette, XVII., 3, 1892. 

+ Fertilization of Flowers, 595, 1883. 


ov4 


skilful and diligent visitors, have played 
the chief part in the evolution of flowers ; 
we owe to them the most numerous, most 
varied and most specialized forms.” The 
Lepidoptera have given rise to some highly 
specialized flowers, but I think it would be 
hard in a single case to show a probability 
that the incipient stages of irregularity 
were induced by their visits. 

That the less specialized flowers are 
spring flowers is only true in a general way. 
From my present data it appears that the 
maximum of the entomophilous Choripeta- 
le is in August, though further observa- 
tions may show a greater number in spring. 
Including the anemophilous species, the 
Choripetale will certainly show an early 
maximum, and that is the extent of the 
justification of their being called spring 
plants. The same is true of the entomo- 
philous Monocotyledons. If the blooming 
seasons of all of the Monocotyledons of a 
given neighborhood be worked out, I doubt 
if they will show a vernal maximum, 
though the position of Carex may accom- 
plish this result. The Gamopetale have 
a late maximum, but none of them are free 
from the competition of the Monocotyledons 
or the Choripetale. 

It seems to me that Mr. Harshberger has 
contributed an important point in reference 
to the general positions of the flower groups 
by indicating the influence of the retreat of 
glacial winter. Making use of this sugges- 
tion we may suppose that, as the warm sea- 
sons became longer, a large proportion of the 
Monocotyledons and Choripetale moved 
northward, climbed the mountains or open- 
ed their flowers early. While the more 
highly specialized groups were by no means 
thus relieved from the competition of the less 
specialized, there can be little doubt but 
that in the later months they found a time 
when that competition was less severe. 
This may aid us in explaining what has 
struck me as a fact in the phzenological 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 14. 


habits of the flora of my neighborhood. I 
have indicated that the introduced plants, 
the aquatics and the degraded entomophi- 
lous flowers tend to prolong their bloomin 
seasons, and have supposed that this results 
from their being more relieved from the com- 
petition which besets the other flowers. Al- 
though the data have not been arranged to 
test the point thoroughly, it has occurred to 
me that the later plants in general bloom 
longer than the early ones. (In investiga- 
ting this proposition, it may be proper to 
eliminate some of the very late ones, whose 
seasons are not cut short by competition, 
but by way of preparation for the approach- 
ing winter.) The later species thus appear 
to have entered a position where competi- 
tion was less severe. It may be, however, 
that they show the effects of competition 
less, merely on account of their superiority. 
Mr. Harshberger attributes floral modifi- 
cations to the ‘irritating action of insects 
on vegetal protoplasm.’ This suggests 
Henslow’s* theory. As far as I know, 
that theory has not been accepted by any 
one who has made a serious investigation 
of the relations of flowers and insects, and 
for that reason it has not seemed justifiable 
to discuss it at length. It seems safe to 
say that it has not been shown that direct 
insect contact will induce floral modifiea- 
tions, or that the theory will account for 
the most ordinary facts of floral structure. 
Finally, with regard to the literature, I 
notice that Mr. Harshberger quotes Mac- 
Millan (1. c.) without giving references. 
On consulting this author, I find that the 
general proposition of the early blooming of 
the less specialized plants and the late 
blooming of the more highly specialized is 
at least strongly suggested, and that too 
evidently on the authority of persons cited 
in a bibliographical list. The autumn- 
flowering of the Composite is distinctly 
stated. From his observations in Flanders, — 
* The Origin of Floral Structures, 1888. 


ApRrit 5, 1895.] 


vs 


MacLeod* concludes that the less special- 
ized flowers, as well as insects, prefer the 
springtime, while the more highly special- 
ized prefer the later months. This antici- 
pates my statement of the same general 
“result. 


: 


CHARLES ROBERTSON. 
CARLINVILLE, ILLINOIs. 


j BRISSON’S GENERA OF MAMMALS, 1762. 

Ip 1756 Brisson published, in Paris, the 
mammal volume of his ‘ Regnum Animale in 
Classes IX Distributum.’ It is a quarto, with 
the descriptive matter in French and Latin, 
in parallel columns, and contains a folding 
table or key on which the generic names 
are given in proper Latin form. But since 
the work antedates by two years the 10th 
edition of Linneus’ Systema Nature, which 
by common consent is accepted as the start- 
ing point in Zodlogical nomenclature, the 
names cannot be used. Six years later, how- 
ever, a second edition of Brisson appeared. 
It is a rare octavo, wholly in Latin, and was 
printed at Leyden in 1762}. It isofspecial 
importance because it falls between the two 
editions of Linnzeus that are available in 
- Zodlogical nomenclature (10th Ed., 1758; 
ste Ed., 1766), and hence may be con- 


_ sidered, so far as the genera of mammals are 
concerned, as a part of the foundation ofthe 
nomenclature. The specific names are not 
exclusively binomial and cannot be used, 
but the generic names given in the keys 
(pp. 12-13 and 218) are in due Latin form, 


the 6th edition (1748) is the only one quot- 
Still 25 of the 46 genera given are the 


* Over de bevruchting der bloemen in het Kempisch 
gedeelte van Vlaanderen. Bot. Jaarboek, VI., 1894. 
{Regnum Animale in Classes IX. Distributum 
. . . Quadrupedum & Cetaceorum. . . A. D. Bris- 
m. . . Editioaltera auctior. . . Lugduni Batavo- 
. 1762. 


SCIENCE. 375 


10th Ed. (1758). Of the remaining 21, ten 
are strictly synonymous with and antedated 
by Linnean genera, and consequently can- 
not be used either in a generic or sub-gen- 
eric sense. These are : 


Brisson, 1762. Linnzeus, 1758. 


Pholidotus = Manis 
Tardigracus = Bradypus 
Cataphractus = Dasypus 
Hireus — Capra 
Aries = Ovis 
Musaraneus = Sorex 
Prosimia — Lemur 
Philander — Didelphis 
Cetus —— Physeter 
Ceratodon = Monodon 


The remaining eleven are introduced by 
Brisson for the first time and are entitled 
to recognition. They are: 


Odobenus Glis 
Girafia Pteropus 
Tragulus Hyena 
Hydrochcerus Meles 
Tapirus Lutra 
Cuniculus 


Most of these are now in current use, but 
are attributed to later writers, and in 
several cases wrong species are taken as 
types. Carrying the date back to 1762 not 
only gives them greater stability, but also 
establishes the types in a satisfactory 
manner. All but one of the genera take 
Linnean species for types, as follows: 

The type of Odobenus is O. odobenus Bris- 
son = Phoca rosmarus Linn., which becomes 
Odobenus rosmarus (Linn.) 1758. It thus 
seems as if the Walrus, after oscillating for 
a century and a half between Odobenus and 
Trichechus, might fairly claim a permanent 
abiding place. 

The type of Giraffa is G. giraffa Brisson= 
Cervus camelopardalis Linn., which becomes 
Giraffa camelopardalis (Linn.) 1758. 

The type of Tragulusis T. indicus Brisson= 
Capra pygmea Linn., which becomes Tragulus 
pygmeus (Linn.) 1758. 


376 


The type of Hydrocheris is H. hydrocherus 
Brisson=Sus hydrocheris Linn. (12th Ed.), 
which becomes Aydrocherus hydrocheris 
(Linn.) 1766. 

The type of Tapirus is T. tapirus Brisson= 
Hippopotamus terrestris Linn., which becomes 
Tapirus terrestris (Linn.) 1758. 

The type of Cuniculus may be fixed on C. 
cauda longissima Brisson, which becomes 
Cuniculus alactaga (Olivier) 1800.*  Cuwni- 
culus is one of the few genera in which Bris- 
son did not indicate the type by repeating 
the generic name for the first species. It 
was made up of a heterogeneous assemblage 
comprising no less than six modern genera 
and five families of Rodents as follows : 


Cavia Pallas 1766 (Caviide) 
Lemmus Link 1795 (Muride) 
Celogenus Cuy. 1807 | ares 
Dasyprocta I. 1811 (Desnyy ee) 
Anisonyx Raf. 1817 (Sciuride) 

_— Allactaga Cuv. 1836 (Dipodide) 


According to the A. O. U. Code, therefore, 
Allactaga, having been left in Ouniculus until 
all the others had been taken out, must 
stand as the type of Cuniculus. 

The type of Glis is Glis glis Brisson= 
Sciurus glis Linn. (12th Ed.), 1766, which 
becomes Gitis glis (Linn.) 1766. 

The type of Pteropus is P. pteropus Brisson 
= Vespertilio vampyrus Linn., which becomes 
Pieropus vampyrus (Linn.) 1758, replacing 
Pieropus edulis Auct.+ 

The type of Hyena is H. hyena Brisson= 
Canis hynea Linn., which becomes Hynea 
hynea (Linn.) 758. 

The type of Meles is M. meles Brisson= 
Ursus meles Linn., which becomes Meles meles 
(linn.) 1758. 


* Dipus alactaga Olivier, Bull. Soc. Philomatique, 
II., No. 40, 1800, p. 121; also Tilloch’s Philosophical 
Mag., Oct., 1800, p. 90. 

7 See Gray, List of Specimens of Mammals, British 


Museum, 1843, p. 37; and particularly Thomas, Proc. 
Zool. Soc., London, 1892, p. 316, foot note. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 14. 


The type of Lutra is L. lutra Brisson= 
Mustela lutra Linn., which becomes Jvtra 
lutra (Linn.) 1758. 

C. Harr Merriam.  — 


NOTES ON AGRICULTURE (1.) 
ELECTRO-HORTICULTURE. 

Tue latest results drawn from experi- 
ments with electric light upon vegetation 
are by Professor Rane in Bulletin No. 37 
of the West Virginia Experiment Station. 
Investigations along this general line began 
in 1861, when Herve-Mango demonstrated 
that electric light can cause the formation 
of green material (chlorophyll) in plants 
and produce other phenomena, as turning 
toward the light (heliotropism). Pril- 
leaeux, in 1869, showed that assimilation 
in plants goes on in the presence of arti- 
ficial light. Dr. Siemens experimented 
largely with are lights, both within and at 
other times outside of and above the plant 
houses. Professor Bailey, who at Cornell 
University has tested electric lighting ex- 
tensively during the past few years, in re- 
viewing Dr. Siemens’ work, writes: “‘ He 
used the term electro-horticulture to desig- 
nate this new application of electric energy. 
He anticipated that in the future the horti- 
culturist will have the means of making 
himself particularly independent of solar 
light for producing a high quality of fruit 
at all seasons of the year .. . . whatever 
may be the value of electric light to horti- 
culture, the practical value of Siemens’ ex- 
periments is still great.’ After years of 
trial Professor Bailey stated in one of his 
reports: ‘‘I am convinced that the electrie 
light can be used to advantage in the fore- 
ing of some plants.”’ 

In the fall of 1892 Professor Rane intro- 
duced the use of the incandescent light in 
place of the are lamp, and his recent report 
with its illustrations from photographs of 
plants, etc., has features of interest to all 
who are interested in science, as well as the 


APRIL 5, 1895.] 


market gardener. He finds that “the in- 
eandescent electric light has a marked effect 
upon greenhouse plants,” it being “‘ benefi- 
cial to some plants grown for foliage, such as 
lettuce. Flowering plants blossomed earlier 
and continued in bloom longer under the 
light”? than elsewhere. Plants like spinach 
and endive “ quickly ran to seed, which is 
objectionable in forcing these plants for 
sale. Most plants tended toward a taller 
growth under the light.’’ The fact of 
plants responding promptly to electric light 
is widely demonstrated, but that it will be 
an economical method of growing crops is 
not so clearly shown. 


SOIL TREATMENT OF ORCHARDS FOR DROUGHT. 


Ty many parts of our country crop grow- 
ing is very uncertain, due to a lack of suffi- 
cient rainfall. This fact has led the Ne- 
braska Experiment Station to make a study 
of methods of mitigating the ill effects of 
dry weather. Professor Card* reports re- 
sults upon an old orchard, a third of which 
was mowed, a third pastured and the re- 
maining third cultivated every two weeks. 
The trees in cultivated ground suffered much 
less from the drought and hot winds than 
_ those in sod, the foliage being more vigorous 
and without the wilting during the hot 
windy days common to the trees in the sod 
‘ground. 

The fruit was larger and better upon the 
_ cultivated trees than elsewhere. An ex- 
amination of the soil showed that for every 

00 barrels of water in the first twenty 
inches of sod ground there were 140 barrels 
‘in the cultivated ground. ‘The soil in all 
‘Tegions when drought is experienced needs 
a covering of mulch. It is not practicable 
_toadd a mulch of straw or other material, 
but the upper few inches of the soil when 
kept light and mellow serves as a mulch for 
ll below. Therefore a key to the solution 


__ **Some Obstacles to Successful Fruit Growing,’ 
Bulletin 39 Neb. Experimentation Station. 


) 


SCIENCE. 


377 


of the problem is to plow deep; even sub- 
soiling will pay for some crops, and then 
mulch by means of a mellow layer upon the 
top produced by frequent cultivation. 


THE RUSSIAN THISTLE, 


No other species of plant has received so 
large amount of attention as has been given 
during the past two years to the Russian 
Thistle (Salsola Kali Tragus (LL) Mogq.). 
Not only the botanists have been interested, 
but law makers in legislative halls have 
paused in their party strife to listen to the 
demands of their constituents for enact- 
ments against this newly arrived and 
miserable plant pest. 

Many of the Experiment Stations have 
published bulletins of greater or less size 
with full-page engravings of the thistle in 
its various parts or conditions of growth. 
Recently a large emergency poster has been 
issued by a Central-Western Station to be 
displayed in public places as a means of in- 
formation and warning to all whom it may 
concern. The National Government has 
shared in this work by issuing a bulletin 
from the Department of Agriculture, while 
Congress was asked to appropriate vast sums 
to put down this rapidly spreading, prickly 
weed. 

As the name indicates, this enemy to 
American agriculture came to our country 
from Russia, where it is called by a name 
having the meaning of ‘ Leap-the-field.’ 
In German it is ‘ Wind witch,’ and with us 
the same idea is embodied in the name of 
‘Tumble weed,’ namely its capacity . for 
traveling with the wind. When it matures 
in autumn the stem decays at the surface of 
the ground, and the large bushy, prickly 
plant is easily blown for long distances by 
the wind, and when twenty or so of these 
plants become entangled and formed into a 
giant ball the structure is quite formidable. 

The new conditions of the far-prairie 
States, where a rich soil and open country 


378 


prevail, the spread of this pest has been 
phenomenal. From a single center in South 
Dakota, where it was brought in flax seed 
from Russia a few years ago, it has been 
disseminated in all directions, so that to-day 
it may be expected in almost any State in 
the Union. Its spread is not confined to 
to its natural methods, for with our lines 
of railway running in all directions the 
seeds are carried rapidly and for long dis- 
tances. 

As an outcome of the advent of the Rus- 
sian thistle, there has been a wide and 
thorough awakening upon the subject of 
weeds which will result in a better under- 
standing of these foes, their ways of migra- 
tion to and throughout our country, and the 
best methods of subduing them. 


THE BEET-LEAF SPOT AND ITS REMEDIES. 


THE last Bulletin (No. 107) of the New 
Jersey Experiment Station describes a fun- 
gous trouble of beets in the United States, 
the Cercospora beticola, Sace., which causes a 
conspicuous spotting of the foliage. There 
seems to be no respect shown for any vari- 
eties of beets, for the writer has made special 
visits to the trial grounds of large seed- 
growers, and all sorts of beets, from the 
oldest to the newest kinds, were found with 
their foliage about equally injured. 

The common name of ‘ Leaf Spot’ well 
describes the general appearance of the beet 
leaves infested with this Cercospora, for 
they are at first more or less covered with 
small light or ashy spots, which later often 
become holes by the disappearance of the 
tissue previously killed by the fungus. 
Figure 1 is an engraving made from a sun 
print of a beet leaf, natural size, that was 
badly infested with the Cercospora. Full- 
sized leaves often become mutilated, and 
sometimes scarcely more than the frame- 
work remains. The fungus itself is quite 
similar in structure and habits of growth to 
those causing leaf spots and blights in other 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 14. 


crops. The so-called ‘rust’ of celery is due 
to a Cercospora (Cercospora Apii Fr.), as 
likewise is the violet leaf spot ( Cercospora 
Viole Sace.). These fungi consist of slender 
threads which run through the substance of 
the leaf, and, coming to the surface in 
groups, pass through the openings (stomata) 
in the skin, and in clusters bear long, slender 
spores in considerable numbers. These 
spores, when mature, fall from their points 
of attachment and soon germinate, thus 
spreading the fungus and causing other 
spots. 


During the past season, under the special 
charge of Mr. J. A. Kelsey, spraying exper- 
iments have been carried out to check the 
Cercospora of the beet. A field of Man- 
golds, kindly provided by Supt. E. A. Jones, 
at the College Farm, was experimented 
upon with Bordeaux mixture. 

As the season progressed the Bordeaux 


~ 


Aprit 5, 1895.] 


, 
4 
| 


mixture made so striking a difference in 
the plants that it could have been observed 
by anyone passing along the side of the 
field. The untreated rows had the foliage 
smaller, more upright and badly spotted 
with the fungus, while the sprayed plants 
showed a rank growth of foliage, nearly 
green throughout, more inclined to lop and 
much less spotted than the untreated plants. 

The difference between the roots in the 
treated and untreated rows shown below 
in pounds was not so great as that seen in 
the foliage. 


Sprayed. Unsprayed. 
ot 6 416}1bs. 331Ibs. 
tg SE 634 IDs. 49tbs. 

TED 480Ibs. 380Ibs. 


This is an increase of nearly twenty-six 
per cent., or one-quarter in round numbers. 
Therefore, the conclusion is that whatever 
the crop may have been per acre in this 
ease, spraying with Bordeaux mixture 
would have increased it one-fourth, or, for 
example, from nine tons to twelve tons. 
Byron D. Harsrep. 


SCIENCE IN CANADA. 

_A new volume of the transactions of the 
Royal Society of Canada (Volume XII.) 
will shortly be issued. It will be the largest 
of the series and will contain a bibliography 


t de France. It consists of four sec- 
tions, of which two are scientific, one being 
devoted to the physical and chemical, the 
ther to the biological and geological sci- 
ces. The system of éloges, introduced 
ally by the French Section (I.), has of 
been adopted by the other sections also. 
y conducted, this feature cannot fail 
0 be of value to the future inquirer. An 
te catalogue of deceased members’ 
rks, with their dates of publication, etc., 


SCIENCE. 


379 


and an impartial estimate, ought to accom- 
pany the biography. 

The scientific members of the Royal So- 
ciety of Canada comprise several scientific 
workers and writers of continental, a few of 
European, fame. Except one year (1891) it 
has always met at Ottawa, a rendezvous 
which, though inconvenient for members 
living at a great distance, has some import- 
ant advantages, such as access to the Na- 
tional Library, the Archives Bureau, the ofli- 
ces, museum and library of the Geological 
Survey and the Central Farm, with its la- 
boratories, ete. All these departments are 
represented in the membership. 

Not the least of the services that the 
Royal Society has rendered to Canada is 
that which arises from the affiliation of the 
principal local societies throughout the 
Dominion. Some of these are important 
bodies, which publish transactions of their 
own, and have done a fair share of original 
work. Among these may be mentioned 
the Natural History Society of Montreal, 
founded in 1827; the Canadian Institute 
(1851), the Hamilton Association (1856), 
the Nova Scotia Institute of Natural Science 
(1862), the Entomological Society of On- 
tario (1863), the Murchison Society, Belle- 
ville (1873), the Ottawa Field Natural- 
ists’ Club (1879), the Canadian Society of 
Civil Engineers (1888), the Natural His- 
tory Society of British Columbia (1889) and 
the Literary and Scientific Society of Win- 
nepeg (1879). It will be seen that this list 
practically covers the Dominion from At- 
lantic to Pacific, and when it is added that 
every one of these bodies is represented at 
the May meeting by a delegate, who reads 
a statement of the year’s work, published 
in the ensuing volume, it will be ad- 
mitted that the plan is not unfruitful. 
Some of these allied societies have organized 
their work into departments, and their re- 
ports in the proceedings of the Royal So- 
ciety form a valuable record of scientific 


380 


development. The yearly volume of the 
Rk. S. C. is thus both a stimulant and a tes- 
timony to scientific progress. 

To even outline the character of the work 
done by the local societies just enumerated 
would occupy a good deal of space. In some 
cases the name indicates the general trend 
of inquiry, but for the most part this can 
only be learned by consulting reports. The 
Entomological Society. of Canada has long 
had a reputation for steady and painstaking 
work, and the commendations that it won 
at the Centennial Exposition (1876) were 
not undeserved. The Natural History Soci- 
ety of Montreal has two courses of lectures 
every winter; the regular monthly meet- 
ings yielding papers that are strictly scien- 
tific, while the Somerville lectures (founded 
by a Presbyterian minister more than half a 
century ago) are ofa more popular character. 

The two latest of these Somerville lectures 
were delivered by Prof. Saunders, Superin- 
tendent of the Central Farm, Ottawa, and 
Dr. Robert Bell, F. G. S., of the Geological 
Survey, their subjects being ‘ The Resources 
of the Soil,’ and ‘ The Mammals of Canada,’ 
respectively. Dr. Bell’s lecture, which was 
delivered on the 15th ult., covered an im- 
mense habitat or succession of habitats, 
and was the result of personal observation 
from the international frontier to the ex- 
treme north. The members of the Survey 
have traversed the vast region between 
Hudson Bay and the Rocky Mountains, some 
of them having spent seasons in the Yukon 
country, others in the Barren Lands. Dr. 
Bell went on two expeditions to Hudson 
Bay. In his lecture he spoke of the moose, 
the red deer, the reindeer, the Rocky Moun- 
tain sheep, the antelope, the arctic bear, the 
seal, the walrus, the whale, the porpoise, 
the beaver, the cat family, the fox, in his 
varieties and the smaller mammals, es- 
pecially the fur-bearing species. He men- 
tioned the domestication of wild animals 
by the aborigines, and suggested the follow- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 14. 


ing of their example. The lecture was 
perhaps rather economic than scientific; 
though, as largely the result of personal 
observation, it had a greater value than 
most popular lectures. 

A Montreal society that has been doing 
good work in an unostentatious way is the 
Society for the Study of Comparative Psy- 
chology, of which Professor T. W. Mills, 
M. D., author of a work on‘ The Dog,’ may 
be said to have been the founder. Most of 
the papers read at the Society’s meetings 
are based on observations of the habits of 
animals, several of the members being, like 
the president, Dr. Mills, connected with the 
Veterinary College, affiliated to McGill 
University. At the last meeting (on the 8th 
ult.), Mr. A. Dell read a paper on the Evo- 
lution of Language, Mr. C. A. Bantelle an- 
other on Habit. In both observations of 
animals were used (in part) for illustration. 
Mr. B. K. Baldwin read a paper on the re- 
lation between the intellectual status of the 
horse and his owner, in which he showed 
that by sympathy and kindness lower races 
attained greater control over their horses 
than higher races without those qualities. 

Another society that has been doing some 
quasi-scientific work is the Folk-Lore, or 
rather the Montreal Branch of the American 
Folk-Lore Society. It meets at the houses 
of members monthly, when papers are read 
and discussions take place. At the last 
meeting, Dr. D. 8. Kellogg, of Plattsburg, 
N. Y., gave an interesting paper on the 
Folk-Lore of the Lake Champlain Valley, 
the importance of which was increased by 
the fact that every belief, usage, saying and 
tradition mentioned had been collected by 
the essayist in the course of an extensive 
practice. In almost every case, the source 
of the story or incident was mentioned. 
Dr. Kellogg’s paper admirably exemplified 
how profitably a busy professional man, of 
scientific habit of mind, may utilize his spare 
quarts d’ hewres and odd moments. J.T.C. 


APRIL 5, 1895. ] 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF SKULLS. 
Epiror or Science: In ‘ Varieties of the 
Human Species, Principles and Method of 
Classification’ (Le Varieta Umane. Prin- 
cipi e methodo di classificazione. Di Giu- 
seppe Sergi. Torino, 1893), which consti- 
tutes one of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous 
Collections, 1894, the skulls are grouped as 
follows : 
NORMA VERTICALIS. 
. Ellipsoid (ellipsoides). 
. Pentagonoid (pentagonoides). 
. Rhomboid (rhomboides). 
. Ovoid (ovoides). 
. Sphenoid (sphenoides). 
. Spheroid (sphzeroides). 
. Byrsoid (byrsoides). 
. Parallelepipedoid (parallelepipedoi- 
-. des. ) 
. Cylindroid (cylindroides). 
. Cuboid (cuboides). 
. Trapezoid (trapezoides). 
. Aemonoid (acmonoides). 
. Lophocephalic (lophocephalus). 
. Chomatocephalus (chomatocepha- 
lus). 
15. Platyeephalic (platycephalus). 
16. Skopeloid (skopeloides). 
In ‘ Observations upon the Cranial Forms 
of the American Aborigines based upon 
_ Specimens contained in the Collection of the 
_ Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- 
phia,’ by J. Aitken Meigs, Proceedings of 
the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 
-delphia, 1866, 232, occurs the following 
classification of skulls: 
A—Pyramidal or Pyramidocephalic Form. 
_B—Oval or Oidocephalic Form. 
I Cymbecephalic Form. 
If Narrow Oval Form (Stenocephalic). 
III Broad Oval Form (Eurycephalic). 
IV Barrel-shaped or Cylindrical Form 
7 (Cylindricephalic). 
_ V Angular Oblong Form. 


=e eS 
aAnta»#kr © to 


=r 
eS et et 
mPwomwe oo 


SCIENCE. 


381 


C—Arched or Hypsecephalie Form. 

I Archecephali. 

IL Phoxocephali. 
D—Wedge-shaped or Sphenocephalice Form. 
E—Flat or Platycephalic Form (Subglob- 

ular). 

F—Globular or Sphzrocephalic Form. 
G—Square, Cuboidal or Cubicephalic Form. 


The two classifications are sufficiently 
alike to suggest comparisons. Confining 
my remarks to the forms in Meig’s table, 
which are best illustrated in the norma verti- 
ealis, I note that : 

Oidocephalic — Ovoides. 

Cymbecephali — Ellipsoides & Pentago- 
noides. 

Cylindricephali — Cylindroides. 

Angularly Oblong Form — Rhomboides. 

Archecephali — Trapezoides & Acmo- 
noides. 

Phoxocephalic = Lophocephalus. 

Sphenocephalic = Sphenoides. 

Platycephalic = Platycephalic. 

Sphzerocephalic = Sphzeroides. 

Cubicephalic = Cuboides. 


Thus six out of sixteen names of Sergi’s 
classification are included in Meig’s classifi- 
cation. I conclude from comparison of 
Meig’s types with Sergi’s figures that the 
forms are identical. 

Ellipsoides and Pentagonoides are in- 
eluded in Cymbecephali; Rhomboides is 
the same as the skulls included under 
‘ Ancularly Oblong Form ;’ Lophocephalus 
is a synonym of Phoxocephalic; Parallel- 
epipedoides appears to be a variety of 
Cylindricephali; Trapezoides and Acmo- 
noides are included in Archecephali. 

So long as Sergi endeavors to establish 
a classification which he desires to be tested 
by the methods of zodlogy and botany (p. 
60), the names he proposes must be judged 
by the law of priority of publication. 

Harrison ALLEN. 
PHILADELPHIA, March 16, 1895. 


382 


NOTES ON THE BIOLOGY OF THE LOBSTER ; 
A CORRECTION. 

In an article entitled ‘ Notes on the Bi- 
ology of the Lobster’ (Screncr N. S. Vol. 
I., No. 10, p. 263.) the following sentence 
occurs: “After hatching a brood in May, 
the female usually molts and afterwards ex- 
trudes a new batch of eggs.” This should 
be corrected to read thus: After hatching a 
brood in May, the female usually molis, but does 
not extrude a new batch of eggs wntil the follow- 
img year. 

These notes were culled from a fuller 
paper, and this slip in the context crept in 
unobserved. It is, however, corrected in 
the latter part of the article. 


Francis H. Herrick. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 


THE TYRANNY OF THE MONISTIC CREED, A 
REVIEW. 

Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und 
Wissenschaft. Gilaubensbekenntniss eines Na- 
turforschers. ERNST HaArckeL. Bonn, 
Emil Strauss. 1893 (Vierte Auflage). 

Monism. The Confession of Faith of « Man of 
Science. Ernst Harcxent. Translated 
from the German by J. Gitcnrist. Lon- 
don, Adam and Charles Black. 1894. 
The influence of a ‘creed’ on the pro- 

gress of science is a proper subject for dis- 

cussion by men of science, and it is to this, 
and not to the value of the basis for 

Haeckel’s ‘ faith,’ that we will direct atten- 

tion. 

As he defines it, Monism “is the convic- 
tion that there lives one spirit in all 
things and that the whole cognizable 
world is constituted, and has been de- 
veloped, in accordance with one funda- 
mental law.”’ 

This positive creed is very different from 
a modest confession of ignorance, which 
leaves us free to follow wherever future 
discoveries may lead, for the monistic creed 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Von. I. No. 14. 


is based on the assumption that what we 
know is a proper measure of what we do 
not know, as if we could have any measure 
of the unknown. 

An enthusiastic admirer of Haeckel’s sei- 
entific researches may be pardoned a word 
of comment on this published statement of 
his creed. 

He tells us all eminent and unprejudiced 
men of science who have the courage of 
their opinions think as he does. No one 
likes to be called a bigot or a coward, or to 
be accused of ignorance, but those who do 
not agree with Haeckel must fortify their 
souls by the thought that this argument is 
no new thing in history. 

Science is justified by works and not by 
faith, and when Haeckel says ‘ Credo’ and 
not ‘Scio’ we need not discuss the value of 
his belief, although its influence on the pro- 
gress of science is a more practical matter. 

The struggle for intellectual freedom is 
often called a conflict between religion and 
science, but while the men of science have 
burst through those Pillars of Hercules 
which, according to Bacon, are ‘fixed by 
fate,’ they have had no wish to demolish 
these ancient landmarks, but only to force 
a passage on to the great ocean of natural 
knowledge. Least of all do they desire to 
set up new bounds. 

So far a creed involves, or seems to its 
holders to involve, preconceptions on mat- 
ters which fall within the province of re- 
search or discovery, it is an obstacle to the 
progress of knowledge and a proper subject 
for scientific examination. 

I shall try to show that the monisti¢e 
‘confession of faith’ has led to the dis- 
counting of the possibilities of future dis- 
covery, and that it has thus obstructed pro- 
gress. 

One of its results is intolerance of doubt 
on the problems of life. In this field the 
monist holds that those who are not with 
him are against him, and he admits no 


7 


APRIL 5, 1895.] 


middle ground. More freedom is permitted 
in other fields of thought. 

We may say that, since we know noth- 
ing about it, we neither believe that the 
planet Mars is nor that it is not inhabited, 
but no such philosophic doubt is permitted 
in biology. 

If a teacher of natural science were to 
say he does not believe life is the outcome 
of the physical and chemical properties of 
protoplasm he would most surely be re- 
ported as believing it is not the result of 
these properties, and he would straightway 
be branded a dangerous scientific heretic or 
a weak brother of the faith, and his confes- 
sion of ignorance would be put on record as 
positive belief. 

This antipathy to philosophic doubt on 
the problems of life is clearly due to the 
dogmatism of the monistic creed, which 
cannot admit the presence of any unjoined 
links in our knowledge of nature. 

We might be indifferent to this intoler- 
ance if it did not cause the most essential 
characteristics of life to be ignored or pushed 
into the background. 

It is as true now as it was in Bacon’s 
day that: ‘Whoever, unable to doubt, 
and eager to affirm, shall establish principles 
proved, as he believes, . . and according 
to the unmoved truth of these, shall reject 
or receive others, . he shall exchange 
things for words, reason for insanity, the 
world for a fable, and shall be unable to 
interpret.” 

The essential characteristic of life is fit- 
ness. 

A living organism is a being which uses 
the world around it for its own good. 

I, for one, am unable to find, in inorganic 
matter, any germ of this wonderful at- 
tribute. 

It is possible that after chemistry has 
_ given us artificial protoplasm this may be 
shaped, by selection or some other agency, 
_ into persistent adjustment to the shifting 


SCIENCE. 


383 


world around it, and that it may thus be- 
come alive. 

Everything is possible in the unknown, 
but why should we believe anything on the 
subject until we have evidence ? 

Of one thing we may be sure. The arti- 
ficial production of protoplasm would not 
be a solution of the problem of life. The 
nature of the problem must be grasped in all 
its length and breadth, with all its diffi- 
culties, before we can hope to solve it. 

Many biologists have sought to solve it by 
transforming Huxley’s carefully guarded 
statement that protoplasm is the physical 
basis of life into the dogma that life is the 
sum of the physical properties of protoplasm. 

Life cannot go on without food, and we 
may say with propriety that bread is the 
staff of life, but the agency which shapes the 
food into the specific structure of an organ- 
ism exquisitely adapted to the conditions of 
the world around it is to be sought some- 
where else than in the properties of bread. 

One of the distinctive characteristics of 
this organizing agency is that it may exist 
in a germ without any visible organization. 
Another is that, so far as we know, it has 
been handed down, in an unbroken line, 
from the oldest living things, generation af- 
ter generation, to the modern forms of life, 
and that it has leavened the whole hump 
of living matter. 

While we know nothing of its nature or 
origin, and must guard against any un- 
proved assumption, there seem, from our 
present standpoint, to be insuperable objec- 
tions to the view that this agency is either 
matter or energy. While we know it only 
in union with protoplasm, it would seem 
that, if it is matter, it must, long ago, have 
reached the minimum divisibile. If it is en- 
ergy, or wave motion, or perigenesis of 
plastidules, it is hard to understand why it 
has not been dissipated and exhausted. We 
know that it exists, and this is in itself a 
fact of the utmost moment. 


384 


We are told that the belief that it has, at 
some time, arisen from the properties of 
inorganic matter is a logical necessity, but 
the only logical necessity is that when our 
knowledge ends we should confess igno- 
rance. 

Young men who have been trained in 
the routine of the laboratory tell us all 
their interest in biology would be gone if 
they did not believe all its problems are, in 
the long run, to be resolved into physics 
and chemistry. 

The only answer we can give them is 


that noble work has been done in natural - 


science by men like Wallace, who believe 
that life is fundamentally different from 
matter, and also by men like Haeckel, who 
believe the opposite. 

They also serve science who only stand 
and wait, and among them I would wish to 
be numbered. 

While nothing is gained by giving a 
name to the unknown agency which is the 
essence of life, it is better to call it a ‘ vital 
principle’ than to deny or ignore its exist- 
ence. It is better to be called a ‘ vitalist,’ 
or any other hard name by zealous monists, 
than to be convicted of teaching, as proved, 
what we know is not proven. 

The word vitality is as innocent as electricity 

or gravity; in fact, Newton’s use of this 
word led Leibnitz to charge him with infi- 
delity to the spirit of science, although no 
one need fear to follow where Newton leads. 

The older vitalists may have looked on 
a mere word as an explanation, but the 
reason the word has fallen into disrepute 
is the antagonism of the monists to the 
view that the problem of life presents any 
peculiar difficulties. 

Many thoughtful men of science have 
held that the ‘faith’ of men like Haeckel 
ignores many of the data which are fur- 
nished by our scientific knowledge of the 
world around us. 

Huxley, in his essay on the Physical 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. I. No. 14. 


Basis of Life (1868), says it is necessary 
for a wise life to be fully possessed of two 
beliefs: ‘The first, that the order of nature 
is ascertainable by our faculties to an ex- 
tent which is practically unlimited; the 
second, that our volition cownts for some- 
thing as a condition of the course of events. 
Each of these beliefs can be verified ex- 
perimentally as often as we like to try.” 

Again, twenty-five years later (1893), he 
says (Evolution and Ethics) that, fragile 
reed aS man may be, “there lies within 
him a fund of energy, operating intelli- 
gently, and so far akin to that which pervades 
the universe that it is competent to influence and 
modify the cosmic process.” 

Clearly this man of science has no over- 
whelming dread of the charge of anthro- 
pomorphism or animism, or of any charge 
except lack of caution. 

I think that he would also admit that 
every living thing contains some small part 
of this influence which ‘counts for some- 
thing as a condition of the course of events,’ 
and that it must be reckoned with in our 
attempts at a philosophy of the universe. 

W. K. Brooks. 


JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 


~ 


The Life and Writings of Constantine Samuel 
Rafinesque. (Filson Club Publications 
No. 10.) Prepared for the Filson Club 
and read at its meeting, Monday, April 2, 
1894. By Ricnarp EiswortH CALL, 
M. A., M. Sc., M. D. Louisville, Ky., 
John P. Morton & Co. 1895. 4to. pp. 
xiii+ 227. Portraits, etc. Paper. Price 
$2.50, net. 

This sumptuous volume is published by a 

Historical Club in Louisville, Kentucky, as 

.& memorial to one of the pioneer naturalists 
and explorers of the Ohio valley, a man 
whose brilliant intellect, eccentric character 
and unhappy fate will always cause his 
career to be looked upon with interest, and 
whose nervous and appalling industry has 


APRIL 5, 1895. ] 


; been the cause of a myriad of perplexities to 
students of the nomenclature of plants and 
animals in Europe as well as in America. 
Born in Constantinople in 1783, his father 

a French merchant from Marseilles, his 
mother a Greek woman of Saxon parentage, 
Constantine Rafinesque early entered upon 
the career of a wanderer. The roving 
} habit of mind which soon became a part of 
__ his nature led him into a mental vagabond- 
age that influenced his career even more 
than the lack of a permanent place of 
; abode. His youth was passed in Turkey, 
Leghorn, Marseilles, Pisa and Genoa. He 
: had good opportunities for study and read- 
ing, and before he was twelve had, as he 
__ himself records, read the great Universal 
_ History and one thousand volumes of books 
on many pleasing and interesting subjects. 
He was ravenous for facts, which he gath- 
ered, classified and wrote down in his note- 
books. He began to collect fishes and 
birds, shells and crabs, plants and miner- 
als, found or made names for them, copied 
maps from rare works, and made new ones 
from hisownsurveys. His precocious mind, 
unguided and undisciplined, wandered at 
will over the entire field of books and nature, 
and by the time he reached the age of nine- 
teen he had formed his own character and 
equipped himself for the career which lay 
before him. He became a man of cata- 
_logues, of categories, of classifications. He 
possessed much native critical acumen, and 
r itis possible, though scarcely probable, that 
as his present biographer suggests, had he 
during the formative period been firmly 
_ guided by some master hand, he might have 
become one of the world’s greatest natural- 
ists. Lacking such guidance, however, he 
was by no means fitted to enter upon a sci- 
“enti career in a country like the United 
‘States, so when, at the age of twenty, he 

_ erossed the Atlantic he brought with him 
_ the germs of failure and bitter disappoint- 


_s ~S 


SCIENCE. 


385 


From 1802 to 1805 he lived in Philadel- 
phia. From 1806 to 1815 he was in Sicily, 
where he did some of his best work in his 
‘Index to Sicilian Ichthyology,’ and in his 
often quoted ‘Caratteri.’ Here he estab- 
lished his monthly journal, the ‘ Mirror of 
the Sciences’ (Specchio delle Scienze, ete.), 
which endured throughout the twelve 
months of 1814, but ended with its second 
volume. Rafinesque was not only the 
editor, but almost the sole contributor to 
this journal, in which he printed no less 
than sixty-eight articles upon a great va- 
riety of subjects—upon animals, plants, min- 
erals, meteorology, physics, chemistry, po- 
litical economy, archeology, history and 
literature, besides many critical reviews. 
His fatal tendency to ‘scatter’ was already 
apparent, and in the work which he did 
for the ‘Specchio’ all the weaknesses of 
his subsequent career were foreshadowed. 
While in Sicily, for political reasons, he 
assumed the surname, Schmaltz, that of his 
mother’s family. 

In 1815 he returned to America, and was 
shipwrecked on the coast of Connecticut, los- 
ing all his books, manuscripts and collec- 
tions. For the next three years he lived in 
New York, and during this period he contrib- 
uted to the ‘American Monthly Magazine’ a 
number of really brilliant and learned arti- 
cles. So masterly, indeed, were these that it 
seemed as if he were likely to become one of 
the leaders in American scientific thought. 
It seems probable that he was at this time 
steadied and guided by his friend and pa- 
tron, Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchill, whom 
he greatly respected and admired; at all 
events, when he left New York, signs of de- 
terioration appeared in his methods. In 
1818 he crossed the Alleghanies, and in the 
following year became a professor in the 
Transylvania University, at Lexington, Ky. 

There he remained for seven years, sadly 
ill at ease among the old-school college pro- 
fessors who composed the faculty, yet, from 


386 © 


the showing even of his own complaints, 
treated with singular indulgence by them, 
and allowed to devote the most of his time 
to his excursions and to his writing. While 
here he printed nearly one hundred papers, 
chiefly descriptions of new plants and 
animals. From 1825 to 1840 his life was 
so irregular and his wanderings so extensive 
that his biographer has made no attempt to 
follow its course. Philadelphia was his 
home, when he had one, but he was a soured 
and disappointed man. His health was 
bad, and he could not get any one to print 
his voluminous writings. He established 
his ‘Atlantic Journal,’ which soon failed. 
He published various works by subscription, 
and also added to his income by the sale of 
‘Pulmel,’ a medicine for the cure of con- 
sumption, concerning which he wrote a 
book. In his later years he established in 
Philadelphia his ‘ Divitial Institution and 
Six Per Cent. Savings Bank,’ which seems 
_ to have had some degree of success. He 
died in 1840, in poverty and almost friend- 
less, and is buried in an unmarked grave. 
His career is described well and in sym- 
pathetic mood by Professor Call, who sums 
up the story of his last years in these words: 
“The experiences through which he had 
passed, which involved some of the saddest 
that come to men, had so broken him that 
there is little question that he was not of 
sound mind during these latest years. He 
was not, however, the irresponsible madman 
some would have us believe; rather, his 
was monomania and took the direction of 
descriptions of new forms of plant and ani- 
mal life. But more than this, his defect 
was that peculiar form of monomania which 
believed only in himself; which gave his 
own work a value which does not always 
attach to it; which made him neglect the 
work of others, or, if it were noticed, im- 
pelled him to caustic and unwise criticism.” 
This judicious estimate, which is intend- 
ed by Professor Call to apply only to his 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 14. 


later years, I should be disposed with 
some slight reserves, to accept as a fair 
summary of his entire life-work, for all of 
the faults of his latest works were, as I 
have already suggested, foreshadowed in~ 
his Sicilian writings of 1814. The sym- 
pathy which I once felt for Rafinesque has 
almost vanished with the reading of the 
whole story of his life, for the man, as shown 
by his own private papers, appears to have 
been singularly unsympathetic and unloy- 
able, enveloped in a mantle of self-esteem 
and interested in natural objects solely be- 
cause he found in them something to name 
and to classify. In all his writings there ap- 
pears scarcely a gleam of love or enthusiasm 
for nature, and he speaks of his fellow-men 
only in words of criticism or malediction. 
It would doubtless have been much better 
if he had never touched pen to paper. The 
fact that he had a keen eye and a remark- 
able power of diagnosis, and that he had 
learned the methods of systematic deserip- 
tion, made his activity all the more perni- 
cious, since regard for painstaking accuracy 
was as foreign to him as love of nature. 
The canons of nomenclature which now 
prevail among American naturalists force 
them to take cognizance of all his deserip- 
tions and to use his names, whenever by any 
possibility his meaning can be determined. 
In many instances I have known him to be 
given the benefit of a doubt. So the unwel- 
come name of Rafinesque is constantly 
obtruding itself in almost every branch of 
zoology and botany, and it is likely to re- 
main for a long time an obstacle in the way 
of securing the recognition of American 
nomenclaturein Europe. Hestands never- 
theless as an important figure in early 
American biological literature, and whether 
we like him or not he cannot be ignored. 
It is fortunate, then, that all relating to his 
work has at last been brought together in so 
convenient a form. 
The minute and scholarly bibliography, 


APRIL 5, 1895.] 


which includes in all 420 titles, is most 
valuable. Professor Call’s estimate of the 
value of these writings is a very kindly one. 
Bad as it was, Rafinesque’s work unques- 
tionably entitles him to recognition as the 
pioneer student of the ichthyology and con- 
chology of the Mississippi valley, and he 
was also among the earliest to study its 
botany and its prehistoric archeology. 

All the existing portraits of Rafinesque 
are reproduced, as well as a specimen of his 
handwriting, and in the appendix is re- 
printed his will, which affords a better in- 
sight into his character than all else he ever 
wrote. 

The book is exhaustively complete, well 
written and beautifully printed, and in its 
publication the author and the Filson Club 
have accomplished admirably the task 
which they had undertaken. They have 
reared a noble monument to him who was 
‘the first Professor of Natural Science west 


of the Alleghanies.’ 
G. Brown Goope. 


The Royal Natural History. Edited by 
Ricuarp LypexKer. Illustrated by 72 
colored plates and 1600 engravings. 
Frederick Warne & Co., London and New 
York. Royal 8°. 1894-95. Issued in 
monthly parts. 

The second full volume of this important 
work is now out and, like the first, is de- 
yoted entirely to the Mammalia. The first 
comprised the Apes, Monkeys, Bats, In- 
Sectivores and part of the Carnivores ; the 
second completes the Carnivores and in- 
eludes also the Ungulates, Manatees and 
Dugongs. The well-known reputation of 
the editor and principal author, Mr. Lydek- 
ker, gives special value to these parts. 

In general scope and plan of treatment 
the work resembles Brehm’s Thierleben, of 
which several editions have appeared in 
Germany, and the Standard Natural History, 
published in this country. The illustrations 


> 


SCIENCE. 


387 


are in the main borrowed from Brehm; they 
were pirated by the Standard Natural History 
ten years ago, and here appear for the third 
time. Of course this is not the fault of the 
author; but it is a pity original works can- 
not have original illustrations. Good plates 
are as much a part of a book as the text 
itself, and should be allowed to stand un- 
molested as monuments to the author. It 
is not intended to deprecate the exchange of 
technical figures or the judicious bringing 
together of scattered cuts illustrating special 
subjects—a very different thing from the 
wholesale reproduction of a previous author’s 
pictures. 

The original cuts are not of high merit. 
Those of the hooded seal and skull of the 
cave bear are gross caricatures, and nearly 
all the skulls and teeth are far inferior to 
modern standards for such work ; and it is 
not too much to say that Mr. Lydekker 
himself, in previous publications, has done 
much toward fixing these higher standards. 
The colored plates are cheap chromos, in 
striking contrast to the excellent and artistic 
plates borrowed from Brehm. 

In quoting American writers on ‘big 
game’ the most authentic and best informed 
writers are not always chosen, The one 
book that is beyond all comparison the 
best yet written on our larger mammals— 
I refer of course to Roosevelt’s Wilderness 
Hunter—is apparently unknown to the 
editor. Asa natural result some surprising 
statements are made, as, for instance, when 
Oregon antelope hunters are told that the 
pronghorn has ‘ almost or quite disappeared ” 
from their State. 

Some confusion arises from different 
usages of the common names of animals. 
The statement that in North America ‘ the 
range of the e/k appears to have extended 
originally from about the 43d to the 70th 
parallel of latitude, its northern limit being 
marked by the southern limit of the so- 
called barren grounds,” will take the breath 


388 


away from most Americans who read it for 
the first time, but a careful perusal of the 
context shows that our moose is the animal 
meant. 

The hooded seal is said to be ‘nowhere 
met with in large numbers,’ a statement 
that will bear qualification in view of the 
fact that many thousands are sometimes 
taken by single vessels at the Newfoundland 
and Labrador seal fisheries. More than 15,- 
000 were killed on the ice and brought to 
Newfoundland in March, 1883, by a sealer— 
the Proteus—which I accompanied as sur- 
geon-naturalist, and similar catches are not 
rare. 

In the matter of genera, the compre- 
hensive groups of the past are commonly 
used instead of the smaller groups of to-day. 
The same conservatism characterizes the 
treatment of species—perhaps a good fault 
in a popular work, though one that can be 
carried too far—as when a dozen skunks 
are lumped under a single name, and the 
most specialized of our true foxes is left out. 

The author seems to be constitutionally 
averse to the recognition of American spe- 
cies as distinct from their European repre- 
sentatives. This is shown by his treatment 

_ of our wolf, red fox, lynx, wolverine, marten 
and weasels. Even in the case of the mink 
the opinion is expressed that the American 
and Huropean animals are ‘mere local 
varieties of a single species.’ The only 
explanation of such statements, from a man 
of Lydekker’s experience in studying fossil 
mammals, is that he has not personally 
compared the skulls and teeth of the Ameri- 
ean and HKuropean forms. The number of 
American species is reduced out of all pro- 
portion to the sharpness of their characters 
or the size of the areas they inhabit. Thus, 
while three martens are accorded specific 
rank for Eurasia, only one is allowed for 
America, and it is given as doubtfully dis- 
tinct. It should be stated, however, that 
no European collection of mammals con- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 14, 


tains more than a fraction of our species; 
hence it is not so surprising that a foreign 
author should fail to appreciate their char- 
acters. ~ 

The common skunk of New England is 
said to range from Hudson Bay to Guate- 
mala, but it does not reach even the South- 
ern United States. Again, skunks are said 
to be good climbers, but neither Mephitis 
nor Conepatus can climb trees—the ability 
to do this being limited to the agile weasel- 
like members of the genus Spilogale. 

The article on the fur seal is full of mis- 
statements and savors too strongly of a po- 
litical argument from the British side of 
the case. The number of fur-seals killed 
at the Pribilof Islands each year is said to 
be ‘limited to 100,000,’ and it is implied 
that the number actually killed is still 
larger. Asa matter of fact, 100,000 have 
not been killed since 1889, while the num- 
ber killed at the islands since 1890 is as fol- 


“lows: 1890, 25,701; 1891, 14,406; 1892, 


7,509 ; 1898, 7,390 ; 1894, 15,033. 

We are told that the seals taken at sea 
(by pelagic sealers) ‘appear to be exclus- 
ively young males or barren females.’ In 
reality the great majority of these seals are 
breeding females. The author’s ideas of 
humanity are simply past comprehension. 
He says: ‘‘Of the two methods of sealing, 
the shooting in the open sea is decidedly to 
be preferred on humanitarian grounds, more 
especially if it be true, as asserted, that on 
the Pribiloffs a considerable number of 
breeding female seals are killed before their 
cubs are old enough to shift for them- 
selves.””? No female seals are ever killed on 
the islands except by accident—possibly one 
in many thousands—while in the open sea, 
as already stated, the great majority are fe- 
males. Of these females, those killed on 
their way to the islands in spring are heavy 
with young, and those killed in Bering Sea 
in summer are nursing; so two lives are 
sacrificed for every one taken. Ever since 


j 


APRIL 5, 1895. ] 


pelagic sealing has been carried on in Ber- 
ing Sea, thousands of motherless ‘pups’ 
have died on the islands each year of star- 
vation. 

It is lamentable that the author has been 
so grossly deceived in these matters, and 
still more unfortunate that a scientific work 
should be tainted with partisan odor. 

Tt is stated that no islands in Bering Sea 
besides St. Paul and St. George are inhab- 
ited by fur-seals. This must be a slip of 
the pen, for of course Mr. Lydekker knows 
that the Commander Islands are the breed- 
ing grounds of the west Bering Sea herd, 
just as the Pribilof Islands are the home of 
the east Bering sea herd. 

_ In the matter of nomenclature the author 
seems to be on the fence. In» some cases 
the law of priority is rigidly enforced ; in 
others a name in common use is retained 
rather than the earlier name. Preoccupied 
_ generic names are as a rule discarded, but 
_ Bassaris, though preoccupied, is given in- 
Stead of Bassariscus—doubtless by oversight. 

The author’s attitude as to genera is 
shown by the remark that in a certain 
group only one genus can be admitted ‘on 
account of intermediate forms.’ Is this 
nota surprising position for one of the most 
distinguished of living paleontologists? 
Are not all mammals connected by inter- 
mediate forms, living or extinct, even if all 
are not yet discovered? And would not 
Lydekker’s system, if logically enforced, re- 
sult sooner or later in the destruction of 
most of our generic groups? Is it not more 
rational to found genera on the weight of 
characters as presented in extremes of dif- 
ferentiation rather than on the accident of 
the survival or extinction of annectant 
Species ? 

_ As a general criticism of the Royal Na- 
_ tural History, so far as now issued, it may 
be said that the parts on American mam- 
mals are weak. On the other hand, the 
foreign species—foreign from our stand- 


SCIENCE. 


5389 


point—are treated with a fullness and re- 
liability not to be found in any other work. 
The magnitude of the undertaking and the 
haste in which the parts had to be prepared 
(to appear monthly) inevitably led to oc- 
casional inaccuracies ; but the defects are 
far outweighed by the merits, and the work 
will prove helpful to naturalists and ama- 
teurs alike for many years tocome. It is, 
indeed, a great satisfaction to be able to 
turn to a single publication in which the 
principal facts respecting the mammals of 
the world are brought down to date and 
stated with clearness and authority. 


C. Hart MERRIAM. 


The Book of Antelopes. 
and OLpFIELD THOMAS. 
JosEpH WoLF and J. SMirH. 
R. H. Porter, 1894-95. 
The second part of this handsome and 

useful work, dated January, 1895, has come 
to hand. The distinguished authors make 
no attempt to offer a complete scientific 
treatise on the antelopes, but furnish ‘ de- 
seriptive letter-press [with full synonymy ] 
for the beautiful series of lithographic plates 
drawn some twenty years ago under the 
supervision of the late Sir Victor Brooke, 
making thereto such necessary modifica- 
tions and additions as the progress of sci- 
ence demands.”’ 

The work comprises the diverse members 
of the Bovidse commonly called antelopes, 
hartbeests, gnus, duikers, water-boks and 
gazelles, and also the gemsbok, saiga, oryx, 
eland and many others. The geographic 
range of each species is given, together with 
an interesting account of its habits and pe- 
culiarities. Besides the full page colored 
plates, there are many excellent cuts in the 
text, mostly of horns and skulls. The book 
therefore is helpful alike to the naturalist 
and the sportsman, and is a handsome ad- 
dition to any library. 

The animals treated in the first two parts 


By P. L. ScrarEer 
Illustrated by 
4°, London, 


390 


are the hartbeests and gnus (genera Bubalis, 
Damatliscus and Connochetes), all belonging 
to the subfamily Bubalidine, and residents 
of Africa and Arabia. Twelve colored 
plates have been issued, and seven are 
promised with the next number, which will 
be devoted to the duikers ( Cephalophus). 
Op Asly) iil 


NOTES AND NEWS. 

Pror. 8. Cavin, State Geologist of Iowa, 
announces that reprints of the photographs 
accumulated by the survey may be had for 
125 cents each. A descriptive list of views 
may be had on application to the State 
Geologist at Des Moines; all orders to be 
made by the numbers of this list. If this 
practice were generally adopted by our 
State Surveys, it would be greatly to the ad- 
vantage of many students and teachers. 

Pror. W. R. Newsotp, of the University 
of Pennsylvania, has become one of the as- 
sociate editors of the American Naturalist. 
In the current number he gives an account 
of ‘The Present State of Psychology.’ 

Dr. Wirtincrr has been made Professor 
of Mathematics in the University of Inns- 
bruck. 

Dr. WILDER D. BANCROFT, now Instructor 
in Harvard University, has been appointed 
Assistant Professor of Physical Chemistry 
in Cornell University. 

Pror. Francis Gorcx, now of University 
College, Liverpool, has been elected to the 
Waynflete Chair of Physiology at the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, vacant by the transfer- 
rence of Prof. Burdon Saunderson to the 
Regius Professorship of Medicine. 

JAmes EH. Oxrver, Professor of Mathemat- 
ics in Cornell University, died at Ithaca, 
on March 28th. 

THE DUKE D’OrLHANS has presented the 
Imperial Institute of London with his ex- 
tensive collection of specimens of natural 
history, costumes and curiosities. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 14. 


Mr. Lester F. Warp writes that he has 
just received from the family confirmation 
of the reported death of the Marquis Sa- 
porta. He died at Aix on January 25th. _ 


Dr. Nixoxa TEsta suffered a serious loss 
in the destruction of his laboratory by fire 
on March 13th. 

GENERAL DE MaAsoury, Founder and Di- 
rector of the Pic du Midi Observatory, died 
recently at the age of eighty years. 


Dr. Harrison ALLEN has been elected a 
member of the Council of the Philadelphia 
Academy of Natural Sciences, to fill the 
vacancy caused by the death of John H. 
Redfield. 

Tur Joint Commission of the Scientific 
Societies of Washington has begun to publish 
a monthly programme, giving the dates of 
meeting of the various scientific societies 
of Washington for the ensuing month and 
a full list of papers to be presented. 


Atv a meeting of the New York Alumni 
of the Johns Hopkins University, on March 
29th, President Gilman made an address 
on ‘ Impending Problems in Education.’ An 
address was also made by Professor Butler, 
of Columbia College. 


A Natrona Exhibition of Industry and 
Fine Arts in the City of Mexico will be 
opened on April 2d, and an International 
Exposition is proposed for Montreal, to be 
opened on May 4th. 


Ar the last meeting of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, Miss 
Emma Walter read a paper entitled Does 
the Delaware Water Gap Consist of Two River 
Gorges? She adduced evidence to show that 
the river once flowed through the Gap 
from the south towards the north ; that this 
north-flowing river was pre-glacial, and 
that much the greater part of the erosion is 
the work of this old river, the remainder 
being due to the action of the present south- 
flowing stream. 


APRIL 5, 1895.] 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 

Tue Section of Geology and Mineralogy 
met March 18, and after electing as officers 
for the ensuing year, Prof. J. J. Stevenson, 
chairman, and Prof. J. F. Kemp, secretary, 
listened to a lecture by Prof. J. J. Steven- 
son on ‘The Origin of the Pennsylvania 
Anthracite,’ of which the following is an 
abstract: 

Long ago H. D. Rogers showed that the 
eoal regions of Pennsylvania are divided 
into longitudinal basins or troughs. The 
first series embraces the area between the 
Great Valley and the Alleghany Mountains 
and contains the several anthracite fields 
as well as the semi-bituminous fields of 

_ Broad Top and the Potomac River. Beyond 
the Alleghanies are six well marked basins 
containing bituminous coal. 

Along a line from central Ohio, eastward 
to the Potomac coal field, one finds note- 
worthy variations in dip, the amount being 
insignificant in Ohio, but very great in the 
first series of basins. The increase is not 
regular, there being no change practically 
from the coke basins of eastern Pennsyl- 
yania until within three or four miles of the 
Potomac field, where the dip becomes very 
abrupt. This line shows the extremes of 
yariations, for further northward there is 
in all of the basins a diminution of disturb- 
ance, even in the anthracite areas, while 
southward there is a similar decrease, except 
in the last. 

_ Analysis of coal samples from the Pitts- 
burg bed, in the several basins, show a pro- 
gressive decrease in proportion of volatile 
matter toward the east or southeast. H.D. 
Rogers regarded this decrease as due to in- 
fluence of steam or other gas escaping from 
erevices made during the folding of the rocks, 
for he asserted that the volatile increased 
_ asthe flexures diminished instrength. Ste- 
’ yenson in 1877 showed that no such relation 
exists. Lesley in 1879 thought that earth- 


SCIENCE. 


391 


heat might have caused the change, as coals 
in the anthracite region were buried under a 
very deep covering of rocks; but there is no 
evidence that the coal measures were thicker 
at the east than in western Pennsylvania, 
while there is every reason for supposing 
that the coal measures were thinner there 
than at the southwest. There is therefore 
no good ground for supposing that the earth- 
heat would be effective, for in Virginia, 
where the thickness is very great, the coals 
at the bottom of the column are very rich in 
volatile matter. 

Professor Lesley has suggested that the 
change in the coal might have been due to 
oxidation. The rocks of the anthracite re- 
gion are consolidated gravels with little of 
argillaceous matters, whereas those of the 
bituminous area are largely argillaceous, 
which, being undisturbed, lute down the 
coals, preventing percolation of water and 
the escape of gases. But in fact the bi- 
tuminous fields afford all types of coal from 
highly bituminous to hard anthracite, and 
sections in many portions of the anthracite 
fields show more clay beds than do those in 
S. W. Virginia where the coal is highly bi- 
tuminous. 

It is not necessary to regard metamor- 
phism as the sole cause of anthracite. It 
is not called in to explain a variation of 
ten per cent. in the same beds within short 
distances, and it cannot explain the occur- 
rence of bituminous in one bench and of 
anthracite in another in the same opening 
in Sullivan County, Pa., or equally of semi- 
bituminous and dry anthracite in different 
benches of the Mammoth. It does seem 
as though the conversion of the coal must 
have been practically complete before en- 
tombment ; otherwise the variations of coal 
of the same age in different areas would 
seem to be inexplicable. 

In Pennsylvania the decrease in volatile 
bears no relation to the extent of plication, 
but it bears close relation to the thickening 


392 


of the coal. The decrease in all of the areas 
is toward the old shore line at the north 
and northeast. In the anthracite area it is 
very gradual until one passes the prongs in 
the southern field, where the thickness of 
coal increases abruptly. With that abrupt 
increase in thickness is an equally abrupt 
change in the amount of volatile. It seems 
probable that the anthracite of Pennsyl- 
vania is due to the long continuance of 
eoal-making periods during which the 
chemical change was unchecked, leading 
eventually to complete loss of the hydrogen 
and oxygen. 

At the conclusion of the paper, discus- 
sion followed, but failed to shake the 
speaker’s main points. A paper by J. E. 
Wortman, on ‘The Geology of the Bad 
Lands,’ was postponed until the next meet- 
ing. J. F. Kemp, 

Secretary. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 


BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN MATHE- 
MATICAL SOCIETY, MARCH. 


Arthur Cayley: PROFESSOR CHARLOTTE ANGAS 
Scorr. 

The Theory of Functions: PRoressor W. F. 
OsGoop. 

On the Introduction of the Notion of Hyperbolic 
Functions: PRorrssor M. W. Haske... 

Notes; New Publications. 


THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL 
SOCIETY, APRIL. 

The Superiority of Barium Hydroxide Solution 
as an Absorbent in Carbon Determinations in 
Steel: James O. HAnpy. 

The Contributions of Chemistry to the Methods 
of Preventing and Extinguishing Conjlagra- 
tion: 'THomas H. Norron. 

Note on the Estimation of Iron and Alumina in 
Phosphates: K.P. McHiroy. 

Some Practical Points in the Manufacture of 
Mitroglycerol: J. HE. Buromun. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 14, 


Methods for the Examination of Glycerol for use 
in the Nytroglycerol Manufacture: G. E. 
BARTON. 

Estimation of Tellurium in Copper Bullion: 
CABELL WHITEHEAD. 

The Use of Sulphurous Acid ( HNaSOs) in 
Manufacture of Glocose Syrup and Grape- 
Sugar: Horace E. Horton. 

The Furfurol- Yielding Constituents of Plants : 
C. F. Cross, E. J. Bevan and C. Beanie, 

The Separation of Solid and Liquid Fatty Acids : 
E. TwitcHELL. 

Improved Methods of Water Analysis: Irvune 
A. BACHMAN. 

A Cheap Form of Self-Regulating Gas Gener- 
ator: W. W. ANDREWS. - 

Some of the Properties of Calcium Carbide: F. 
P. VENABLE and THomAS CLARKE. 

Note on the Determination of Zine: 
SHIMER. 

On the Determination of Cane-Sugar wm the 
Presence of Commercial Glucose: H. A. 
WEBER and Wiiu1AM McPHERson. } 

On the Action ‘of Acetic and Hydrochloric Acids 
on Sucrose: H. A. WEBER and WILLtAM 
McPuHErson. 

Method of Determining Chromium in Chrome 
Ore: EpmunpD CLARK. 

New Books; Notes. 


Py Wa 


NEW BOOKS. 


Manual of Geology. JAmMEsD. Dana. Fourth 
Edition. New York, American Book 
Co. 1895. Pp. 1087. 

A Course of Elementary Practical Bacteriology. 
A. A. Kanruack and J. H. DRYSDALE. 
London and New York, Macmillan & 
Co. 1895. Pp. xxiit181. $1.10. 

Elementary Biology. EMANUEL R. BOoyEr. 
Boston, D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. xxi © 
235. 

The Geological and Natural History Survey of 


Minnesota. N. H. Wrinenert. Minne- 
apolis, Harrison & Smith. 1895. Pp. 
254, 


SpGIE NCE. 


New SERIES. 


Vou. I. No. 15. FRIDAY, 


AprRIL 12, 


SINGLE COPIEs, 15 CTs. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 


1895. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


ANDERSSOHN, AUREL. Physikalische Principien 
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ARCHIV FR ENTWICKLUNGSMECHANIK DER OR- 
GANISMEN. Herausgegeben von Prof. Wilhelm Roux. 
Erster Band, Erstes Heft. Mit 7 Tafeln und 6 Text- 
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BARRILLOT, ERNEsT. Traité de Chimie Légale. 
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EPHRAIM, Dr. JuLius. Sammlung der wichtig- 
-sten Original arbeiten iiber Analyse der Nahrungsmit- 
_ tel zusammengestellt und mit Anmerkungen verse- 
hen. 3228. K1.8°. M.6. 
__ Fiscuer, Pror. Dr. BERNHAkD und Dr. CARL 
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tik der Kahmpilze, der Monilia candida Hansen und 
des Soorerregers. Mit 2Tafeln. 528. Gr. 8°. M. 4. 
GARNAULT, E. Mécanique, physique et chimie. 
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CONTENTS : 
The Educational and Industrial Value of Science : 


PENT B..CARHART, . 000 sence cnicticees cece 393 
Growth of First-born Children: FRANZ BoAs....402 
Current Notes on Anthropology (V.): D. G. BRIN- 

REN oiciaisloN a Was 0 ‘slo 's(o biniaigitemioiiel= Sele e's oc wie 404 
RE RCROVULETIOE 25.5 i wa. w egmiegainainiaislejneieiele jes 406 

A Card Catalogue of Scientific Literature: JOHN 


S. BILLINGs. 

Heientifie Literature :— .....ccecscsccccccccctees 408 
Geikie’s Great Ice Age: C. H. HitcHcock. 
Marshalls Biological Lectures: H. W. Conn. 
Parker's Astronomy: C. A. Y. Chemistry: Ep- 
GAR F.SmirH. Bacteriology. 


DRDRER ARE NCWS <— . ssa secitcipencinesscasiesces 416 
Typhoid Infection of Oysters; Argon; General. 

Societies and Academies :— ...2- 220 cccecseeeeeee 418 
Biological Society of Washington. 

BRPRIRTO SOUPIMUG sooo « «020 cmletetw nin siaisinie Usisia.cle = 420 

MPMEEPLSOOICA! « a:5'0 ies c'( «> 0/0(ciciniuinlasiei tin e'alee svn c’acis 420 


_ MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 
Subscriptions and advertisements should be sent to SCIENCE, 
41 N. Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or 41 East 49th St., New York. 


THE EDUCATIONAL AND INDUSTRIAL 
VALUE OF SCIENCE.* 

On the occasion of the formal dedication 
of a building devoted to the teaching of sci- 
ence, it is fitting that something should be 
said respecting the claims of science to such 
generous recognition and such ample provi- 
sion for its cultivation in a young univer- 
sity, established by a Commonwealth itself 
still ‘in its teens.’ In the Atlantic States 
the stagecoach is almost obsolete. It has 


*Read at Boulder, Col., March 9, 1895. 


given way to the railway, and it is an open 
question whether transportation by steam 
will not ultimately yield to the agile trolley 
wheel. So the old-time college, devoted to 
the ancient languages, mathematics, and a 
little leaven of moral philosophy, with its 
slow-going ways, its simple outfit of benches, 
a teacher’s desk and a chapel, has been su- 
perseded by the modern university, with its 
complex organization, its multiplicity of 
courses and subjects of study, its laborato- 
ries and equipment, and its corps of trained, 
eager, alert instructors, who are not ex- 
pected to teach a book only, but to add to 
the sum of human knowledge, and to 
awaken in kindred spirits at least an en- 
thusiasm for study, a delight in investiga- 
tion, which has proved the most efficient 
stimulus to high intellectual attainments. 
The erection of the Hale Scientific Building 
indicates that the University of Colorado 
aims to pursue its way untrammeled by an- 
cient traditions, with the spirit of modern 
ideas in education, and in touch with the 
most progressive institutions of learning. 
Shall we pause a moment to inquire what 
has wrought this change in the aims and 
methods of higher education in the United 
States? What new conditions make it 
possible for a young university like that at 
Chicago to forge toward the front in two or 
three short years? Universities have al- 
ways been considered as institutions of slow 
growth. They represent the accretions of 


394 


years and centuries even, if we broaden our 
view sufficiently to include those of Europe. 
Such indeed are the customs, the traditions 
and the general policy of a great university 
with decades or centuries of history behind 
it. Every ancient seat of learning has a 
character peculiarly its own. There is an 
indescribable charm attaching to crumbling, 
ivy-cumbered walls; to time-stained libra- 
ries, that point with motionless fingers back 
toward their more silent authors; a subtle 
influence in the steady gaze of the famous 
sons of the college, as they look down on 
the younger generation from the deepening 
canvas in the memorial portrait hall. Who 
that has a fibre of his soul tuned to vibrate 
in unison with melodies of the past can fail 
to feel an energetic thrill as he stands among 
the distinguished sons of the Harvard of 
former years ranged around the walls of 
‘Memorial Hall,’ or as he walks softly 
through the portrait gallery of Christ Church 
College in Oxford? These influences are not 
to be despised. They are an inheritance from 
the long past and are still potent. Addison 
still walks under the arching trees by the 
quiet stream at the back of Magdalen Col- 
lege; Wolsey and Wesley and Gladstone 
still linger in the noble hall of Christ Church; 
and Newton’s rooms remain near the im- 
posing gateway of Trinity College in Cam- 
bridge. I love to step within the charmed 
circle of such subtle influences, to yield to 
the magic spell, and to count myself a part 
of all this glorious past. 

But the modern spirit prevades the oldest 
institutions, and great seats of learning are 
rising on new foundations. In both old 
and new the most marked characteristic of 
the teaching of the present is the scientific 
method. It has pervaded every depart- 
ment and has proved the leaven that, being 
taken and hid in the ancient curriculum, as 
inert as the three measures of meal, has 
leavened the whole. Till the introduction 
of serious scientific study with laboratory 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vox. I. No. 15. 


facilities, the educational methods which 
had prevailed for centuries were still cur- 
rent. As late as twenty-five years ago ina 
respectable New England college it was not 
possible for a student to learn his science 
by means of laboratory study. All this 
has now changed, and no less important a 
change has taken place in the teaching of 
language and literature. It is significant 
that this advance in pedagogical practice, 
the introduction of the method by investi- 
gation as compared with mere memoriter 
acquisition, has been coincident with the 
introduction of the serious study of science 
into our American colleges and universi- 
ties. Twenty-five years ago the Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology led the way by 
introducing the physical laboratory into the 
study of physics. Some progress had al- 
ready been made in the teaching of chem- 
istry by direct contact with chemical re- 
actions at the work table. It is only fifty 
years since Liebig inaugurated the system 
of studying chemistry by the laboratory 
method, and it is highly probable that the 
physical laboratory established by William 
B. Rogers in Boston marked the introduc- 
tion into the regular curriculum of instruc- 
tion in physics by experiment.* I venture 
to say that no greater success has followed 
any new departure in education. The 
physical laboratory is now a necessary part 
of every institution devoted to higher learn- 
ing; its growth has been phenomenal. En- 
ormous sums of money have been expended 
for physical laboratories and their equip- 
ment. The example set by this oldest 
branch of science has had a most beneficent 
influence in several directions. It has im- 
proved the quality of the work in the 


~ 


secondary schools. The physical laboratory _ 


is now a necessary part of every first-class 
high school equipment. It has also stimu- 
lated and advanced original work. Every 


* Professor Mendenhall in The Quarterly Calendar 
of the University of Chicago, August, 1894. 


oo = 
“¥ 


yore eo 


if 


a 
§ 
* 


which I lay much stress. 


APRIL 12, 1895. ] 


instructor competent to fill a professor’s 
chair in physics is now expected to add 
something to the stock of knowledge by his 
independent investigations. It has thus 
made graduate instruction possible in Am- 
erican universities, a movement having the 
most hopeful outlook and of the most pro- 
found educational import. 

A third and most complete leavening in- 
fluence is that the method by experiment 
and original investigation adopted by sci- 


- ence has compelled other departments of 


learning to become its imitators, so that 
now the laboratory method prevails in 
nearly every department of learning. This 
result is too patent to be questioned even. 
Psychology, language and history have 
yielded to the powerful example set by 
physics and chemistry. Archeology has its 
work-room, its laboratory; language its 
photographs, its projections, its casts and 
reproduction of ancient life and times; while 
psychology has appropriated not only the 
methods, but the apparatus of the physicist. 

Now a movement which has been such a 
powerful operator in solving the problem of 
education in every branch of learning has a 
significant value in the intellectual training 
of American youth. In fact, the value of 
science in any system of liberal education is 
so generally admitted that it is an almost 
needless expenditure of energy to enter into 
a discussion relative to its merits. It is no 
new comer for whom room is benevolently 
or patronizingly made in order that it may 
display its powersand demonstrate its worth. 
Tt acknowledges other claimants as peers, 
but admits no superiors. It came long ago 
to stay. 

I should like to point out two or three 
aspects of the study and pursuit of science 
not often alluded to or recognized, but on 
The first relates 
to the cultivation and chastening of the 
faculty ofimagination. Sir Benjamin Brodie 


said in a presidential address to the Royal 


SCIENCE. 


395 


Society many years ago: “ Physical investi- 
gation, more than anything besides, helps 
to teach us the actual value and right use 
of the imagination—of that wondrous fac- 
ulty which, left to ramble uncontrolled, 
leads us astray into a wilderness of perplex- 
ities and errors, a land of mists and shadows; 
but which, properly controlled by experience 
and reflection, becomes the noblest attribute 
of man, the source of poetic genius, the in- 
strument of discovery in science, without 
the aid of which Newton would never have 
invented fluxions, nor Davy have decom- 
posed the earths and alkalies, nor would 
Columbus have found another continent.” 
It would be a grievous mistake to suppose 
that the cultivation of science contributes 
only to accuracy and exactness; to the de- 
velopment of the habit and power of obser- 
vation, and to the education of the reason- 
ing faculty as applied to the concrete—to 
the objects and phenomena of nature. All 
of these constitute a valuable training and 
are demonstrable results of an honest effort 
to understand and coérdinate the phenom- 
ena of nature. But as soon as the student 
of science passes beyond the mere elements 
he must train himself to the habit of con- 
ceiving things which “eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, nor have entered into the 
heart of man.” He must emancipate him- 
self as much as possible from the domina- 
tion of his sensations, and must learn that 
sense-perceptions should not be projected 
into the outer world of nature, but that they 
are only symbols of objective phenomena 
presented to consciousness, which the im- 
agination, aided by reason and reflection, 
must interpret. Not only is the imagina- 
tion called into activity by the common oc- 
currences of the natural world lying along 
the level and the horizon of man’s experi- 
ence, but it is powerfully stimulated by the 
more remote phenomena above him and be- 
low him. Man contemplates the starry 
firmament on high, the spangled heavens, 


396 


flecked with barely discernible patches of 
light; he puts together these trembling 
nebule, as the dismembered parts of a puz- 
zle panorama of the heavens; and out of 
them all, triumphant over time and space, 
he constructs a nebular theory of the visible 
universe. He thus concludes that the vari- 
ous bodies of the solar system “‘ once formed 
parts of the same undislocated mass; that 
matter in a nebulous form preceded matter 
in a dense form; that as the ages rolled 
away, heat was wasted, condensation fol- 
lowed, planets were detached, and that 
finally the chief portion of the fiery cloud 
reached, by self-compression, the magnitude 
and density of our sun” (Tyndall). 

On the one hand, the telescope and spec- 
troscope are aids to the imagination in 
penetrating the almost inscrutable mystery 
of the skies ; on the other, the microscope 
enables it to descend somewhat into the no 
less limitless underworld, and to sink the 
exploring plummet to depths as far removed 
from the field of the microscope as the celes- 
tial boundaries are beyond the vision at- 
tained by the telescope. 

How wonderful, also, is the ethereal me- 
dium which man’s imagination has con- 
structed, the vehicle of the energy wafted 
to us from sun and stars! To the mental 
vision this medium fills all space and quiv- 
ers with radiant energy—that winged Mer- 
eury, bearing messages to man from all the 
worlds on high. Even electrical and mag- 
netic phenomena are utterly mexplicable 
without it. The imagination of Faraday, 
of Maxwell, and of Hertz, has woven out of 
it a texture of lines of electric and magnetic 
force, which are as real to the electrician 
as the machines and conductors which he 
mantles with them. Every conductor con- 
veying a current, every permanent or elec- 
tromagnet, is surrounded with its system of 
lines of force in the ether. And when an 
alternating current traverses a conductor 
these lines of magnetic force are propagated 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. I. No. 15. 


outward from it in waves which spread with 
the velocity of light. In fact, they are iden- 
tical with light objectively, except in point 
of wave-length. Thus the theory, imagined 
by Maxwell with the insight of marvelous 
genius, and confirmed later by the classical 
experiments of the lamented Hertz, is now 
accepted doctrine by physicists the world 
over. The existence of the ether is now 
seen to be a necessary consequence of Roe- 
mer’s discovery in 1676 of the finite speed 
of light. For the transmission of light is 
the transmission of energy; and a medium 
of transmission is a necessary postulate as 
the repository of this energy during the 
time of transmission. Newton imagined the 
light-giving body projecting minute parti- 
cles, or corpuscles, through space and car- 
rying their energy with them as a bullet 
carries its energy to the mark. These en- 
tering the eye excite vision by impact upon 
the retina. But Newton’s corpuscular the- 
ory failed because of its final complexity 
and the crucial test applied to it by the 
great experimenter, Foucault. 

The undulatory theory, on the other 
hand, requires a continuous medium, and 
the energy is handed along from particle to 
particle as an undulation. In this way 
energy is conveyed by sound and by water- 
waves across the surface of the sea. Ac- 
cording to this theory, a luminous body is 
the center or source of a disturbance in the 
ether which is propagated in waves through 
space. They are electromagnetic in origin, 
travel with the velocity of light, and en- 
tering the eye excite the sense of vision. 
Thus far have we been helped along by the 
imagination of genius and the contributory 
aid of experiment. Mean and unfruitful 
indeed is the science which has not been en- 
riched, extended and vivified by the scien- 
tific imagination. Where dull reason halts 
and the understanding is confounded by 
appalling obstacles, imagination overleaps 
them all and the barriers are dissolved 


APRIL 12, 1895.] 


away. The boundaries of scientific inquiry 

have thus been moved forward and new 

territory has been added to the cultivated 
domain. 

_ Again, let me direct your attention to 
_ another feature attending the prosecution 
of scientific research. While it is undoubt- 
edly destructive of credulity, and is perhaps 
but a weak ally of faith, it is nevertheless 
a powerful promoter of honesty. The object 
which the scientific investigator sets before 

him is toascertain the truth. He is devoted 
to it and pursues it with unremitting toil. 
But this is not all. He not only seeks 
truth, but he must be true himself. It is 
‘difficult to conceive of any circumstances 
which would induce him to play a dishonest 
_ part in scientific research. He has every 
inducement not only to accuracy but to 
honesty. He may unwittingly blunder and 
_ fall into error, but if he is untrue he is cer- 
tain to be exposed. No discovery is per- 

‘mitted to go unverified. It must undergo 

_ the searching examination of scientific in- 
quiry. The investigator must submit his 


med. There is, therefore, every induce- 
ment for him to be absolutely truthful. This 
condition imposes upon him also the habit 
of conservatism and moderation in state- 
ment. He is not expected to plead a cause 
or to make the most of the occasion for 
himself. In this regard his position is in 
contrast with those whose profession makes 
em the allies of faith, but whose modera- 
m is not always known to all men; for 
heir assertions are not brought to the 
uchstone of revision and justification, and 
he released word flies over the unguarded 
The habit of the scientific investi- 
or is to subject every question to the 
utiny of reason and to weigh probabili- 


gs; hold fast that which is good.” He 
ects conscience, but has no use for 
edulity. He exhibits devotion to principle, 


SCIENCE. 


397 


but dogmatism, whether in science or re- 
ligion, has no place in his creed. He looks 
not only upon the things which are seen, 
but also upon the things which are unseen. 
You may suffer me to remind you that the 
most noted American atheist is not a man 
of science, while one of the forceful books 
of modern times, ‘The Unseen Universe,’ 
which aims to lay a foundation for belief 
in a future life without the aid of inspira- 
tion, was written by two distinguished phys- 
icists. Science examines the foundations 
of belief. It takes nothing from mere tradi- 
tion, on authority, nor because it is an 
inheritance from the past. It admits its 
own limitations and the somewhat cireum- 
scribed boundaries set to the field of its 
inquiries; but within this province it seeks 
to ascertain only the truth. It recognizes 
not only the promise and potency of matter, 
but the power which makes for righteous- 
ness. 

Turning now to some more practical mat- 
ters, it is strongly urged that the study of 
science should begin early, before the taste 
for such study has become atrophied by too 
excessive attention to language and mathe- 
matics. It is a fact established by observa- 
tion that if a student gets his first introduc- 
tion to science only after he is well along in 
his college course he comes to it with a 
mental inaptitude that often produces dis- 
couragement and precludes the possibility 
of much satisfaction in its pursuit. The 
procedure in scientific study, especially 
when it includes the method of the labora- 
tory, is so radically different from that in- 
volved in the study of language that one 
trained only in the latter finds himself in a 
foreign field when he enters the former. 
The study of language, considered merely 
as the symbolism of thought, or the instru- 
ment for its expression, is most valuable 
and essential. You shall hear no word from 
me designed to depreciate the value of 
linguistic study and training. It is rather 


398 


to be deprecated that scientific men do not 
generally pay more attention to the forma- 
tion of a correct English style, and do 
not oftener acquire the ability to ex- 
press the results of their studies in more 
elegant English diction. On the other 
hand, an exclusive training in the so- 
ealled humanities leaves the student 
unsymmetrically developed. The elemen- 
tary study of languageis largely a study of 
the forms and symbols of speech; to the 
young student, at least, the thought is. alto- 
gether a secondary consideration. Mathe- 
matics furnishes a training in the relations 
of abstract number, and in the manipulation 
of symbols invented to facilitate operations 
expressing the relations between related 
quantities. It is not only a valuable agency 
in mental development, but it is a powerful 
instrument for the investigation of phenom- 
ena in those branches of science to which 
applied mathematics is indispensable. Sci- 
ence has more to do than either language 
or mathematics with objective phenomena. 
The student of science soon finds that he 
has a new set of relationships with which 
to deal. He may be familiar with mathe- 
matical theorems and solutions, but his first 
difficulty is to see the points of attachment 
of mathematics to the facts of physical sci- 
ence. He is armed with a weapon of most 
modern design and exquisite workmanship, 
and he has possibly obtained some skill in 
target practice, but he has no eye for game. 
He may be too short-sighted to see that 
there is any game even. 

Skill in the use of scientific methods of 
reasoning and acquirement comes only 
after the mind has been kept for some time 
in contact with science, so that it has ac- 
quired the scientific spirit and aptitude. 
The preparation for the scientific work of 
the university should therefore begin in 
the secondary schools. Continuity in scien- 
tific acquisition is as essential as in that of 
language or mathematics. While six, or 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 15, 


even eight, years are given to language in 
the high school, counting the four years 
with three studies each as twelve, it is 
thought by some to be an evidence of great 
magnanimity if two years out of the twelve_ 
are given over to the mere elements of 
physical and biological science. It is 
obvious to any careful observer that 
much improvement has been made in the 
teaching of science in secondary schools 
within the last few years. More competent 
teachers are employed, laboratory facilities 
have been provided, better manuals have 
been written, and the tone of the science 
department has been improved by the fact 
that preparation in science at last leads to 
something further in the university. This 
continuity in the pursuit of scientific studies 
has already furnished qualified teachers for 
the lower schools. What wonder if the 
teaching of science in the schools should 
not have proved as fruitful as was once 
hoped! ‘Till recently language and mathe- 
matics have had the training of the teachers 
throughout our whole educational history, 
and if science secured entrance to a second- 
ary school at all it got there in a secondary 
place. All that science asks is to be placed 
on equal footing with other lines of study. 
It demands no preferences and is strenuous 
that no ultimate bounties shall be extended 
to other branches. There should be no 
favored nations in the world of education. 
It recognizes no excellences in language or 
literature to justify superior awards at 
graduation. There are no sacred vessels in 
education which science may not touch, 
no shibboleth which she cannot pronounce, 
no holy of holies which she should be for- 
bidden to enter. The ideal culture course 
is not all science, not all language, and not 
all mathematies, but a judicious combi- 
nation of these and other branches. It 
would be no less logical for one to make 
one’s course chiefly science than to make it 
chiefly language ; but when the student has 


ApRIL 12, 1895.] 


successfully completed his course, making 
due allowance for personal differences and 
needs, no reason seems to me valid for not 
crowning the equivalent work of all with 
the same degree. 

h Reference to the other aspect of my subject 
has, perhaps, been too long delayed. Sci- 
ence has not only educational value of a high 
order, but industrial applications as well. 
Discovery and scientific training precede 
invention. The quality of mind that dis- 
covers the laws of nature is of a higher or- 
der than that which makes application of 
them. The genius of Faraday and Henry, 
who discovered the laws of magnetic in- 

_ duction, must not be dimmed or diminished 

__ by reduction to the level of even the great- 

_ est living inventors. The contributions of 

_ these men to the well-being, comfort and 

_ happiness of mankind cannot be over-esti- 

_ mated. They laid the foundation in mag- 
nificent discoveries of those splendid appli- 
cations which have dazzled the world in 
recent years. So thoroughly intrenched in 

_ theory and practice are Faraday’s concep- 

_ tions at the present day that they enter into 

every design of motor or dynamo. They 


_ have been shot through the entire body of ; 


practice and are intertwined with every 
_ thread of electrical thought. 
On the other hand, one must not fail to 
note that the wonderful applications of 
_ Seience have reacted in a favorable way 
_ upon theory and investigation. They have 
__ proved an effective stimulus to research and 
_ haye furnished a multitude of problems for 
_ original investigation. Scientific discovery 
and inventions involving scientific laws are 
_ two handmaids of national improvement. 
They are larger agencies for the advance of 
_ modern civilization than any others. As- 
_ tronomy has made splendid contributions 
to navigation since Galileo suffered for 
Beeching that the earth revolves daily on 
axis and yearly round the sun. It has 
made possible modern chronometry by 


_ 


SCIENCE. 


399 


giving us the accurate unit of time. The 
contributions of modern chemistry are so 
numerous and so important that it is diffi- 
cult to particularize. It has taken a useless 
refuse of the gas retort and converted it in- 
to resplendent dyes that rival the gorgeous 
colors of the rainbow. It has improved and 
cheapened the processes of manufacturing 
iron till the cost of the ore and the fuel con- 
trol the price of the product; and old estab- 
lishments, far removed from the cheap sup- 
ply of either, have had to succumb to the 
march of events. 

Bacteriology, the ally of chemistry, work- 
ing largely by chemical methods, gives the 
fairest promise of discovering the cause and 
the prevention of disease. Its beneficent 
aim now is to devise methods of securing 
immunity from the most deadly diseases, 
whose ravages are greater than those of 
great civil wars. Important discoveries in 
this direction are impending, and medicine 
is fast becoming a science instead of a body 
of empirical rules. 

Bacteriology has already isolated and 
identified a large number of pathogenic or 
disease-producing germs and hopes in time 
to corral them. It has demonstrated that 
disease is not due simply to the presence of 
the bacillus, but to the specific poison result- 
ing from its growth. It has added con- 
sumption and pneumonia to the list of in- 
fectious diseases; and the discovery of the 
cause is a long stride toward the goal of 
prevention. 

The specific direction in which the large 
body of scientific discovery is turned to 
practical account is in the several branches 
ofengineering. The civil, mechanical, elec- 
trical and mining engineers are the prophets 
of the new civilization. They have pierced 
the highest mountains; hung highways 
over the most dizzy cafions; constructed a 


- rushing steed that feeds on the compressed 


vegetation of the carboniferous age and 
wearies not ; they have brought the nations 


400 


together so that the great oceans scarcely 
separate them ; they have bound continents 
together by wonderful cables embedded in 
slimy ooze at the bottom of the sea. Hiffel 
reared his tower a thousand feet to pierce 
the sky; Baker projected three of his out 
1700 feet horizontally without staging to 
bridge the Firth of Forth; and over them 
fly four hundred trains daily without slack- 
ening speed; each span is longer than the 
Brooklyn bridge, and there are three spans. 
The seven wonders of the world have be- 
come seventy, and still the modern en- 
gineer pauses not. He now soberly con- 
templates a deep waterway from the great 
Northwest to the Atlantic coast. He has 
not even abandoned the problem of aerial 
navigation, but attacks it on a new princi- 
ple. Archimedes is said to have declared 
that if he had a place for a fulerum he could 
move the world. Professor Vernon Boys 
has just weighed the earth and determined 
its density to the third decimal place by 
means of two gilded balls suspended by a 
fiber of quartz, finer and stronger than a 
spider’s web. Not content that the earth 
yields her yearly increase, and that the sea 
furnishes abundant food, the engineer bur- 
rows into the eternal hills and seeks for hid 
treasures in the depths of the earth. The 
gold and the silver he wishes to be his also. 
He even establishes an electric plant some 
1600 feet underground, converts the power 
of the descending stream of water into elec- 
tric energy, and sends it back to the surface 
for further service. 

He has contemplated the colossal cataract 
at Niagara not only as a display of natural 
grandeur, but as an example of unlimited 
power running to waste. At last he is 
nearly ready to recover a small part of 
this power and to transmit it to distant 
cities, where it may turn the wheels of in- 
dustry or be transmuted into light. No 
grander problems remain for solution than 
. those even now confronting the electrical 


SCIENCE. 


“universities. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 15. 


engineer. The swiftness with which he 
has already passed from one almost insur- 
mountable task to another has amazed no 
one more than those most familiar with the 
means employed. If electrical engineering” 
is still in its infancy it is certainly a giant 
infant. It has long since outgrown its toys. 
With the nerve and audacity of vigorous 
young manhood it quails before no obstacles 
and acknowledges no impossibilities. Hay- 
ing practically banished the plodding horse 
from the street railway, it is getting ready 
to enter the lists against the locomotive. 
If your city is not seated near a source of 
power it will undertake to bring the power 
to you. The mountain can not go to the 
city, but the city can go to the mountain for 
its power.  LHlectrical engineering stands 
at the door of the twentieth century, ready 
to accept the tasks that it imposes, and 
eager to enter upon a new period of dis- 
covery and application. 

A marked feature of educational history 
in the United States for the past twenty-five 
years is the rapid increase in engineering 
schools, partly on independent foundations, 
and partly as a professional department of 
Of this latter class the only 
ones existing a quarter of a century ago, so 
far as I know, were the Lawrence Scientific 
School at Harvard, the Sheffield Scientific 
School at Yale, and the courses in Ciyil 
Engineering in the Universities of Penn- 
sylvania and Michigan. The first two, as 
their name implies, were devoted quite as 
much to the teaching of pure science as tO 
engineering. They attracted but little at- 
tention, and in fact the Lawrence School 
had but a moribund existence for many 
years after the establishment of the Insti- 
tute of Technology in Boston. Recently 
it has had new vigor infused into it and 
has profited by the growing interest in 
engineering education. Cornell and the 
State Universities have led the way in the 
establishment of engineering schools, and 


APRIL 12, 1895.] 


their example has been followed in a way 
that demonstrates more completely than 
anything else could that a popular demand 


_ exists for engineering instruction. 


/ 
t 


Civil engineering came into the Univer- 
sity of Michigan in 1853, with the late Dr. 


Alexander Winchell, as an adjunct of 


Physics. It had an independent instructor 
in 1857 in the person of Professor De Volson 
Wood, who is well known in the profession 
at the present day. Mining engineering 
followed in 1875. Mechanical engineering 
was introduced by a professor detailed from 
the U.S. Navy Department in 1881. Finally 
the course in electrical engineering was be- 
gunin 1889. The success of this last course 
has more than justified its introduction, as 
the roster of students in it already exceeds 
that of either of the older engineering 
courses. This growth is attributable to the 
popular interest in the subject. 

The engineering courses are primarily 
professional as distinguished from the liter- 
ary curriculum. They lay the foundation 
_ in theory and a moderate amount of prac- 

tice for distinguished careers in a private 


_ professional capacity and at the same time 


in the service of the State. 


A large portion 
of the graduates of American technical 
schools have been very successful in their 
professional career. The presence of a con- 
.siderable body of trained engineers, dis- 
_ tributed throughout the country, has had a 
marked influence on the number and char- 
acter of the public improvements made. 

_ agreat commonwealth is justified in main- 
taining an institution of higher learning be- 
cause of the public weal, as I fully believe 
it is, then the maintenance of schools of en- 


gineering is approved by considerations of 


high public interest. 

_ From an educational point of view, the 
courses in engineering furnish a thorough 
and by no means narrow intellectual train- 
ing. The rigid discipline in pure and ap- 
_ plied mathematics, the courses in physics 


SCIENCE. 


If 


401 


and chemistry, the attention given to 
modern languages, are all additional to the 
special instruction in engineering studies ; 
and while they serve as a foundation for 
them their value as a means of intellectual 
culture are just as great asif they were pur- 
sued for this purpose alone. An eminent 
scholar, Professor Ritter of Germany, has 
recently testified to the suecess of technical 
education in the United States and says 
that the Americans have outdone Europeans 
in this regard. The theoretical side of the 
technical branches Professor Ritter believes 
to be less solid here than in Germany ; but 
against this defect he sets the “ truly grand 
achievements in engineering and machine 
construction in the United States.’’ In the 
normal growth of our engineering courses 
they will gradually be strengthened on the 
theoretical side. At the same time we can 
not guard too carefully against the crowd- 
ing out of that amount of practice obtain- 
able from a well-equipped engineering 
laboratory and such tests of actual ma- 
chinery as may be accessible. The highest 
justification of the American plan of engi- 
neering schools is to be found in the prom- 
inent part taken by comparatively recent 
graduates in the most difficult undertakings 
of engineering practice. 

In the provision for science and engi- 
neering, indicated by the dedication of the 
Hale Scientific Building, the University of 
Colorado is following the best examples of 
American education. It has made a noble 
beginning in the cultivation of science, the 
augury we may be permitted to hope of a 
brilliant future. A wide world of discovery 
yet remains. The remark of an eminent 
physicist that the future discoveries of phys- 
ical science are to be looked for in the 
sixth place of decimals is rendered rather 
ludicrous by the recent discovery of ‘Argon,’ 
a new constituent of the atmosphere, com- 
posing about two per cent. of its weight. If 
the air we breathe can furnish a new and al- 


402 


most unsuspected element, what other sur- 
prises may hide in equally common things ? 
The twitching of a dead frog’s leg a hun- 
dred years ago started a train of discoveries 
in electricity that have revolutionized the 
world. But Galvani was not the first anato- 
mist who used the frog as illustrative ma- 
terial. Science knows no ultimate limits be- 
yond which she may not go. The mountains 
of Colorado are not yet exhausted of their 
precious metals, nor has nature yet thrown 
up her hands as a signal that she no longer 
resists the uncovering of all her treasure. 

I bear to you the congratulations of the 
Mother of State Universities, and the wish 
that this institution may be an intellectual 
light attracting the youths of Colorado, and 
a glory to this great Commonwealth. 

Henry S. CARHART. 

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 15. 


THE GROWTH OF FIRST-BORN CHILDREN. 

Durine the year 1892 I made arrange- 
ments for a series of measurements of school 
children, one of the objects of which was 
the determination of any existing difference - 
between the growth of first-born and later- 
born children. The measurements were 
taken in Toronto, under the direction of Dr. 
A. F. Chamberlain, and in Oakland, Cal., 
through the kindness of Professor Earl 
Barnes. The following table contains the 
results of the observations taken in Oak- 
land. 

The columns named ‘ Differences’ gives 
the amount to be added to the average stat- 
ure and weight in order to obtain the stat- 
ures and weights of first-born and later- 
born children. The figures printed in pa- 
renthesis designate the numbers of individ- 
uals measured. 


STATURES OF Boys IN MILLIMETERS. 


A DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AVERAGE STATURE AND STATURE OF 
ges. Average 
First Born Second Born Third Born Fourth Born Later Born 

Sena ate Children. Children. Children. Children. Children. 
6.5 | 1137 ve + 7 (30) 7 @ —13 (25) = (36) 5 GS 
7.5 1180 (197) +11 (49) —A4 (42 +13 (31 += 0 (24 —10 (46) 
8.5 1249 (234) —3 (57) —7 ta —1 32 —18 (26 —21 61) 
9.5 1283 (220) + 2 (57) ame 47) +5 38 + 5 (23 +1 (46) 
10.5 1334 (243) + 0 (66) +33 (49) —18 (41 —15 35) —8 Gat 
11.5 | 1379 (208) —1 (58) +1 (39) +16 (32 —13 (27) —1 (4 
12.5 1426 (230) +20 (66) —i1 47) —A4 38 —5 (36 —19 (41) 
13.5 1482 (163) +16 (54) +10 43) +16 28 —31 (26 —25 (30 
14.5 1556 (163 +11 (46) —19 40) + 4 (27 +0 (25 +8 (24 
15.5 1632 (118) + 6 (35) + 8 (29) —18 (22 —14 (15) +4 (17) 
16.5 1668 (116) —19 (29) +17 (30) +21 (8s —20 (13) + 0 (25) 
Average Differences. +4.5 +4.0 +1.9 —7.9 —6.9 


STATURES OF GIRLS IN MILLIMETERS. 


Amon [reriee DIFFERENCE DEAS AVERAGE STATURE AND STATURE OF 

_ First Born Second Born Third Born Fourth Born Later Born 

Wears, Stature: Children. Children. Children. Children. Children. 
6.5 1125 iGo, +11 oS + 0 (28) —9 (15 —16 (10) —1 
7.5 1175 (199 +8 (49 —1 (40 +3 (44 —A4 (24) —11 
8.5 1226 221) +14 (52) —l1 (46 —9 (43 +13 (19 —4 
9.5 1277 (252) —4 (65) —3 (57 +14 (47) —17' (21 +5 
10.5 1335 Sa = 7 (59 —2 (46) +15 (28) —6 (26 —11 
11.5 1389 (226 +12 (52): +10 (41 — 3 (32 +3 (34 —14 
12.5 1450 (283 +3 (65 +14 (56 —1 Fe + 7 (40) + 8 
13.5 1516 (222) —3 a +9 (48 —19 (38) +6 (29 +9 
14.5 1566 (241) +9 (61 +0 (68 — 8 38) —17 +=(23 —i1 

5} 5) 1577 (170) —2 (42) +11 (36) —6 (82) —i1 (19 —5 ( 
16.5 1597 (127 +15 (304 —38 (28) — 3 (23) —i1 (14 —18 (382 
17.5 1597 (eo +10 (30 —21 (19) —8 (19) +O (5 +14 

18 & older| 1602 82 +12 (27) —5 (20) —25 (10) —10 (9 —1 

Average Differences. +7.1 —2.8 —4.5 —3.3 


AprIL 12, 1895.] SCIENCE. 403 
WEIGHTs OF Boys IN PoUNDs. 
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AVERAGE WEIGHT AND WEIGHTS Or : 
Ages. Average = ee = = 2 wae esis 
y Weight First Born Second Born ——‘ Third Born Fourth Born Later Born 
oo } ee Children. Children. | Children. Children. Children 
6.5 | 47.7 (147) —0.3 {78} | +0.7 (38) +0.1 (26) —0.1 (18) —0.5 (35) 
7.5 51.7 (191) +1.1 (48 —0.6 (42) +0.1 (32) —1.0 (21) +0.0 (44) 
8.5 57.3 (229) | —0.3 es | +0.2 be +0.5 (32) +0.7 (26) —0.6 (57) 
9.5 62.2 (212) —0.4 : 57) +0.1 N 45) _ _—0.2 (36) | —0.2 (22) Ato (43) 
10.5 69.0 (235)  —1.6 (64) 5.4. (47), | —2i (89) | —1.4 (36) | =o (44) 
11.5 74.8 (206) +1.0 (58) —0.9 (38) +1.2 (33) —0.9 (27) —0.3 (44 
12.5 81.6 (224) +2.1 tl +1.2 (46) —0.4 (37) | —2.6 (34) —1.8 (41) 
13.5 89.1 tie0s +2.0 (50 +2.3 (46) +4.1 (28) —8.9 (32) —2.5 (32) 
ee 105.1 (160) +1.6 47) —0.7 (38) | —0.2 (26) —1.4 (23) : _ +0.5 (25) _ 
15.5 119.5 (114) +3.0 (33) —1.7 (27) = 0.1 (21) +0.8 (15) | +1.8 ; (17) 
Average Differences. +0.82 | +0.60 +0.32 —1.58 | —0.44 
WEIGHTS OF GIRLS IN POUNDs. 
4 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AVERAGE WEIGHT AND WEIGHTS OF i 
Ages. Average et Cais : eee Bee Sas eo vO 
=Sn First Born Second Born Third Born Fourth Born | Later Born 
“SS Me Children. Children. Children. | Children. Children. 
Ga | 45.7% (123) +0.0 ta +0.9 (30) —1.0 (15) —1.2 (10) +0.4 (32 
7.5 49.6 (186) | —0.1 (45) +0.6 (37) —0.1 (42) —0.5 (23) +0.1 (39 
8.5 55.7 (217) +0.6 aa +0.3 eal —1.1 ve +0.8 (21) +0.0 te 
9.5 60.0 (242) | —1.5 64) +0.3 (57) | +2.1 (48) | —3.1 (22) | _+1.0 (46 
10.5 | 66.8 (221) | +04 (57) | —0.B (45) Se.) i ee) a 
11.5 74.3 (222) +2.1 (50) —1.2 (41) +0.4 (31) +0.7 (32) —1.2 (62) 
12.5 84.2 (280) |. -steber 67) +2.6 ee —3.2 (54) —0.4 (39) —0.2 (64) 
13.5 94.2 (220) | —0.9 ban +3.9 (47) —2.6 (37) | +0.3 (29) | —L2 45) 
14.5 _ 105.8 (235) | +0.4 (60) +1.3 (64) —4,2 (35) | —1-4 (25) Alsat ere 49) 
110.7 (165) | +01 ea +0.1 (82) —3.5 (33) +2.4 (19) +1.2 (40) 
116.5 (124) | +7.9 (29 —1.5 (27) —3.9 ee —7.5 (14) | Ont (32) 
117.4 (99) +1.9 (30 —0.5 (18) —3.2 (19) +41 (15) —1.2 (16) 
118.3 (82) +2.4 (27) +0.4 (20) uy hal LO) 6-0 (9) —1.1 (16) 
Average Differences. +1.12 +0.48 —1.71 | —0.72 —0.12 | 


_ It appears from these four tables that 
rst-born children exceed later-born chil-- 


this difference prevails from the sixth year 
until the adult state in females, and from 
; The 

material is not sufficiently extensive to show 
if the same is true of the adult males. Al- 


and the subdivision into five classes makes 


ities are not surprising. A preliminary 
estigation of the Toronto material is 


| 


from the Oakland material, the difference in 
favor of the first-born being, if anything, 
more marked. 

We are, therefore, justified in grouping 
the measurements into two classes : first- 
born individuals and later-born individuals. 
This increases the difference of stature of 
the two groups to 10 mm. in girls, to 7 mm. 
in boys, and the differences of weight to 1.6 
pounds in girls and to 1.2 pounds in boys. 
The tables seem to indicate that second- 
born children exceed somewhat later-born 
children in stature and weight, but the ma- 
terial is not sufficiently extensive to allow 
us to make a safe deduction on this ques- 
tion. 

It would seem likely that the greater 


404 


vigor of the mother at the time of birth of 
the first child and the greater care bestowed 
upon the first child during its early child- 
hood may be the cause of the phenomenon. 
The cares of the increasing household tend 
to weaken the mother and to decrease the 
amount of motherly attention devoted to 
later-born children. It is remarkable that 
the relation of size existing at the time of 
birth should be reversed in later life; it 
having been shown that the weight and 
length of new-born infants increases from 
the first-born to the later-born children.* 
A comparison between the above table 
and others shows that the children of Oak- 
land exceed those of all other cities of the 
United States in which measurements have 
been made, in height as well as in weight. 


FRANz Boas. 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 


CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY (V.). 
SUBDIVISIONS OF THE STONE AGE. 


THosE students who make use of Mortil- 
let’s excellent manual ‘Le Préhistorique 
Antiquité de Homme,’ now a little out of 
date, will be glad to learn the subdivisions 
of prehistoric time as taught this winter in 
his courses at the Ecole d’ Anthropologie, 
of Paris. 

He divides the Stone Age into three 
‘periods,’ covering six ‘epochs.’ The oldest 
is the eolithic, beginning with the ‘ Thenay- 
sienne,’ referring to the rather doubtful 
flints from the station of Thenay. Above 
this is the ‘ Puycournienne,’ based on the 
finds at Puy-Courny. The paleolithic 
epochs remain the same as given in his 
manual, to wit: beginning with the oldest, 
the Chelleenne, the Acheuleenne, the Mous- 
térienne, the Solutréenne and the Magda- 
lenienne. Then follow two epochs which fill 
in the ‘hiatus’ which he formerly taught 
existed between the palolithic and neo- 


* H. Fasbender in Ztschr. fiir Geburtshilfe und Gy- 
nakologie, Vol. III., p. 286. Stuttgart, 1878. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 15. 


lithic periods. They are the Tourassienne 
and the Compignyenne, referring to stations 
on the upper Garonne and the lower Seine. 
These bring us to the Robenhausienne, of~ 
Zurich, and so on. 

The changes indicated are significant. I 
have before referred to those of similar 
character in the scheme of M. Salmon (see 
Scrence, p. 254). A leading question has 
been whether we can trace the oldest his- 
toric population of Europe in an uninter- 
rupted culture-development back to the 
rough stone age (pace, Messrs. McGuire & 
Co.). This would seem now to be the case; 
and this carries with it the increased proba- 
bility that the cradle of the Aryan or Indo- 
Germanic peoples was in western Europe. 


THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 


SomE years ago the Society of Anthro- 
pology of Paris passed a resolution to reject 
all papers written to show the origin of 
language; believing that all discusssions of 
that subject are fruitless and time-wasting. 
One has but to look over the historical 
sketch of the hypotheses advanced, written 
recently by Professor Steinthal under the 
title ‘Die Ursprung der Sprache,’ to become 
convinced how much nonsense has been 
poured out concerning this theme. Among 


‘others, he represents a full analysis of the 


theories of Ludwig Noiré, showing at once 
their acuteness and the vicious circle of 
reasoning, arriving nowhere, in which the 
author involves himself. 

Nevertheless, Noiré has found admirers 
in this country, and the Open Court Publish- 
ing Company of Chicago has printed a pam- 
phlet of 57 pages, ‘On the Origin of Lan- 
guage and the Logos Theory, by Ludwig 
Noiré.”’ It will be found an excellent pre- 
sentation of his views for those who wish 
to learn them. 

There is but one scientific method of ap- 


. proaching this problem, and that is not the 


a priori style adopted by most writers, but 


APRIL 12, 1895. ] 


by a patient analysis of the structure 
(morphology) of the languages of savage 
tribes. These reveal to us human speech 
on its lowest terms and it will be found 
something quite different from what we ex- 
pected. Noiré’s examples, on the contrary, 
are taken from the highly developed Aryan 
languages, and from their vocabulary, not 
from their morphology. Nearly all writers 
follow the same false trail, and consequently 
reach no results worth naming. 


RECENT STUDIES IN CRANIOLOGY. 

Tue pathological effects of cretinism on 
the form of the skull have received inade- 
quate attention. 


York Medical Journal, for February 2, 1895, 
on the influence exerted by this condition on 
the shape of the nasal chambers and other 
eranial elements, is a welcome contribu- 
tion. 

_ The distinguished Roman craniologist, 
Professor Giuseppe Sergi, has added an- 


other to his many interesting studies of 
Mediterranean craniology by a paper of 


sixty pages in the Bulletin of the Medical 
Academy of Rome, 1894-1895, entitled 
‘Studi di Antropologia Laziale,’ in which 
he discusses a number of skulls derived 

_ from cemeteries of ancient Latium. His 
conclusions are as we might expect, that the 
populus romanus of the Empire was decidedly 
mixed in blood and cranial types. 

The island of Engano adjoins Sumatra, 
and little has been known about the physi- 
caltype of its inhabitants, who, moreover, 

are rapidly dying out. For that reason, 


* 


additional value is attached to a study of 


_ the skulls and bones brought from there 
by Dr. Modigliani, prepared by Dr. I. 
-Danielli, and published in the ‘ Archivio 
per Il’ Antropologiae 1’ Etnologia,’ Vol. 
_ XXIII. They appear to have belonged to a 

_ Malaysian people, with a dash of Negrito 
_ blood. A mixed population, at any rate, 


SCIENCE. 


For this reason, a brief 
paper by Dr. Harrison Allen in the New 


405 


occupied the island, for the precise gene- 
alogy of which we must await further re- 
searches. 


AFRICAN FOLK-LORE AND ETHNOGRAPHY. 


ImporTANT additions to the ethnography 
and folk-lore of the Bantu tribes have been 
recently made by Mr. Heli Chatelain, late 
U. S. commercial agent at Loanda, West 
Africa. First to be noticed is a volume of 
315 pages, published by the American Folk- 
Lore Society, entitled ‘ Folk-Tales of An- 
gola.’ These are fifty tales, faithfully re- 
corded from the lips of the native speakers, 
with the original Kimbundu text, a literal 
English translation and an _ instructive 
introduction and notes. It is an excel- 
lent and original study of these prominent 
tribes from the point of view of the folk- 
lorist. 

An article broader in scope, by Mr. 
Chatelain, entitled ‘African Races’ is 
published in the Journal of American Folk- 
Lore for December last. In it the author 
undertakes to present the result of his ob- 
servations and theorizing on African eth- 
nography in general. The main point 
which he endeavors to prove is that there 
is no true racial or linguistie difference be- 
tween the Bantu and the Sudanese negroes. 
The reasons for this, advanced in the note to 
page 207, are far from satisfactory. Mr. 
Chatelain, though a most competent lin- 
guist, clearly does not appreciate the value 
of linguistics in ethnography; and it is 
slightly preposterous to forbid any ethnolo- 
gist to have an opinion about the affinities 
of a tribe unless he has lived with it. At 
that rate, that class of scientists would find 
their field limited indeed. There are many 
reasons, not discussed by Mr. Chatelain, for 
holding the Sudanese of pure type to be as 
different from the Bantus as, say, the Sibirie 
tribes of Asia are different from the Sinitie 
peoples; and that is all that has been 
maintained. 


406 


DR. EMIL SCHMIDT’S RECENT WORKS. 

Dr. Emin Scumipt, of Leipzig, is favora- 
bly known to anthropologists by his many 
practical contributions to their science. 
His text-book on physical anthropology is 
the best manual extant. Quite lately I re- 
ferred to his investigations into the pre-Co- 
lumbian history of the United States (see 
SCIENCE, p. 256). These were a chapter 
of his large volume, ‘ Vorgeschichte Nord- 
amerikas, im Gebiet der Vereinigten Staaten’ 
(pp. 216, Braunschweig, 1894). This is di- 
vided into four parts, one on the very old- 
est relics of man in the area of the United 
States; the second on the prehistoric copper 
implements of North America; the third 
on the prehistoric Indians of North Amer- 
ica east of the Rocky Mountains ; and the 
fourth on those in the southwestern por- 
tions of the United States. These topics 
are treated with a thorough knowledge of 
the best authorities and a calm judgement. 
The book will, I hope, have a translation 
into English. 

In another work, ‘ Reise nach Stidindien ’ 
(pp. 314, Leipzig, 1894), Dr. Schmidt gives 
the results of his own observations and in- 
vestigations into the native tribes of south- 
ern India. It is written in popular style, 
abundantly enriched with illustrations of 
the natives and of the scenery, and replete 
with valuable information. 


THE ANCIENT ETHNOGRAPHY OF WESTERN 
ASIA. 

THERE is no other portion of the globe of 
equal area the ancient ethnography of which 
is so interesting to the history of human 
culture as western Asia, in the land area 
included between the four seas, the Black, 
the Caspian, the Persian Gulf and the 
Mediterranean. This embraces Palestine, 
Mesopotamia and the upper Euphrates 
valley, eastern Asia Minor, Armenia, Mount 
Ararat and many other wondrous sites of 
old. Here lay the Garden of Eden, the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Voz. I. No. 15. 


holy cities and the earliest centers of civil- 


ization. 

A most valuable contribution to the study 
of its earliest geography and ethnography, 
as understood by the ancient Egyptians and 
preserved in their writings, appeared a little 
over a year ago from the pen of Professor 
W. Max Muller, now of Philadelphia (Asien 
und Europa nach altegyptischen Denk- 
malern, pp. 403,. Leipzig, 1893). It is very 
abundantly illustrated with copies of the 
ethnic types found on the Egyptian monu- 
ments and with texts in the hieroglyphic 
seript of the Nilotic scribes. As the author 
is one of the most accomplished Egyptolo- 
gists living, his translations of the hiero- 
glyphs are peculiarly valuable to the ethnog- 
rapher, since few students of that specialty 
have paid attention to ethnic descriptions. 
A map appended to the volume locates 
from Egyptian sources those troublesome 
people, the Hittites, this time, in Cappa- 
docia, as well as the Mitanni, the Kilak, 
and other little known tribes. The numerous 
drawings of the faces, costumes, armors, 
ete., of these former inhabitants, as well as 
the profound linguistic analysis of texts, 
render this volume one of exceptional value. 

D. G. Briyton. 

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


— 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
A CARD CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC LITERA- 
TURE. 

Eprror or Scrence—Dear Sir: I presume 
that there is no doubt of the existence of 
considerable demand among workers in, and 
writers upon, various branches of science 
for an index catalogue of the books and 
papers relating to the subjects in which they 
are interested, and that an accurate card 
catalogue, each card to be promptly fur- 
nished as soon as the book or paper is pub- 
lished, will best meet this demand. It is 
also desired that each card should contain a 
brief summary of the contents of the article. 


J! 


4 


& 


APRIL 12, 1895.] 


A large number of investigators and writers 
would be glad to have their work done for 
them by some automatic or mechanical 
means, as far as possible, up to a point just 

short of the conclusions or results. These, 
of course, they prefer to prepare and state 
themselves. Those who like literary re- 
search would be pleased to have codperative 
laboratories established in which, for a 
moderate annual subscription, they could 
have any experiments made which they 
might suggest, the results to be reported to 
them for their use. Others would prefer to 
do the experimenting themselves, and have 
some one else tell them everything that other 
people have done and written about the 
matter. And if each party is able and will- 
ing to pay for the assistance he requires, 
and can find persons competent to give that 
assistance and willing to do the work merely 
for the pay offered, every one will agree 
that it is a good thing, and will furnish new 
channels of employment and remuneration 
for experts, for which channels the need is 
steadily increasing. 

It is, however, not clear that the benefits 
to science and to humanity, which would 
result from a complete card index of science 
up to date and available for every one who 
would like to consult it, would be so great 


_ as to make it the duty of any existing scien- 


tifie body or institution to incur the great 
expense of taking charge of the matter or to 
contribute largely to its support. 
Physicians meet with some cases for 
which it is desirable that the food should 
be carefully minced and partially digested 
before it is given, and sometimes it is ne- 
cessary to push this food far back on the 


_ tongue to make sure that it will be swal- 


lowed, or even to forcibly inject it, but in 


most cases this benefits no one but the pa- 
tient. 


There is a very considerable number of 
men now engaged in preparing abstracts 
and summaries of what is known in various 


SCIENCE. 


407 


branches of science, and publishing them as 
monographs, monthly reviews, year books, 
etc.; and in medicine, at all events, the 
supply of this kind of material is quite 
equal to the paying demand for it. 

Moreover, it is not certain that the inves- 
tigator who wishes to know everything that 
has been suggested with regard to the sub- 
ject which he has under consideration will 
be much happier when he gets his card in- 
dex up to date, if he has not made it him- 
self. He will find references to articles by 
Smith, and Schmidt, and Smitovich; but 
where are the books containing these 
articles? Very probably, after a week’s 
hunt and correspondence, he finds that 
there are one or two of them that are not 
in any library accessible to him, and then 
he is decidedly worse off than he would be 
if he did not know that they existed. 

It is probable that such complete card 
catalogues with abstracts would be the 
means of adding largely to the bulk of 
scientific literature, as the Index Catalogue 
of the National Medical Library and the 
Index Medicus have done to the literature 
of medicine. The bibliography and the 
abstracts will be published over and over 
again in successive papers by different 
writers. 

The expediency of having such card in- 
dexes prepared depends upon the cost, and 
upon whether the money could be used to 
better advantage in promoting the increase 
and diffusion of knowledge in other ways. 
I should suppose that $25,000 a year would 
be a moderate estimate for providing 25 
copies of such a card index for all branches 
of science, and to bring the cost within this 
limit would require careful selection. 

If each author were to make his own ab- 
stract, and every article thus abstracted is 
to be indexed, probably $50,000 a year would 
be required. Much might be done for the 
advancement of science with a fund of $25,- 
000 per annum. 


408 


Ido not wish to be understood as opposing 
the preparation and furnishing of an uni- 
versal card index; the schemes proposed are 
beautiful in the glow and shimmer of their 
optimism—reminding one of Chimmie 
Fadden, ‘“‘ Up t’ de limit an’ strikin’ er great 
pace t’ git on de odder side of it,’”’ but they 
must be looked at from the practical busi- 
ness point of view by those who are to de- 
fray the cost, and who have, I feel sure, 
other important uses for their money and 
for the skilled brains required for such work, 
and more definite information is wanted 
with regard to the number of titles, etc., 
which must be indexed annually upon such 
a scheme before a wise decision can be 
made. For general Biology, Morphol- 
ogy, Physiology, Bacteriology and scientific 
Pathology, and other subjects of scientific 
importance connected with medicine, I think 
that about 10,000 cards a year would be 
sufficient if all second-hand matter and hash 
were carefully excluded. 

Very truly yours, 


J.S. BILLines. 
W ASHINGTON. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

The Great Ice Age and its Relation to the An- 
tiquity of Man. By James Grrxre, LL. D., 
D.C. L., F. R.S., ete. Murchison Pro- 
fessor of Geology and Mineralogy in the 
University of Edinburgh, formerly of H. 
M. Geological Survey of Scotland. Third 
Edition, largely rewritten, with maps and 
illustrations. New York, D. Appleton & 
Company. 1895. 8vo., xxvili + 850. 
Twenty-two years ago the first edition of 

this book appeared in England. The author 

then endeavored to give a systematic ac- 
count of the Glacial Epoch, with special 
reference to its changes of climate. In so 
doing he entered first quite fully into the 
geological history of glacial and post-glacial 

Scotland, presenting many elementary mat- 

ters, and taking more than half the book 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 15. 


for this purpose. Afterwards he discussed 
the glacial phenomena as exhibited in Eng- 
land, Ireland, Scandinavia, Switzerland 
and North America. A newly acquired ~ 
view with him related to the age of the 
paleolithic deposits of southern England— 
all of which he referred to inter-glacial and 
pre-glacial times. It was this book that 
first called the attention of many geologists 
to the doctrine of several periods of cold in 
the ice age separated by as many times of 
milder conditions. Like the early doctrine 
of Agassiz and Buckland that the drift phe- 
nomena were to be explained by the agency 
of glaciers, so this theory of a series of cold 
and warm periods has been vigorously con- 
tested by geologists, but bids fair to be as 
generally accepted as the former. In 1877 
a second edition of the book appeared. The 
author remarks in its preface that great 
additions to our knqwlege of the facts had 
been made, above those first presented, all 
of which strengthened his argument that 
the epoch was not one continuous age of ice, 
but consisted of a series of alternate cold 
and warm or genial periods; while the 
ancient cave-deposits cannot be assigned to 
a later date than the last genial interval of 
the ice age, and some of them were probably 
still older. Among the more important 
alterations he notes a change in the use 
of the terms till and boulder clay. Instead 
of calling one purely glacial and the other 
partly marine, both are referred more or 
or less directly to the grinding action of 
glaciers, and are’strictly synonymous terms. 
Likewise he modifies his view of the kames ; 
none of them are now regarded as of 
marine origin. There has been no great 
submergence of Scotland since the close of 
the glacial epoch, and thus the Scotch depos- 
its are brought into much closer relationship 
with those of England. In the interim he 
made many personal studies of the English 
phenomena until able to say positively that 
after the deposition of the ossiferous gravels 


APRIL 12, 1895. ] 


and Cyrena beds, a great ice-sheet stretched 
south as far as the valley of the Humber, 
thus proving the existence of a later ice in- 
eursion. In the first edition the term kames 
was not differentiated from esker and dsar, 
and all of them were believed to have been of 
marine origin; now he separates the kames 
from the esker and dsar and adopts Hum- 
mel’s river theory of the origin of the latter, 
besides disowning the necessity of any 
marine agency in the formation of the 
kames. The accounts of the glacial phe- 
nomena in Europe and America are given 
with greater fullness in the second edition. 
The second edition attained a bulk of xxx + 
624 pages and a larger size of page than the 
first, which had xxv + 524 pages. 

The third and present edition shows a 
similar increase in size above its predeces- 
sor, but not so great a modification in the 
fundamental principles. About one-fourth 
of the subject-matter, or that relating chiefly 
to Alpine, Arctic and Scottish parts has been 
revised ; but the other three-fourths have 
been entirely rewritten. The glacial and 
interglacial deposits of the continent are 
treated with a fullness that was impossible 
before. Many sections of it have been 
visited personally and the results of others 
verified. Aid has been received from a 
multitude of friendly fellow laborers. Ne- 
eessarily because of the astonishing increase 
in the literature of Surface Geology, many 
important contributions are unnoticed. He 
does not profess'to write the history of the 
rise and progress of glacial geology, but 
simply to sketch its present position. No- 
where, he says, has glacial geology been 
more actively prosecuted in recent years 
thanin America. While he has endeavored 
to keep abreast of this, he preferred to have 
asummary of the American evidence pre- 
pared by a recognized authority ; and hence 

called upon Professor T. C. Chamberlin, of 
Chicago, to furnish him with a digest of this 
material ; which is of great service to every- 


SCIENCE. 


409 


one, since we have been awaiting almost with 
impatience the announcement of some gen- 
eral statements here first presented to the 
public. Professor Geikie also expresses his 
great gratification that his conclusions 
should essentially agree with those of Pro- 
fessor Penck, of Vienna, in respect to the 
glacial phenomena of the Alpine lands, the 
Pyrenees and Auvergne. 

The following is a summary of the glacial 
succession in Europe as determined by Pro- 
fessor Geikie from a consideration of all the 
facts : 

1. Older Pliocene.—Before the advent of 
the cold the sea occupied considerable tracts 
in the east and south of England, in Belgium, 
Holland, northern and western France and 
the coast lands of the Mediterranean, and 
boreal forms are just beginning to make 
their appearance. 

2. Newer Pliocene—First Glacial Epoch.— 
The Weybourn crag and Chillesford clay of 
England with their pronounced arctic fauna 
represent a part of the evidence for this time 
of cold; also the bottom moraine near the 
Baltic sea, in southern Sweden, where the 
movement was from the southeast to the 
northwest. Arctic animal remains have 
also been detected in East Prussia at a 
similar horizon. Hence it is suggested that 
a gigantic glacier occupied the basin of the 
Baltic sea, and the mountainous parts of 
Scandinavia and the British Isles were snow 
clad. In the Alps the snow line was de- 
pressed for 4,000 feet or so below its present 
level, and all the great mountain valleys 
were filled with glaciers which left behind 
terminal moraines at the foot of the chain. 
In central France very considerable glaciers 
descended from the great voleanic cones of 
Auvergne and Cantal. 

3. First Interglacial Epoch. Latest Plio- 
cene. Forest Bed of Cromer.—The arctic 
fauna retreated from the North Sea, and dry 
land occupied the southern part of this sea 
up to the latitude of Norfolk. The river 


410 


Rhine flowed across this land. A temperate 
flora, much like that now existing in Eng- 
land, prevailed; and among the land animals 
were elephants, hippopotami, rhinoceroses, 
horses, bison, boar, deer, machrodus, 
hyzena, wolves, glutton, bear, beaver, etc. 
In other parts of Europe similar genial con- 
ditions prevailed. A luxuriant deciduous 
flora occupied the valleys of the Alps, at- 
taining heights greater than the present 
limits of the same vegetation. Elephants 
existed with the flora in northern Italy. 
From the amount of river-erosion effected 
during this epoch it would appear that the 
stage was one of long duration. 

4. Second or Maximum Glacial Epoch.—The 
mountains of Scandinavia seem to have been 
the center of dispersion of the ice at this 
time, and the glaciers extended easterly so 
as to become confluent with the Ural sys- 
tem in western Siberia, southwesterly into 
the basin of the Volga, southerly into the 
basin of the Dnieper, Poland, Saxony, Bel- 
gium, southwesterly to the British Islands, 
excepting a small part of southern England, 
and to the westward 600 feet below the 
present surface of the Atlantic ocean, from 
off Ireland to the Arctic sea. Both the 
Baltic and North seas were covered by ice, 
and erratics from the Scandinavian hills 
were strewn more or less over this entire 
area. They were also transported from 
lower to higher levels in the British islands, 
to a height of 3500 feet in Scotland, and the 
highest peaks may have projected through 
the ice as Nunatakker, like the bare spots 
thus designated in Greenland. This area 
is rudely elliptical in shape, 2700 miles long 
and 1600 miles wide. In Switzerland the 
Alpine glaciers reached their greatest exten- 
sion, the snow line extending 4700 feet 
lower than it is at present, the ice being 
4000 feet thick in the low grounds, and im- 
mense blocks of stone were carried across to 
the Jura Mountains to an elevation of 3099 
feet above Lake Geneva. In connection 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 15. 


with the presence of this ice, Arctic-Alpine 
plants and animals occupied the low grounds 
of Europe, extending even to the Mediter- 
ranean. This epoch constituted the begin-— 
ning of the pleistocene or quaternary period. 

5. Second Interglacial Epoch.—The return 
of the temperate flora and fauna in north 
Germany and central Russia is suggestive 
of a milder and less extreme climate than is 
now experienced in those regions. Britain 
must have been connected with the conti- 
nent and Italy with North Africa. The 
rivers of this epoch eroded their valleys to 
great depths. i 

6. Third Glacial Epoch—An extensive 
ice-sheet overwhelmed most of the British 
Islands and much of the continent. The 
northwestern limits are much the same in 
the edges of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, 
but to the east it extended about a hundred 
miles beyond St. Petersburg, and just 
reached Berlin to the south. From the 
Alps glaciers descended to the low grounds, 
dropping conspicuous moraines, which ex- 
tend in curving lines between the highly 
denuded moraines of the earlier epochs, 
and the associated extensive fluvio-glacial 
gravels. 

7. Third Interglacial Epoch—The young- 
est interglacial beds of the Baltic coast- 
lands belong here, with both arctic and tem- 
perate marine faunas—as the mammoth, 
wooly rhinoceros, hare, urus and Irish deer. — 
It is probable that a considerable portion of 
the old alluvial deposits of Britain and Ire- 
land, hitherto classed as post-glacial, belong 
here. 

8. Fourth Glacial Epoch.—The ice-sheets 
of the British Islands are now local and 
entirely separate from the Scandinavian 
mass. In Scotland the snow line did not 
exceed 1600 feet in elevation above the sea; 
the land was 100 feet higher than now, 
and an arctic marine fauna occupied the 
coasts. The Scandinavian peninsula sup- 
ported an ice-sheet of more importance, 


APRIL 12, 1895.] 


which discharged icebergs at the mouths of 
fiords in western Norway. Finland was 
overwhelmed, and the Baltic basin was 
occupied by a great ice stream, which in- 
yaded north Germany and Denmark. As 
the ice melted, a wide area in Scandinavia 
was submerged in a cold sea communica- 
ting with the Baltic. In the Alps the snow 
line was 300 feet lower than now. 

9. Fourth Interglacial Epoch.—The British 
Islands were connected with the continent. 
Deciduous trees spread far north into re- 
gions now bereft of them. The Baltic sea 
became converted into a great lake ; Den- 
mark and Sweden were united; the Rhine 
flowed quite near England and Scotland, 
over the upraised bed of the North Sea, 
meeting the main ocean above Bergen; the 
Seine flowed through the English channel 
beyond Brest, and there was a large river 
flowing over the bed of the Irish Sea, hav- 
ing the Severn for a tributary, and meeting 
the ocean quite near the mouth of the 
Seine, and there was a land connection be- 

tween the continent, Great Britain, Iceland 
and Greenland. When the salt water fin- 
ally returned, the fauna was more temper- 
ate than it is at present. This epoch is not 
yet recognized in the Alps. 

10. Fifth Glacial Epoch—In Scotland the 
snow line reached an average height of 
2,500 feet, the shore line being fifty feet 
lower than itis now. Occasionally glaciers 
discharged bergs into the sea on the north- 

west coast of Scotland. Most of the corrie 
rock-basins of the British Islands were ex- 
eavated in this epoch, each one marking the 
presence of a distinct glacier. In the Alps 
there were advances of the glaciers giving 
rise to terminal moraines, the snow line 
reaching a depression of 1,600 feet below the 
present limit. 

11. Fifth Interglacial Epoch.—The upper 
“buried forests’ of northwest Europe show 

_ that this epoch was characterized by drier 
conditions and a remarkable recrudescence 


SCIENCE. 


411 


of forest growth. It is uncertain whether 
Britain was connected with the continent. 

12. Siath Glacial Epoch—This is indicated 
by the latest raised beaches of Scotland, 
indicating twenty or thirty feet of depres- 
sion. The snow line stood at an elevation 
of 3,500 feet, and thus a few small glaciers 
could exist in the loftiest highlands. In the 
western Alps there were some high level 
moraines. 

13. The Present.—The sea has retreated 
to its present level, drier conditions prevail 
and permanent snow fields have disappeared 
from most of the regions in northern Europe 
once so completely submerged by glacial 
ice. The term post-glacial properly de- 
scribes only the present epoch. 

Professor Geikie* devotes three chapters 
to a discussion of the presence of man in the 
Pleistocene. His bones and implements 
are found chiefly in the extra-glacial regions, 
associated with the remains of both extinct 
and living mammalia, such as have been 
mentioned as occurring in several of the 
interglacial epochs. Man would naturally 
migrate towards the glaciers as they receded, 
and retreat southerly as they advanced. 
The large animals would have done the 
same; hence a perfectly satisfactory corre- 
lation of the several terranes in the glaciat- 
ed and extra-glacial regions is of difficult 
attainment. Our author concludes that 
Paleolithic man existed abundantly in the 
second interglacial epoch in company with 
the elephas antiquus and hippopotamus. 
Some of the caves occupied by him appear 
to have been abandoned before the third 
glacial epoch reached its climax, because 
they are sealed up by the moraines of that 
stage. During this epoch Paleolithic man 
seems to have retired to southern France, 
and, if negative evidence is of value, he 
never revisited northwestern Europe. 

American geologists will be more than 
pleased with the sketch of the glacial phe- 
nomena of North America by Prof. Cham- 


412 


berlin. The facts correspond in a general 
way with those described by Professor Gei- 
kie in Europe. The attempt is made to 
group the stages of glaciation and deglacia- 
tion both on a two-fold and a three-fold ba- 
sis, without deciding which is the more ac- 
ceptable. The foundation of the grouping 
is what is called ‘imbrication’ of the till, 
or the superposition of the later or more 
northern sheets upon the earlier or more 
southern ones. The oldest is the Kansan, 
next the Hast Jowan,and thirdly the East Wis- 
consin stage of glaciation, followed by six, 
seven or more terminal moraines. Professor 
Geikie says that these general conclusions 
harmonize with the results obtained in Eu- 
rope, and without hesitation he correlates 
the Kansan stage with his second glacial 
epoch, the time of maximum glaciation, 
after which the ice sheets declined in im- 
portance. 

Granting the correctness of the corre- 
spondence of the Kansan stage to the sec- 
ond or maximum glacial epoch of Geikie, 
American geologists can easily complete the 
correlation. The Lafayette or Orange sand 
deposit will correspond to the first or Plio- 
cene phase of the glacial epoch. This refer- 
ence will be satisfactory to those who be- 
lieve in elevation as a prime cause of re- 
frigeration, as it is generally conceded that 
the late Pliocene was a time of continental 
uplift. It should be satisfactory to the ad- 
vocates of the unity or continuity of the 
ice-age, because there was just one pe- 
riod of maximum intensity or culmination 
of refrigeration—the Kansan phase. It 
was preceded by the Pliocene-Lafayette 
flood, and followed by the gradually less 

_intense Iowan, Wisconsin and later phases. 
It will, however, enlarge our conceptions 
of the magnitude of the ice age in geo- 
logical history ; for we cannot deny that 
the remotest centers of dispersion have 
been active from the beginning of refrigera- 
tion. The latest geological epochs are 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 15. 


fundamentally glacial for the countries 
above forty degrees of latitude on both 
sides of the equator; ice-action character- 
izes the time. The writer has hitherto 
been esteemed an advocate of unity; but 
he has repeatedly insisted that the several 
margins of glacial accumulation indicate 
just so many phases of more intense glacia- 
tion, and that they are to be our criteria 
of classification. He is satisfied that they 
can be interpreted to correspond with the 
several glacial and interglacial epochs es- 
tablished by Professor Geikie. 

It remains only to notice the chapter upon 
the cause of the climatic and geographical 
changes of the glacial period. The ratio of 
precipitation was the same as now prevails. 
Snow fields gathered most abundantly in 
those regions which in our day enjoy the 
largest rainfall. What are now dry regions 
were formerly regions of limited snowfall. 
But the amount of precipitation was greater, 
snow in the north and rain in the south. 
Arctic currents prevailed near the equa- 
torial in the cold epochs, but the reverse 
was true in the interglacial phases. The 
land seems to have been elevated at the 
commencement of every cold epoch and 
depressed at its close, submergence haying 
been more characteristic of the glacial than 
of the interglacial phase. The fiord yal- 
leys were mostly excavated before glacial 
times. The Scandinavian flora migrated to 
Greenland after the close of the fourth 
glacial epoch, when the land was continuous 
between the continents. There are con- 
siderations favorable to the view that the 
accumulations of ice in the several glacial 
epochs produced depressions, not excluding 
epeirogenic warpings of the crust. The 
cause of the remarkable connection between 
glaciation and depression is still an un- 
solved problem. All the proposed astro- 
nomical causes of refrigeration are rejected 
as untenable, except that of Dr Croll, 
supplemented by Ball, who believed the 


a Per 


a 


APRIL 12, 1895.] 


climatic changes of the glacial period 
resulted from the combined influence of 
precession of the equinoxes and _ sec- 
ular changes in the eccentricity of the 
earth’s orbit. In favor of this view, the 
mean temperature of the globe was lowered, 
and the ratio of the precipitation increased ; 
the dominant set of the currents in the At- 
lantic was from north to south in the colder 
terms. In the interglacial climates the 
summers were cooler and the winters 
warmer, while the Atlantic currents flowed 
northerly. The maximum glaciation came 
early, succeeded by cold epochs of diminish- 
ing severity. Glacial epochs in the north- 
ern hemisphere were necessarily contempo- 
raneous with interglacial conditions in the 
southern hemisphere. Hence the astronom- 
ical theory would appear to offer the best 
solution of the glacial puzzle; while it is 
conceded that this answer is not completely 
satisfactory. C. H. Hrrencocr. 


Biological Lectures and Addresses, by AR- 
THUR Mitnes MarsHaty. Macmillan & 
Co., New York. Price $2.25. 

Lectures on the Darwinian Theory, by ARTHUR 

_ Minyes MarsHatt. Macmillan & Co.,New 
York. Price $2.25. 

It was a curious coincidence by which ac- 


_ eidents in mountain climbing deprived Eng- 


a 


iy 
¢ 

: 

Li 

|? 


lish science of two of its prominent biolo- 
gists, and two who were at the same time 
personal friends. Prof. F. M. Balfour, as 
every one remembers, lost his life in a 
journey in the Alps, and Prof. Arthur Milnes 
Marshall, upon the last day of 1893, in a 
somewhat similar manner, met his death in 
mountain climbing. Prof. Balfour and 
Prof. Marshall were personal friends and 


¥ naturally worked upon kindred subjects, al- 


though their work was very unlike. Prof. 
Marshall was still a young man, only about 
forty years of age. Early in life he entered 
‘upon studies looking toward the profession 
of medicine, but in 1879 gladly accepted the 


SCIENCE. 


413 


chair of Zodlogy in Owens College, and con- 
tinued to occupy the chair until his death. 
His additions to the literature of science 
have been of two general types. There are 
first a series of papers embodying the results 
of original research. These, because of his 
intimate association with Balfour, were at 
first of an embryological nature, while some 
of the later ones were more distinctly ana- 
tomical. His chief contributions to science 
of this sort were upon the Segmental value of 
Cranial Nerves, the Pennatulida of the Por- 
cupine and Triton Expeditions, and upon The 
Nervous System of the Crinoids. The second 
class of his papers were more distinctly 
characteristic of his special powers. They 
were of a more general character and in- 
eluded a text-book on The Frog, on Practical 
Zoology, and a more recent work upon Ver- 
tebrate Embryology. In addition, we have 
in the recent posthumous volumes a large 
number of lectures and addresses given in 
various places before various societies. 
Above all things, Professor Marshall was 
ateacher. It was in this direction that his 
powers showed at their best. He had the 
happy way of putting subjects so that they 
were intelligible to his audiences,and had the 
somewhat unusual power of putting himself 
in the position of his audiences, in such a 
way that he could understand how and 
what was needed in his teaching to render 
his subjects clear. His lectures were always 
abundantly illustrated both by drawings, 
and especially by homely though terse illus- 
trations. His illustrations for rendering 
scientific facts intelligible were drawn some- 
times from the most surprising sources, and 
altogether rendered his addresses and his 
class lectures of the very highest character 
in the way of scientific teaching. Since his 
death Macmillan & Co. have published his 
collected lectures and addresses in the two 
volumes which are the subject of this notice. 
The first series consists of miscellaneous 
addresses given by him at various intervals 


414 


between 1879 and the time of his death, 
and before a number of debating societies 
and scientific organizations, ending with 
his presidential address before the British 
Association in 1890. These addresses are 
all designed for a somewhat popular audi- 
ence, and treat of different scientific subjects 
in a clear, entertaining manner. Among the 
most interesting of them the lectures that 
will, perhaps, first commend themselves to 
the reader are those on Fresh Water Ani- 
mals, on Inheritance, on Shapes and Sizes 
of Animals, and the one upon the Recapitu- 
late Theory. Professor Marshall possessed 
in a wonderful degree the power of seizing 
hold of the salient points of abstract scien- 
tific subjects and isolating them from the 
cumbersome mass of details with which they 
are associated in ordinary scientific discus- 
sions. The result is that in a few pages 
the reader obtains a clearer conception of 
the salient points in a subject like embryol- 
ogy by reading the last of the essays in this 
volume than he might obtain from the care- 
ful perusal of many lengthy books upon the 
subject. Details, of course, are left out, but 
the salient and interesting points which em- 
bryology teaches and attempts to teach are 
presented with wonderful clearness. The 
addresses are, in short, popular science of 
the highest type, and one does not wonder 
after reading them that Professor Marshall 
was one of the most popular lecturers in 
the University Extension courses. 

Every teacher is aware how difficult it is 
to send a-young student to literature that 
will give him a clear, succinct account of 
evolution. Scientific discussions of one and 
another phase of the subject are abundant, 
but usually they are beyond the compre- 
hension of the ordinary reader. Many a 
student having been recommended to read 
Darwin’s Origin of Species reads the book 
with an utter failure to comprehend Dar- 
winism. Nor is this the fault of the student. 
Even the better class of thinking students 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 15. 


are so handicapped by the abundance of 
material in that Darwinian classic that the 
thread ofthe argument is lost, and they are 
just as likely to confuse Darwin’s views 
with those of Lamarck as they are to under- _ 
stand Darwinism. Few students who are 
beginning the study of modern biology will 
have any proper appreciation of Darwinism 
from the study of the Origin of Species, or, 
indeed, from the study of most of the scien- 
tific writings on evolution, unless the es- 
sential facts are presented to them in some 
form of introduction. For this reason the 
series of lectures on the Darwinian theory 
by Professor Marshall are especially val- 
uable. These lectures are not encumbered 
with numerous details, but seize hold of the 
thread of the Darwinian argument and pre- 
sent it before the reader in such a way that 
he cannot fail to understand evolution and 
Darwinism after having finished such a 
volume. This series of essays will, there- 
fore, be perhaps the best literature to which 
a student can be sent at the present time to 
enable him to understand what evolution 
was before Darwin, what Darwin added, and 
what have been the subsequent modifica- 
tions and criticisms of Darwin’s theory. 
Professor Marshall writes as a partisan and 
thorough believer in Darwin, and presents 
his facts in such a way that his readers 
cannot fail to recognize the full force of the 
Darwinian argument. Indeed, he naturally 
exaggerates the force of many arguments, 
frequently begs the very question of the 
issue, and the essays are by no meanscaleu- 
lated to be critical discussions. The lectures 
cannot be considered as a fair presentation 
of the Darwinian theory. ‘The innocent 
reader will conclude that the argument 
upon Darwinism is all on one side, that 
every essential feature of it is abundantly 
demonstrated and all criticisms are refuted. 
But, in spite of this fault, which comes 
naturally from one who is attempting to 
teach a theory in which he so fully believes, 


APRIL 12, 1895.] 


the outline of the Darwinian theory is an 
exceptionally good one. Certain it is that 
nothing in our literature at the present time 
will give such a terse, clear presentation of 
the Darwinian hypothesis with the argu- 
ments in its favor, and of the additions 
which have been made to this hypothesis 
subsequent to the writings of Darwin 
himself. 

These two books are, then, designed for 
_popularreading. They are perhaps as good 
an illustration of the especial character of 
_ Prof. Marshall’s power in teaching as could 
be found. They are valuable additions to 
that class of books in which the English 
language is beginning to abound, viz., pop- 
ular scientific writings that actually teach 
science. H. W. Conn. 

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 


Elements of Astronomy.—By GrorcE W. Par- 
KER, of Trinity College, Dublin. Long- 

mans, Green & Co., London and New 

York. S8vo., 236 pages. $1.75: 

The book is designed as a connecting link 
; between the elementary school-astronomies 
and the higher treatises used as text-books 
in the universities. It treats the subject 
almost exclusively from the geometrical 
‘point of view, breaking up the matter into 
‘propositions, corollaries and problems, ar- 
ranged in an order which is probably logical 
kes one as rather peculiar. The book 
be found useful by teachers who have 
‘examination papers’ to draw up, since it 
presents a large number of them, as well as 


ted to test a student’s understanding of 
the subject-matter. 

~ What the book professes to do is in the 
main very well done. The statements and 
finitions are intelligible and correct, and 
@ reasoning is generally clear and logical. 


SCIENCE. 


415 


it evident, however, that he has had very 
little actual experience in that sort of work. 
It reads rather strangely, for instance, to 
be told that the way to find the value of a 
micrometer-screw revolution is to ‘note 
how many turns correspond to the sun’s 
diameter.’ 

Regarded as an elementary presentation 
of ‘Astronomy ’ taken as a whole, the book 
must be pronounced extremely one-sided 
and defective. Astrophysics is most inade- 
quately dealt with; the whole subject. or 
spectroscopy is dismissed with six pages 
and a single old diagram of the dispersion 
of light by a prism; and all physical mat- 
ters relating to sun, planets, comets, stars 
and nebule are treated on the same general 
scale. Oral Ys 


Qualitative Chemical Analysis of Inorganic 
Substances—As practiced in Georgetown 
College, D. C. American Book Co., New 
York. 1894. 

Rey. H. T. B. Tarr, §. J., formerly pro- 
fessor of chemistry in Georgetown College, 
prepared a series of tables for analytical 
purposes, which have been wholly recast 
and incorporared into the work now before 
us. The present editor, Rev. T. W. Fox, 
8. J., speaks of the book as being ‘ useful in 
a course such as is given at Georgetown 
and in similar institutions throughout the 
country.’ 

The ‘ grouping of the bases’ is that gener- 
ally adopted by writers on qualitative an- 
alysis the world over. We believe, how- 
ever, that it would have been wiser and 
better for the student had the author divided 
his third group, consisting of the metals 
precipitated by ammonium sulphide from 
neutral or alkaline solutions, into two 
groups. But this is merely a matter of 
opinion. 

We observe that the properties of the 
metals are first studied, after which the 
author draws up a table for the analysis of 


416 


a mixture of metals, constituting a particular 
group, accompanied by explanatory notes. 
This order is preserved throughout the book, 
which consists of sixty-one pages. Wetrust 
that the author and the reader will pardon 
us when we declare that we think such 
tabular schemes, so early in the course of 
analysis, are apt to make the student a mere 
machine—precisely what the author, in his 
introductory remarks, announces that he 
wishes to avoid, for he writes, ‘‘ A mere me- 
chanical acquaintance with a working 
scheme for separating * * * * * is at best 
but a questionable accomplishment,” ete. 
And, for some unaccountable reason—per- 
haps from natural, human depravity or per- 
versity—the great majority of students, be- 
ginning analysis, do wed themselves to such 
a table or scheme and cling to it, despite 
the rough handling they may receive from 
an earnest and intelligent quiz-master. But 
we are rambling. On returning to our sub- 
ject we discover in it no new methods of 
separation, no new characteristic test or 
tests for the various elements; the land- 
marks in these directions remain unchanged. 
This is pardonable, seeing that ‘‘ no pretense 
is made to originality, either in matter or in 
method.” : 

Part II. considers the ‘acid analysis’ and 
commences with excellent advice for the 
student, who must now, more than ever, 
apply what knowledge he may have ac- 
quired in regard to the metals and their 
various combinations with acids. 

Brief chapters on ‘ preliminary examina- 
tions,’ the solution of solid substances, a 
table of solubilities, and an appendix, deal- 
ing with the preparation of the ordinary 
reagents, conclude the book. 

The little volume is well written and 
nicely printed. Its chief merit seems to be 
that it presents its author’s particular 
method of instructing students in this most 
important branch of chemistry, upon which 
many others have likewise prepared similar 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 15. 


brochures. Thesame kindly welcome given 
them must be accorded this latest arrival. 
Each does some good, and together they 
will doubtless do great good. 

Ep@ar F. Sure. 


A Course of Elementary Practical Bacteriology, 
Including Bacteriological Analyses and Chem- 
istry. By A. A. Kantuack Ann I. H. 
DryspDALE. XXII.181 pp.Sm.8°. Mac- 
millan & Co., London and New York. 
1895. Price $1.10. 

This is a laboratory hand-book which 
will be interestiug to all practical workers 
in bacteriology, since it gives the details of 
methods used in the Laboratory of St. 
Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. Some 
of these methods are not so useful as those 
now employed in American Laboratories ; 
as, for example, that given for the collection 
and sterilisation of blood serum, while some 
are probably more rapid and convenient. 
As the authors remark, every laboratory 
has its own ways and means, its ‘short 
cuts’ and ‘tips,’ which are not always 
published, and it is necessay to work for a 
little while in the laboratory to become ac- 
quainted with them. The descriptions 
given are simple and straightforward, and 
well calculated to meet the wants of stu- 
dents. The plan and order of the several 
lessons will be found interesting by teachers 
of the subject. The lessons in Bacteriologi- 
cal Chemistry contain good matter not 
usually found in a manual of this kind. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
TYPHOID INFECTION OF OYSTERS. 


Tur Medical News of March 23, contains & 
paper by C. I. Foote, giving the results of 
experiments with oysters, and with the 
water in which they grow, to determine the 
possibilities of their becoming infected with 
the bacillus of typhoid. He found that 
this bacillus will live in brackish water, 
taken from just above oyster beds, for at 


J 


12, 1895.] 


eight days, even in very cold weather. 
In apparently normal and healthy oysters 

d in their juice he found bacteria of 
ious kinds; the number of which 
t will grow in gelatin ranging from 240 
1680 per c.c. The number found in the 
water over the oysters was 9520 per c.c., 
“indicating that the water is purified by be- 
ing taken into the shell. He inoculated a 
jumber of oysters with typhoid bacilli by 
jecting a culture of these organisms be- 
tween the edges of the shells. The results 

ndicate that the bacilli can live in the 
r for from one to two weeks, but it is 
doubtful whether they multiply there. But 
the oysters were cleaned before inoculation, 
and, after the operation, were apparently 
not placed in water, but simply kept in a 
l room. The research would have given 
much more definite and conclusive results 
if the oysters had been placed in brackish 
water, and then the typhoid bacilli added 
to this water, so that they might have been 
taken in and disposed of in the natural 


iy: 


ARGON. 
-Accorprne to the London Times, M. Ber- 
a has supplied the first information 
oneerning the chemical properties of argon. 
Tn experimenting with a small quantity of 
that substance, furnished by Professor Ram- 
say , he has found that under the influence of 
the silent electric discharge it combines with 


wi It is decidedly interesting 
fo discover that argon, which is supposed 


capable of forming a variety of combina- 
: ion s under conditions which always exist 

I the atmosphere. Great interest also 
ches to M. Berthelot’s communication in 
nection with the obscurity which hangs 
the chemical nature and relationships 
e new substance. For he pointed out 


SCIENCE. 


417 


years ago that nitrogen combines, under 
the influence of the silent discharge, with 
hydrocarbons like benzene, with carbohy- 
drates, such as go to build up, the tissues of 
plants, and even with tertiary products, 
such as ether. 


GENERAL. 
Dr. Witt1am §S. W. RuvscHENBERGER, 
President of the Philadelphia Academy of 
Science from 1869 to 1881, died on March 
24th, at the age of eighty-seven years. 

Dr. Joun A. Ryver, Professor of Embry- 
ology in the University of Pennsylvania, 
died on March 26th. 

Tue Library Building of Harvard Uni- 
versity will be altered during the present 
summer in such a manner that the space 
for books will be greatly enlarged. 

Tue North Dakota State University must 
be closed until the next session of the Leg- 
islature, in January, 1897, owing to the fact 
that the appropriation has been reduced 
from $63,000 to $15,000. 

Tue British Association will meet at 
Liverpool in 1896. The Council have re- 
solved to nominate Sir Joseph Lister for 
President. 

T. G. Crowett & Co. announce ‘ Forests 
and Forestry’ by the Hon. B. E. Fernow, of 
the Department of Agriculture, and ‘ Mar- 
riage and the Family,’ by Professor George 
E. Howard, of Stanford University. 

Tue sixty-third annual meeting of the 
British Medical Association will be held in 
London, July 30th to August 2d, 1895. 

Tue next meeting of the American Micro- 
scopical Society will be held at Cornell 
University, Ithaca, New York, on August 
21, 22 and 23, 1895. 

Dr. K. Scumrpr has been made Professor 
of Physics in the University of Halle. 

Tue two final volumes of the report on 
the scientific results of the voyage of H. M. 
S. Challenger, prepared under the direction 


418 


of Dr. John Murray, have now been pub- 
lished by Eyre & Spottiswoode, London. 
The completed work fills 50 large quarto 
volumes contajning about 29,500 pages and 
illustrated by over 3,000 plates. These two 
concluding volumes are mainly occupied by 
a general summary of the scientific results 
of the voyage. 

Dr. A. R. Forsyru, of Trinity College, 
has been elected to the Sadlerian Professor- 
ship of Mathematics in the University of 
Cambridge, succeeding the late Professor 
Cayley. 

Accorpine to the American Geologist, ef- 
forts are being made looking towards a geo- 
logical survey of the State of Maine. 

Dr. Jonn P. Lorsy, now Associate in 
Botany at Johns Hopkins University, has 
accepted the Directorship of the Botanical 
Gardens on the Island of Java. 

Tur Lake Superior Mining Institute 
made an excursion on March 6th, 7th and 
8th, from Duluth to the Mesabi iron range. 
The mines were visited and in the evenings 
meetings were held, at which papers were 
presented by Dr. L. L. Hubbard, Dr. U.S. 
Grant, Mr. F. W. Denton, Mr. F. F. Sharp- 
less and Mr. E. F. Brown. 

THE tenth annual meeting of the Ameri- 
can Association for the Advancement of 
Physical Education will be held at the 
Teachers’ College, New York, on April 25th, 
26th and 27th. 

THE Journal of Mental Science gives, in 
the last number, a retrospect of Normal 
Psychology, prepared by Mr. Havelock 
Ellis, and proposes to give regular sum- 
maries of the progress of psychology. 

THE Chemical Society has conferred its 
Faraday medal upon Lord Rayleigh in re- 
cognition of the investigation which has led 
to the discovery of Argon. Dumas, Caniz- 
zaro, Wurtz, Helmholtz, and Mendeléeff 
have been the previous recipients of the 
medal. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 15. 


Rey. Hersert A. JAmMeEs, principal of 
Cheltenham College, has been elected head 
master of Rugby, succeeding the Rey. Dr. 
Percival. 

Tur Woods Holl Biological Lectures for 
1894, in the press of Ginn & Co., include : 
I. Life from a Physical Standpoimt.—A. E. 
Doxsear. II. A Dynamical Hypothesis of In- 
heritance—Joun A. Ryprer. III. On the 
Limits of Divisibility of Living Matter.— 
Jacques Lors. IV. The Differentiation of 
Species on the Galapagos Islands and the Origin 
of the Group.—G. Baur. V. Search for the 
Unknown Factors of Evolution—H. F. Os- 
BorN. VI. The Embryological Criterion of 
Homology.—E. B. Witson. VII. Cell-Di- 
vision and Development.—J. P. McMurricu. 
VIII. The Problems, Methods and Scope of De- 
velopmental Mechanics—W. M. WHEELER 
(Roux’s). IX. The Organization of Botanical 
Museums for Schools, Colleges and Universities. 
—J.M. Macrartane. X. The Centrosome. 
—S. Watasr. XI. Evolution and Epigen- 
esis—C. O. Wuirman. XII. Bonnet’s 
Theory of Evolution —C.O. Wuirman. XIII. 
Bonnet on Palingenesis and Germs.—C. O. 
WHITMAN. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 
MARCH 23. 

Mr. CHArues T. Sueson read a paper on 
the ‘Respective Values of the Shell and 
Soft Parts in Naiad Classification.’ Mr. 
Simpson deprecated the fashion of many con- 
chologists of late in basing classification 
wholly on the soft parts and stated that 
his studies of the Naiads, or fresh water 
mussels, go to show that among them, at 
least, he has found the characters of the 
soft parts of the animal more variable and 
less reliable for the purposes of classification 
than those of the shell. That, while in 
some cases the soft parts give us the key to 
true affinities, in others they are worthless, 
and we must rely on the shell for a knowl- 


_ APRIL 12, 1895.] 


edge of relationships. Numerous cases 
were cited showing such variation. In 
Unio novi-eboraci the branchiz are some- 
times free only a short distance on the 
posterior part of the abdominal sac; in 
other cases they are united the whole 
length, and the same is found to be true to 
a great extent in U. multiplicatus. In that 
species and some others not closely related 
the embryos are found in all four leaves of 
the branchize, but in all other North Amer- 
ican forms they only occupy the outer 
leaves. 
The statement was made that the dissec- 
tion of a single animal of a widely dis- 
tributed and variable species will probably 
not give any more knowledge of all its 
characters than the examination of a single 
shell, Castalia, Castalina and Glabaris, South 
American Naiads, may either have no 
siphons at all, or have them perfectly de- 
_ yeloped, and this variation occurs in the 
same species. The families Unionide and 
~ Mutilide were founded on the absence or 
presence of this character. In a new ar- 
rangement of the Naiads v. Ihering has 
based the family Unionide on the fact that 
_ the embryo is a glochidium, in which the soft 
parts are enclosed in a bivalve shell, and 
the Mutilide was established on the fact that 
the embryo is a lasidium, divided into three 
“parts, the middle one only being protected 
_ by a single shell. 
Basing a classification on these characters 
‘it will be found that the genera of the unionide 
have invariably heterodont teeth, or vestiges of 
them, while in the mutilide the arrangement is 
essentially taxadont. 
ta is claimed that similar circumstances 


environment may produce like characters 
of unrelated forms; the Mycetopus of South 
America and Solenaia of China are bur- 
‘Towers, and though belonging to different 
ies closely resemble each other in the 
ongated shell and greatly developed foot, 
d have both been placed in one genus on 


SCIENCE. 


419 


this account. Anodonta angulata burrows 
in rapid streams and differs greatly in ap- 
pearance from A. dejecta, which is closely 
related but lives in stagnant water. The 
two were shown to have affinities by con- 
necting forms. 

Dr. Stiles spoke* ‘On the Presence of 
Adult Cestodes in Hogs.’ He called atten- 
tion to the remarkable fact that no adult 
tapeworms were described as regular in- 
habitants of Sus, and discussed the cases 
recently mentioned by Cholochowsky in 
Russia and two cases which had recently 
been reported to him from Iowa. One of 
the Iowa cases was certainly a case of 
chance parasitism in this host, and although 
there are no satisfactory data upon which 
to base an opinion concerning the other 
cases, he thought helminthologists in gen- 
eral would not admit the forms mentioned 
to the lists of the parasites of hogs. 

Mr. Coville laid before the society a copy 
of the newly published list of ferns and 
flowering plants of the northeastern United 
States, prepared by a committee of the 
Botanical Club, A. A. A. S., in accordance 
with the nomenclature rules adopted by 
the Club, and gave a brief history of the 
recent nomenclature reform in botany. He 
pointed out the fact that in a recent criticism 
of the List by Dr. B. L. Robinson, who rep- 
resents those still favoring the old system, 
only a single specific point of vital principle 
in the new system was really discussed, the 
other items of criticism referring to details 
which do not involve the principles them- 
selves. Mr. Coville pointed out that in 
view of the success of the new system as 
already tried by several of our leading bot- 
anical institutions and as tested for many 
years past in other branches of biological 
science, together with the prevailing dis- 
satisfaction regarding the old system among 
working botanists, the new code gives every 

*Notes on Parasites, 34 ; Centralbl. f. Bakt., u. Par. 
1895. 


420 


promise of satisfactorily solving the nomen- 

elature problem. 

Professor Joseph F. James made some 
remarks on ‘ Daimonelix and Allied Fossil.’ 
He gave an account of the large fossil 
“cork serews’ described by Professor Bar- 
bour from the Bad-Lands of northwestern 
Nebraska, calling attention to their peculiar 
features. He noted the fact that while they 
had heretofore been considered as unique 
and without resemblance to other fossils, 
that in reality several other similar forms 
had been described. One of these was 
figured by Heer in 1865 in ‘ Die Urwelt der 
Schweiz,’ under the name of ‘screw-stones,’ 
which presents all the characters of Daim- 
onelix as figured by Barbour. In 1863 Pro- 
fessor James Hall described Spirophyton and 
gave a restoration of S. typum. In a view 
of one of the whorls there is a great corre- 
spondence between it and a figure of the 
same character given by Barbour. In 1883 
Professor Newberry described Spiramis, also 
a genus of screw-like fossils which presents 
features similar to Daimonelix. Heer’s fossil 
occurs in the Miocene of Switzerland, while 
Spirophyton and Spirazis occur in the Che- 
mung of New York and Pennsylvania. The 
wide distribution of the forms is interesting 
as showing that Daimonelix is not an ‘ acci- 
dent’ as hinted by some. Whether it is a 
plant or not must be decided in the future, 
although there is a strong presumption that 
such is the case. FreDERIC A. Lucas, 

ae Secretary. 
SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 

AMERICAN CHEMICAL JOURNAL, APRIL. 
Argon, A New Constituent of the Atmosphere : 

Lorp Rayueien and WiLiiam Ramsay. 
On the Spectra of Argon: WILLIAM CROOKES. 
The Liquefaction and Solidification of Argon: 

K. OLszEwskI. 

On the Atomic Weight of Oxygen. Synthesis of 
Weighed Quantities of Water from Weighed 
Quantities of Hydrogen and of Oxygen: 
Epwarp W. Mor.ey. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 15. 

On the Chloronitrides of Phosphorus: H. N. 
STOKES. 

On the Saponification of the Ethers of the Sul- 
phonic Acids by Alcohols: J. H. Kastrm and 
Pavut MurRi11. 

Contributions from the Chemical Laboratory of 
Harvard College. LDXXXVI. On the Cupri- 
ammonium Double Salis: THEopoRE WIL- 
LIAM RicHARDS and GEORGE OENSLAGER. 

Basswood-oil: F. G. WIECHMANN. 

Note. 


AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, APRIL. 
Magara and the Great Lakes: ¥. B. TAytor. 
Disturbances in the Direction of the Plumb-line 

in the Hawaiian Islands: E. D. Preston. 


Glacial Lake St. Lawrence of Professor Warren 


Upham: R. CHALMERS. 

Argon, a New Constituent of the Atmosphere: 
Lorp RayieicH and W. RAMsAy. 

Velocity of Electric Waves: J. TROWBRIDGE 
and W. Duane. 

Epochs and Stages of the Glacial Period : 
UPHAM. 

Structure and Appendages of Trinucleus: C. 
EH. BEECHER. 

Scientific Intelligence ; Chemistry and Physies ; 
Geology and Mineralogy ; Botany; Miscel- 
laneous Scientific Intelligence ; Obituary. 


We 


AMERICAN GEOLOGIST, APRIL. 


The Stratigraphy of Nout Louisiana : 
T. WAYLAND VAUGHAN. 

The Paleontologie Base of the Taconic or Lower 
Cambrian: N. H. WiNcHELL. 

The Missouri Lead and Zine Deposits: JAMES 
D. Ropertson. 

On the Mud and Sand Dikes of the Whate Biase 
Miocene: HH. C. Case. 

Editorial Comment ; Review of recent Geological 
Literature; Recent Publications; Personal 
and Scientific News. 


NEW BOOKS. 
A travers le Caucase. Eire Leyrer. Neu 
chatel, Attinger Freres. Pp. 346. 


SCAG INCE. 


NeW SERIES. 
VoL. I. No. 16. 


Fripay, ApriIL 19, 1895. 


SINGLE COPIEs, 15 CTs. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


BEHRENS, Pror. H., Anleitung zur mikrochemi- 
schen Analyse. Mit einem Vorwort von Prof. 8. 
Hoogewerff in Delft. Mit 92 Figuren im Text. 
224 Seiten 8°. M. 6. 


BETHAULT, Pror. F., Les Prairies. Prairies natu- 


relles. Prairies de Fauche. 223 pages pet. in 8°. 
Cart. Fr. 3. 
BIEDERMANN, Pror. W., Elektrophysiologie. 


Erste Abteilung. Mit 136 Abbildungen. 440 Seiten. 
mre, M. 9. 


BOHM, PROSEKTOR A. A., und M. VON DAVIDOFF, 
Lehrbuch der Histologie des Menschen einschliesslich 
der mikroskopischen Technik. Mit 246 Abbildungen. 
440 Seiten. gr. 8°. Leinwandband. M. 8. 

GIRARD, Pror. HenRI, Aide-Mémoire de Zoologie- 
Avec 90 figures intercalées dans le texte. 300 pages. 
Pet.in8°. Toile. Fr. 3. 


GRAETZ, Pror. Dr. L., Compendium der Physik. 
Fir Studirende. Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte 
Auflage. Mit 257 Abbildungen. 454 Seiten. 8°. 
M. 7. 

HAssk, Pror. Dr. C., Handatlas der sensiblen und 
motorischen Gebiete der Hirn- und Riickenmarks- 
nerven zum Gebrauch fiir praktische Aerzte und 
Studirende. 36 Tafeln. gr. 8°. Kart. M. 12.60. 


HiPPoKRATES siimmtliche Werke. Ins Deutsche 
libersetzt und ausfiihrlich commentirt von Dr. Robert 
Fuchs. Bd. I. 526 Seiten. gr. 8°. M. 8.40. 


LAuE, MAX., Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. Ein 
Vertreter deutscher Naturforschung im neunzehnten 
Jahrhundert 1795-1876. Nach seinen Reiseberichten, 
seinem Briefwechsel mit A. v. Humboldt, v. Chamisso, 
Darwin, v. Martius u. a. [Familienaufzeichnungen, | 
sowie anderm handschriftlichen material. Mit dem 
Bildniss Ehrenberg’s in Kupferiitzung. 287 Seiten. 
ey M. 5. 

Loew, Pror. Dr. E., Einfiihrung in die Bliiten- 
biologie auf historischer Grundlage. Mit 50 Abbil- 

_dungen. 432Seiten. 8° M. 6. 

MARCHLEWSKI, Dr. L., Die Chemie des Chloro- 
phylls. 82Seiten. 8° M. 2. 

MERKEL, PROFESSOR FR., und O. BoNNET, Ergeb- 
nisse der Anatomie und Entwickelungsgeschichte 
Il. Band: 1893. Mit 49 Textabbildungen. 633 
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EDITORIAL CoMMITTEE : S. NEwcoms, Mathematics ; R. S. Woopwarp, Mechanics ; E. C. PICKERING, As- 
tronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THuRsTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
JosEPH LE CoNTE, Geology; W. M. DAvis, Physiography; O. C. MARsH, Paleontology; W. K. 
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Fripay, Aprit 19, 1895. 


CONTENTS : 

On Marine Mollusks from the lee Formation : 

RMON LEMEING «(0 3.00 0 ntceenenae at's a's san 421 
Use of the Initial Capital in Specific Names of Plants : 

F. H. KNOWLTON ....... BO 6 o6- COO AED 423 
Density and Diameter of Terrestrial Planets : E. s. 

EWU PEERED oi s/c:aie!s;n'e ccc ss Vee eMeiseresate ites > ib es 424 
The Distribution of the Blow Gun: WALTER 

IEEESEICHET caih avaleja)cis\a,<'s 60 «0s, teteneeyteis perard piaio ai 425 
Psychology: E. B. TITCHENER ........... oe 426 
Loss of Professor Milne’s Seismological Apparatus, 

Library and Collection: T.C. M.............. 431 
PRA ECSPONUCRCE = «so os. sa csumaebias mic ye as.s 433 


The Ideal Index to Scientific Literature: G. 
BROWN GOODE. 

Scientific Literature :— .... 2.60. cee eee sete delsile AGT 
Chapman’s Birds of Eastern Ni orth America: C. 
HART MERRIAM. National Geographical Mono- 
graphs: W. M. Davis. Furneaux’ Butterflies 
and Moths: 8. H.S. Quatrefages’s Pygmies: 

D. G. BRinTON. Scott’s Structural Botany: 
ALBERT SCHNEIDER. 

Notes and News :— .... elaisieibte,> weleivleg 4 444 
Argon; Paleontology ; ‘Sir W Filliam Dawson ; Gen- 
eral, 

Societies and Academies : — .....seccecsesesscces 447 
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia ; 
New York Academy of Sciences; The Texas 
Academy of Science. 

Scientific Journals ......+++++ belniseaipionte “pater cs lee 

ENEUIADODINS 5 nlp eins vasa sccct cscs siete alerelsin oveet als - 448 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

Subscriptionsand advertisements should be sent to SCIENCE, 
41 N. Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or Al East 49th St., New York. 


ON MARINE MOLLUSKS FROM THE PAMPEAN 
FORMATION. 

Ir is known that D’Orbigny considered 
the pampas as a marine formation, Bur- 
meister as a fluvio-lacustrine deposit. In a 
paper on the Lagoa dos patos, in 1885, I re- 


referred to conditions which I considered 
important for the study of such formations 
as the Pampean. All discussions hitherto 
lay great stress on the absence of marine 
fossils in the Pampean mud. But this fact 
itself seems to rest partly on the belief of 
Burmeister that marine organisms are not 
to be found in the formation. 

Burmeister (Descr. Phys. Rep. Arg. II., 
1876, p. 177) having seen fragments of an 
Astrea found at a depth of two meters at 
San Nicolas, and believing that their pres- 
ence was due to some disturbance of the 
beds, said that it is not possible to under- 
stand how they could have reached the 
locality where they were found. 

Burmeister’s view, above cited, will be 
essentially modified by the announcement 
which I am able to make of the following 
list of marine shells received by me from 
the distinguished Argentine paleontologist, 
Dr. Florentino Ameghino. The specimens 
are from the ‘formacion pampeana, piso 
belgranense’, near La Plata. 

Purpura hemastoma L. 

Nassa polygona Orb. 

Bullia deformis King. 

Olivancillaria auricularia Lam. 

Voluta brasiliana Sol. 

Litorina flava King. 

Litoridina australis Orb. 

Crepidula fornicata? Lam. 

Ostrea cristata Born. 

Ostrea puelchana Orb. 


422 


Mytilus platensis Orb. 

Mytilus exustus L (magellanicus Rve. 
fide Dall.). 

Arca Martensii Recl. 

Azara labiata Mat. 

Tagelus gibbus Spgl. (platensis Orb.) 

Mactra patagonica Orb. 

* Mactra Dalli vy. Ther. (M. Byronensis 
fide Dall). 

+ Mactra riograndensis vy. Thes. (M. isa- 
belleana Orb. fide v. Martens). 

Cytherea rostrata Koch. 

An otolith of a Scizenoid fish, Micropogon 
undulatus L., very common at Rio Grande 
do Sul, and probably also in the La Plata 
estuary. 

All these mollusks are common species 
of the Atlantic coast of Uruguay and Ar- 
gentina and most of them also from Rio 
Grande do Sul. Only three of them are of 
special interest, as not now found living in 
these latitudes. 

Purpura hemastoma L., still common on 
the coast at Rio Grande do Sul, is, I believe, 
not now known from the La Plata region. 
D’Orbigny, Petit and other authors have 
suggested that this species has been distrib- 
uted through the agency of navigation. 
It is therefore important to note that it 
occurs fossil in America, as it does in the 
Huropean Tertiary. 

Tntorina flava King, common from the 
West Indies to Santa Caterina, is not known 
to occur at Rio Grande do Sul. 

Nassa polygona Orb. seems to have al- 
most the same distribution as Litorina flava. 
I use D’Orbigny’s name in default of the 
complete synonymy. Prof. von Martens 
considers it synonymous with NV. polygonata 
Lam. Hidalgo, treating it in extenso (Moll. 


* This seems to me different from the Chilian form. 


{ A very common species on the coast at Rio Grande 
do Sul, but probably undescribed. Prof. yon Martens 
named it M. isabelleana Orb., but this is a species 
with the beaks more inflated and the valves not so 
thick. Descriptions will be published elsewhere. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 16. 


del viage al Pacifico, III., p. 39) regards it 
as being the same as JV. cinisculus Reeve, 
with antillarum Dkr. and sturnii Phil. as 
varieties. So I prefer the name of D’Or- 
bigny, as to the application of which there 
is no doubt. 

These are, therefore, species once reaching 
to the 35° of south latitude, which now do 
not occur south of Santa Caterina or Rio 
Grande do Sul. It is quite possible that 
other species exist in the actual fauna which 
are dying out. For example, Neritina mele- 
agris Lam., found at Santa Caterina. It 
occurs also in the bay of Paranagua, but 
only in one locality, though formerly it was 
much more common, being not rare in the 
shell mounds of the Sambaquis. Dunker 
( Jahrb. d. Deutsche mal. Ges. 1875, p. 245) 
says that NV. meleagris is common at Monte- 
video, but this seems to be an error, as 
D’Orbigny, myself and others have not 
found the species in the La Plata region, 
either recent or fossil. 

It was the opinion of Darwin, shared in 
part by Burmeister, that deep bays entered 
long distances into the interior during the 
Pampean formation, which for the most part 
is due to the action of winds and fresh water. 
To this I also agree. To such a gulf we 
owe the existence of the marine shells. The 
important facts discovered by Ameghino — 
give a new turn to the discussion of the 
origin of the pampas 

As Dall has shown that in Florida some 
of the Pampean mammals occur in beds 
covered by marine pliocene limestone, there 
cannot be any doubt that the pampean for- 
mation is in part of Pliocene age. It 
seemed that with the important study of 
Santiago Roth the pampas question might 
be considered as settled, but the facts here 
considered awaken doubts. It is quite pos- 
sible that observations here brought together 
may be increased with time and more and 
more tend to modify the basis of our knowl- 
edge. 


APRIL 19, 1895. ] 


IT am not aware of the distribution of As- 
trea and other corals south to Paranagua. 
It is quite possible that the Astrea, like the 
mollusks above mentioned, was a denizen of 
warmer water, demonstrating that the tem- 
perature of the Atlantic Ocean in this region 
has diminished since the Tertiary epoch. 

Santiago Roth says that marine (Ter- 
tiary ?) shells also occur at Buenos Ayres 
at a considerable depth, and at other local- 
ities in the Pampean beds. The question 
is a difficult one, and only in the future may 
it be possible to fully appreciate such facts 
as are here put on record. The Argentine 
geologists have hitherto paid little attention 
to the study of the fossil mollusks, and for 
this reason this first contribution of Ame- 
ghino is encouraging and important. 

; H. von IHERING. 


4 Museo PAvuuista, SAN PAULO, BRAZIL. 

a — 

f USE OF THE INITIAL CAPITAL IN SPECIFIC 
; NAMES OF PLANTS. 


Tue idea seems to prevail among some 
naturalists, as may be seen from a recent 
: review in this journal (p. 162), that the re- 
tention of the initial capital in certain spe- 
cific names of plants is a barbarous relic that 
the botanists themselves cannot honestly de- 
’ fend. Asa matter of fact, this is very far 
’ from the truth, for it is almost universally 
adopted in botany, and for good and logical 
reasons. In the latest authoritative enumer- 
ation of American plants, namely, the List 
of Pteridophyta and Spermatophyta, there are 
four classes of specific names that are written 
with an initial capital: (1) Species named 
in honor of persons; (2) species named 
from places; (3) names of old genera, tribes 
or sections used as specific names; (4) 
substantives used as specific names. 

The first case is based largely on senti- 
ment. It, to the botanist, does not look 
well or dignified to write a person’s name 
with a lower case initial. The name was 
given as an honor or monument to the per- 


. 


SCIENCE. 


423 


son, and should be maintained as such. 
Not Sedum torreyi, Plantago purshii, but S. 
Torreyi and P. Purshii. 

The second case is, perhaps, least defen- 
sible of all, yet it seems most natural and 
logical to give the name of a place as nearly 
as it is usually written, at least in English 
speaking countries. 
densis and Campanula Americana, rather than 
S. canadensis or C. americana. 

The third case, namely the capitalization 
of specific names derived from old genera, 
tribes or sections, is in the highest degree 
valuable and condusive to accuracy. As 
names derived from these sources do not 
necessarily agree in case and number with 
the generic word, the initial capital calls 
attention to this, saves much trouble, and 
reduces the probability of error. Campanula 
Medium, for example, would half the time be 
changed into Campanula Media, but for the 
initial. So also with Convolvulus Sepium, 
Achillea Millefolium, Delphinium Consolida 
Vaccinium Oxycoccus, and hundreds of others 
that could be mentioned. 

The ease with which words of this kind 
are changed is very well shown by the spell- 
ing of the name of the ruffed-grouse in the 
Century Dictionary. The correct name is 
Bonasa Umbellus and it is so printed in most 
places, but under the vocabulary word 
Bonasa it is B. umbella. This is, of course, 
quite a different thing, and simply shows 
that some unguided proof-reader, observing 
that the termination ws did not agree with 
Bonasa, changed it. 

The fourth case is much the same as the 
one just considered. Substantives do not 
necessarily agree with the generic word, 
and it is a matter of much convenience and 
information to write them with an initial 
capital, e. g., Ilex Dahoon, Gaultheria Shallon. 
In this form they stand out in bold relief, 
while if the lower case was used there would 
be the constant tendency to make them har- 
monize in termination with the genus word. 


Thus, Sambucus Cana- 


424 


The use or disuse of this capital initial 
may not be a matter of much importance, 
but if there were no rule upon it there 
would be lack of that uniformity which is 
so much to be desired. If left to personal 
choice, some writers would use it and others 
would not. The British Association Re- 
vised Code (1865), the code of the French 
Zoblogical Society and that of the Inter- 
national Zodlogical Congress leave the 
matter to individual preference. The code 
of nomenclature of the American Ornitholo- 
gists’ Union (canon viii.) expressly de- 
cides against capitals, although agreeing 
‘that it is a trivial matter.’ The Inter- 
national Botanical Congress of 1867 and the 
committee of the American Association 
(1894) agree as to its adoption. Therefore, 
in addition to the above mentioned reasons, 
botanists write these classes of specific 
names with an initial capital for the sake 
of uniformity in botanical writings. 

F. H. Kyowtrton. 


DENSITY AND DIAMETER OF TERRESTRIAL 
PLANETS. 

ReEcEnT determinations of the mass of 
Mercury have brought out a relation be- 
tween the densities and diameters of the 
terrestrial planets which have not hereto- 
fore been thought possible on account of 
the supposed great density of Mercury. 

The accompanying sketch shows graph- 
ically this relation. The planets have been 
plotted with their diameters in miles as 
abscissa and their density, the earth as one, 
as ordinates. It is seen that these points 
lie approximately in a straight line. The 
data has been taken from Harkness’ ‘ Solar 
Parallax’ and Young’s Astronomy. The 
masses from the former and the diameters 
from the latter, except that the density of 
Mercury is that lately announced by Back- 
lund from a discussion of Encke’s comet. 

The probable error of the density has 
been obtained by combining the probable 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 16. 


errors of the mass and diameter, and is 
shown in the sketch by the arrow-heads 
above and below the plotted points. It 
will be seen that the earth, Mars and the 
moon have much smaller probable errors 
than Mereury and Venus, since these latter 
have no known satellites to aid in deter- 
mining their masses. If the most probable 
straight line be drawn with respect to the 
former, it will be as shown in the drawing. 
This line passes within the limits of the 
probable errors of all except Venus. 

Tt will be observed that the straight line 
when prolonged to the left does not pass 
through the origin of codrdinates, but cuts 
the ordinate at some distance above it. 
This indicates that a planet with a very 
small diameter would still have a consid- 
erable density. Meteroic stones of small 
diameter, when they reach the earth, do 
have a density about the same as that of 
terrestrial rocks, and this is about the den- 
sity which is indicated in the drawing. 

If this relation should prove to be the 
true law, then the mass of a terrestrial 
planet could be determined from its diam- 
eter. The mass of Venus so determined 
would be about one-tenth greater than as 
given. Venus is the only one of the five 
that is any more discrepant than might be 
expected from its probable error. The 
probable error of this -planet as given may 
be too small. An increase of one-tenth im 
the mass, or a decrease of one-thirtieth in 
the diameter, would make Venus accordant. 
A sufficient increase in her mass would 
explain the movement in Mercury’s peri- 
helion. If the mass of Mercury proves to 
be as small as now supposed, that is about 
one-thirtieth that of the earth, it may ex- 
plain some of his irregularities. 

Prof. Young has pointed out that a body 
200 miles in diameter near the sun would 
not be likely to be accidentally discovered, 
although it might be seen with some of the 
best instruments during transit across the 


APRIL 19, 1895.] 


Sun’s disc. It is, therefore, possible that 
Mercury may have an undiscovered satellite 
200 miles in diameter. If so, and the 
satellite should be as far from Mercury as 
the moon is from the earth, it would take 
150 days to make one complete revolution 
around the planet, or nearly twice as long 
as it takes Mercury to revolve about the 
Such a satellite would have sufficient 
ass to cause Mercury to revolve in a 


SCIENCE. 


425 


PGhieth showing graphically the 


secondary orbit 150 miles in diameter, 
which would be a measurable quantity. 
E. S. WHEELER. 


SAULT STE. MARIE, MICH. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE BLOW-GUN. 

Tue blow-gun is one of the most remark- 
able savage devices in which compressed air 
is used as a motive force. Primarily, the 
blow-gun is a simple tube of cane, smoothly 


426 


cleared of the joint septums, through which 
light darts feathered with a tuft of down, 
or pieces of pith, are propelled by the breath. 

The blow-gun is used for killing birds 
and small mammals. Frequently the ar- 
rows are poisoned, rendering the light dart 
effective on larger game. The chief merit 
of the blow-gun is its accuracy and the 
silence with which it may be employed. 

The penetration of the blow-gun dart is 
greater than would be imagined. At the 
distance of 50 feet I have driven a blunt 
dart one-quarter of an inch into a pine plank. 
It is stated that the range of the blow-gun 
among some tribes is from 80 to 100 yards. 

Apropos to Professor Mason’s paper con- 
necting the Hastern Asiatics with the Amer- 
icans along a great natural migration line, 
the distribution of the blow-gun may be in- 
teresting. 

The blow-gun is a tropical or sub-tropical 
device, and may be looked for in regions 
where bamboo or cane grows. Neverthe- 
less these tubes are often made of hard wood, 
single, or of two excavated pieces joined to- 
gether, and frequently one tube is thrust 
inside of another to secure rigidity. The 
examination of many of these blow-guns in- 
spires a great respect for the ingenuity and 
mechanical skill of the workers. 

The curious fact of distribution, however, 
is that the Malays and American aborigines 
alone use the blow-gun. The Malay speci- 
mens of the blow-gun existing in the Na- 
tional Museum are from the Dyaks of 
Borneo, the Javanese, the Kyans of Burma 
and the Johore people from the Malay 
peninsula. The literature also supplies 
other Malay localities. 

The North American specimens are from 
the Chetimachas of Louisiana, who fre- 
quently combine the tubes in series, forming 
a compound blow-gun and the Cherokees of 
the Carolinas. From Central Amercia, the 
Indians of Honduras and Costa Rica ; from 
South America, several Amazon tribes from 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 16, 


Equador east and from British Guiana em- 
ploy the blow-gun. Wattrer Hoven. 


PSYCHOLOGY.* 

PsycHoLocy, as we all know, is the 
‘science of mind.’ But such a definition 
does little more than raise the question, 
What is mind? We cannot take mind for 
granted, for it is the very thing that psy- 
chology has to investigate. And yet, al- 
though ‘mind’ is one of those words 
which it is impossible to define, everyone 
is able to attach some sort of meaning to it. 
What do you yourselves mean when you 
talk of your ‘mind?’ You mean, probably, 
some particular group or set of your internal 
experiences; some tangle or other of feel- 
ings, thoughts, desires, resolutions, ideas, 
wishes, hopes, actions, emotions, impulses, 
expectations, memories. There are plenty 
of words, expressing different ‘sides’ of 
mind, as they are called. Mind, then, is 
the sum total of all these experiences—of all 
these processes. There is no mind beyond 
them; the term is simply the collective 
name of all such processes as those which I 
have enumerated. 

I said, however, that when you talk, in 
an everyday way, of your ‘mind,’ you 
probably refer to some special set or group 
of these experiences. When you say, “I 
cannot make up my mind whether to do it 
or not,” you mean that you cannot make up 
your present mind. Now here the psychol- 
ogist makes a distinction. We use the term 
‘consciousness’ to express the mind of the 
present moment. Thus if I were to ask 
you to tell me something of your experiences. 
just now, I should say to you: ‘ Look into 
your consciousness, and see whether so-and- 
so is taking place or not.”’ Or, again, if I 
were to analyze for you your present state 
of mind—to try and imagine what is going 

* A lecture delivered to the Class in General Phil- 


osophy (Introductory ) in Cornell University, Decem— 
ber, 1894. 


APRIL 19, 1895.] 


on inside of you as you listen to me—I 
should speak technically of analyzing your 
consciousness. Consciousness is the mind 
at any moment. Mind, therefore, is the 
sum-total of consciousnesses experienced in 
the lifetime of the individual. You have 
one mind, extending (I hope) over seventy 
full years; but the mind upon which you 
experiment at any given moment for psy- 
chological purposes—or the mind which you 
_ make up at a given moment—is called your 
consciousness. So that psychology, while 
it is the science of mind, in the sense that 
it deals with all the mental experiences of 
aman, from the time of his birth to the 
time of his death, deals in any special hour, 
during any special enquiry, with the phe- 
nomena of consciousness. 
But consciousness—as the number of 
| words in my catalogue of a moment ago 
} 


—  -— Swe ae eo . - 


sufficiently indicated—is a very intricate, 

complex and tangled matter. If we are to 

examine it at all carefully, we must try, first 

of all, to get some sort of order into its phe- 

nomena. Let us begin the attempt at once 
_ of describing our internal experiences, as 
accurately as possible. 

We notice, at the outset, that we are toa 
large extent at the mercy of our surround- 
ings, of things outside of us. We are not 
free to see what we like, to hear what we 
like, to touch what we like; what we see 
and hear and touch is all determined for us, 
by the physical nature of the bodies from 
which impressions come. You can under- 
stand, of course, that this is true in the 
_ simple instances that I have given; but I 
- want to prove to you that it is true of a 
very large part, indeed, of our mental ex- 


that one of our sense-organs is excited, is 
put in action, that is done by means of 
something in the external world. An 
ether-vibration makes us see; an air-vibra- 
makes us hear or smell, and so on. 


SCIENCE. 


427 


Those are sensations. And perceptions 
only differ from sensations in being more 
complicated. Thus in the sphere of sight, 
you perceive a house or a tree ; in the sphere 
of hearing you perceive a musical harmony 
or a musical discord ; in the sphere of touch 
you perceive that a complex of impressions 
is a piece of wood, or a piece of wire, or 
what not. The tree and the house are com- 
pound impressions, containing many colors 
and many shapes; the musical chord is a 
compound of three or four or more simple 
tones, and so on. All this, very obviously, 
comes from the outside world. So, too, 
does (2) memory. You cannot remember 
what has not happened. If you try to re- 
member a name, you try to recover a lost 
perception—the perception of the spoken 
word. Ifyou try to remember a picture, 
you are attempting to recover a lost visual 
perception. It is for this reason that the 
psychologist distinguishes kinds or types of 
memory—the visual, the auditory and the 
motor. People who can play chess blind- 
fold have the visual memory very highly 
developed. They do not, perhaps, see every 
piece in their mind’s eye, but they see the 
board as a whole, and know where each 
piece upon it is. Most ‘extempore’ speak- 
ers, too, rely upon their visual memory. 
There is comparatively little true extempore 
speaking done. Of course, if a man is 
thoroughly familiar with his subject, or is 
speaking under the influence of strong em- 
otion, he may be able to address an audi- 
ence without preparation. But most of us 
who speak ‘without notes’ do so by the 
aid of our visual memory ; we see what we 
have written, mentally, paragraph by para- 
graph, and when our eyes are on our hear- 
ers, are really reading from a memory 
manuscript. Instances of good auditory 
memory, again, are furnished by those fortu- 
nate persons who can recall accurately the 
airs of an opera that they have only once 
heard. And people who play the piano 


428 


‘by ear’ play by finger-memory; their 
memories are muscular or motor. All 
these memories, then, depend upon the ex- 
ternal world. So (38) does imagination. 
Imagination can put perceptions together 
in new or unusual ways; but it can never 
make a new perception. Try to imagine a 
color which is different from all the colors 
that are known. You cannot do it. You 
may imagine mixtures of colors, hues and 
tints obtained from combinations of the 
known colors, which you have never ac- 
tually seen ; but you cannot imagine a new 
color. The same fact comes out in works 
of fiction. When Baron Munchausen takes 
you to the moon or the dog-star, and shows 
you their inhabitants; and when Peter 
Wilkins describes to you the population of 
the South Pole—these people are simply 
human beings, with their characters chang- 
ed and modified in various ways. They 
can take their eyes out of their heads and 
pass them round to their neighbors, or they 
have wings which fold around them and 
serve as clothing ; but there is nothing new 
in all this. It is only the putting of the 
perceptions together that is new, not the 
perceptions themselves. And the same is 
true of all the constructions of the imagina- 
tion, as they are called, devils, centaurs, 
sea-serpents, dragons, hippogriffs, ghosts 
and the rest of them. : 

The world outside of us, then, is respon- 
sible for a good deal of our mental furni- 
ture. We can simplify matters, here, for 
purposes of classification, by grouping to- 
gether sensation, perception, memory-image 
and imaginary representation, as ‘ideas.’ 
Sensation is the raw material from which 
ideas are built up. As for the other usages: 
if you cannot remember, you say ‘I haven’t 
any idea of what that man’s name was;’ 
and if you are endeavoring to imagine a 
circumstance, you say ‘I haven’t any idea 
of how that could have happened.’ 

So much for the first principal category 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 16. 


of mental experience. Now, in the second 
place, we are in some respects not at the 
mercy of the world outside, but the world 
is at our mercy. What is the great differ-~ 
ence between the animal and the plant? 
Surely this, that the animal can move at 
will, while the plant is stationary. That 
seems to be a very simple matter; but just 
consider how much it means. If the plant 
is going to lead a stationary life, it can 
take advantage of the fact—I speak meta- 
phorically, of course—to be careless of its 
shape and size; or rather, it must make 


itself as big and as complicated as it can, 


in order to secure all the nourishment 
possible from one settled spot. The result 
is that the plant carries its lungs and its 
digestive apparatus all over it, on the out- 


side. You know the functions of leaves 
and roots. With the animal the reverse 
is the case. It is going to move about. It 


can seek food in different places. The best 
thing for it, therefore, is to have its lungs 
and digestive organs packed away inside 
of it; so that it can get about with as light 
a weight to carry, and as convenient a 
balance of that weight, as possible. There 
must be no loose ends left on the outside, 
injury to which would mean inefficiency 
or death. Well! You see that, by moving 
among things at its own will and pleasure 
the animal has a certain power over the 
external world. How is this power repre- 
sented in consciousness? In two principal 
ways: (1) Whenever we move; or, to put 
the matter more technically, and more defi- 
nitely with reference to ourselves as dis- 
tinct from the lower animals, whenever we 
act, we have in consciousness the experi- 
ence of effort, of endeavor. This is an 
experience quite different from the experi- 
ence that comes to us as ideas. We can 
have, naturally, an idea of effort; that 
would be the idea of some person making 
the effort, or the idea of some obstacle to 
be overcome by effort, or what not. But 


APRIL 19, 1895. ] 


besides the idea of effort, we experience 

effort itself. That is one of the hardest 

points in psychology to have made clear to 

you, or to make clear to yourselves. This 

instance may help you: You know that we 

speak of one man as having more ‘go’ in 

him than his neighbor, without implying 

by the phrase that he has more ideas. 

There are many names for the effort- 

experience. Some psychologists speak of 
it as the experience of spontaneity, of one’s 
| own initiative; others of an activity in 
- cousciousness. ‘ Effort’ is at once the most 

concrete and, I think, the most intelligible 
. word. (2) Our power over the world out- 
side, again, is manifested in another way 
—by the phenomena of attention. Not 
| every process among our physical surround- 

ings has us at its mercy in the same degree. 
We are exposed to all manner of impres- 
sions; but they are not all alike powerful 
to affect our consciousness. Think of your 
own state of mind now. You have pre- 
sented to you a certain number of visual 
impressions—the room, its furniture, the 
people about you. You are subject to cer- 
tain temperature sensations; to certain pres- 
sures, from your clothing; to certain or- 
ganic sensations, hunger or satiety. Each 
of you has a large stock of memories, ready 
to crowd into consciousness if they are 
allowed to. Each of you, again, has the 
day’s programme in his mind; he can 
imagine what will be done between now 
and bed-time; and this train of ideas of 
the imagination is ready to sweep across 
his mind, if free play is given to it. But 
all this medley of conflicting influences you 
are able, if you like, to neglect. You can 
just brush them aside, by attending to the 
single series of auditory impressions that is 
affecting you, to the succession of words 
which Iam speaking. When the whole of 
your surroundings is pressing in upon you 
through the avenues of the sense-organs, 
clamoring for notice, you have the power 


SCIENCE. 


429 


of choosing which shall be let in at the 
door of consciousness. Only those facts 
cross the threshold to which you desire to 
attend. 

‘“* But,’’ you may say, ‘‘ suppose that this 
is true, what has attention to do with moye- 
ment? You told us that it was movement 
that distinguished the animal from the 
plant, and that along with movement went 
power over the external world. Now what 
has movement to do with attention?’ That 
is a perfectly fair question, but one which I 
cannot here answer for you in detail. To 
understand the fact of the connection 
thoroughly—and the connection is a fact— 
you must have studied psychology. But I 
can give you a pair of statements which 
will be better than nothing. The first is 
this: Whenever we attend, we move. I do 
not mean that the whole body moyes, that 
there is locomotion: but that there is move- 
ment,—movement in the eye, movement in 
the ear, movement in the scalp, movement 
somewhere. And the second is this: It is 
the moving thing that attracts the attention. 
You cannot attend to one single thing, one 
really single thing, for more than a few 
seconds together. Either you go to sleep, 
or you go into hysterics. On the other 
hand, one is almost constrained to attend 
to anything that moves. You can hear the 
single voice that carries the melody, when 
there is an orchestra of half-a-hundred in- 
struments thundering on at the same time, 
because the melody changes, the tones 
move; while the accompaniment is rela- 
tively stationary. So that attention to the 
melody is easy. If any of you have been 
out shooting after dark, you will know that 
one tells the game by its movement. So 
long as it is still, itis safe. But let it move, 
and though the eyes have been looking in 
a quite wrong direction, the attention is 
drawn upon it by force, as it were; one 
cannot help seeing it. 

Those, then, are two categories of mental 


430 


experience. There is one more to mention. 
This self of ours, this ‘I,’ which is ex- 
posed to the physical changes in the world 
in part, and in part helps to bring about 
physical changes in the world by moving to 
and fro in it, is not indifferent to what goes 
on in either case. It does not just have 
ideas, on the one hand; and attend to them 
or move in consequence of them, on the 
other. It does more; it feels. It feels 
when impressions come in; it feels when 
efforts go out. So that alongside of ideas 
and efforts must come a third category of 
mental experience—feelings. Feeling is of 
two kinds, pleasurable and painful. It is 
quite distinct in consciousness from idea- 
tion, and from effort and attention. That 
is another of the points which arise at the 
very beginnings of a study of psychology 
that it is extremely difficult to get clear 
about—that pleasure and pain, as such, be- 
long to an entirely different order of pro- 
cesses from the processes which we call col- 
lectively ideas. But it is a fact, despite 
the intimate interconnection of the two in 
our concrete experience. Let me try to 
drive it home for you by two illustrations. 
You cannot remember a pleasure or pain. 
When you try to recall the pain of a flog- 
ging that you had at school, what you re- 
call is really only the complex of percep- 
tions, not the pain itself. You remember 
all the circumstances—your being sen- 
tenced, the people standing round you, the 
room in which the fatal event took place, 
the master who did the deed. All these 
are ideas. But so far are you from being 
able to remember the actual pain of the 
flogging that the memory of the circum- 
stances to-day may be actually pleasant ; 
you smile as you look back on them. That 
is the first illustration ; the second is this: 
You cannot attend to a pleasure or pain as 
such. It is a common saying that if you 
attend to a toothache, for instance, you 
‘make it worse.’ That is bad psychology. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 16. 


You attend, in reality, to the tooth. That 
means that you perceive the tooth more 
clearly than anything else for the time 
being; your idea of the tooth is the very 
strongest in consciousness. But by attend- 
ing to the idea and so making it clearer, 
the feeling that goes along with the idea 
is made clearer, too. So the pain ‘gets 
worse,’ not because you attended to it, 
but because you attended to the group 
of perceptions with which it was con- 
nected. 

Now, then, we have got our raw material 
into something like order. Consciousness, 
instead of being a shapeless tangle and maze 
of various intertwined and interwoven pro- 
cesses—as it appeared to us to be when we 
started out on our enquiry—has proved to 
be capable of arrangement and simplifica- 
tion. You may, it is true, raise the objec- 
tion that our table of contents is, perhaps, 
not inclusive of every known mental state. 
Where, you may ask, is emotion ; where is — 
expectation ; where are all the rest of the 
familiar terms for mental experiences? 
Well, you must take my word for it, that 
all these other states of mind or mental ex- 
periences can be derived from the three 
simple processes which I have named to 
you. Ifyou were to work through a psy- 
chology, you would find that there was 
nothing treated of, in any chapter of it, 
which was not a compound of these three 
sets of elements—ideas, feelings and efforts 
—mixed in different proportions. And that 
being the case, it is these three elements 
with which psychology begins. She first 
of all describes them, as minutely and aceu- 
rately as possible; and then furnishes a the- 
ory or an explanation of them, in the sense 
that she gives the conditions, bodily and 
mental, of their appearance in consciousness. 
Under what conditions do we have this and 
this perception? Under what conditions 
do we remember and imagine? Under 
what conditions do we feel so and so, attend 


Psychology. 


APRIL 19, 1895. ] 


to this and that? These are the questions 
that come up for answer. 

Into those questions we cannot here enter. 
Let it be sufficient for you, in this lecture, 
to have learned the names and characters 
of the simplest items of mental experience— 
of those items which are always and in- 
variably present in our concrete, every-day 
experiences. Draw for yourselves an out- 
line map of mind. You must make three 
countries, as it were, within that map. Ideas 
must go in in one color to the right; efforts 
in another to the left; and feelings will lie 
in the middle between the two. And you 
must suppose that each of these three terri- 
toriés has an independent government ; but 
that their governments are very friendly, 
and often take joint action—indeed, that 
they hardly ever think of taking action of 
themselves. Especially must you conceive 
that both idea and effort have right of way 
through any part of the dominion of feeling; 
and that the communications are so open, 
and the relations so close, that scarcely any- 
thing can affect idea or effort, from the out- 
side or from the inside, that does not also 
exert an effect upon feeling. The detailed 
survey of the three territories, and the laying 
down of roads through them for the student 
to follow—that is the further business of 
E. B. TrrcHENER. 


LOSS OF PROFESSOR MILNE’S SEISMOLOGI- 
CAL APPARATUS, LIBRARY AND 
COLLECTION. 

Every one interested in Seismology 
knows of the great work done by Professor 
John Milne, F. R. S., during a residence of 
nearly a quarter of a century in Japan, 
which country became, a decade ago, the 
earthquake lahoratory of the world. 
Through his interest, and that which he 
kindled in other foreign residents, the Seis- 
mological Society of Japan was organized 
about fifteen years ago. During its active 

existence its Annual Reports contained the 


SCIENCE. 


431 


most important contributions to Seismology 
anywhere published, and it is not too much 
to say that the work of this Society amount- 
ed to a revolution in the methods of obser- 
vation and research. To its Transactions, 
Professor Milne was by far the largest con- 
tributor. When the rapid decrease of the 
number of foreign scientific men resident in 
Japan threatened the life of the Society, 
he tactfully enlisted the support and co- 
operation of the Japanese. The issue, by 
the University, of an extensive and valu- 
able series of scientific memoirs, tended, 
naturally, to divert much of the active in- 
terest which they for a time manifested, 
and a few years ago the publication of the 
Transactions of the Seismological Society 
ceased. Professor Milne was not discouraged 
however, and at his own risk and expense 
at once substituted a periodical which he 
called the ‘Seismological Journal,’ which 
he has continued to issue at great pe- 
cuniary loss and which contains many val- 
uable and important contributions to the 
science. 

During all of these years, with a tireless 
and inexhaustible industry and a rare in- 
genuity of design and wealth of mechanical 
resource, he had invented, constructed and 
put into use a variety of earthquake detect- 
ors, recorders, measurers, wave and tremor 
registers and even earthquake ‘ avoiders’ or 
‘nullifiers,’ which, with the numerous de- 
vices and inventions of other foreign stu- 
dents of Seismology in Japan, the value of 
which he was quick to recognize and utilize, 
constituted a collection the like of which 
never existed before. Besides these instru- 
mental appliances Professor Milne had ac- 
cumulated an extensive and valuable library 
of Seismology, including many early and 
rare pamphlets and volumes and almost 
everything published on the subject during 
the past fifteen years. 

His connection with the Japanese Goy- 
ernment is shortly to terminate, and he had 


432 


prepared a complete equipment for an ob- 
servatory to be set up in England on his re- 
turn to that country, by means of which he 
hoped to show that earthquakes travel 
around the globe, and to be able to study 
them there. 

Those who have been aware of all these 
facts, and all who are now made aware of 
them for the first time, will, I am sure, ex- 
perience a feeling of great regret on learn- 
ing of the destruction by fire on February 
17th of practically all of these valuable ac- 
cumulations of years of labor, together with 
personal effects of great interest and value 
to Professor Milne. 

The observatory in which these things 
were, and which is now gone forever, was 
also an object of much interest in its relation 
to the educational development of Japan 
during the past twenty years. It was 
erected nearly that many years ago, a little 
before the close of Dr. Murray’s connection 
with the Department of Education. It con- 
tained in the beginning a good but small 
Equatorial by Alvan Clark and a Transit. 
One end of it was used as a meteorological 
observatory under the direction of the writer 
during several years, being equipped with a 
good collection of self-registering instru- 
ments obtained mostly from London, the 
results of the use of which were published 
as Annual Scientific Memoirs by the author- 
ities of the University. The transit wing 
was utilized by Professor W. 8. Chaplin in 
his courses in Civil Engineering, until the 
Astronomical part of it was placed in the 
hands of Professor H. M. Paul, who served 
the University as Professor of Astronomy 
for several years, beginning in 1880. When 
a few years later the Engineering College 
became an integral part of the University 
and the whole was located in the Kaga 
Yashiki, the observatory was turned over 
to Professor Milne, an addition to it was 
built and he made a Seismological ‘ Labora- 
tory and Bazaar’ out of it, residing in a 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 16. 


part of it. It was a comfortable bungalow 
sort of a structure, located in the Kaga 
Yashiki, just in the rear of the row of dwel- 
lings where, fifteen years ago, lived, begin- 
ning at the entrance to the Compound, 
Fenollosa, Mendenhall, Braun, Cooper, 
Morse, Chaplin, Ewing and Atkinson, all 
Professors in the University and exhibiting 
a mixture of American, Spanish, German, 
English and Scotch blood which illustrates 
the disposition of the young-old nation to 
get what it wants wherever it thinks it can 
find it. When it became the home of Pro- 
fessor Milne it became the source of a de- 
lightful hospitality which many ‘ globe trot- 
ters’ of all lands have enjoyed, and thous- 
ands besides his scientific friends will sym- 
pathize with him in his great loss. 

In a recent letter from Professor Milne 
he says : 

“‘ Just now you and Paul may be breath- 
ing all that is left of the old observatory 
and my belongings.”’ 

He sends me a characteristic and graphie 
account of the occurrence, ‘prepared,’ he 
says, ‘for maiden aunts and relatives,’ from 
which the following extract will, I am sure, 
be of interest to all readers : 


“¢ As nearly all the transactions of the Seismological 
Society were packed up to go to Europe, a few that — 
had middle places in the boxes may be sayed, but I 
doubtif even out of 2500 copies I shall get more than 
two or three hundred. All my old earthquake books, 
some of which even dated from 1500 to 1600, but 
which were perhaps more curious than useful, seem 
to have gone. One function they had was to inspire 
the globe trotter, or travelling clergyman, with respect 
for a science that was apparently so ancient. Amongst 
them there was a poem called ‘the earthquake,’ A. 
D. 1750, but I know that by heart. The new 
books were volumes of bound pamphlets in all sorts 
of languages which I had slashed out of the publica- 
tions of all sorts of societies. Perhaps the burning 
of them was a visitation for my Goth-like behaviour. 

Instruments were fused or vaporized. Sixteen 
specially constructed clocks which would turn drums 
once a day, once a week, or drive a band of paper for 
two years, together with seismographs and horizontal 
pendulums, self-recording thermometers and harome- 


APRIL 19, 1895.] 


ters, microscopes, and a museum of old and new con- 
trivances are now in the scrap heap. Until to-day, I 
felt I had the observatory I intended to put up in 
England completely furnished, and I was proud of the 
furniture. 

One very cruel cut was the picking up of an insur- 
ance policy dated 1878, which fluttered out of the 
ruins. One reason that I have not insured for some 
years past is because day and night I always had for 
purposes of continuous photography open benzine 
lamps burning in my house, and I should have had 
to tell the agent about the little tricks they played 
when first I used them. It may sound odd, but I do 
not think a stranger to their ways can light one so 
that nothing shall happen during the next three days. 
Against eccentricities like these I insured myself by 
having above them a bunch of fluffy paper, which, if 
the lamp blazed up, was burned and burned its sus- 
pended string. This was followed by the falling of a 
lever, when an electric bell in my bedroom and one in 
the kitchen was set going. 

Outside the door of the instrument room stood fire- 
extinguishers and a heap of rugs. From time to 
time I had ‘fire drill,’ going through the operation 
of turning up a lamp, burning the paper, ringing the 


conflagration—in fact, very much like what happens 

on ship-board, only I had real fire—which was easily 
extinguished. 

But what happened was the unexpected; the fire 
broke out in the midst of a pile of wood in an out- 
house, and this, with a nice wind blowing, on a Sun- 
_ day morning, when there was no one near to help. 

And now I have next to nothing—decorations, 
medals, diplomas, clothes, manuscripts, extending 
over twenty-five years, and everything else has gone 
up in smoke; still it is not altogether a misfortune. 

Ishall not have a sale, nor the worry of selecting 
- amongst my accumulations; there will be no buying 
boxes and packing up, neither will there be any hag- 
gling with custom house officials, or trouble in col- 
leeting on an insurance policy. On the other hand, 
I shall have new clothes, and some time or other, I 
hope, new clocks and new instrumeuts, whilst what 
T have got is the knowledge that I have many sincere 
-and kind friends. Their clothes don’t fit, but the 
‘sympathy that they have expressed and the little 
things they have sent me tells me that I should never 
be homeless in Japan. Looked at in the right way; 
like an earthquake, a fire may, after all, be a blessing 
in disguise, but, of course, it is sometimes pretty well 
wrapped up. 


Dies ire, dies illa, 
Solvet sxeclum in favilla.’’ 


SCIENCE. 


bells, alarming everybody, and then putting out the 


433 


Professor Milne asks me to make public 
the loss of his address book and his desire 
to send to all to whom it may be due, cop- 
ies of Vol. LV. of the ‘Seismological Journal.’ 
This, he says, is an unusually large number, 
and he hopes an unusually valuable contri- 
bution to Seismology—his ‘ expiring effort; ’ 
and he asks all to whom this volume should 
be sent to address him, care Japan Mail 
Office, Yokohama. 

Out of the few hundred copies, more or 
less, of the Transactions of the Seismolog- 
ical Society of Japan, he will be able to 
make up some sets; and those desiring to 
obtain them should address him, care Geo- 
logical Society, Burlington House, London. 
And finally, he earnestly desires to receive, 
in exchange or otherwise, copies of any 
papers on or relating to earthquakes, vol- 
canoes, or earth movements in general. 

Iam sure that every one who can will 
respond to this last appeal and cheerfully 
do whatever is possible to assist Professor 
Milne to replace, as far as may be, the ac- 
cumulations of a quarter of a century, con- 
verted into sunset-reddening dust in a few 
short moments. TC: M, 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE IDEAL INDEX TO SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 


To THE Eprror or Scrence: Since you 
have been so kind as to ask me to con- 
tribute to SctmncE my views as to how the 
plan of cataloguing scientific literature may 
best be accomplished, I venture to present 
the following considerations. It is probable 
that some of the ideas suggested are im- 
practicable, and indeed that the plan is too 
extensive and unwieldly to be undertaken 
as a whole at the present time. The litera- 
ture of science is so vast and the number of 
workers so great, the degree of specializa- 
tion in modern work so intense and the 
participation in research so wide-spread 
over the world, that a really adequate and 


434 


serviceable index must, of necessity, be of 
great extent, and undertaken upon a scale 
of considerable magnificence. 

It may be that the time has not yet come 
when the scientific men of all the world can 
cooperate together in such a task as this, 
but if codperation is possible in any field of 
intellectual activity, surely it is in that of 
science. Such codperation is not only es- 
sential to thorough work in indexing, but 
would also have a most important influence 
in promoting united efforts in other branches 
of scientific activity. 

The considerations suggested are these: 

1. The catalogue should be international 
in name and scope. This is essential in 
order to secure the unreserved support of 
all nations engaged in the production of 
scientific literature. It should, therefore, 
not bear the imprint of any society or organ- 
ization, or derive its distinctive character 
from any one nation. Since the titles will, 
of necessity, be quoted exactly, it might be 
well that all annotations and comments 
should be in the same language as the title. 
To insist that only English or French 
should be used would be fatal to its general 
adoption by other countries. Titles in the 
Scandinavian, Slavonie and Oriental Lan- 
guages and dialects and others would, how- 
ever, need to be translated into French, 
German or English. 

2. It should be exhaustive within its own 
limits, no latitude being given to the judg- 
ment and taste of its editors, in the matter 
of rejecting titles. 

3. It should be printed in annual in- 
stallments, each installment including every 
paper or work printed within a single year, 
and each installment should be published in 
not more than six (preferably not more 
than three) months after the close of the 
year. 

4. The publication should be in the 
form of a bibliographical catalogue, with 
the titles arranged alphabetically by au- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 16. 


thors, the papers by each author to be num- 
bered, beginning with number one. This 
would render it possible to identify any 
paper, either in an annual or a general — 
index, by simple reference to author, year 
and number. 

In recommending that the catalogue 
shall be published in book form, I am by 
no means unmindful of the merits of the 
eard-catalogue system in work of this kind. 
I use card-catalogues freely in my own 
work, and in the National Museum there 
are hundreds of thousands of cards by 
means of which the vast collections of 
specimens and papers are kept under con- 
trol. The card-index has its limitations, 
however, and these are nowhere more eyi- 
dent than in connection with such a 
scheme as a universal scientific catalogue. 

The very bulk and unwieldiness of the 
card system is an objection, which may be 
partly appreciated if one can imagine the 
contents of the ten volumes of the Royal 
Society’s Catalogue transformed into card 
form and arranged in drawers.* 

In the volumes as they now stand, the 
eye can sweep rapidly over page after page 
in search of a given title, and thirty or 
forty impressions pass to the mind at a 
glance, instead of one, while the strain 
upon the attention caused by turning over 
the pages is much less than where each 
title card is scrutinized singly. 

For finding a book or reference when 
the name of the author or its title is 
known, the card system is without rival. 
It is less useful, however, when, as often 
happens, one is ‘looking up’ a subject in a 
general way. A card-catalogue, after it has 
attained to great bulk, requires much labor 

*Dr. Carrington Bolton prepared the copy for his 
‘Select Bibliography of Chemistry’ on slips of 
standard sizes, and it filled 7 standard trays or @ 
length of nearly 9 feet. The slips were on thin paper 
—if they had been of card the lengths would haye 
been nearly 20 feet. When printed the 12,000 titles 


were presented in alight convenient octavo volume 
of about 1,200 pages. 


APRIL 19, 1895.] 


in consultation and a vast amount of pains- 
taking care to insert new cards and keep it 
in order. Then, too, one of its features 
which makes it particularly advantageous 
in the hands of an individual scholar, is 
that the cards may be continually sorted 
and rearranged. This would be practically 
impossible with a great card index intended 
_ for the use of many in a public institution. 
Volumes like those of the Royal Society 
index may be carried to the desk of the 
student. <A card-catalogue he must consult 
in its place of deposit, probably in a crowd- 
ed and noisy library. Then, too, after a 
_ period of years the card index will represent 
the investment of hundreds and soon of 
thousands of dollars, on the part of each pos- 
sessor, and the tendency will be to place con- 
stantly narrowing restrictions upon its 
use. 

The needs of library workers might be 
met in part by printing a special edition of 
_ the catalogue on one side of the page, so that 
the titles might be cut and pasted upon 
_eards.* Indeed, if there were a sufficient 
demand, a special edition of the catalogue 
might be printed on cards. Whatever may 
be said of the advantages of the card sys- 
tem, it is certain that it would not be ac- 
cepted in Europe. 

Eyery one remembers the plan of Jewett, 
who, in the early days of the Smithsonian 
Institution, proposed a universal bibliog- 
raphy. His plan was to electrotype each 
itle upon a separate block, and to supply 
these blocks, either for printing cards, or to 
be made up into catalogues in any sys- 


*Tn order to facilitate this, the name of the author 
might well be printed in bold-faced type, and repeated 
the beginning of each title. This increases the 
st but little, and adds much to the usefulness of 
the bibliography, if it is to be cut up and rearranged, 


The width of the 
itle as printed should not exceed 44 inches, whether 
e publication is in octavo form or larger. It will 
then come within the limits of the standard cards. 


SCIENCE. 


435 


tem of arrangement desired. His project 
almost succeeded fifty years ago, when 
there was much less demand, much less 
money, and much more in the way of 
mechanical obstacles, than at present. 


_The modern type-setting machine, which 


casts each line of type in a single bar, 
would lend itself admirably to such co- 
operative work. ‘ 

5. A subject-index of the most exhaustive 
character should be issued in connection 
with each annual publication, but since this 
index cannot so conveniently be made until 
the catalogue itself has been set in type, it 
might be well not to delay the distribution 
of the catalogue itself until the index is 
ready, but cause the latter to follow as soon 
as practicable. 

6. The adoption of this index as a part 
of the plan would render it practicable to 
issue the entire record of the year’s work 
in one single alphabetical series, if this 
were deemed desirable. It might be, how- 
ever, that it would be more convenient, 
and less expensive to subscribers inter- 
ested in special branches of science, if 
the titles were arranged in more than one 
series. To divide it into two—one for 
the physical and one for the natural 
sciences—would be quite practicable; per- 
haps philology, history, economics and 
mechanical science might each have a vol- 
ume of its own. Whether further subdi- 
vision would answer, is a question for 
careful discussion. 

7. The catalogue should embrace within 
its determined scope all publications in the 
following categories : 

(a). Publications of scientific academies 
and societies. 

(b). Scientific publications of univer- 
sities, colleges, and technical schools. 

(ce). Publications of scientifie expedi- 
tions. 

(d). Scientific publications of national, 
municipal and other governments. 


436 


(e) Independently published scientific 
books of reputable character. 

(f) All articles in journals and maga- 
zines devoted exclusively to the sciences.* 

(g) Articles of scientific importance in 
the general periodical literature of the day, 
and in the cyclopdias and works of refer- 
ence, at the discretion of the editorial com- 
mittees. 

(h) All bibliographical publications, re- 
lating wholly or in part to scientific liter- 
ature, including important library cata- 
logues, ete. . 

(Gi) All authors-separates or offprints 
with independent titles and paging. (In- 
cluding even scientific addresses and spe- 
cial papers in ephemeral journals, when 
practicable. ) 

(k) Festschriften: Memorial works and 
others, codperative volumes, these to be 
analyzed and indexed as periodicals. 

(1) Scientific biography, the history of sci- 
ence and scientific institutions, ete. 

8. The catalogue should embrace the fol- 
lowing divisions : 

. General Science. 

. Mathematics. 

Astronomy. 

. Meteorology. 

. Physics (including Astrophysics). 
. Chemistry. 

. Mineralogy. 

. Geology and Physiography. 

I. Biology Gneluding Morphology, Phy- 
siology, Systematic Botany and Zoology, 


Hots vyowE 


* Book reviews and important book notices should 
probably be included, but whether they should be 
cited under the names of their authors, or paren- 
thetically under the titles of the publications to 
which they relate, is a question. The latter is prob- 
ably better, especially if cross references should be 
made under the name of the author of each review. 

TIt is suggested that even bibliographical appen- 
dices of importance, published in connection with 
books or articles, should be separately indexed, and 
that the annotations should indicate with precision 
their exact scope and character. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 16. 


Geographical Distribution of Life, Pathol- 
ogy, Psychophysics, ete. ). 

K. Anthropology (including Prehistoric 
Archeology, Ethnography, Comparative 
Technology, Folk-Lore, Culturgeschichte, ete. 

L. Economie Science and Statistics (un- 
der determined limitations). 

M. Mechanical Science and Engineering 
(under determined limitations). 

N. Philology. 

O. History, at least to the extent of in- 
cluding Archeology and the History of In- 
stitutions. 

P. Geography (including all serious 
works of travel and works of reference geo- 
graphically arranged). 

In connection with this annual biblio- 
graphy, an effort might be made to induce 
all persons and societies engaged in biblio- 
graphical work to adopt the same system, 
so that every title prepared and printed 
might be available for use in the universal 
catalogue of scientific literature, beginning 
with the birth of science, which, it is hoped, 
may intimebe printed. In this connection 
there might be committees to advise with 


~ 


bibliographical workers, and whose function — 


it would be in part to discourage duplica- 
tion of work. A central office or a bulletin 
might be established, in which should be 
recorded all manuscript and published 
bibliographies in existence, and means pro- 


vided by which persons proposing to do ~ 


bibliography-work may ascertain whether 
the field which they intend to work in has 
already been covered. 

No system for organizing this work has 
been suggested, but it is evident that if all 
the energy and all the money yearly ex- 
pended upon the printing of partial biblio- 
eraphies could be concentrated, there would 
be no lack of means for accomplishing very 
much more than has been here proposed. 
To secure such cooperation the proposed 
catalogue must meet, as fully as possible, 
the necessities of librarians, readers in libra- 


Aprit 19, 1895. ] 
_ ries, investigators and writers, booksellers 
~ and book buyers. 
It is evident, however, that existing 
agencies which are now engaged in biblio- 
graphical and index work should all be 
eonciliated and enlisted in the work. 

The Royal Society, the Smithsonian In- 
stitution, the special societies, such as the Zo- 
Ological Society of London, the American 

~ Chemical Society, all groups of bibliogra- 

phers engaged in the preparation of such 
works as the Zeitschrift fiir Orientalische Bib- 

j liographie, and the great individual biblio- 

_ graphers, like Professor Carus, should be 
brought in. 

The sale of the work would undoubtedly 

_ cover the expense of printing and publish- 
ing, and it is not impossible that a consider- 
able part of the expense of compiling might 
also thus be covered. 

Considerable money subsidies would how- 
ever be essential if the thing is to be done 
well. 

The editorial work should doubtless be 
done without regard to geographical con- 
‘siderations, under the direction of special- 
ized societies or institutions which should 
also be depositories of special informa- 
tion in regard to the bibliography to 
which they are devoted. It would be well, 
however, that in every country there 
should be a central office or depot where 
the publications of that country should 
e systematically gathered. 

Tt would seem also that some suitable plan 
should be devised for giving individual 
edit to the persons by whom the work is 
done, for there is an immense deal of self- 
Sacrificing and conscientious work put into 
bibliography, and the pride of the biblio- 
grapher in having produced a thorough and 


literary authorship. 
G. Brown Goope. 
U.S. NarionaL Museum. 


SCIENCE. 437 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

A Handbook of the Birds of Eastern North 
America. By Frank M,. Coapman. New 
York, D. Appleton & Co. 1895. 12°, 
pp. 420. Library edition, heavy paper, 
broad margins. Pocket edition, thin 
paper, no margins, $3.00. 

We live in a period of unusual produc- 
tiveness in ornithological literature. We 
have technical works of scientific merit, 
popular works of literary merit, and local 
lists almost without end. But ornitholo- 
gists anc amateurs alike have long felt the 
need of a compact handbook small enough 
to be carried in the pocket, and full enough 
to afford means of ready identification. 
Another desideratum was that it should be 
written in language not too technical for 
the beginner. The older ornithologists, 
while recognizing the demand for such a 
book, have been too busy with special stud- 
ies, and it has remained for one of the 
younger men to bring out. 

Mr. Frank M. Chapman, the author of 
the present Handbook, has sought to fill the 
gap. He has written a book so free from 
technicalities as to be intelligible to a four- 
teen-year old boy, and so convenient and 
full of original information as to be indis- 
pensable to the working ornithologist. His 
plan is unique; his descriptions are from 
actual specimens (not compiled); they are 
written in plain English, so that no glossary 
is necessary, and are accompanied by nu- 
merous figures of heads, feet and tails as aids 
to identification. The description of each 
species is followed by paragraphs giving the 
geographic range (and the breeding range 
is commonly discriminated from the migra- 
tory and winter ranges); the time of pres- 
ence at Washington, Long Id. [water birds], 
Sing Sing and Cambridge ;* descriptions of 
the nest and eggs, and a brief popular ac- 

*The data for these 4 stations are contributed re- 


spectively by Chas. W. Richmond, Wm. Dutcher, Dr. 
A. K. Fisher and William Brewster. 


438 


count of the habits. The latter is a special 
feature of the book. Many of the biog- 
raphies are contributed by well-known 
authors and were written expressly for this 
work—a novel departure. Among the 
names signed to these articles are those of 
Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, Miss Florence A. 
Merriam, William Brewster, Eugene P. 
Bicknell, Jonathan Dwight, Jr., Ernest E. 
Thompson and Bradford Torrey. But it 
would be unfair to imply that the contrib- 
uted biographies, excellent as they are, are 
better than those of the author. Mr. Chaip- 
man is not only a naturalist of wide field 
experience and a close observer; he is in 
addition a true lover of birds, and his short 
sketches of the different species contain the 
essence of their life histories. 

Another feature of the book is the keys 
to species. These keys have been prepared 
with great care, and, while not always di- 
chotomous, are so complete as to enable the 
student to identify the females and young 
as well as the adult birds—a rare merit. A 
chromolithograph chart comprising 30 colors 
serves as a key to the terms used in describ- 
ing plumages—an advantage not possessed 
by any other American Ornithology. The 
illustrations also are helpful. The text 
figures, more than 150 in number, will prove 
of great assistance. The frontispiece is a 
colored plate of the Bob-white or Quail in a 
bramble thicket, by Ernest H. Thompson. 
The other full-page plates are engraved 
half-tone reproductions of photographs. One 
shows the heads of 15 kinds of ducks and 
will be most useful. The remaining 16 are 
photographs of mounted birds in natural 
surroundings and serve to embellish the 
book. One of the best and most artistic 
shows a rail on his marsh (from a group in 
the American Museum). 

Fifteen profusely illustrated pages are 
filled by the keys to the larger groups, and 
the figures alone should suffice to enable be- 
ginners to refer any bird to its proper family. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Voz. I. No. 16. 


The systematic part of the book is pre- 
faced by 40 pages of introduction, in which 
an effort is made to place the study of birds 
on a higher plane than that of the mere 
collector and student of technicalities. Mr. 
Chapman well says: “‘ Birds, because of their 
beauty, the charm of their songs, and the 
ease with which they may be observed, are 
usually the forms of animal life which first 
attract the young naturalist’s attention. . . 
. . The uninstructed beginner usually ex- 
pends his energies in making a collection, 
for he knows no better way of pursuing his 
study of birds than to kill and stuff them ! 
Collecting specimens is a step in the scien- 
tific study of birds, but ornithology would 
have small claim to our consideration if its 
possibilities ended here.” 

The scope of the introduction may be 
seen from the chapter headings: The study 
of ornithology; The study of birds out of 
doors (including bird calendars for the 
vicinity of New York ); Collecting birds, 
their nests and eggs; Plan of the work ( in- 
cluding a bird diagram, feather patterns, 
and so on). 

It is hard to find anything worthy of se- 
rious criticism in this excellent and timely 
book. The use of English inches instead 
of millimeters is a blemish in a work of 
scientific value, and is less excusable since 
the persons who use it will be students and 
graduates of our schools, who are familiar 
with the system. We trust that in the next 
edition the author will not only substitute 
millimeters for inches and fractions, and 
make all the keys dichotomous, but that he 
will enlarge the scope of the work so as to 
take in the great West as well as the Hast— 
giving us a ‘Handbook of the birds of 
America north of Mexico.’ 

The plan and originality of Chapman’s 
Handbook, its copious illustrations, bounti- 
ful keys, succinct accounts of habits, con- 
venient size and low price insure it wide 
popularity ; while as a handbook of the 


| 


birds of eastern America it is bound to 

supersede all other works. It is a boon to 

the amateur, a convenience to the profes- 

sional, and will prove a help and incentive 

to the study of birds. Such books are now 

among the greatest needs in all departments 
of natural history. 


APRIL 19, 1895. ] 


C. Harr MERRIAM. 


National Geographic Monographs, prepared 
under the auspices of the National Geographic 
} Society. No. 1, Physiographic Processes ; No. 
2, Physiographic Features. By J. W. Pow- 
ELL, late director of the United States 
Geological Survey. New York, Amer- 
ican Book Company, 1895. Twenty cents 
anumber. $1.50 a year (ten numbers). 
The first two numbers of the geographic 
monographs, announced in Scrence No. 10, 
have lately been issued under the above 
titles. The series is to appear monthly dur- 
7 ing the school year, the special object of the 


publication being ‘‘to supply to teachers - 


and students of geography fresh and inter- 
esting material with which to supplement 
_ the regular text-book.”’ 

A series of essays like this deserves a 
warm welcome from those who are inter- 
_ ested in raising the standard of geographical 
teaching, and the two numbers now issued 

are of particular importance in several ways. 

; They affirm, with an emphasis not hitherto 
given in this country, that the proper foun- 

5 dation of geographical study is an under- 
standing of physiographical processes ; they 
mark the entrance of various members of 
_ our National scientific bureaus into the work 
of publishing the best selections from their 

knowledge in essentially elementary form, 
with the intention of aiding teachers and 
scholars in our schools; they represent not 
simply the temporary effort of an individual, 
but the continued efforts of a body of ex- 
perts to introduce subjects of better quality 
and treatment into ordinary geographical 
study. Such an undertaking, if success- 


SCIENCE. 


439 


fully maintained, cannot fail to impress it- 
self strongly all through our educational 
system, for, instead of appalling the reader 
at the outset with a large treatise of heavy 
cost, it continually tempts him to go further 
and further by the successive appearance 
of attractive and interesting but inexpen- 
sive pamphlets, month after month and 
year after year. 

The publishers present the monographs 
in good form, well illustrated, and certainly 
at a very moderate price. 

It is particularly interesting to receive in 
these two numbers the results of Major 
Powell’s long consideration of physiographic 
questions. For some years his attention 
has been so largely given to administrative 
work in connection with the National Geol- 
ogical Survey that we have had compara- 
tively little from his pen; but now we learn 
the general views that have been gradually 
forming during his long experience of the 
many aspects of geography and geology ; 
here we find tersely presented his matured 
opinions on the essential elementary concep- 
tions concerning deformation and denuda- 
tion, about which our teachers are as a 
body so indifferent, so skeptical or so timid. 
Mountains are not described as the result 
of chaotic uplifts, but as the unconsumed 
remnants of broadly uplifted and deeply 
eroded masses. The product of long-con- 
tinued denudation is not illustrated by a 
canyon or a valley, as so many of the text- 
books in current use imply, but by a broad 
surface of faint relief, close to baselevel. 
The lesson of our West that volcanic action 
is not so dependent on neighborhood to the 
sea as has been generally supposed is given 
perhaps too much importance ; for no as- 
sociation of vulcanism with the ocean is 
mentioned. Among geologists, these an- 
nouncements may not be regarded as novel, 
nor are they so presented ; but it is certainly 
novel to have them addressed to teachers 
of geography, and to have them emphasized 


440 


as of fundamental importance to such teach- 
ers by placing them in the first two num- 
bers of a series of geographical monographs. 
Much good must result from this earnest 
inculeation of modern physiographical 
principles. 

The character of the two monographs may 
be inferred from the following outlines : 
The ‘ processes’ open with an account of the 
three moving envelopes of the earth—air, 
water and rock. Their mutual interpene- 
tration and characteristic movements are de- 
scribed ; the more important headings being 
rainfall, run-off, floods ; kinds of rock, struc- 
ture of the rock envelope, age of rocks, in- 
terchange of land and sea; vulcanism, dias- 
trophism and gradation. The ‘features’ 
are classified as plains and plateaus of 
various kinds, mountains, valleys, hills, 
cliffs, special forms, stream channels and 

‘cataracts, fountains, caverns, lakes, marshes, 
coast forms, islands. The intelligent teacher 
cannot fail to be interested and broadened 
by a careful study of these suggestive pages. 

There are, however, a number of consider- 
ations which cast a shade of doubt on the 
plan of beginning this series of monographs 
with two general essays of comparatively 
abstract treatment. From the very nature 
of the case, when so small a space as thirty 
pages is allowed for subjects so large as ‘phys- 
lographic processes’ and ‘physiographic 
features,’ there can be little room saved 
for the introduction of concrete illustrations. 
Consequently, instead of inculeating physio- 
graphic process by example, it is here in- 
culcated almost entirely by abstract gen- 
eralities. Our teachers are already educated 
rather too much in this way; they have 
not enough knowledge of fact to take the 
best advantage of so rich a feast of generali- 
zation as is here presented. The same com- 
ment may be made on the classification of 
features ; the broad scheme of classification 
here announced is of much value to the ex- 
pert, who has already in mind a multitude 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 16. 


of examples with which to fill each pigeon- 
hole in the scheme ; but it is of much less 
value to the school teacher, whose knowl- 
edge of geographical facts is generally very 
narrow, except in so far as they are con- 
cerned with empirical data, such as the posi- 
tion of cities, the length of rivers or the 
height of mountams. With features as the 
result of processes, teachers have heretofore 
had very little to do ; and they can hardly 
now be ready to use an extended classifica- 
tion of land forms, few of which are made 
real by illustration or example. It may be 
doubted whether these general monographs 
would not have met a better appreciation 
two or three years hence, after other mono- 
graphs had presented in detail a good num- 
ber of individual features as the result of 
particular processes. 

There is another way in which the dis- 
cussion of processess and the classification 
of features as here given may embarrass the 


. teacher. He may naturally expect, from the 


leading place of these monographs, that they 
are authoritative as to plan and terms, and 
that the latter monographs will follow the 
beginning thus made. But, as a matter of 
fact, it is at present too early in the deyelop- 
ment of the new subject of physiography to 
expect any one plan of description or any 
one scheme of terminology to gain general 
adoption; particularly a plan or scheme not 
hitherto published, not modified by expert 
criticism, and not generally assented to by 
various investigators. As a suggestion t0 
his fellow experts, these plans of treatment 
from one of so wide a knowledge as Major 
Powell are of high value; but as formula- 
tions of method, according to which later 
writers of monographs should arrange their 
own studies, they are of unknown yalue, 
because as yet untested by repeated use and 
public criticism. It is highly probable that 
each of the later writers of the monographs 
will depart from the plan here presented 
and introduce methods and terms of his 


APRIL 19, 1895. ] 


towards a general concensus of opinion in 
this new subject, the rational study of the 
forms of the land. 

In its fundamental principles the classi- 
fication of features proposed by Major 
Powell will endure, for it is based on struc- 
ture and process, not on external form 
alone. In some other respects it does not 
seem acceptable, for there is a certain in- 
consistency and incompleteness in its ter- 
_ minology that is disturbing. For example, 
F diastrophism having been defined in the 

first monograph as meaning upheaval or 
subsidence, with or without faulting or 
/ flexure, and gradation having been defined 
as including all processes of disintegration, 
: transportation and deposition, we read in 
‘ the second monograph that diastrophic 
mountains and diastrophic hills result es- 
sentially from the action of gradational pro- 
cesses on uplifted masses; but that dias- 
| trophic valleys, diastrophie cliffs, diastrophic 
§ 


‘ 
| own; so little advance has yet been made 
4 


cataracts and diastrophic islands result 
from movement alone without degradation; 
and no place is given to mountains of es- 
sentially constructional form, corresponding 
in origin to the diastrophic valleys and cliffs. 
Valleys of gradation, cliffs of gradation 
and gradational cataracts result from pro- 
cesses of degradation ; yet it must of course 
be understood that the land masses acted 
on by gradational processes had in these 
eases, as well as in the case of diastrophic 
mountains or hills, in some way gained an 
effective height above baselevel; hence it 
- would be more consistent to call most 
mountains and hills ‘ gradational;’ and thus 
reserve the adjective ‘diastrophic’ for 
mountains and hills made by diastrophism, 
like diastrophic valleys and diastrophic cliffs. 
Gradational islands are deposits of land 
waste near shore, and gradational hills are 
_heaps of debris left directly or indirectly by 
glaciers; while sand dunes are given an 
equivalent value with gradational hills, in- 


SCIENCE. 


441 


stead of being placed with glacial hills 
under a general gradational heading. 

Sea plains are plains of ultimate denuda- 
tion with reference to the sea as the con- 
trolling baselevel; the sea plain may be 
enlarged by sedimentation along its margin, 
but no mention is made of the numerous 
plains resulting from the uplift of smooth 
sea-bottoms. Lake plains are formed with 
their baselevel depending on the level of 
lakes; lake-bottom plains, revealed by the 
deepening of the lake outlet (“the waters 
of the lake rush through the newly opened 
channel, and the lake is drained in whole 
or in part,” is an unfortunate suggestion of 
a sudden change that must be very rare in 
nature), are included, but without special 
name, under the same heading with plains 
produced by denudation of the surrounding 
land down to lake level; and without any 
indication that the latter are rare and the 
former common. 

The gradual change of opinion regarding 
the comparative efficacy of marine and 
suberial erosion gives some justification of 
the small share of space devoted to the pro- 
cesses of the seashore; but it is to be re- 
gretted that they are so disproportionately 
condensed. After nearly two pages about 
inland cliffs of gradation, sea cliffs are dis- 
missed with less than two lines of text: 
“On sea coasts and lake shores, sapping is 
carried on by the waves, and cliffs are often 
produced.’”’ Floods are rather fully treated 
and flood plains are given about two pages, 
but deltas are dismissed with the briefest 
mention. Coast-forms in the second essay 
have less than two pages of the total thirty. 
The explicit omission of seashore features, 
or their postponement toa later monograph, 
would have been preferable to so brief a 
treatment. 

Those who have enjoyed Major Powell’s 
eloquent accounts of his western explora- 
tions will be glad to see again here some- 
thing of the fervor of his style; but in a 


442 


few cases it has led him too far for the crea- 
tion of the best impression on readers so 
literal-minded and so ready to accept and 
quote authority as teachers are. It is over- 
eloquent to say: ‘‘ The tides sweep back and 
forth across the surface of the sea, and 
alternately lash the shores with their crested 
waves,” or ‘The purple cloud is painted 
with dust, and the sapphire sky is adamant 
on wings.’’? After all the efforts to drive 
‘burning mountains’ out of school geogra- 
phies, it is disconcerting to read here about 
‘floods of fire’ from volcanoes. In view 
of the importance of the gentler processes 
of nature, it is unfortunate to find in the 
closing summary of the second essay a very 
figurative expression regarding the three 
great physiographic processes: ‘‘ How fire, 
earthquake and flood have been involved 
in fashioning the landandsea.”’ The plain- 
spoken teacher will have difficulty here in 
distinguishing between poetry and prose. 

There are occasional brief or over-general- 
ized statements that must raise unnecessary 
questions in the teacher’s mind. In men- 
tioning the tides, the apparent diurnal rota- 
tion of the moon around the earth is worded: 
‘As the moon revolves about the earth 
from east to west.’ A little later, it is 
said: ‘“‘The seas are heated under the 
tropics ;”’ but schoolmasters are the very 
persons who know that the tropics and the 
torrid zone are not one and the same. The 
surface currents of the ocean are referred 
entirely to convectional movement in the 
ocean itself; no surface currents being as- 
cribed to the winds; and it is said that 
‘all surface currents drift eastward in going 
towards the poles;” although this is wide 
open to qualification. It is inconsistent 
with the teachings of modern physics to 
speak of the ‘flow of... heat from the 
fiery globes of space.’ 

The corrections of small things is a vexa- 
tious matter. It is little less than a nui- 
sance to the author to have to stop for so 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 16. 


small a trifle as the choice between ‘ under 
the tropics’ and ‘ within the tropics.’ This 
distracts him from the main line of thought 
along which he is constructing his essay. — 
Minute corrections call for mental charac- 
teristics that are petty in comparison with 
the creative ability that produces the essay 
itself; and from an author as independent 
and original as Major Powell self-correction 
of these relatively trifling verbal matters is 
hardly to be expected. Yet it will be un- 
fortunate if the editing of the future mono- 
graphs does not involve such revisions as 
will reduce their inconsistencies to a mini- 
mum; for when teachers discover that they 
can take exception to certain parts of their 
text, their confidence in the rest of it is 
weakened. They have not as a rule much 
sense of perspective in these matters ; and, 
as with book-keepers, a little error is in 
their opinion about as dangerous as a great 
one. They are confirmed in this habit of 
thought by the character of the contests, 
of which they are frequent witnesses, that 
grow out of the rivalry of publishers and 
the strife of book agents. Knowing this, 
the best way to prevent the confirmation of 
the habit is to give it no opportunity for 
practice. Even though the personality of 
the author be in a measure lost, it is best to 
scrutinize very carefully all books intended 
for school teachers, ‘and exclude from them 
every statement and phrase that will dis- 
tract the reader from the essential line of 
thought and set him to differing from the 
author on matters of subordinate value. 
For this purpose an experienced book agent 
makes a most useful proof-reader; and his 
services should be secured, if possible, by 
those who are acting for the National 
Geographic Society in the superyision of 
these monographs. His advice will be found 
very serviceable to authors whose previous 
practice in writing has been on essays for 
scientific journals and governmental reports. 
W. M. Davis. 


HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


APRIL 19, 1895. ] 


Butterflies and Moths (British). By W. Fur- 
NEAUX. London, Longmans. 1894. 12°. 
This is by no means a complete treatise 

on these insects, which would be quite im- 

possible in the 350 pages to which it is lim- 

ited; but rather a selection has been made 

of such as the author thinks would prove 
most desirable. The number of British 
butterflies, however, is so limited (66 spe- 

_ cies) that place is found for all of them. 

A brief description and general acconnt is 

given of each species mentioned, together 

with a figure of most of them; a certain 

- amount of attention is paid to the early 

_ stages and especially to the caterpillar; but 

the book is very weak indeed on all points 
as to classification, the common characters 
_ of groups being hardly hinted at; it is there- 
fore intended almost exclusively for the 
amateur, and not for the serious student. 
The introduction, which oceupies about a 
third of the book, and is of as much inter- 
est to an outsider as to a Briton, is excep- 
tionally good for a work of this class, though 
here again it is lean as regards all matters 
of structure or classification. The illustra- 
tions in the text, and they are numerous, 
are with few exceptions unusually good ; 
those on the twelve colored plates not so 
good. The figure of the egg of Pieris bras- 
sice, on p. 14, is upside down. 

Saeki. 8. 


The Pygmies. By A. DE QUARTREFAGES. 
Translated by FREDERICK Starr. Illus- 
trated. Pp. 255. D. Appleton & Co. 

1895. 

This volume forms number 2 of the 
Anthropological Series, edited by Professor 
, of the University of Chicago. The 
al appeared in Paris about eight years 
ago, and the name of the distinguished 
author, as well as the interest of the sub- 
ject, insured it considerable attention. 

_ He approaches the topic historically with 

a chapter on the accounts of the pygmies 


SCIENCE. 


443 


which are found in classical writings, and 
an attempt to analyze them in the light of 
modern research. Turning to later sources, 
a full history is supplied of what was 
known ten years ago of the dwarf tribes of 
Melanesia, of the Mincopies of the Anda- 
man islands, of the Negritos of Indonesia, 
of the Negrillos of Central Africa, and of 
the Hottentots and Bushmen of the southern 
portions of that continent. Special atten- 
tion is given to the physical peculiarities of 
the tribes mentioned and to their sociologie 
condition. A chapter of some length is 
devoted to the religious beliefs of the Bush- 
men and Hottentots, successfully contro- 
verting the statement often advanced that 
these humble peoples had no religion 
at all. The illustrations, thirty-one in 
number, are fairly well done, though printed 
rather carelessly.. The translator has ac- 
complished his task well, and the text reads 
pleasantly. 

Itis to be regretted that the large ma- 
terial accumulated in the last ten years on 
this subject was not more freely called up- 
on. Mr. Haliburton, Professor Kollman 
and Dr. Virchow have contributed mono- 
graphs which should not be overlooked. 
Emin Bey’s anthropometric reports on the 
Negrillos are the best we have; but these 
names are not referred to. We should 
have liked, also, a chapter on the causes 
which bring about decrease in stature, a 
physiological study of its etiology. Prob- 
ably any people would become dwarfs un- 
der given conditions, and the trait is there- 
fore not a racial one. D. G. Bruton. 


An Introduction to Structural Botany (Flower- 


ing Plants). By D. H. Scorr. London 
and New York, Macmillan & Co. 288 pp. 


118 figs. $1.00. 

The author intends that this shall be a 
book for beginners. Three types are chosen 
to illustrate the structure of the flowering 
plants, the wall flower ( Cheiranthus Cheirt 


444 


L.); the white lily (Lilium candidum L.) ; 
and the Spruce fir (Picea eacelsa Link). He 
has also introduced a chapter of 32 pages on 
the ‘physiology of nutrition.’ The lan- 
guage of the book is exceedingly simple. 
Some of the original figures are very good. 
In general it may be stated that the subject- 
matter is well treated. The author intends 
at some future time to present in a similar 
way the cryptogamic types. 

The fact that the author begins the study 
of structural botany with the highest types 
will be objected to by most modern botan- 
ists. Many will also question the advisa- 
bility of attempting to present structural 
botany in an elementary way. 

ALBERT SCHNEIDER. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
ARGON. 


M. BrertHELor has communicated to the 
Academy of Sciences the fuller details 
which he promised concerniug his experi- 
ments upon argon. Towards the end of 
February he received from Professor Ram- 
say 37 cubic centimétres of the gas, with 
which small quantity he has obtained posi- 
tive results of the greatest interest. Fol- 
lowing the process by which he formerly 
effected the direct combination of nitrogen 
with various organic compounds, he finds 
that argon is equally absorbed by these 
bodies, though apparently with somewhat 
less facility. The action of the silent dis- 
charge upon a mixture of argon and ben- 
zene vapor is accompanied by a feeble vio- 
let luminosity visible in the dark. In one 
of five experiments he found that a fluor- 
escent substance was produced, which de- 
veloped a magnificent greenish light and a 
peculiar spectrum. M. Berthelot took 100 
volumes of Professor Ramsay’s gas, added a 
drop or two of the hydrocarbon, and exposed 
the mixture to the silent discharge at mod- 
erate tension for about ten hours. The ex- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 16. 


cess of benzene vapor being removed in the 
usual way, the mixture was found to haye 
been reduced to 89 volumes. More benzene 
was then added, and the experiment was 
repeated with higher tension, which in 
three hours produced a reduction of yol- 
ume equal to 25 per cent. On again sub- 
mitting the gaseous residue with benzene to 
very high tension discharge he found the 
final result to be 32 volumes. Analysis 
showed this residue to contain only 17 yol- 
umes of argon, the other 15 volumes being 
hydrogen, free or combined, and benzene 
vapor. In other words, M. Berthelot has — 
effected the combination of 83 per cent. of 
the argon under experiment, and was pre- 
vented only by the dimensions of his appa- 
ratus from carrying the condensation yet 
further. 

The quantity at his disposal was too 
small to permit of complete examination of 
its products, but he is able to say that they 
resemble those produced when nitrogen 
mixed with benzene is submitted to the si- 
lent discharge. That is to say, they consist 
of a yellow resinous matter condensed on 
the surface of the glass tubes employed. 
This matter on being heated decomposes, 
forming volatile products and a carbona- 
ceous residue. The volatile products restore 
the color of reddened litmus paper, proving 
the production of alkali by the decomposi- 
tion, though the quantity of matter at com- 
mand was too small to allow of its nature 
being demonstrated. In any case, M. Ber- 
thelot concludes, the conditions in which 
argon is condensed by hydrocarbons tend 
to assimilate it yet more closely with nitro- 
gen. 

He adds that ifit were permitted to as- 
sume 42 instead of 40 as the molecular 
weight of argon—an assumption which the ~ 
limits of error in the experiments hitherto 
made do not, in his opinion, exclude—this 
weight would represent one and a half times 


‘that of nitrogen; in other words, argon 


PRIL 19, 1895.] 


would stand to nitrogen in the same relation 
as ozone tooxygen. There is, however, the 
fundamental difference that argon and ni- 
trogen are not transformable into one an- 
other, any more than the isomeric or poly- 
meric metals. Without insisting upon 
points which are still conjectural, M. Ber- 
thelot observes that in any case he has de- 
-monstrated that the inactivity of argon dis- 
“appears in the conditions he describes. 
When the gas can be obtained in consider- 
able quantities, he says it will be easy by 
ordinary chemical methods to take these 


Ar the anniversary meeting of the Chem- 
al Society, Professor Ramsay stated that 
he had examined the gas (which according 
to an observation of Hillebrand’s was nitro- 
nm) given off by the mineral clevite when 
ted with sulphuric acid, and discovered 
that it contained argon. Spectroscopic ex- 
amination showed a very bright yellow line 
nearly coincident with the yellow sodium 
This line was found to be identical in 
tion with the yellow line observed in 
he spectrum of the sun’s chromosphere, 
and attributed to the hypothetical element 
elium. Whether helium could be sepa- 
ated from argon remained to be seen. Mr. 
Crookes gave some additional particulars of 
the . spectrum of the gas from clevite. He 
found certain coincidences with the band 
ectrum of nitrogen, particularly in the 

a violet region, but some lines were 
ent which were not found in the nitro- 

spectrum, and vice versa. 
‘Dr. B. Brauner, Professor of Chemistry 
n the Bohemian University, Prague, has 
ritten to Nature, suggesting that argon 
ssibly exists in nebule. He points out 
hat a strong argon line, measured by Mr. 
Tookes, has practically the same wave- 


SCIENCE. 


445 


length as the chief nebula line, and thinks 
that the line at 4 3729.8 in the ‘ blue’ spec- 
trum.of the new substance represents the 
line at 2 3730, found in the spectra of nebulze 
and white stars. 


PALEONTOLOGY. 


Proressor H. J. Seetey has recently 
published a paper in the Philosophical Trans- 
actions upon The Reputed Mammals from the 
Karroo Formation of Cape Colony, in which 
he reconsiders the evidence as to the mam- 
malian nature of Theriodesmus and of 
Tritylodon. He established the former 
genus some years ago upon a fore-arm ; the 
latter was established by Richard Owen in 
1884, upon a skull. In his previous papers 
the author has described both of these types 
as mammalian, and the skull has invariably 
been placed with the mesozoic Monotremes, 
owing to the resemblances which its teeth 
present, both in the crown and in the multi- 
ple fangs, to other mammals of this very an- 
cient and widespread group of multituber- 
culates. Professor Seeley, in his renewed 
examination of the skull of Tritylodon, be- 
lieves that he finds evidences of ‘ post- 
frontal’ and ‘ pre-frontal,’ and possibly of a 
‘transverse’ bone, as in the Theriodont 
reptiles. This evidence he considers over- 
weighs the distinctively mammalian char- 
acters of the teeth. If it is subsequently 
confirmed by more satisfactory material 
this will be another example of the inde- 
pendent development of what we have al- 
ways considered distinctively mammalian 
characters within the reptilian class. An- 
other remarkable species of an undoubted 
reptile is the Diademodon tetragonus, in 
which the single-fanged or reptilian molar 
teeth are capped with crowns which bear a 
most striking resemblance to a low-crowned 
quadritubercular mammalian molar. These 
discoveries in the Karroo Formation prom- 
ise to yield most interesting and surprising 
results, although if the position here taken 


446 


is correct, it is somewhat disappointing to 
have such a type as Tritylodon taken from 
the class mammalia. The evidence. does 
not seem to be conclusive. 


SIR WILLIAM DAWSON. 

Avr the last regular monthly meeting of 
the Montreal Natural History Society (26th 
ult.), Sir J. William Dawson read a paper 
on the skeleton of a ‘ white whale’ (Beluga), 
recently found in a brickyard off the Papi- 
neau Road, Montreal. The specimen, which 
was imbedded in the Leda clay, belongs to 
@ species once abundant, and still not at all 
uncommon, in the lower St. Lawrence. 
Though it is now rarely known to ascend 
the river to fresh water, a stuffed specimen 
in the museum of the N. H. Society is said 
to have been caught near Montreal. The 
fossil was below the normal length, being 
about 12 feet. 

Since his retirement from the principal- 
ship of McGill University, Sir William 
Dawson has turned his larger leisure to 
good account. Besides three important 
works issued from the press during the last 
two years, he has found time for special 
courses of lectures and an unfailing succes- 
sion of papers on a wide range of subjects. 
Just forty years ago he entered on his task 
of building up McGill College. The status 
of the university when his supervision 
ceased, in 1893, is one of the things on which 
Canadian science may well congratulate it- 
self. ds Ah Oh 


GENERAL. 

Tuer Niles bill incorporating the New 
York Zodlogical Society, and providing for 
the establishment of a zoological garden, has 
been passed by the Senate at Albany. 

D. Aprpieton & Co. announce a Crimi- 
nology Series edited by Mr. Douglas Morrison, 
the first volume of which, The Female Of- 
fender, by Professor C. Lombroso, will be 
issued this month. 

THE Academische Revue is a new journal 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. I. No. 16. 


edited by Dr. Paul Von Salvisberg and pub- 
lished by the International Hochschulwesen _ 
in Munich. In addition to original articles 
on educational interests it proposes to pub= 
lish academic news, and the editor will be 
glad to have items of news sent to him. 

Tue building used as a school of manual 
training by the New York Institution for 
the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, at 
One Hundred and Sixty-fifth Street and 
Fort Washington Avenue, was burned on 
April 8th, causing a loss of $40,000. The 
building stood about 400 feet from the main 
buildings of the institution. 

Ata meeting on March 28th, the Court 
of St. Andrew’s University decided to found 
two medical chairs, the one of materia med- 
ica and the other of anatomy. 

Macmittan & Co. have in press a trans- 
lation, by Dr Charles R. Eastman, of Prof. 
Karl von Zittel’s ‘Elements of Paleon- 
tology.’ 

Dr. TaHomas M. Drown, now Professor of 
Chemistry in the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, has been elected President of 
Lehigh University. 

Luier Ferri, Professor of Philosophy in 
the University of Rome, died recently at 
the age of 68. 

Dr. G. Guocav, Professor of Philosophy 
in the University of Kiel, died recently in 
Greece at the age of 50. 

Proressors Erman, E. Schmidt and 
Stumpf, of the University of Berlin, have 
been elected members of the Prussian Acad- 
emy of Sciences. 

Tue British Government spent in 1894 
£4,802 on the destruction of locusts in Cy- 
prus. The methods used were the collec- 
tion of eggs during the summer and winter 
and the purchase of live locusts by weight 
in spring. 

Tue following lectures will be given be- 
fore the Royal Institution, of London, after 
Easter: Professor George Forbes, three 
lectures on ‘Alternating and Interrupted 


, 


_ APRIL 19, 1895. ] 


Electric Currents’; Professor E. Ray Lan- 
kester, four lectures on ‘ Thirty Years’ Pro- 
gress in Biological Science’; Professor De- 

war, four lectures on ‘The Liquefaction of 
Gases’; Dr. William Huggins, three lec- 
tures on ‘ The Instruments and Methods of 
Spectroscopic Astronomy.’ 

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILA- 
DELPHIA,. 

: Ar the meeting on March 26th Dr. 
| Y. Ball called attention to the ae 
‘preparation of the germ characteristic of 
erysipelas, the botanical name of which is 
Streptococcus pyogenes. The culture of the 
organism had been used with most gratify- 
ing success in the treatment of cancer, the 
eure of some cases having been reported, 
while others had been manifestly benefited. 
A subcutaneous injection of the culture 
raises the temperature to 104° in 20 min- 
utes. This palliative effect of the poison 
of erysipelas had long been known, the im- 
provement of cancer cases accidentally 
affected having been noticed years ago in 
hospitals. 
_ Dr. 8. G. Dixon spoke of the morpho- 
logical resemblance between Actinomyces, or 
the ray fungus, and yerita candida, a white 
“fungus, found growing on damp decaying 
“wood. The former is believed to produce 
n cattle and man the disease known as 
lump jaw, or Actinomyces. Should the two 
fungi prove to be identical, the hitherto un- 
known cause of lump jaw in cattle would 
not only be explained, but cattle breeders 
would be enabled to prevent, to a great ex- 
ent, the much: dreaded disease. 


SCIENCE. 


447 


the same. He believed the use of these 
folds was to enable the mollusk to keep a 
more firm grasp of the shell, and thus move 
it about more freely, as it hangs from twigs 
and leaves. 

The geographical distribution of the spe- 
cies is peculiar. They inhabit Cuba, Hayti, 
the Bahamas and Florida Keys and reap- 
pear in Curacoa, off the northern coast of 
South America, but are completely absent 
from Jamaica and the Caribbean chain. 
There is, therefore, a wide gap between the 
northern and southern areas inhabited by 
the genus Cerion, although the islands in 
this space are apparently favorable to the 
existence of snails. A suite of specimens 
illustrating species of Cerion was exhibited. 

Epw. J. Nouan, Recording Secretary. 


NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 

Ar the meeting of the Section of Astron- 
omy and Physics of the New York Academy 
of Sciences on April Ist Professor R. S. 
Woodward was elected chairman and 
William Hallock secretary for the following 
year. 

President Rees gave a very interesting 
resumé of the work done in astronomy 
during 1894. This paper may appear in 
Scrence a little later. 

President Rees then showed some of Pro- 
fessor Barnard’s wonderful photographs of 
the Milky-Way, pointing out the evidences 
of the peculiar geometrical clustering of the 
stars in certain parts, as well as the ‘ dark 
lanes’ and ‘star streams’ discovered by 
Barnard. He also showed photographs of 
several comets, especially Brooks’, which 
went through such interesting changes. 
The photographs brought out most beauti- 
fully the unusual structure of the tail, and 
the sudden changes in shape, especially 
when it seemed to have encountered a 
resisting medium and apparently broke 
the tail near its middle. 

The pictures were discussed and admired 


448 


by the members. Mr. C. A. Post admitted 

that his. skepticism as to ‘star streams’ had 

been conquered, and argued that from the 

photograph it seemed more probable that 

Brooks’ comet had run its head against the 

obstacle rather than its tail, as maintained 

by Professor Barnard. 

Wm. Hattocx, Sec’y of Section. 

THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, APRIL 5. 

Brief announcement of my recent discoveries in 
the mathematics of engineering: Dr. G. B. 
HALSTED. 

The storm-water storage system of irrigation: 
Roserr A. THompson. 

Oometary Orbits as related to the solar system : 
CHarLes K. McDonap. 

Microscopic exhibition of slides sent by Dr. A. 
J. Smith on the organism which causes ma- 
larial fever: W. W. Norman. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICS, APRIL. 


A Method jor Calculating Simultaneously all the 
Roots of an Equation: Emory McCuintocx. 

Sur le logarithme de la fonction gamma: Cu. 
HERMITE. 

Sur la pression dans les mileux diélectriques ow 
magnétiques: P. DUHEM. 

On Ternary Substitution- Groups of Finite Order 
which leave a Triangular unchanged: H. 
MASCHKE. 

PSYCHE, APRIL. 

A Comparison of Colias hecla with Colias 
meadii and Colias elis: Tuomas E. Bran. 

Western Pedicie, Bittacomorphe and Tricho- 
cere: C. R. OstEn SACKEN. 

Failure to emerge of Actias luna: 
G. Sous. 

Entomological Notes. 


CAROLINE 


JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY, FEB.—MARCH. 
Sedimentary Measurement of Cretaceous Time : 
G. K. GILBERT. 
Use of the Aneroid Barometer in Geological 
Surveying: C. W. RoLre. 
A Petrographical Sketch of Asgina and Methana : 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 16. 


Part III. Henry S. WAsHINGTON. 

On Clinton Conglomerates and Wave Marks in 
Ohio and Kentucky (Concluded): Aue. F. 
FOERSTE. 

Glacial Studies in Greenland: T. C. CHAm- 
BERLIN. 

Editorials ; Publications. 


BULLETIN OF THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 
APRIL. 

Biographical Sketch of Dr. J. Bernard Brinton 
(with portrait): By a Committee of the 
Philadelphia Botanical Club. 

Food Plants of the North American Indians: 
V. HARVARD. 

The Classification of the Archegoniates : 
creN M. UNDERWOOD. 

Rules for Citation adopted by the Madison Bo- 
tanical Congress and Section G., A. A. A.S. 

Proceedings of the Club. 

Index to Recent Literature Relating to Ameri- 
can Botany 


Lu- 


NEW BOOKS. 
The Story of the Stars. G. F. CHAMBERS. 


New York, D. Appleton. 1895. Pp. 
160. 

Evolution and Effort. Edmond Kelly. New 
York, D. Appleton, & Co. 1885. Pp. 
vii+297. $1.25. 


A Primer of Evolution. Edward Clodd. 
New York and London, Longmans, Green 
& Co. 1895. Pp. 186. 

Repetitorum der Chemie. Cart ARNOLD. 6th 


Ed. Hamburg und Leipzig, Leopold 
Voss. 1894. Pp.x+ 613. M. 6. 


Anleitung zur Mikrochemischen Analyse. H. 
BeHRENS. Hamburg und Leipzig, Leo- 
pold Voss. 1895. Pp. xi+ 224. M.6. 

Bildungselemente wnd Erziehlicher Wert des 
Unterrichts in der Chemie. RupoLpa 
Argenpo. Hamburg und Leipzig, Leo- 


pold-Voss. 1895. Pp. 103. M. 2. 
Le Petrole. A. Jaccarp. Paris, Felix Al 
can. 1895. Pp. xii + 292. 


| Pet. in 8°. 


“motorischen Gebiete der Hirn- und Riickenmarks- 


Car 


‘NEw SERIES. 
Vou.I. No. 17. 


Fripay, Aprit 26, 1895. 


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BETHAULT, PRor. F., Les Prairies. Prairies natu- 


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GIRARD, Pror. Henri, Aide-Mémoire de Zoologie- 
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EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: S. NEWcoMB, Mathematics ; R. S. WoopwArp, Mechanics ; E. C. PICKERING, As- 
tronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
JosEPH LE Conte, Geology; W. M. Davis, Physiography; 0. C. MArsu, Paleontology; W. K. 
Brooks, Invertebrate Zodlogy ; C. HART MERRIAM, Vertebrate Zodlogy ; N. L. BRITTON, 

Botany ; HENRY F. OSBORN, General Biology ; H. P. Bowpircu, Physiology ; 

J. S. Brinuines, Hygiene ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; 

DANIEL G. BRINTON, J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Fripay, Aprit 26, 1895. 


CONTENTS : 

National Academy of Sciences ........0e0ee0000 449 
Arthur Cayley: GEORGE BRUCE HALSTED ..... 450 
TMP MOLOLENUG TUNG. 2... «2.0 cas cemiaiderisisiscsess 452 
Voleanic Dust in Texas: H. W. TURNER..-...--- 453 
Current Notes on Anthropology ( VI.) : D. G. BRIN- 

DON, ccc cwecccvcccccccncne, cantevesesesasece 455 
PREMIO = — 5 so ow cn ni sate bemeniciccs) | mais 457 

A Large Reflector for the Lick Observatorg: Ep- 


WARD S. HOLDEN. 


merentific Literature — .....cc0cseccccceescsncns 457 
Alternating Generations: C. V. RILEY. Gannett’s 
Manual of Topographic Methods: MANSFIELD 
MERRIMAN. Nordau’s Degeneration: J. S. 
BILLinGs.  Haycraft’s Darwinism and Race 
Progress: GEO. St. CLAtR. Venable’s History of 
Chemistry: W. A. Noyes.  Orndorff’s Experi 
ments in Organic Chemistry: FELIX LENG- 
FELD. 

DERMAL, LVS 5 —— 6 oro ov va «vino e cmiemicls cinleisiaeisisce 470 
The Gold and Coal Resources of Alaska; A Red- 
field Memorial ; Clouds; The Diserimination of 
Colors ; The Karakoram Himalayas ; General. 

Societies and Academies: —....... _PRbaa bane Be 473 
The Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences ; New 
York Branch of the American Folk-Lore Society ; 
The New York Mineralogical Club. 


esentafic Journdla— ......200..26 secceecsseces 474 
Astrophysical Journal: The Physical Review. 
EE TAIRI TNs patald ce .0 «0.0 ojon case epmmaniatanieweres 476 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 

for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

Subseriptionsand advertisements should be sent to SCIENCE, 

_ +41 N. Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or 41 East 49th St., New York. 


NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 

Tue National Academy of Sciences met at 

Washington on April 16, 17, 18 and 19, 

Professor O. C. Marsh, president, in the 

chair. The following members were re- 
"ported as present : 


: 
2 


Professor C. Abbe, Gen. Henry L. Abbot, 
U.S. A., Professor Alexander Agassiz, Pro- 
fessor George F. Barker, Professor Carl 
Barus, Dr. John §. Billings, Professor H. P. 
Bowditch, Mr. Lewis Boss, Professor W. K. 
Brooks, General Thomas L. Casey, U.S. A., 
Professor Charles F. Chandler, Professor 8. 
C. Chandler, General Cyrus B. Comstock, 
Professor E. D. Cope, Professor Russel H. 
Chittenden, Professor Theodore N. Gill, 
Professor Wolcott Gibbs, Mr. G. K. Gilbert, 
Professor G. Brown Goode, Professor Ben- 
jamin A. Gould, Professor Arnold Hague, 
Professor Asaph Hall, Professor Charles §S. 
Hastings, Mr. George W. Hill, Professor 
O. C. Marsh, Professor T. C. Mendenhall, 
Dr. 8. Weir Mitchell, Professor A. A. Mi- 
chelson, Mr. Edward 8. Morse, Professor 
Simon Newcomb, U. 8. N., Professor Ira 
Remsen, Professor Henry A. Rowland, Pro- 
fessor Charles A. Schott, Professor John 
Trowbridge, General Francis A. Walker, 
Professor Charles A. White. 

The papers entered to be read were as 
follows : 

1. On Some Variations in the Genus Encope : 
A. AGassiz and W. McM. Woopworrs. 

2. Notes on the Florida Reef: A. AGAssiz. 

3. The Progress of the Publications on the Ex- 
pedition of 1891 of the U. S. Fish Commis- 
sion Steamer ‘ Albatross,’ Lieut. Commander 
Z. L. Tanner, commanding: A. AGAsstz. 

4. On Soil Bacteria: M. P. RAvENEL. (In- 
troduced by J. S. Brxires. ) 


450 


5. A. Linkage Showing the Laws of the Refrac- 
tion of Light: A. M. Mayr. 

6. On the Color Relations of the Atoms, Ions 
and Molecules: M. Carry Lm. 

7. Mechanical Interpretations of the Variations 
of Latitude: R. 8. Woopwarp. (Intro- 
duced by 8S. C. CHANDLER. ) 

8. On a New Determination of the Nutation- 
Constant, and some allied topics: S. C. 
CHANDLER. 

9. On the Secular Motion of a Free Magnetic 
Needle: LL. A. BAvER. (Introduced by C. 
ABBE. ) 

10. On the Composition of Expired Air, and 
Tis Eifect Upon Animal Life: J.S. Bruuines. 

11. Systematic Catalogue of European Fishes : 
TH. Ginu. 

12. The Extinet Cetacea of North America: EH. 
D. Cope. 

13. Onthe Application of a Percentage Method in 
the Study of the Distribution of Oceanic Fishes. 
A, Definition of Eleven Faunas and Two 

Sub-faunas of Deep Sea Fishes. 

B. The Relationships and Origin of the Carri- 
beo-Mexican and Mediterranean Sub- 
faunas: G. Brown Gooner. 

14. On the Two Isomeric Chlorides of Ortho- 
sulpho-benzoic Acid: IRA REMSEN. 

15. On Some Compounds Containing two Hal- 
ogen Atoms in Combination with Nitrogen : 
Ira REMSEN. 

16. Presentation of the Watson Medal to Mr. 
Seth C. Chandler, for his Researches on the 
Variation of Latitudes, on Variable Stars, and 
for his other works in Astronomy. 

17. Biographical Memoir of Dr. Lewis M. Ruth- 
erfurd: B. A. GouLp. 

18. Relation of Jupiter’s Orbit to the Mean 
Plane of Four Hundred and One Minor 
Planet Orbits: H. A. Newton. 

19. Orbit of Miss Mitchell’s Comet, 1847, VI: 
H. A. Nrewron. 

The officers elected were as follows: Presi- 
dent, Prof. Wolcott Gibbs ; Vice-president, 
Gen. F. A. Walker ; Home Secretary, Prof. 
Asaph Hall; Foreign Secretary, Prof. As 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 17. 


Agassiz; Treasurer, Dr. John S. Billings; 
additional members of the Council, Prof. 
George J. Brush, Prof. George L. Goodale, 
Dr. B. A. Gould, Prof. 0. C. Marsh, Prof. 
Simon Newcomb and Prof. Ira Remsen. 

The new members elected were Prof. W. 
L. Elkin, professor of astronomy in Yale 
Observatory; Prof. C.S. Sargent, professor of 
botany in Harvard University ; Dr. W. H. 
Welch, professor of pathology in Johns 
Hopkins University, and Prof. C. 0. Whit- 
man, professor of biology in the University 
of Chicago. The foreign associates elected 
were Prof. Rudolph Leuckart, professor of 
zoology in the University of Leipsic ; Prof. 
Julius yon Sachs, professor of botany in the 
University of Wurtzburg, and Prof. Sophus 
Lie, professor of mathematics in the Uni- 
versity of Leipsic. 

The Barnard Medal was awarded to Lord 
Rayleigh for his discovery of argon, and 
the Watson Medal to Professor §. C. Chand- 
ler for his researches on the variation of 
latitude and other subjects. 

The autumn meeting of the Academy 
will be held at Philadelphia, beginning Oe- 
tober 29. : 


ARTHUR CAYLEY. 

How Professor Cayley touched everything 
mathematical, and touched nothing which 
he did not adorn, may be illustrated by the 
following unpublished letters, which were 
the first expression of discoveries that haye 
since taken their permanent place in our 
best text-books. They are both the outeome 
of the sudden and fruitful interest in / inkage, 
dating from Sylvester’s interview with 
Tchébycheyv, when, leaving behind him the 
diagram of the now celebrated Peaucellier’s 
Cell, the illustrious Russian gave in parting 
the characteristic advice: ‘Take to kine- 
matics; it will repay you; it is more fecund 
than geometry; it adds a fourth dimension 
to space.” 

I will transcribe the letters exactly, not 


APRIL 26, 1895. ] 


only because the recent death of Tchéby- 
chev, followed in less than two months by 
that of Cayley, gives them now a special 
pertinence, but because it is of interest to 
compare one with what is given on ‘tram 
motion’ in Kempe’s ‘How to Draw a 
Straight Line,’ and the other with its repro- 
duction by no less a master than Clifford 
on pages 149, 150 of his Dynamic, whence 
Tadd figure 2. 

“‘ Robert’s theorem of 3-bar motion takes 
the following elegant form: Take a triangle 


ABC and a point O and through O draw 
lines parallel to the sides as in the figure, the 
3 shaded A’s are of course similar to ABC. 
Now imagine a linkage composed of the 
shaded A’s and the bars AA,, AA,, BB,, 
BB,, CC,, CC, pivoted together at A, B, C, 
A,, A;, B;, B,, C., C,,O; then, however, 
the figure is moved [of course Aj, B, do 
not continue in the line AB, etce.], the tri- 
angle ABC will remain similar to the shaded tri- 
angles ; and if in any position of the figure we 
fix the points A, B, C, then the point O will 
be movable in a curve, viz.: we have the 
same curve described by O considered as the 
vertex of OA, B,, where the two radii are 
AA,, BB,—by O considered as the vertex 
of OA, C,, ete—and by O considered as 
the vertex of OB, C,, ete.” 
CAMBRIDGE, Feb. 22, 1876. 


“The porism is very pretty ; it was new 
to me, though I think it ought not to have 
been so. Look at the theorem thus: In- 
agine a plane, two points thereof, A, C 
moving in fixed lines Ox, Oy. Describe the 
circle OAC, which consider as a circle fixed 


SCIENCE. 


451 


in the plane and movable with it. Then 
the theorem is that any point B of this 
circle moves in a line OB through O. In 
particular B may be the opposite extremity 
of the diameter through A, and we have 


then the points A,B moving on the lines 
Ox and OB at right angles to each other, 
viz.: the general case of a plane moving two 
points thereof on two fixed lines is reduced 
to this well-known particular case. And 
the theorem comes to this, that dividing 


the rod AB at pleasure into two parts AM, 
MB, and drawing MC at right angles, and a 
mean proportional, the locus of C is a right 
line through O, which is of course easily 
proved.” Yours very sincerely, 
A. CAYLEY. 
CAMBRIDGE, May 5. 
GrOoRGE Bruce HALsTeD. 
AusTIN, TEXAS, Feb. 15, 1895. 


452 


THE PROTOLENUS FAUNA.* 

THE above article will be one of especial 
interest to students of the early Paleozoic 
faunas, since it describes one of the oldest 
known. 

From time to time during the last thirty 
or forty years discoveries of fossils have 
been made in the Cambrian rocks of east- 
ern Canada. Those of the St. Lawrence 
valley and northern Newfoundland were by 
Billings referred to the ‘ Lower Potsdam,’ 
but at a later date, together with others 
found in that valley and in southern New- 
foundland, they have been more specially 
correlated with the Olenellus Fauna by C. 
D. Walcott and others. 

Other fossils found in the lower part of 
the Cambrian rocks in New Brunswick be- 
low the Paradoxides bed were naturally at 
first thought to be also of this fauna, but, as 
will be seen by considerations advanced fur- 
ther on, it does not now seem possible so to 
establish the relationship. 

The discoveries in New Brunswick have 
from time to time been reported in articles 
published by G. F. Matthew in the Transac- 
tions of the Royal Society of Canada, but 
such important additions were disclosed 
through the collections made by W. D. 
Matthew in 1892 and 1893, and by him in 
conjunction with G. van Ingen for Columbia 
College, New York, in 1894, that a special 
article on this, the Protolenus fauna, has 
been written. From this article the follow- 
ing abstract has been made of the character 
of the fauna, and the conclusions arrived at 
from its study. 

The fauna consists of Foraminifera, 
Sponges, Mollusesand Crustaceans. Allthe 
Foraminifera described are referred to the 
genera Orbulina and Globigerina; the 
sponges include Protospongia and others. 
The molluscs are mostly hyalithoid shells 

*Abstract of a paper communicated to the New 


York Academy of Sciences by G. F. Matthew, of St. 
John, N. B. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 17. 


of the genera Orthotheca, Hyolithus and Dip- 
lotheca. A remarkable molluse haying a 
helicoid shell and supposed to be a Hete- 
ropod, enables me to establish a new 
genus. The Crustaceans are chiefly of two 
groups, Ostracoda and Trilobita, of which 
the former are remarkable for the large 
number of genera and species, as compared 
with the trilobites; two predominant and 
characteristic genera are Hipponicharion and 
Beyrichona. All the trilobites are of genera 
peculiar to this fauna, except Ellipsocephalus, 
which, although one of the dominating 
types, also eccurs in the Paradoxides beds of 
Europe. The most characteristic genus or 
trilobites is Protolenus, which is abundantly 
present in the typical beds. 

The following are some of the salient 
characters of the fauna as at present known. 
All the trilobites have continuous eyelobes. This 
is a decidedly primitive character, and its 
value in this respect is shown by the genus 
Paradoxides of the overlying fauna, which 
began with small species having such eye- 
lobes, and culminated in the large forms of 
the upper Paradoxides beds in which the 
eye-lobe was considerably shortened. This 
shortening of the eyelobe was carried still 
further in the Oleni of the Upper Cambrian, 
dwarfed forms, with a general similarity to 
the Paradowides, in which the eyelobe is al- 
most on a line with the front of the gla- 
bella. 

The important family of Piychoparide is ab- 
sent. This family did not have continuous 
eyelobes, for in the young, when this pro- 
jecting fold first shows itself, it is short and 
at the lateral margin of the head-shield. 
No trilobite with such an eyelobe has been 
found in this fauna. The Ptychoparide had 
about a dozen species in the Olenellus 
Fauna, and became quite common in that 
with Paradoxides, and continued to abound 
throughout the Cambrian period. 

The genus Conocoryphe is absent. This is 
specially a type of the Lower Paradoxides 


APRIL 26, 1895.] 


beds and under, the name of Conocoryphe 
trilineata (Atops trilineatus), is claimed as a 
characteristic fossil of the Olenellus Zone. 

The genus Mierodiscus is absent. This trilo- 
bite is especially characteristic of the Olen- 
ellus Zone and continued to live with Para- 
doxides. Here it occurs in the Paradoxides 
Zone, but is absent from the Protolenus 
Fauna. 

The genus Olenellus is absent. Though 
carefully looked for, no example of this 
genus has been found among the trilobites 
of the Protolenus Fauna, hence, though this 
fauna apparently holds the place where we 
might naturally expect to find Olenellus, that 
genus proves to be absent, or at least not at 
all characteristic ; and, as so many of its as- 
sociate genera also are absent, we cannot re- 
gard this fauna as the Fauna of Olenellus. 

Of the genera of trilobites that are pres- 
ent Miemacea has affinity with Zacanthoides. 
Tt differs in the course of the posterior ex- 
terior of the dorsal suture. The relation 
will seem closer if we suppose a movement 

* of the eyelobe during the growth of Zacan- 
thoides similar to that which occurred in the 
Ptychoparidz, by which the eyelobe was 
drawn in toward the glabella, while at the 
same time there was a projection of the 
posterior extension of the dorsal suture out- 
ward toward the general angle. If this 
change were shown to have occurred in Za- 
canthoides, Micmacca might be looked upon as 
an ancestral form of that genus. 

In this fauna there is a very primitive as- 
semblage of Brachiopods, of forms which it 

is in many cases difficult to assign to any 
‘known genus. Many are small, some are 

- minute, and the larger species belong to the 
Obolidse and Siphonotretidz. 

_ The Gasteropoda have already been al- 
luded to ; among these Pelagiella (n. gen.) is 

_ remarkable for the peculiar aperture which 

é ‘Seems to indicate a free swimming Heter- 

 opod. 

‘This fauna is distinguished from that of 


SCIENCE. 


453 


Olenellus by two marked features; it is 
more primitive and also more pelagic. 

The way in which the trilobites are bound 
together by the single feature of a continu- 
ous eyelobe shows a unity of origin and a 
close relationship not found in any other 
fauna. And yet among these trilobites 
there are forms which in other respects are 
parallel to the types which developed in 
the later faunas; thus in Protolenus we have 
have the flat pleura with the diagonal fur- 
row of Paradowxides and the deeply grooved, 
geniculate pleura of Ptychoparia, and at the 
same time the prominent glabella and deep 
dorsal furrows of Solenopleura. Miemacca, as 
has already been said predicated Zacan- 
thoides of a later fauna, and Protagraulos in 
its almost obliterated glabella and flat 
cephalic shield closely resembles Agraulos 
of the Paradoxides Fauna. 

It is a more pelagic fauna than that of 
Olenellus, for we notice the absence of many 
forms differentiated for shore-conditions. 
Trilobites with fixed outer cheeks, like 
Olenellus and Microdiscus are absent; cal- 
careous corals and sponges are rare ; thick- 
shelled brachiopods and the Orthidz are 
wanting, or rare; no Lamellibranch is 
known, but Foraminifera are quite common 
in some of the beds. 

The question of the antiquity of this fauna 
as compared with that of Olenellus is dis- 
cussed. The facies of the fauna as above 
described indicates a greater antiquity, 
but if the two faunas were contemporaneous, 
that of Olenellus may have reached these 
shores first. 


VOLCANIC DUST IN TEXAS. 
SoMETIME since the writer was given, for 
examination by the microscope, a sample of 
a white, fine-grained silicious deposit by 
Prof. R. T. Hill, of the U. 8. Geological 
Survey, who writes as follows concerning it : 


‘*The material which I gave you was collected by 
an old Texas friend of mine, Mr. S. P. Ford, in De- 


454 


cember, 1893, who said that at first he supposed it was 
chalk, but had since come to the conclusion that it is 
something else. When I wrote to Mr. Ford that I 
thought it was volcanic glass, probably derived from 
some of the now extinct vents along the Rocky Moun- 
tain front, he expressed some doubt as to this mode of 
origin, and said : 

‘¢ (This specimen was from a solid hill from thirty to 
forty feet high, composed entirely of this stuff. The 
point I make is that, on account of its thickness, the 
crater must have been somewhere very close, and if so, 
is it not something heretofore unknown in Texas? 
The exact locality is on Duck creek, in Dickens county, 
about 50 miles northwest of the Double Mountain.’ 
(Dickens county is in northwestern Texas, in the 
Brazos River drainage.—Author. ) 

“This specimen undoubtedly comes from the post- 
Cretaceous formations constituting the great Llano 
Estacado. Perhaps you will remember that in 1886 
I collected some similar material from near Wray, 
Colorado, and Hecla, Nebraska, which was described 
by Prof. Merrill of the National Museum, in the 
American Journal of Science. This Texas material 
seems very similar to that of the Colorada-Nebraska 
locality, both in appearance and in geological position. 
I wish that more was known of the stratigraphy of 
the Texas beds. The Colorado specimens occur in 
what is called the White River Tertiary.’’ 


An examination by the microscope shows 
that the white material is volcanic glass, in 
the angular and fluted forms figured by Mer- 
rill,*as characteristic of voleanic dust from 
Furnas county, in southern Nebraska. Dil- 
ler + also describes and figures similar forms 
of glass particles from Norway, Krakatoa, 
Truckee River and Breakhart Hill, the lat- 
ter a hill to the north of Boston, Mass. 
In the same article he describes volcanic 
dust from Unalashka, which fell in October, 
1883, and discusses voleanic dusts in gen- 
eral. Professor Diller concludes that “ so far 
as definite observations have been made, they 
warrant the general assertion, that with oc- 
easional exceptions, which can be readily 
explained, volanic dust contains a higher 
percentage of silica than the lava to which 
it belongs.” 

Professor Diller has also described some 


* Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1885, p. 100. 
} SCIENCE, May 30, 1884. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 17. 


voleanic material from Knox county, Ne- 
braska, and from the West Blue River, 
Seward county, Nebraska,* and estimated 
that about 90% was vocanic dust, there> 
being also numerous rolled quartz grains. 

The description of the material collected 
by Professor Hill from Wray (B. & L. R. 
R.), on the south side of the Republican 
River, occurs in an interesting article by 
Professor Merrill, ‘On the Composition of 
Certain Pliocene Sandstones from Montana 
and Idaho.’} 

Three figures are given showing the shape 
of the particles of voleanic glass found in 
the sandstones. In the material from the 
Devil’s Pathway (No. 35893) “‘there are 
many disc-like bodies on the glass particles, 
colorless and nearly circular in outline,” 
but the other figures show angular and 
fluted forms like those above referred to. 
Merrill gives analyses of three samples of 
the volcanic dust from Montana and Idaho, 
and concludes that they are of andesitic or 
tractytic origin. His analyses include lime 
and alkali determinations, and the silica: 
contents range from 67.76% to 68.92%. 

Merrill also states that some volcanic 
dust from Krakatoa fell on a ship 885 miles 
from the source of voleanic activity, so that 
the existence of a layer of volcanic dust at 
a given point may not indicate the prox- 
imity of the voleano from which the ma- 
terial came, but a deposit forty or more feet 
thick would hardly form at a great distance 
from the source. 

The volcanic dust obtained by the writer 
from a layer in the Neocene Lake beds that 
underlie Mohawk Valley, in Plumas county, 
California, likewise resembles in the shape 
of its particles the dusts figured by Diller 
and Merrill. An analysis of this material 
by Dr. W. H. Melville showed that it con- 
tained 70.64% of silica, and it was there- 


* See article by J. E. Todd, Scrence, Vol. VII., p- 
373. 
+ Am. Jour. Sci., Vol. XXXII., pp. 199-204. 


APRIL 26, 1895.] 


fore presumed to be a rhyolitic glass.* The 
material obtained by Professor H : 11 closely 
resembles the Mohawk Valley material. 
The Texas occurrence is of unusual interest, 
being in a region where evidences of the 
former existence of volcanoes are rare. 

H. W. Turner. 


WASHINGTON. 


CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY (VI.). 
THE CAUCASIC LINGUISTIC STOCK. 


Cox. R. Von Ercxert, of the Russian 
army, already known for an excellent work 
on the ethnography of the Caucasus, has 
just published an epoch-making volume on 

the languages of that region (Die Sprachen 
des Kaukasischen Stammes, Vienna, 1895). 
Tn this he solves the intricate problem which 
has so long puzzled linguists as to the rela- 
tionship and place of these tongues. He dem- 
onstrates by satisfactory evidence, structural 
¥ and lexicographical, that these numerous 
languages and dialects, some thirty in num- 
ber (the Ossetic, which is Aryan, being of 
course excluded), belong to one family, 
which should be called the ‘ Caucasie.’ It 
is divided in three groups, the Georgian, 
the Circassian and the Lesghian. The 
stock stands wholly independent, all simi- 
_larities to either Ural-Altaic or Indo-Euro- 
pean proving accidental or unimportant. 
Which of the groups is nearest the ancient 
original tongue he does not pretend to de- 
cide; but he offers striking testimony to 
4 the persistence of the traits of these lan- 
- guages. The Georgian was written as 
early as the ninth century A. D., and he 
_ gives a letter composed by a bishop in 918. 
It is quite identical, both in syntax and 
| % words, with the current tongue of to-day. 
All these facts are the more to the pur- 
‘pose since so much has been made of late 
years by Professors Sayce, Hommell and 
eir followers, of what they call the ‘Ala- 


* Bull. Phil. Soc. Washington, Vol. XI., p. 389. 


SCIENCE. 455 


rodian’ linguistic stock (7. e., the Geor- 
gian), in connection with the pretended 
‘Sumerian’ of lower Babylonia. It is 
likely that they will have to ‘back water,’ 
now that comparisons can really be 
made. 


CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS. 


Dr. Hueco Wrxckter, in his ‘ History of 
Babylonia and Assyria,’ tells us that the 
cuneiform method of writing was in use 
among eight nations speaking entirely dif- 
ferent languages. Whether this is quite 
accurate or not, we need not stop to con- 
sider, as there can be no question that it 
had a much wider distribution than used to 
be supposed. Last year the well-known 
French archeologist, M. E. Chantre, un- 
earthed specimens of it at Pterium and 
Czesarea, in Asia Minor, as far west, perhaps, 
as such inscriptions have been found in 
place. The excavations continued by the 
University of Pennsylvania at Niffer have 
proved rich in finds of tablets. But the 
champion recent discoveries appear to be 
those of M. de Sarzec at Tello. A brief ac- 
count of his eighth campaign in that rich 
locality appears in the ‘Révue Archaéolo- 
gique’ of December last, extracted from the 
official report of M. 8S. Reimach. From it 
we learn that M. de Sarzee opened a small 
mound some hundreds of yards from that 
which he had previously worked, and 
chanced upon the very archives of the old 
city themselves. They were inscribed on 
tablets and neatly stored in trenches, where 
they had rested undisturbed these thousands 
of years. From these deposits he took out 
more than thirty thousand tablets, about five 
thousand in perfect condition, another five 
thousand very slightly injured, and the 
others more or less defaced. This magni- 
ficent discovery will have the greatest im- 
portance in revealing the history and 
character of the ancient Babylonian civili- 
zation. 


456 


THE ORIGIN OF NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE. 

Amone the Americanists of Europe, Dr. 
Eduard Seler easily ranks in the first class. 
He is lecturer on American archzeology in 
the University of Berlin, and his numerous 
writing are of the most solid merit. Two 
recent articles by him are significant. One 
in ‘Globus’ (Vol. 65, No. 20), entitled 
‘Where was Aztlan?’ was inspired by Mr. 
Wickersham’s aticle in ‘Screncr,’ December 
8, 1893, in which that writer endeavored to 
discover ‘Asiatic analogies’ between the 
Aztecs, the Puget Sound Indians and vari- 
ous Asian tribes. Seler’s second article is 
broader. It is entitled ‘On the Origin of 
the Ancient Civilization of America,’ and 
appears in the Preussische Jahrbucher (Vol. 
79, 1895). 

In these able and pointed papers he sums 
up with masterly force the arguments which 
prove that the culture of ancient America 
in all its details was indigenous, starting at 
various centers independently, and in no 
item or shred derived from instructors from 
across the ocean or across Bering Straits. 
‘American science,’ he pertinently says, 
“can only win by giving up once for all the 
vain attempts to construct imaginary con- 
nections between the cultures of the old and 
new continents,’ and he points out clearly 
that this independence of historic connec- 
tion is what lends to American archeology 
its greatest importance. 

In singular and sad contrast to these 
truly scientific views are the efforts of a 
local school of American students to rehabil- 
itate the time-worn hypotheses of Asiatic 
and Polynesian influences in the native cul- 
tures of our continent. The present leader 
of this misdirected tendency is Professor O. 
T. Mason, whose articles in the ‘ Interna- 
tional Archives of Ethnography’ and in 
the ‘ American Anthropologist,’ bearing on 
this question do the utmost credit to his 
extensive learning and the skill with which 
he can bring it to bear in a lost cause. His 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 17. 


latest, entitled ‘Similarities of Culture” 
(Amer. Anthrop. April, 1895), is so excel- 
lent an effort that it is all the more painful 
to see its true intent is to bolster up a mori- > 
bund chimera. It is to be hoped that they 
will not influence the younger workers in, 
the field to waste their energies in pursuing 
these will-o’-the-wisps of science which will 
only lead them to bootless quests. 


ARCHEOLOGICAL NEWS FROM SWITZERLAND. 


Two or three years ago the curious dis- 
covery was made in Switzerland that at one 
time, during the neolithic period, a dwarf 
race, true pygmies, flourished in Europe. 
The bones of a number of them were un- 
earthed at Schweizersbild, near Schaff- 
hausen, in connection with polished stone 
implements and pottery. Theaverage height: 
of the adults was about 140 centimeters, close 
to that of the Bushmen. They apparently 
lived along with other tribes of ordinary 
stature, as the remains of both were found 
together. The cubical capacity of the skull 
was about 1200 ¢.c. Several anatomists have 
given the skeletons close attention, notably 
Professor J. Kollman, of Basel, in the ‘ Ver- 
handlungen der Anatomischen Gesellschaft,” 
May, 1894, who appends to hispaper a bib- 
liogrophy of articles relating tothe find. 

The abundant richness of Switzerland as 
an archeological field is strikingly shown 
by an archeological map of the canton Zur- 
ich, prepared by Dr. J. Heierli, and just pub- 
lished in the city of the name. It is very 
neatly printed in colors, showing by the 
tint the relative age of the station, whether 
neolithic, Roman, Allemannian, ete. The 
author has added a pamphlet of explana 
tions and an index, so as to familiarize stu- 
dents with the local sites and what they 
signify. It is heartily to be wished that 
some State of our country would follow this 
excellent example and thus lead to a more 
intelligent comprehension and a better pre- 
servation of the antiquities on our soil. 


APRIL 26, 1895. ] 


SOUTH AMERICAN TRIBES AND LANGUAGES. 


In the February number of the Journal of 
the Anthropological Institute, Mr. Clements 
R. Markham, republishes his ‘ List of Tribes 
in the valley of the Amazon,’ which first 
appeared about twenty years ago. Of course 
there are many improvements in the 
enumeration ; but it is amazing to note that 
by far the best recent authorities are not 
referred to, and their material is ignored. 
In the ‘list of authorities’ there is no men- 
tion, for instance, of the names of Von Den 
Steinen, Ehrenreich or Barbosa Rodriguez. 
For the linguistics he quotes Dr. Latham as 
still the authority. In fact, the best work 
done in Amazonian ethnography within the 
last decade is not mentioned nor utilized. 
' Some interesting studies in the languages 
_ of the Argentine Republic should not be 
overlooked. The Allentiac was a language, 
i now extinct, spoken in the vicinity of San 
Juan de la Frontera. A little catechism, 
? grammar and vocabulary of it was printed 
by Father Louis de Valdivia in 1607, of 
which only one perfect copy isknown. This 
has been edited with a useful introduction 
by José T. Medina (Sevilla, 1894), and has 
been made the subject of a neat study by 
_ General Bartolome Mitré (Estudio Biblio- 
grafico linguistico de las Obras de Valdivia, 
Ta Plata, 1894; pp. 153). He inclines to 
; consider it a separate stock. 

The well-known Argentine linguist, Sam- 
uel A. Lafone Quevedo, has added another 
to the list of his valuable monographs by a 
thorough study of the mysterious Lule 
Janguage ( Los Lules; Estudio Filologico, 
Buenos Aires, 1894, pp. 145). It is based, 
_ of course, on‘the grammar of Machoni, and 
reaches the conclusion that the modern are 
not the ancient Lules, and Machoni’s gram- 
‘mar is that of a tongue which belongs with 
the Quichuan group, and not among those 
of the Gran Chaco. 


4 D. G. Briyton. 
* UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANTA, 


SCIENCE. 


457 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
A LARGE REFLECTOR FOR THE LICK 
OBSERVATORY. 

Mr. Epwarp Crosstey, F. R. A. S., of 
Halifax, England, has offered to present 
his 3-foot reflecting telescope to the Lick 
Observatory with its apparatus and dome, 
complete. The grateful thanks of the Ob- 
seryatory are returned for this generous and 
highly appreciated gift. 

Epwarp 8. HoLpen. 

Mount HaAmitton, April 4, 1895. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 
Alternating Generations. A Biological Study of 

Oak Galls and Gall Flies. By Herman 

Apter, M. D. Schleswig. Translated 

and edited by CHartes R. Srraron. 

. New York, Maemillan & Co. 

The recent appearance, from the Claren- 
don press, of an edition of Dr. Herman Ad- 
ler’s celebrated work, which was published 
some fourteen years ago, on alternating gen- 
erations among the Cinipidz, being a bio- 
logical study of oak galls and gall-flies, will 
be welcomed by all interested in the sub- 
ject, especially by those who do not read 
German or French. The English transla- 
tion is by Charles R. Straton. The work 
consists of: (1) an introduction by the edi- 
tor; (2) the translation proper, to which 
the editor has added, in brackets and in 
smaller type, the popular English name of 
the gall, the particular oak upon which it 
is found, and a list of the inquilines and 
parasites that have been reared from each 
species ; (3) as Appendix I., by the editor, 
a full account of Cynips kollari Hartig; 
(4) as Appendix II., a synoptical table of 
oak galls ; (5) as Appendix IIT., a classifi- 
cation of the Cynipidie, and (6) a bibliog- 
raphy. 

The synoptical table of oak-galls (Cynipi- 
die alone included) is based on European 
species; while the classification includes 
not only European but a certain number of 


458 


the older American species, but it is very 
imperfect in taking no note of the many 
later described American species, especially 
those described by Ashmead and Gillette. 
The classification is based on Mayr’s, as was 
that given in Lichtenstein’s translation of 
1881, and comparatively few additional spe- 
cies are included. 

The introduction is very full and includes 
a discussion of heredity and a rather full 
summary of late embryologic work, with a 
view of getting a clearer conception of the 
philosophy of alternation in generations. 
Mr. Straton particularly discusses Weis- 
mann’s views, but by no means accepts 
them, though a thorough believer himself 
in natural selection. 

Straton points out “that galls may be ar- 
ranged in groups of greatly increasing com- 
plexity and that they must have arisen by 
gradual and complete improvements in the 
initial stages of their formation, acting 
through natural selection over an unlimited 
period of time and through numerous con- 
secutive species.”” Hach infinitesimal im- 
provement in the gall itself, internally or 
externally, which has been of service as a 
protection against parasites or as favoring 
the development of the larva, has been pre- 


served. In this view of the case, which is - 


one that certainly seems most reasonable, 
the various characteristics of galls, such as 
spines, prickles, glutinous secretions, indur- 
ation, and even size and coloration, are all 
acquired characteristics for the protection 
of the larva within. This theory is cer. 
tainly justified in a large number of cases, 
but is equally at fault in many others. It 
would be hard to conceive that the bright 
colors which many galls assume in an early 
stage of development or the succulent char- 
acter and pleasantly sub-acid or fruity 
flavor of others which renders them so prone 
to be invaded and preyed upon by a host of 
other insects could have any relation to the 
benefits of the gall-maker within. Here, as 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Voz. I. No. 17. 


in most other natural history phenomena, 
natural selection can hardly be considered 
an all-sufficient explanation. Likewise, the 
assumed protective colors which galls often ~ 
take on in autumn will find more valid ex- 
planation in the same causes which produce 
the similar changes in the leaves themselves, 
which can have no reference to the welfare 
of the plant. 

No subject connected with galls has per- 
haps been more written about than the in- 
citing cause of their formation. Adler and 
Byerinck effectually disproved the older be- 
lief that the exciting poison was inserted by 
the parent in the act of oviposition, 2. e., 
that the initial force was due either to a 
chemical secretion injected by the gall- 
mother or to the mechanical stimulus of 
traumatic irritation. A fluid is secreted in 
the act of oviposition, but it is absolutely 
unirritating and acts primarily as a lubri- 
cant to facilitate the arduous mechanical 
act and probably also as a mild antiseptic 
dressing to the wound made in the plant. 
Nevertheless there is an irritating salivary 
secretion produced by the larva itself and 
the gall growth is co-incident with the 
hatching and feeding of this larva. The 
fact that the influence on the plant tissues 
sometimes begins before the egg-shell is 
ruptured indicates that this fluid possesses 
amylolytic and proteolytic ferments. That 
the influence should be slightly exerted pre- 
natally is not to be wondered at when we 
consider the delicate nature of the egg cover- 
ing which often makes it difficult to observe 
the dividing line between the egg and newly 
hatched larva. 

While, therefore, it is the larva in the 
Cynipidze which causes the gall, this is not 
the case with the many other gall-produ- 
cing insects, since many of the gall-gnats 
(Cecidomyide) and most, if not all, of the 
gall-making saw-flies (Tenthredinide) se- 
crete a poison in the plant tissue in the act 
of oviposition, causing the gall to form be- 


APRIL 26, 1895. ] 


fore the larva hatches. One must, there- 
fore, in reading Straton’s Introduction, bear 
in mind that he is treating solely of the Cy- 
nipide. Adler himself recognizes the fact, 
so far as the Tenthredinide are concerned, 
from observations on Nematus vallisnerii, 
which produces a gall on Salix amigdalina ; 
but in sweepingly denying it for the gall- 
gnats (p. 100), on the score that they have 
no piercing apparatus, he makes one of those 
generalizations which the facts do not jus- 
tify, as most of the gall-making species have 
a very effective and specialized piercing ovi- 
positor. This is, of course, not homologic- 
ally comparable to that of the Hymenop- 
tera, but is no more exceptional than is the 
wonderful piercing apparatus of Pronuba 
among Lepidoptera, being, like this last, a 
modification of the tubular tip of the abdo- 
men and of the chitinous rods connected 
therewith. 

Adler shows very conclusively that, in 
spite of the great variation in form, size, 
appearance and manner of formation, or 
whether they grow from bud, blossom, leaf, 
bark or root, galls spring invariably from 
the zone of formative cells or the cambium 
ring, just as indeed does the whole life of 
the plant. These cells are the theatre of 


actual metabolism. They are not differen- ° 


tiated into stable tissue, but await a period 
of developmental activity and possess the 
very conditions essential to gall formation. 
This explains the fact that Cynipid galls 
_ formed from punctures in the leaf almost 
always begin on the under surface of the 
leaf, since the cells of the upper surface 

have become stable and do not respond to 

any irritation applied to them; while when 
_ the eggs are laid in a dormant bud contain- 
ing rudimentary leaves consisting of un- 
modified cells, both surfaces may take part 
in gall formation, the resulting gall, in such 
ease, growing through the leaf substance. 
Again, when the egg is laid in the cambium 
Ying of the bark, there is a sharp zonal con- 


SCIENCE. 


459 


trast in the resulting gall between the soft 
and sappy parenchymatous cells and a 
harder central zone of wood parenchyma 
corresponding to the bast and to the wood 
parenchyma, the softer parts of the gall 
projecting from the bark while its woody 
base penetrates into the woody tissue. 

From the above facts we come to under- 
stand why from winter buds, 7. e., where 
eggs are laid during winter in a bud that is 
dormant, only bud galls are produced, while 
from buds pierced in spring, when meta- 
bolism has begun, we get leaf-galls. More- 
over, it has been proved by Adler, and ex- 
plains the many failures in the efforts to 
obtain gall growths by confining gall-flies 
upon the plants, that if the parent fly fails 
to reach the formative zone of cambium 
cells the larva on hatching perishes without 
forming a gall. Another interesting fact 
which the writer has observed is that where 
but one bud-gall is usually produced several 
eggs are nevertheless inserted in the bud by 
the parent, a prodigality not uncommon in 
insects under similar circumstances, and 
which has some profound significances 
which we cannot discuss in this connection. 

On the question as to what determines 
the ultimate growth of each particular gall 
so characteristic of its species Adler ven- 
tures no theory or explanation; but all the 
facts would indicate that it depends on the 
specific quality of the larval secretion, each 
having its distinct form of morbid poison 
working in the same pathologic way as the 
virus of the various eruptive diseases of 
man. Bacteriology may, in fact, yet come 
to our aid in this connection, as it has in 
the study of the pathologic manifestations 
of higher animals. 

The process of oviposition in the Cynipidee 
is a very elaborate one and has been much 
written about. Adler gives a most full and 
elaborate description of the mechanism of 
the ovipositor, and particularly of the ven- 
tral plates and bundles of muscles by which 


460 


the terebra is worked. The structure of the 
Ovipositor is well known and its parts 
homologize with those of the same organ in 
all Hymenoptera. It consists of a large 
bristle or seta, and of two spicule which 
mortise into it by means of two tenons and 
form the channel down which the egg passes. 
The seta occupies half the area of a trans- 
verse section of the terebra, and the two 
spicule occupy the other half. The seta 
has a central canal which contains an air 
vessel, a nerve branch and some san- 
guineous fluid. While appearing like a 
single piece, it is in reality double or com- 
posed of two parts which, indeed, are sepa- 
rated at the extreme base, but otherwise 
firmly soldered together. The spiculz are 
serrate or notched near the tip, and the seta 
often endsinaslight hook. The twospiculee 
play by means of strong basal muscles, lon- 
gitudinally up and down on the tenons of 
the seta. 

The eggs of Cynipide are characterized 
by having a stalk or pedicel of varying 
length according to the species, the ege-body 
proper, according to Adler, being at the 
apical or anterior end which first issues 
from the body, and the posterior end being 
also somewhat enlarged or spatulate. In 
repose the ovipositor is concealed within 
two sheaths, but in oviposition, according to 
Hartig’s views, the spicule grasp the egg- 
stalk and push it to the tip, the fluids in the 
ege-body being pressed back in the oper- 
ation, so that they come to be distributed 
along the stalk or to lie at the opposite or 
posterior pole of the stalk. The spiculz 
then slightly separate at the tip from the seta 
and extend beyond it so that the apical end 
of the stalk becomes free. Now by pres- 
sure the fluid at the posterior end passes 
back through the stalk into the opposite or 
apical end which is plunged in the plant, 
the basal portion becoming emptied, the 
swollen apical end thus remaining in the 
plant when the ovipositor is withdrawn, fill- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 17. 


ing the distal end of the puncture, which is 
somewhat enlarged. The empty basal sack 
of the egg and a portion of the stalk are 
often left exposed, looking not unlike the 
empty egg of some lace-wing fly (Heme- 
robiid). 

In short, Hartig’s view, very generally 
adopted, was that the extensile and ductile 
egg was driven through the ovipositor itself 
while this was in the plant, and that the 
contents of the egg-body were pressed back 
into the ege-stalk or pedicel during the 
operation and collected in the posterior end, 
and only after the apical end had reached 
the bottom of the puncture did these con- 
tents stream back into it. Adler would re- 
fute this view and draws attention to his 
own figures on Plate 3, where the eggs and 
ovipositor are illustrated side by side, all 
taken from photographs and drawn from 
the same amplification. These show that 
the ovipositor is, in every case, longer than 
the egg itself, the enlarged head of the egg 
corresponding in direction to the tip of the 
Ovipositor. He argues from this fact that 
one end of the egg cannot be in the plant 
tissue while the other is in the canal. He 
further argues that it is not possible that 
the whole egg can be received into the ovi- 
positor and glide through it in the way in 
which Hartig supposed. The operation of 
oviposition according to his observations 
consists of three distinct stages: (1) The 
canal in the plant is first bored, after which 
the fly rests; (2) the egg is then passed 
from the ovarium to the entrance or base of 
the ovipositor, the anterior swollen end or eqg- 
body hanging out, since it is too large to be 
passed down the channel. Itis then pushed 
along by means of the egg-stalk behind be- 
ing grasped between the two spicul. (3) 
Finally, when the egg-body reaches the 
perforation, the ovipositor is partially with- 
drawn and the whole egg is then pushed in 
till the ege-body reaches the bottom of the 
puncture. Adler rightly expresses wonder 


— 


APRIL 26, 1895. ] 


that this complex procedure should be re- 
peated so often with such great accuracy, 
and proceeds to describe the tactile hairs 
connected with the ovipositor which permit 
the fly to carry out the operation. He further 
states that, while oviposition in the surface 
of leaves is in its nature easier, the mech- 
anism of oviposition is exactly the same as 
in buds. 

We thus have two diametrically opposed 
views as to how the Cynipid egg passes 
down the ovipositor, the oviduct or passage 
of which is but one-fourth as wide as the 
ege-body itself, and into the puncture pre- 
pared for it. Hartig gave a perfectly sim- 
ple explanation, and one generally accepted. 
While it is difficult to understand how the 
egg can be pushed into the puncture with 
the swollen egg-body entering first, yet Ad- 
ler goes into elaborate details and is so care- 
ful that one is scarcely justified in question- 
ing his conclusions. There is, however, 
good reason for doubting their accuracy as 
applied to all species and for believing that 
the method described by Hartig does also 
obtain and that there are even further modi- 
fications of the process. 

In controverting Hartig and referring to 
his figures of eggs and ovipositors, Adler 
gives no indication whether the eggs were 
taken from the buds after being deposited, 
or from the ovaries or from the ovipositor, 
and my own experience with these and 
other ductile and extensile eggs with long 
ege-stalks would indicate a very varying 
length of stalk according to these varying 
circumstances. Again, he evidently has 
misjudged Hartig in assuming that the lat- 
ter describes the passing of the egg down 
the minute channel of the seta, for Hartig’s 
figures, as well as his description, make it 
clear that he had in mind the actual facts, 
viz., the passage of the egg down the channel 


i formed by the connection of the two spi- 


cule with the seta. He is quite clear on 
this point and refers to the seta as the egg- 


SCIENCE. 


461 


guide (Eileiter) and not as the oviduct. 
He also elaborately describes and figures 
the eggs in the ovaries, with the swollen 
ego-body away from and the stalk directed 
to the base of the ovipositor. 

My own studies of the oviposition of Cal- 
lirhytis clavula O. S. in the buds of Quercus 
alba in April show that the eggs are in- 
serted by the ege-stalk into the substance 
of the leaf, and that the fluids are first 
gathered in the posterior end which is not 
inserted. The fluids are then gradually 
absorbed from this exposed portion into the 
inserted portion of the egg and by the time 
the young leaves have formed the exposed 
shells are empty, the thread-like stalk has 
disappeared and the egg-contents are all 
contained within the leaf tissue. The larva 
now hatches and young galls rapidly form, 
the colorless and shriveled egg-shell being 
still often exposed in position and generally 
some distance from the position of the larva, 
a difference doubtless representing the orig- 
inal length of the inserted egg-stalk.* 

These observations certainly comport 
more with the conclusions of Hartig than of 
Adler, though they indicate a quite different 


*This agamic gall-fly produces a hemispherical 
gall involving both sides of the leaf, the cells in the 
center being connected by loose spongy fiber, and 
from it comes the sexual species, Callirhytis futilis O. 
S. Thisin turn produces the twig gall from which 
the agamic C. q-clavula is derived. Mr. H. F. Bas- 
sett (Psyche, Vol. 5, pp. 235-8, December, 1889) 
has connected Callirhytis futilis O. S. with a new spe- 
cies which he there describes as Callirhytis radicis, 
reared from a gall which is, practically, a blister-like 
swelling of the root. There is here either an error as 
to determination or else we have another interesting 
discovery in connection with these insects, viz., that 
the same species may indifferently produce a gall on 
the root or on the twig. When we remember how 
readily nature in many cases will convert a root into 
a twig, and vice versa this last explanation will not ap- 
pear so improbable. I may add that Mr. Ashmead, 
who has reared the fly from the clavula gall, has care- 
fully compared it with those actually observed ovi- 
positing in the buds and agrees with me that they 
are identical. 


462 


method of oviposition from that described 
by either, in that the fluid ege-contents are 
not passed from one pole to another rapidly 
in the act of oviposition as described by 
Hartig, but very gradually, the process not 
being completed till just before the hatch- 
ing. I had the assistance of Mr. Th. 
Pergande in carefully watching the steps in 
this particular case (in April 1884) and 
have put them on record here for the first 
time. Again, a small black wingless species 
(Biorhiza nigra Fitch, subsequently described 
as B. politus by Bassett), is not infrequently 
found during winter under the shelter of 
bark scales and oviposits during late winter 
in the terminal buds of Quercus alba and Q. 
obtusiloba. The ovipositor in this case, as in 
most cases where eges are laid in dormant 
buds, is thrust down between the bud-scales 
until it reaches the soft latent cell tissue 
toward the center of the bud. And here it 
is easy to observe, by removing the scaly 
coverings, as I have done, that the pedicel 
or stalk only is inserted in the embryo leaf- 
tissue and that the enlarged portion or egg- 
body is at first external, being pressed and 
somewhat flattened by the surrounding leaf- 
scales.* 

In still a third case of a small black in- 
quiline ( Ceroptus politus Ashm.) oviposition 
was observed by Mr. Pergande in the mid- 
rib of Quercus rubra, May 20, 1894 ,and in 
this case, as my notes show, the ege is 
thrust down into the puncture made by the 
terebra in the mid-rib until not a vestige of 
the egg is visible, the pedicel being very 
short. 

There is, therefore, good reason for be- 
_ lieving that oviposition in these insects fol- 
lows no uniform system, and there is a 

*This fly produces an undescribed vesicular bud- 
gall from which issues a small black winged bisexual 
species (Dryophanta vesiculoides MS. mihi). The gall 
produced by this and from which the apterous agam- 
ic generation comes is not yet known, though it will 


probably be a leaf-gall similar to that of Acraspis eri- 
nacee Walsh. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 17. 


serious question whether Adler’s rejection of 
Hartig’s views are justified. In connection 
with Adler’s views as to oviposition, he eon- 
cludes from his own studies that the main 
purpose of the egg-stalk is to supply oxygen 
to the egg-body in the plant-tissues, but that 
this is also an erroneous conclusion is, I 
think, made manifest by some of the facts 
just stated. That the function of the egg- 
stalk is, rather, to facilitate the otherwise 
difficult mechanical operation of the passage 
of the egg down a narrow and elongate ovi- 
positor in the manner indicated by Hartig 
is supported by the fact that the puncture 
is often closed at its mouth as also from 
what we know of the similar oviposition in 
other orders of insects. The facts, for in- 
stance, connected with the oviposition of 
Pronuba yuccasella, where the egg is thrust 
deep into the ovarian cavity of the Yucca 
pistil bear out this view. The egg, in this 
case, as it passes down the ovarium has not 
a definite pedicel or stalk, but becomes a 
mere thread in passing through the oyi- 
positor (the nature of which precludes any 
external outlet during the passage), and the 
fluids gradually concentrate in the apical or 
anterior end as the embryo develops. More- 
over, it is passed into the ovarian cavity 
and has no connection through the pedicel 
with the exterior wound which is closed 
long before the larva hatches.* 

The great service which Adler rendered 
in the study of the gall-flies was, however, 
to establish the fact of alternate generation 
in so many cases. He thus proved the ex- 
istence of alternate generation in the follow- 
ing species: (See opposite page. ) 

The writer established, by breeding, the 
connection of the agamic Callirhytis operator 
O.S. and C. operatola Riley in 1872, the facts 
and specimens having been communicated to 


* Vide the Yucca Moth and Yucca Pollination, by 
Charles V. Riley (from the Third Annual Report of 


the Missouri Botanical Garden). Issued May 28, 
1892. 


APRIL 26, 1895. ] SCIENCE. 463 
No. Parthenogenetic Generation. eee. Sexual Generation, be. 
1. | Neuroterus lenticularis ....... April | Spathegaster baccarum ....... June " 
OF ae leviusculusenssiaioce ttc? Ana “ albipes':,. 27,5) eee June 
3. oe numismantis....... April re vesicatrix:. , < cise June 
4. c fumipennisie) 2i5 er ¢ May fe tricolor’ 2755 jf neers July 
mee jeaphilotrix radicis. 2. 2).0i9. ss: a Amarieus moduli) 2.) ee eee August 
a a j f§ April te , 
6. Sieboldd .” 7m weemeiedts fi May, TESHAGEIDES cu) nn ener August 
“ Eee { Apri cet July 
ide COrticls' .. ./-\ceiLaeeAeNo May STEMNITAGUA 2). 5h) ceeoicins etn August 
8. foe tobuli . Sewn a’. April Sl PSthaiator 2... eee { July 
9. ut cOllaris: 2/7 Smeg April a6 Gurvator. } \ seeds ae June 
10. se fecundatrix ..:. 4. .- April se PUOSUS:.: .) eee June 
11. y callidoma, 3 cpeuanten ot oy) April sf CHITAGUS”.. .) 5k) suena June 
12. a Malpighit’ ->spaerert. 0 : April Be MAGUS: 2 ))., 1c) jh eee June 
13. os autumnalis. gua caiaia -) April se TAMU |, ' : ..”: ShaeReenemees July 
14. | Dryophanta scutellaris ....... aa Spathegaster Taschenbergi. . . . . . vey e 
te at p oe ce ba Cae May 
15. longiventris....... Noy Bimi1i8 | i iiceeeeen ees Tate 
“ ts *( Oct. « : aE J May 
16. divisa « 5 uealan Now VEITTLCOSUB) 4. coset eerie | June 
ive) | biorhizaaptera. . . . =f... { a MeranGerminalis’ .... .) «ae «ee smeks July 
Dec i x 5 { Ma 
18. aoe renam:: = Si ave see Spe: Ta Trigonaspis crustalis ........ HT eae é 
Nov. itt J May 
%, 
49) | Neuroterus ostreus*....... .- aipRean Spathegaster aprilinus........ June 


H. F. Bassett July 10th of that year, though 
‘not published till 1873. The synoptical 
table by Straton does not add to the list as 
originally published by Adler. The subse- 
quent discoveries have not been many, it is 
true,; but their inclusion would have in- 
creased its value. The facts incidentally 
‘recorded in this review add two other 
American cases to the list, though the alter- 
nate gall in one instance has not yet been 
discovered. It is not difficult to observe 
these gall-flies in the act of oviposition and 


_ *Franz Loéw (Verh. Zool.-Bot. Gesellsh. in Wien, 
XXXIV., 1885, p. 324) has given good reasons for 
elieving that there was an error here, and that the 
agamic form of Neuroterus dprilinus Gir. is Neuwroterus 
echtendali Mayr. It should also be noted that 
athegaster is synonymous with Neuroterus. 
_ tI now only recall, besides those already mentioned 
in this notice, Chilaspis eitida Ger. as the agamic form 
of ©. lowii Wachtl., and Dryophanta cornifex Hart., as 
the agamic form of Syntomaspis lazulina Forst.. 


to follow up the investigation until the re- 
sulting gall is produced, and there is a wide 
and most interesting field of inquiry which 
offers rich results for any American biologist 
who has the time to take it up seriously. 
The coupling of the alternate galls with each 
other is, however, more difficult, by direct 
observation, and is to be arrived at rather 
from careful identification of the flies in con- 
nection with the galls they have been reared 
from. Even in an epoch-making work like 
Adler’s, the conclusions respecting some of 
the most interesting problems connected 
with the economy of galls and gall-flies may 
yet be questioned, as indicated in this re- 
view, and there is unlimited opportunity 
for careful and conscientious direct observa- 
tion in a field where experience shows that 
analogy and sweeping generalizations are 
often misleading. C. V. RizEy. 


WASHINGTON. 


464 


A Manual of Topographic Methods. By HENRY 
Gannett, Chief Topographer U. 8. Geo- 
logical Survey. Washington, Government 
Printing office. Quarto, xiv-+300pp. 18 
plates. 

Whatever may be thought of the advisa- 
bility of the publication of scientific manu- 
als or text-books by the government, there 
is probably little question but that a bureau 
is justified in issuing volumes or bulletins 
which are in the nature of instructions to 
its officers and employees. Some publica- 
tions of this kind, issued as parts of the re- 
ports of scientific bureaus, have been of 
great value to surveyors and engineers on 
account of the new facts and methods that 
they contain. The preface of this work 
states that it was primarily prepared for 
the information of employees, and further- 
more that it ‘describes the stage of develop- 
ment reached at present.’ Hence it should 
presumably be of interest and value to all 
topographers who are acquainted with the 
excellent maps issued by the Geological 
Survey. Of the eighteen plates in the vol- 
ume twelve give beautiful illustrations of 
types of topography, and these form its 
most useful and attractive feature. 

The 300 pages of the manual include 130 
pages of text, 168 pages of tables and 2 
pages of index. Although the form is 
quarto, the size of the printed page is only 
54 x 7; inches, and being in large type it 
includes but little more matter than a com- 
mon octavo page. Chapter I. devotes 14 
pages to historical and general information, 
chapter II. has 26 pages on astronomical 
determinations, and chapter V. is an inter- 
esting geological essay of 25 pages on the 
origin of topographic features. Thus only 
65 pages remain for the discussion of meth- 
ods of topography, a space entirely inade- 
quate to do justice to the subject. 

On base line measurements with the 
steel tape the corrections due to inclination, 
temperature and elevation above sea level 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 17. 


are explained, but nothing is said about the 
sag of the tape, which as well known always 
makes the recorded distance too long, and~ 
the effect of varying intensity of pull is also 
unnoticed. The subject of primary trian- 
gulation is presented more fully than any 
other topic, the general methods of the Coast 
and Geodetic Survey being adopted, with 
somewhat different but excellent instruc- 
tions for measuring angles. No statement 
as to the allowable probable errors of an- 
gular measurements is made, and the re- 
mark that the average length of lines in 
primary triangulation is 12 or 16 miles, 
leaves a confused idea as to what class of 
work is really under discussion. 

On topography proper 5 pages are de- 
voted to the plane table, 3 to traverses, 14 
to stadia measurements and 9 to barome- 
ters. It is difficult to ascertain from these 
the details of the methods recommended or 
used, and it is safe to say that the excellent 
maps now being issued by the Geological 
Survey were not made without the applica- 
tion of principles and methods of which 
this volume gives no adequate explanation. 
It abounds, however, in useful generalities, 
such as ‘Stations for sketching should be 
selected with the utmost freedom;” “ Un- 
der certain circumstances it is found advis- 
able to use the stadia method for measuring 
distances instead of the wheel ;” ‘‘ Constant 
communication must be had between the 
chief of party and his assistants,”’ etc. 

The main feature of a small-scale topo- 
graphic map is, of course, the contours. In 
chapter IV. references to the determination 
of heights by the barometer and stadia are 
made, but no forms of field notes are given, 
and the fact that these heights are to be 
used for locating contours is scarcely men- 
tioned. In chapter V., however, one page is 
devoted to the subject, the essence of which 
is that contours are sketched in the field by 
the chief of party. It is stated that this 
‘is artistic work,’ that “it is impossible 


APRIL 26, 1895. ] 


that any map can be an accurate, faithful 
picture of the country it represents,” that 
the topographer must be able to generalize 
through his knowledge of geological pro- 
cesses of origin, and that he should be able 
to decide, ‘‘ where details are omitted, what 
to put in their places in order to bring out 
the dominant features.’”’ These are dan- 
gerous doctrines. The earth exists, the 
duty of the topographer is to map it truly, 
and the study of the origin of its features 
should come later. It is not a function of 
the surveyor to interpret nature, and the 
geologic discussions of Chapter V. seem out 
of their proper place in a manual of topog- 
raphy. 

The book does good service in dwelling 
upon the important idea that a topographic 
survey must necessarily be based upon a 

triangulation, so that an effective control of 

_ accuracy may be everywhere at hand. This 
is set forth with clearness as a sound estab- 
lished principle. 

Tt is difficult to understand why one gov- 
ernment bureau should republish tables 

_ issued by other bureaus unless they be out 
_ of print or not easily accessible. Pages 

163-174 and 190-224 give the well-known 
‘ geodetic and astronomical tables issued by 
the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and others 
are taken from the publications of the Corps 
of Engineers. Of the 168 pages of tables 
_ only 24 appear to have been prepared by 
_ the Geological Survey. Table XI., for the 
reduction of stadia readings, gives merely 
differences of altitude, the reduction to the 

horizontal being only mentioned in the four 
— lines of text on page 93, where it is said 
_ “tables for this reduction are to be found in 
% Bulletin.’ We know, however, of no au- 
thor of this name who has published stadia 
tables. 

Still more difficult is it to understand 
why a government bureau should republish 
set of logarithmic tables prepared by a 
reign author, thus committing a moral if 


4 


SCIENCE. 


465 


not a legal piracy. Pages 232-298 consti- 
tute a reprint of the well-known five-place 
tables of F. G. Gauss, which are for sale in 
all bookstores. If the slightest improve- 
ment in type or method of arrangement 
had been introduced some excuse might be 
seen for this procedure, but as a matter of 
fact the type employed is far inferior to the 
original, while the black rules between the 
columns will prove an injury to the eyes of 
all who make use of the tables. Moreover, 
the marks indicating whether the last deci- 
mal figures have been increased or not are 
in all cases omitted; the reprint is thus 
rendered a most unsatisfactory counterfeit 
of the excellent original. 

This Manual of Topographic Methods is 
offered for sale by the Geological Survey at 
one dollar per copy. It isan advantage for 
many persons to be able to buy a govern- 
ment publication, instead of attempting to 
beg it through a member of Congress, but 
in this case it is to be regretted that the 
value of the contents is so much less than 
the price demanded. Asa presentation of 
actual field methods, as a manual for the 
instruction of the employees of the Geological 
Survey, and as a contribution to science, 
this volume occupies a low plane compared 
to what should be expected from a bureau 
that has done and is doing topographic 
work of high excellence. 

MANSFIELD MERRIMAN. 

LEHIGH UNIVERSITY. 


Degeneration. By Max Norpav. New York, 
D. Appleton & Co. 1895. 8vo. Pp. 
560 + xiii. Price, $3.50. 


This isan English translation from the 
second edition of the original German, the 
first edition of which was published in 
1893, and a French translation of which ap- 
peared in 1894. 

The author is a pupil of Lombroso, to 
whom he dedicates his work, and he states 
that its object is to apply the methods em- 


466 


ployed by the modern Italian school in the 
study of weak, imperfect, degenerate men 
as found among the criminal and mentally 
disordered classes, to the identification of 
degenerates among modern authors and 
artists. Such degenerates, he declares, 
manifest the same mental characteristics, 
and, for the most part, the same somatic 
features, as do criminals, prostitutes and 
lunatics. 

The physical characteristics, or ‘stig- 
mata,’ as they are called, of degeneracy in 
man consist of various malformations which 
have been described and classified by Morel, 
Lombroso and others, and which are relied 
upon to some extent in the diagnosis of 
doubtful cases of insanity, especially in 
criminals. 

The mental stigmata of degeneracy are 
also, In many respects, well known, and 
consist in mental asymmetry, more or less 
lack of the sense of morality, excessive 
emotionalism, or its converse, 7. e., abnormal 
apathy and sluggishness, morbid despond- 
ency, incapacity for continued attention, 
and lack of will power, tendency to ramb- 
ling revery, mysticism, intense egotism, ab- 
normal sexual instincts, ete. 

Nordau distinguishes between the hysteri- 
cal and the degenerate, applying the former 
term to the admirers and followers of the 
latter. In his sense there are quite as 
many hysterical males as females. He is 
not a physician, and his ideas of hysteria do 
not precisely correspond with those of the 
ordinary practitioner ; he is a literary critic 
who has made a special study of morbid 
mental phenomena and attempts to apply 
this knowledge to the elucidation of the 
characteristics of certain forms of modern 
art and literature with which he is remark- 
ably familiar. He takes up in succession 
the impressionists, the mystics, the Pre-Ra- 
phaelists, the symbolists and the decadents 
and esthetes, discussing Ruskin, Holman, 
Hunt, Rossetti, Swinburne, Morris, Ver- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 17. 


laine, Mallarmé, Tolstoi, Wagner, Péladan, 
Maeterlinck, Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Ib- 
sen, Zola, Nietzsche and many others. The_ 
only illustration of degeneracy in a scienti- 
fic man which he gives is Zollner. His 
criticisms of these are by no means scien- 
tifically impartial; they are at times almost 
vituperative, but they are in the main just, 
and substantiated by his quotations, and 
his strong expressions of condemnation and 
disgust will in the majority of cases meet 
with sympathy on the part of an intelligent 
reader, even if he does find some of the ad- 
jectives too sweeping and unqualified. 

The chief defect of his work considered 
from the scientific point of view is its want 
of logical order ; it may almost be said to be 
composed of two different works, composed 
in two different moods, one of which was 
strongly pessimistic, the other more calm 
and impartial ; the first an eloquent appeal 
to the emotions, the second addressed 
rather to the reason, and these two parts 
are so arranged and mixed that it is neces- 
sary to read the book from cover to cover 
and to rearrange and classify the matter in 
one’s own mind, before one can be reason- 
ably sure that he knows the views of the 
author, and this is the more necessary be- 
cause the book has no index. For exam- 
ple, the first chapter entitled ‘The Dusk of 
the Nations,’ is an eloquent piece of pessi- 
mism, yet Nordau is by no means a pessi- 
mist; in fact, he considers pessimism as one 
of the stigmata of degeneration, and the 
reader after finishing the first chapter 
should next read the last two chapters, 
which relate to the prognosis and treatment 
of the disorder under discussion, in which 
chapters the author points out that the 
symptoms which he has described pertain 
mainly to the scum or froth and to the dregs 
of population, that the great mass of the 
people are sound, that the degenerates can- 
not maintain themselves in the struggle for 
existence, and that humanity as a whole is 


APRIL 26, 1895.] 


not yet senile. A degenerate organism 
ean transmit to its offspring the morbid 
peculiarities, but, as a rule, the stock soon 
dies out. 

In like manner, mysticism is treated with 
considerable detail as a pathological phe- 
nomenon, without a hint that it is ever 
anything else, and it is only in a succeeding 
chapter that we are told that ‘ Mysticism 
is the habitual condition of the human race, 
and in no way an eccentric disposition of 
mind,” and that the difference between 
what may be termed normal and patholog- 
ical mysticism is that “the healthy man is 
in a condition to obtain sharply defined 
presentations from his own immediate per- 

ceptions, and to comprehend their real con- 
nection. The mystic, on the contrary, 
mixes his ambiguous, cloudy, half-formed 
liminal representations with his immediate 
perceptions, which are thereby disturbed 
and obscured.” 

In his fourth chapter the author discusses 
the causes of the disorder, summing them 
up as alcohol and tobacco, the growth of 
cities, and excessive fatigue due to the great 
increase in the number of sense impressions, 
perceptions and motor impulses which are 
experienced in a given unit of time. His 
argument from the supposed increase of in- 
sanity has no sound basis, for there is no 
good evidence that it has increased, and on 
this point the recent report of the General 
Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scot- 
land is very satisfactory. The argument 
that the present generation is aging much 
‘more rapidly than the preceding one be- 
cause there are more deaths from heart dis- 
ease, apoplexy, etc., now than formerly is 
also fallacious. Deaths from all the causes 
which chiefly affect persons over fifty years 
of age are becoming more frequent, because 
the proportion of persons over fifty years of 
age is becoming larger, and the death rates 
of children are becoming smaller. 

_ His therapeutics are not very definite, 


SCIENCE. 


467 


being mainly the promotion of education, 
the condemnation of works trading on un- 
chastity, and the branding of the pornog- 
raphist with infamy. This is rather the 
treatment of a symptom than of the disease 
itself. 

The real problem of dealing with the de- 
generate, and of checking their increase, 
is no doubt mainly connected with the con- 
ditions of city life and the increasing use of 
mechanism, and is to be solved by changes 
in municipal organization adapted to the 
new conditions of the day, combined with 
intelligent direction of the work of private 
associations of various kinds. 

The work of Nordau should be carefully 
read by every one who is interested in so- 
cial progress; the translation is excellent, 
and it is a book well calculated to make 
one think. His dogmatic statements as to 
the mechanism of nerve cells in mental 
phenomena are, for the most part, pure hy- 
potheses based on materialism and taking 
no account of the persistence of individual 
consciousness, but they are in many ways 
suggestive and interesting; and while one 
must object to some of his premises, his 
conclusions with regard to the majority of 
the authors whom he discusses will proba- 
bly be accepted by the majority of persons 
who are competent to form a definite opin- 
ion on the subject. 

J.S. Bruures. 


Darwinism and Race Progress. By Joun 
Berry Haycrart, M. D., D. Sc., F. R. 
8. E., Professor of Physiology, University 
College, Cardiff. London, Swan, Son- 
neschein & Co. New York, Charles 
Scribner’s Sons. 1895. 

This is an eminently sensible book, and 
besides its scientific interest it deserves the 
study of social reformers and_ religious 
teachers. Dr. Haycraft holds that the 
muscles and brains of a race are not bound 
to decay, but that the human species in 


468 


civilized countries is in fact deteriorating 
because we are breeding from inferior types. 
The increased knowledge of recent years is 
being applied to free mankind from those 
hardships and diseases which have beset 
them. But although we may improve an 
individual during his lifetime, both in phys- 
ical capacity and mental and moral power, 
this improvement is not transmitted in any 
appreciable degree to the offspring, who 
have therefore to begin again where the 
parents began. Men can leave their full 
purses to their sons, but no legacies of 
mental and moral improvement, or not 
much. Therefore the action of healthy sur- 
roundings will never produce a robust race 
out of a feeble race, nor will the action of 
the best educational system ever devised 
develop a race of wise men out of a race of 
fools. 

This leads our author to a dicsussion of 
the question whether acquired characters 
are inherited, or whether the reproductive 
cells remain unaffected by local changes in 
the body cells, and he sides with Darwin 
and Weismann rather than with Lamarck 
and Herbert Spencer. Racial change is 
brought about by selection, 2. e., by the death 
or nonproductiveness of certain sorts of in- 
dividuals, so that the others alone remain ; 
and if this remnant is organically superior, 
then the next generation will be so. But 
at present we are not perpetuating our best. 
The gardener perfects his stock by selecting 
seed only from the best; and improved 
breeds of cattle are produced in the same 
way—not by any new method of ventila- 
ting the cowshed, nor by any freshly discoy- 
ered patent fodder—yet we foolishly fancy 
we can regenerate society by better food 
and improved dwellings. We must resort 
to selection rather. Preventive medicine 
is saving us from small-pox, measles, ty- 
phoid fever, ete.; but these diseases previ- 
ously exercised a selective influence to carry 
off the feeblest, who are now preserved to 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 17. 


become race-producers. Leprosy also ex- 
terminates the unhealthy, and must be 
looked upon as a friend to humanity. The 
germs of phthisis or scrofula are our racial 
friends. Sufferers from phthisis are prone 
to other diseases as well, and are unsuited 
for the battle of life, yet because of a certain 
attractiveness of personal appearance they 
easily marry, and they leave a large pro- 
geny. It follows that by exterminating the 
bacillus of consumption and giving this deli- 
cate and fragile type of persons an adyan- 
tage in the struggle of life we may imperil 
the well-being of the future of the race. 
Even drink may be looked upon as a selec- 
tive agency, constantly thinning the ranks 
of those who are weak enough by nature to” 
give way to it, and leaving unharmed those 
with healthy tastes and sound moral con- 
stitutions. Besides the diseased and the 
drunken there are the incorrigibly criminal, 
the class whose feet take by nature the 
crooked path, and who at present are al- 
lowed to transmit the taint and the ten- 
dency. 

Whatis the remedy ? The argument might 
seem to give a moral sanction to the broad- 
cast scattering of the germs of disease, and 
to the leaving of unlimited whisky on the 
doorsteps of our weaker neighbors. But 
no! other ways are open to us. Asregards 
drink, indeed, Dr. Hayecraft would ‘not im- 
pose any other restraining influence than a 
man’s own conscience and sense of self-re- 
spect. But as regards persons tainted with 
disease, he does not suggest any such merci- 
less measure as a lethal chamber for them or 
their offspring. He is content that preven- 
tive medicine should continue its work, so 
beneficent to the individual ; but he thinks 
we ought to replace one selective agency by 
another. There is already a widespread 
feeling against the marriage of persons with 
a distinct family history of insanity. He 
would try to strengthen that feeling and 
extend it to other forms of weakness and 

7 


APRIL 26, 1895.] 


disease. In the course of time public opin- 
ion might sanction legislation of a prohibi- 
tive character. As to inveterate criminals, 
we must bring our minds to the remedy of 
the perpetual confinement of the irreclaim- 
able, so that they may die out and leave 
no successors. 

After discussing the competition of brain 
against brain and the fact that property is 
not always acquired by the most capable, 
_ and considering the effect of modern demo- 
eratic attemps to equalize the struggle, as 
also the question of the relative sterility of 
the capables and the possible swamping of 
the capables by the incapables, our author 
says he cannot doubt that by selection Eng- 
land, in a hundred years, might have its 
average man and woman as well endowed 
in body and mind as are the best of us to- 
day. 

It should be mentioned that Dr. Hay- 
craft has a high regard for the deserving 
poor and wishes to see the criminal and va- 
grant class separated from them in our 
 poor-houses and treated differently. 

Geo. Sr. Crarr. 
CARDIFF, WALES. 


A Short History of Chemistry. By F. P. 
VENABLE, PH.D. 12 mo. Pp. viii., 
163. Boston, D. C. Heath & Co. 1894. 
Price, $1.00. 

What may be called the historical habit 
of mind is of great value to the student of 
any science. Many things are constantly 
met with which can only be understood in 
the light of their historical setting. This 
‘is especially true in the case of a science 
which has seen so many vicissitudes and so 
many changes in its point of view as has 
chemistry. For this reason a book which 
ives a clear, concise outline of the historical 
elopment of the science is sure to find 
an extensive field of usefulness. 

- The present author follows, in general, 

the division into periods as given by Kopp, 


SCIENCE. 


469 


but discusses the periods of Medical Chem- 
istry and of Phlogiston together under the 
head of ‘ Qualitative Chemistry ’ and adds a 
period to which the name of Structural 
Chemistry is given. The opinion is ex- 
pressed that this period has already passed 
and that we are entering upon a new 
and different phase of development for 
the science. His characterization of the 
present tendencies of the science is, how- 
ever, necessarily vague and unsatisfactory. 

The book is well written and there ap- 
pear to be few errors. On page 141 the 
value of 15.96 for the atomic weight of 
oxygen is based, incorrectly, on the author- 
ity of Stas, instead of on that of Dumas 
and of Erdmann and Marchand. 

For any student who desires more than 
a very elementary knowledge of the science, 
the book must, of course, be considered as 
an outline which is to be filled out by ex- 
tensive reading of larger works. But, 
whether used by itself or in connection 
with other books or lectures, it is hoped 
that a book which is so easily accessible to 
every one will give a new impetus to a 
phase of chemical study which has been too 
much neglected. W. A. Noyes. 

RosE POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 


A Laboratory Manual containing directions for 
a course of experiments in Organic Chemistry 
systematically arranged to accompany Rem- 
sen’s Organic Chemistry by W. R. Orn- 
poRFF. Boston, Heath & Co. 1894. 

As indicated by the title, this manual 
contains directions for the experiments in 
Remsen’s Organic Chemistry in a form suit- 
able for students in the laboratory. The 
page being printed on but one side, ample 
room is left for the student’s observations 
and, as the text-book is not open before him, 
he is led to observe for himself, instead of 
merely trying to see what the text-book says 
heshould. Asstated by Professor Remsen in 
the preface, ‘Great care has been taken to 


470 


determine the best condition for each ex- 
periment, and in many cases the directions 
given are undoubtedly better than those 
given in my (R’s) book.” Frequently, 
however, the only difference in the direc- 
tions is that in the text-book they are more 
or less general, whereas in the manual they 
are given in great detail and, though the 
student may thus fail less frequently the 
first time he tries to make a substance, the 
educational value is diminished. Often 
more is learned by failure than success. 
The student must determine the necessary 
conditions himself. Thus he becomes self- 
reliant and learns to think chemically. 
This fault of the manual is to some extent 
compensated by the questions asked on 
almost every page. On the whole, the book 
will be found a valuable aid, especially in 
those laboratories in which the instructor 
can not devote much time to each student. 
Fevtrx LENGFELD. 
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


INVESTIGATION OF THE GOLD AND COAL RE- 
SOURCES OF ALASKA. 

ConereEss at its last session ordered a 
special investigation of the gold and coal 
resources of Alaska, appropriating $5,000 
therefor. The investigation will be made 
under the direction of the U. 8. Geological 
Survey, and will be under the immediate 
charge of Dr. George F. Becker, the well 
known gold expert. With Dr. Becker will 
be Dr. Wm. H. Dall, paleontologist, who 
has a superior knowledge of the geography 
and the general geology of the region. 
These experts and a single geologic assistant 
will comprise the party. 

The party will leave Washington City, 
May 15, and it is proposed, with the sum 
available, to spend three months in actual 
field work, spending a month in each of 
three distinct districts along the Alaskan 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 17. 


coast. Work will be begun in the Sitka 
area, where both gold and coal are known 
to occur. Transportation into and about 
the various inlets and bays to the north 
and west of Sitka will be furnished, through 
the courtesy of Secretary Herbert of the 
Navy, by the U.S. S. Pinta, which will be 
stationed in those waters. From the Sitka 
region the party will go to Kadiak Island 
and Cook’s Inlet by mail steamer. In this 
region both gold and coal will be looked for 
also. The district to be visited last is 
Shumagin, to be reached by mail steamer 
from Kadiak. In the last named region, 
as in the other areas, gold and coal will 
be the main objects of inquiry, though the 
district is otherwise of very considerable 
geologic interest on account of its fossil re- 
mains and the presence of an active voleano. 

The search for coal is one of especial in- 
terest to the Navy Department; if coal 
suitable for use as fuel in the war vessels 
and revenue cutters in the Pacific were 
found to be available in quantities, it would 
be of incalculable advantage to the Govern- 
ment. 

It will not be feasible with the limited 
fund available to carry this investigation of 
gold and coal resources as far as might be 
desired. There is demand, for example, 
for an investigation of the gold placers of 
the Yucon river, but to do this work eftee- 
tively the geologist will have to remain in 
the Yucon region through one summer and 
through the ensuing winter. 


A REDFIELD MEMORIAL, 


THE botanical section of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia, which 
had under consideration the subject of a 
monument commemorative of the services 
to botanical science of the late John H. 
Redfield, Conservator of the herbarium of 
the Academy, has issued a cireular, saying: 

“Tt has been decided that no better 
monument to the memory of John H. Red- 


‘ 


APRIL 26, 1895. ] 


field could be erected than to arrange for 
completing and caring for the work he 
loved, and to which he gave freely so many 
years of his life—namely, the Herbarium 
of the Academy of Natural Sciences. 
Mainly through his disinterested labors, it 
_ stands to-day scarcely second to any in the 
_ United States, containing, besides many 
unnamed, over 35,000 named species of 
flowering plants and ferns, the half of 
_ which have been verified and fastened 
down. 
‘ “No one can probably be found to give 
_ the years of time he so freely gave. In 
order to carry on the work, and add to the 
collection, as exploring expeditions afford 
the opportunity, it has been proposed to 
establish a Redfield Memorial Herbarium 
Fund. 
_ “Mr. Redfield’s will provides that his 
herbarium, minerals, shells and scientific 
_ works shall be sold to help the herbarium, 
thus furnishing a nucleus for the proposed 
fund. It is in mind to raise $20,000, but 
the interest of any sum that may be con- 
tributed can at once be made available. 
} “Statements will be furnished from time 
_ to time to contributors, keeping them in- 
_ formed of the progress of the contributions. 
_ Checks may be made payable to the order 
_ of Thomas Meehan, Director, or Steward- 
_ son Brown, Treasurer, and mailed to either 
3 at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Nine- 
F teenth and Race streets, Philadelphia.” 


| 
| 
: 


a 


THE MOTION OF CLOUDS. 


_ Ar a meeting of the Royal Meteorological 
Society, of London, on March 20th, Mr. W. 
N. Shaw, F..R.S., delivered a lecture on 
_ *The Motion of Clouds considered with ref- 
erence to their mode of formation,’ which 
was illustrated by experiments. The ques- 
tion proposed for consideration was how far 
the apparent motion of a cloud was a satis- 
factory indication of the motion of the air 
‘in which the cloud is formed. The moun- 


SCIENCE. 


471 


tain cloud cap was cited as an instance of a 
stationary cloud formed in air moving 
sometimes with great rapidity; ground fog, 
thunder clouds and cumulus clouds were 
also referred to in this connection. The 
two causes of formation of cloud were next 
considered, viz.: (1) the mixing of masses 
of air at different temperatures, and (2) the 
dynamical cooling of air by the reduction 
of its pressure without supplying heat from 
the outside. The two methods of formation 
were illustrated by experiments. 

A sketch of the supposed motion of air 
near the centre of a cyclone showed the 
probability of the clouds formed by the 
mixing of air being carried along with the 
air after they formed, while when cloud is 
being formed by expansion circumstances 
connected with the formation of drops of 
water on the nuclei to be found in the air, 
and the maintenance of the particles in a 
state of suspension, make it probable that 
the apparent motion of such a cloud is a bad 
indication of the motion of the air. After 
describing some special cases, Mr. Shaw re- 
ferred to the meteorological effects of the 
thermal disturbance which must be intro- 
duced by the condensation of water vapor; 
and he attributed the atmospheric disturb- 
ances accompanying tropical rains to this 
cause. The difference in the character of 
nuclei for the deposit of water drops was 
also pointed out and illustrated by the ex- 
hibition of colored halos formed under 
special conditions when the drops were 
sufficiently uniform in size. 


THE DISCRIMINATION OF COLORS. 


Proressor ARTHUR K6niG (Zeitschrift fiir 
Psychologie, Feb., 1895) has calculated, from 
experiments previously published, the num- 
ber of hues or colors that can be distin- 
guished in the spectrum. Differences in 
hue cannot be perceived beyond 4 = 655 py 
and beyond 4 = 430 yu; between these 
limits the normal eye can distinguish about 


472 


160 hues. According to K6nig, the dichro- 
matic eye (green or red blind) can distin- 
guish nearly the same number of hues, its 
accuracy being greater than that of the 
normal eye in certain regions. The seven 
colors inherited from Newton should be 
abandoned. Physically, any three wave- 
lengths, sufficiently separated, suffice to 
produce all the colors; psychologically, we 
an distinguish about 160 hues, or, as Leo- 
nardo da Vinci stated, there are four dis- 
tinct colors—red, yellow, green and blue. 
In the same paper K6nig caleulates that 
about 660 degrees of intensity or brightness 
can be distinguished between the light that 
is just visible and the light so intense as to 
be blinding. 


THE KARAKORAM HIMALAYAS. 


In a lecture before the Imperial Institute 
of London, Mr. William Conway described 
the expedition to the Karakoram Himalayas 
made in 1892 under the auspices of the 
Royal Geographical Society, the Royal So- 
ciety, the British Associotion, and the Goy- 
ernment of India. The party consisted of 
the Hon. C. G. Bruce, Mr. A. D. M’Cor- 
mack, the lecturer, and two others, with an 
Alpine guide. The lecturer stated, accord- 
ing to the report in the London Times, that 
starting from Abbottabad, they went to 
Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, thence by 
the Burzil pass to Astor and Bungi, in the 
Indus valley. The party followed the road 
to Gilgit, and a month was then spent in ex- 
ploring the glaciers at the head of the Bagrot 
valley, and the great peaks in the neighbor- 
hood of Rakipushi. Returning to Gilgit 
they ascended the Hunza-Nagar valley, and 
visited the towns. From that point two 
long expeditions were made into the snowy 
region to the south and southeast before 
pushing forward to Hispar, which was at 
the foot of the longest glacier in the world 
outside the polar region. Dividing them- 
selves into two parties, they made the first 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 17. 


known passage of Europeans up the Nushik 
pass, and the first definitely recorded pas- 
sage of the Hispar pass. The two parties 
united at Askole, in Baltistan, and, proceed= 
ing up the Braldo valley, arrived at the 
foot of the remarkable Baltoro glacier. 
Having forced their way to the very head 
of the glacier, they camped for two nights 
at an altitude of 20,000 ft. The Pioneer 
peak, which was 3,000 ft. above the camp, 
was also climbed, thus making, it was said, 
the highest ascent yet authentically re- 
corded. Returning to Askole, they crossed 
the Skoro pass to Shigar and Skardo, 
whence they rode up the Indus valley to 
Leh, the capital of Ladak, or Western 
Tibet. The Zoji pass to Kashmir was tray- 
ersed, and the party returned from Srina- 
gar to England. 


* GENERAL. 


Proressor JAMES D. Dana died at New 
Haven, on April 14th, at the age of eighty- 
two years. 

TuE sixty-fifth meeting of the British As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Science 
will commence on Wednesday, the 11th of 
September, under the presidency of Sir 
Douglas Galton, well known for his works 
upon sanitation, and as an adviser of the 
Government in matters of sanitary engi- 
neering. An invitation is issued to the 
philosophers of England and other coun- 
tries, by the Secretary, to support this 
meeting by personal assistance and written 
contributions. Americans who have been 
the guests of the British Association know 
how admirable the arrangements are for 
the conduct of these meetings and how, by 
invitation to the General Committee and 
the Sectional Committees, a visitor from @ 
foreign country is soon made to feel that he 
is a part of this great scientific organism. 

At the last meeting of the Victoria Insti- 
tute, of London, Sir George Stokes, Bart, F. 
R. S., in the Chair, papers by Sir J. W. 


APRIL 26, 1895.] 


| Dawson, C. M. G., F. R. S., Professors E. 
_ Hull, F. R. 8., Parker and Duns, the Rev. 
_G. Whidborne, and Mr. J. Slater, F. C.S., 
} were read upon the questions in regard to 

natural selection aid evolution, treated by 
Professor Huxley in his recent address on 
; ‘The Past and Present.’ 


_ Ow May 4th the Association for the Edu- 
cation of Women is to hold a general meet- 
ing in the Schools, Oxford, to consider the 
i question of a petition to the University for 
_ the admission of women to the B. A. degree. 
Dr. SHERRINGTON, now Superintendent of 
the Brown Institution, London, has been 
appointed to the George Holt chair of Physi- 
Biocy at Liverpool, vacant by the removal 
of Professor Gotch to Oxford. 


Dr. H. WeseEr, Professor of Mathematics 

in the University of Géttingen, has accepted 

a call to the University of Strassbourg, and 

Professor Hilbert, of Kénigsberg, has been 
ed to the vacant chair in Gottingen. 


Dr. E. R. L. Goutp has accepted a call 

to the Professorship of Statistics in the Uni- 
versity of Chicago. 
_ Mr. Treopore T. Groom, of St. John’s 

Jollege, Cambridge, has been appointed 
Professor of Natural History in the Royal 
icultural College, Cirencester, succeed- 
ing the late Professor Harker. 
é Dr. Jowannes Brummer, Professor of 
_ Agriculture in the University of Jena, died 

ntly at the age of forty-three years. 
Tue death is announced of the Irish 

Diistoratict, Mr. A. G. More. 
_ Tue Appalachian Mountain Club, of Bos- 
_ ton, announces’ the following excursions for 
1895: April 19, Long Walk; May 11, May 
Walk—Nobscot Hill and Wayside Inn; 
May 30, Mt. Tom and Mt. Holyoke; July 
1-8, Field Meeting—Seal Harbor, Mt. Des- 
ert; August, A probable excursion to the 
Selkirk mountains in British Columbia, oc- 
eupying an entire month. 


SCIENCE. 


473 


A PsycnotocicaL InpEx, being a bibli- 
ography of the literature of Psychology and 
cognate subjects for 1894, has been pub- 
lished by Macmillan & Co., as a supplement 
to the Psychological Review. The index has 
been compiled by Mr. Howard C. Warren, 
of Princeton College, and Dr. Livingston 
Farrand, of Columbia College. 1312 titles 
are given, distributed as follows: General 
135, Genetic, Comparative and Individual 
Psychology 259, Anatomy and Physiology 
of the Nervous System 190, Sensation 107, 
Consciousness, Attention and Inhibition 
176, Feeling 50, Movement and Volition 
116, Abnormal 278. — 

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

THE MINNESOTA ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCI- 
ENCES, MINNEAPOLIS. JOINT MEETING 
WITH THE ST. PAUL ACADEMY OF 
SCIENCE. 

March 6th, in the rooms of the St. Paul 
Commercial Club. 

The Physical Features of the Lake of the Woods: 
Proressor Conway MacMitxan, State 
Botanist. 

Psychic Effects of the Weather: Epwarp S. 
Brats, Observer U. 8. Weather Bureau, 
Minneapolis. 

Geology and Flora of the Mountain Region of 
Northwestern Montana: D. R. McGuynts, 
Secretary St. Paul Commercial Club. 
April 2d in the Public Library, Minne- 

apolis. 

Fatigue; its Cause and Social, Religious, 
Economie and Educational Aspects: H. 8. 
Baker, Pu. D., Principal of the Jeffer- 
son School. St. Paul. 

Some Queer Forms of Shellfish: Prorgssor H. 
L. Oszorn, Hamline University, St. Paul. 

C. W. HAtt, Secretary. 


NEW YORK BRANCH OF THE AMERICAN FOLK- 
LORE SOCIETY. 

On the evening of Saturday, April the 6th, 

the annual meeting of the New York Branch 


474 


of the American Folk-Lore Society was held 
with the following result: 

The officers elected for the season of 
1895-96 are as follows: President, Mr. B. 
Francis Hyde; First Vice-President, Mr. 
George B. Grinnell; Secretary and Treasurer, 
Mr. William Burnet Tuthill; as members 
of the Executive Council, Mrs. Henry 
Draper, Mrs. Mary J. Field and Mrs. E. 
Francis Hyde. The offices of Second Vice- 
President and the fourth lady member of 
the Executive Council were not filled, the 
places being held vacant for the action of 
the Executive Council. 

It was determined to hold the final meet- 
ing of the season on the evening of Tuesday, 
May the 7th, at the Hotel Waldorf. The 
speaker for the evening will be Dr. Mat- 
thews, of Washington, the subject being 
Navahoe Myths, illustrated by phonograph. 
It is also the intention of the Council to 
have four meetings during the coming sea- 
son; three of them to be held at the Hotel 
Waldorf and one at the Museum of Natural 
History. At the meetings held at the Hotel 
Waldorf the members of the Society will be 
entertained after the reading of the paper. 


Wma. B. Turmi11, Secretary. 


THE NEW YORK MINERALOGICAL CLUB. 

At the last meeting of the New York 
Mineralogical Club the following officers 
were elected for the ensuing year: Presi- 
dent, George F’. Kunz; Secretary, Professor 
Daniel 8. Martin; Treasurer, J. W. Freck- 
leton; Executive Committee, E. Scherni- 
kow, Dr. E. 8. Arnold and Professor A. H. 
Chester; -Curators, Professor R. P. Whit- 
field, Gilman §S. Stanton and William 
Niven ; Committee on Admissions, J. Mc- 
Carthy and Frederick Kato; Committee 
on Executions, J. S. Walker, Professor D. 
S. Martin and Frederick Kato; Delegates 
to Scientific Alliance, George F. Kunz, 
Professor D. 8. Martin and J. W. Schoon- 
maker. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 17. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
THE ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, APRIL. 
Recent Researches on the Spectra of the Planets, 

II.: H. C. Vocet. 7 

A summary of recent work on Jupiter, 
Saturn and Uranus. Photographic obser- 
vations reveal no deviation in their spectra 
from that of the sun, but in the less re- 
frangible region bands due to the absorp- 
tion in the atmospheres of the planets haye 
been recorded visually. A comparison of 
the visual spectrum of Uranus as mapped 
by Keeler and by Vogel shows little varia- 
tion. Repeated observations on the red 
spot of Jupiter indicate no difference be- 
tween its spectrum and that of the belts. 
From a study of the red region, the satel- 
lites probably have atmospheres similar to 
that of the primary. The spectra of Sat- 
urn and the ans of the ring on each side 
are identical in the more refrangible por- 
tion. That there is no absorption band at 
A 618 py indicates the absence of an at- 
mosphere around the rings. 

On the Periodic Changes of the Variable Star 
|Z Herculis: N. ©. Dune. 

After discussing various observations 
upon this variable and giving its ephemeris, 
the writer concludes that Z Herculis is a 
connecting link between the algol and the 
Y Cygni types, differing from algol in hay- 
ing both components bright, and from ) 
Cygni in that the components are of un- 
equal brightness. It consists of two stars 
of equal size, one of which is twice as 
bright as the other. The stars revolve in 
3 days, 28 hours, 48 minutes, 30 seconds, 
in an elliptical orbit whose semi-major axis 
is six times the diameter of the stars. The 
plane of the orbit passes through the sun. 
Preliminary Table of Solar Spectrum Wave- 

Length, IV.: H. A. RowLanp. 

The table is continued from 4 4266 to 4414, 


T. Andromede: EH. C. PICKERING. 
A study of later photographs indicate that 


PRIL 26, 1895.] 


the period of this variable, which was 281 
days during 1891-1894, has changed for 


A photometric observation before and 
after eclipse, compared with the second 
satellite. 

ectrum of Mars: Lewis E. JEWELL. 

_ A spectroscopic study of the water vapor 
of the earth’s atmosphere shows that, unless 


ars is greater than that in the earth’s at- 
mosphere, it is useless to look for it there, 
vith our present instruments. The chances 
or detecting oxygen and chlorophyl are 
etter. 


On a New Method of Mapping the Solar Cor- 
ona: GrorGE E. Har. 

A method for using the differential bo- 

lometer. Evidence is offered that the heat 

radiation of the corona could be differen- 


vely on different parts of the coronal image, 
the galvanometer would indicate the vary- 
g radiation of heat intensity. Methods 
e also proposed for reducing the galva- 
eter readings to a form suitable for com- 
son with actual photographs of the 


A translation from the Zeitschrift fir 
nstrumentenkunde, describing a modifica- 
ion of the Littron spectroscope. 

linor Contributions and Notes. 

Photographic Correcting Lens for Visual Tele- 
scopes: JAMES E. KEELER. 

he Color of Sirius in Ancient Times: W. TT. 
In the Variability of Es.-Birm. 281: T.E. 


Esper 


SCIENCE. 


475 


The Displacement of Spectral Lines Caused by 
the Rotation of a Planet: James E. KEEver. 

Dr. Pulfrich’s Modification of the Littrow Spec- 
troscope. 

A list of the titles of recent publications 
on astrophysical and allied subjects appear- 
ing since the last number is a feature of 
each issue. 


THE PHYSICAL REVIEW, MARCH-APRIL, 1895. 
Tue leading article in this number of 
the Review is one by Dr. A. S. Mackenzie, 
On the attractions of Crystalline and Iso- 
tropic Masses at Small Distances The primary 
object of the paper is to give in de- 
tail the methods and results of an investi- 
gation made for the purpose of determining 
whether, within the errors of observation, 
there is any deviation from the law of New- 
ton in the case of attracting erystalline 
matter with reference to its optic axis, and 
the author gives also the results of some 
experiments made with a view to testing 
the application of the same law in the case 
of isotropic matter at small distances. 
Physicists do not yet fully appreciate the 
value of the ingenious device suggested by 
Professor Boys through which they have 
lately been able to use quartz fibres, which 
furnish a mode of suspending small masses 
far ahead of anything before made use of 
in stability or constancy of torsional re- 
sistance. Like many other apparently mi- 
nor discoveries or inventions, the introduc- 
tion of the quartz fiber has greatly enlarged 
the opportunities of the experimentalist, in 
that it provides a ready means of measur- 
ing forces so minute as to have been thought 
until recently quite beyond our reach. The 
solution of problems relating to near at- 
tractions has especially been forwarded by 
this device, as Professor Boys has himself 
shown in several able and important inves- 
tigations. In the paper under consideration 
Dr. Mackenzie describes the apparatus used 
in studying the attraction of crystalline 


476 


masses. Itis simple but effective, and so 
delicate in its indications that the utmost 
care was necessary to avoid interference for 
external causes, often difficult to control. 
Full details are given, as they are of great 
interest, especially to those who contem- 
plate the use of a quartz torsion fibre. It 
is interesting to note that the author was 
never able, throughout a long series of ex- 
periments, to control absolutely the zero 
point of his balance. Although quartz is 
enormously superior to any other suspen- 
sion thus far proposed, it is still defective 
in this respect. For some cause which Dr. 
Mackenzie is unable to give, the zero was 
constantly shifting. He does not clearly 
say whether this partakes of the nature of 
a ‘drift’ in one direction or not. In a long 
series of experiments, made by direction of 
the writer of this notice, for the purpose of 
trying to improve the existing form of the 
vertical force magnetometer, quartz fibres 
were used. Although apparently well pro- 
tected from convection currents and changes 
in temperature, the mirror attached to them 
was never actually at rest. When this shift- 
ing and drifting is small, as it usually is, 
and observations are of the nature of those 
described by Dr. Mackenzie, that is, not in 
themselves extending over long periods, the 
error arising from it may be readily and 
correctly eliminated. 

The apparatus used for observing the at- 
traction of isotropic masses was of the same 
character, and similar to that used by Pro- 
fesser Boys. The conclusion reached, the ex- 
perimental results being inagreement within 
one or two-tenths of one per cent., is that 
neither in the case of crystalline nor isotropic 
masses was any deviation from the law of 
Newton detected. The author fails to note 
the very ingenious and interesting method of 
attacking the problem of the attraction of 
_ erystalline masses proposed by Poynting in 
his Adams Prize Hssay on the Density of 
the Harth. Poynting proposes to test the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 17. 


question of there being different proper- 
ties as to attraction along different axes of 
erystals by the directive action which must 
exist when one sphere of a crystal is in the 
field ofanother. He made some experiments 
along that line, and his work probably pre- 
ceded by a year or two that of Dr. Macken- 
zie. At the present moment, with library 
out of reach, I am unable to say whether 
he has published any further results. 

The Influence of Temperature on the Trans- 
parency of Solutions, by E. 8. Nichols and 
Mary C. Spencer, is another prominent 
article of the Review. Transparency to 
various wave-lengths was tested and a num- 
ber of color solutions were examined. There 
are also papers on the Electric Conductivity 
of Certain Salt Solutions, by A. C. Mae- 
Gregory, a continuation of the paper on 
Forces between Fine Solid Particles totally 
Immersed in Liquids and among the minor 
contributions is one interesting and useful 
on the Variation of Internal Resistance of a 
Voltaic Cell with Current, by Professor 
Carhart. T. Cos 


NEW BOOKS. 

Die Chemie des Chlorophylls. i. MARcHLEW- 
skI. Hamburg und Leipzig, Leopold 
Voss. 1895. Pp.iv+82. M. 2. 

Les Aurores polaires. ALFRED ANGOT. Paris, 
Felix Alean. 1895. Pp. vii+ 316. 

Lehrbuch der Allgemeinen Psychologie. Jo- 
HANNES REHMKE. Hamburg und Leipzig, 
Leopold Voss. 1894. Pp. 582. M. 10. 

Towa Geological Survey, Vol. LIT. Des Moines, 
Published for the lowa Geological Survey. 
1895. Pp. 501. 

Magnetismus und Hypnotismus. G. W. GESs- 
MAN. Vienna, A. Hartleben. 2d edi- 
tion. Pp. xiv + 205. 

Bulletin of the Geological Institution of the Uni- 
versity of Upsala. Edited by Hs. S70GREN. 
Upsala, Almqvist & Wiksells. 1893-1894. 
Pp. 95, 293. 


Cae NCE. 


} New SERIES. Fripay, 


VoL.I. No. 18. 


May 3, 1895. 


SINGLE Copres, 15 cTs. 


ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


BEHRENS, Pror. H., Anleitung zur mikrochemi- 
schen Analyse. Mit einem Vorwort von Prof. S. 
_ Hoogewerff in Delft. 
224 Seiten 8°. M. 6. 


BETHAULT, PRor. F., Les Prairies. Prairies natu- 
relles. Prairies de Fauche. 223 pages pet. in 8°. 

‘Cart. Fr. 3. 

_ BIEDERMANN, Pror. W., Elektrophysiologie. 
Erste Abteilung, Mit 136 Abbildungen. 440 Seiten. 

or. 6°. M. 9. 


BOHM, PROSEKTOR A. A., und M. von DAVIDOFF, 
Lehrbuch der Histologie des Menschen einschliesslich 
der mikroskopischen Technik. Mit 246 Abbildungen. 
440 Seiten. gr. 8°. Leinwandband. M. 8. 
GIRARD, Pror. HENRI, Aide-Mémoire de Zoologie- 
Avee 90 figures intercalées dans le texte. 300 pages. 
Pet. in8°. Toile. Fr. 3. 

GRAETZ, PRor. Dr. L., Compendium der Physik. 
ii Studirende. Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte 


A a 8°. 


- Pror. Dr. C., Handatlas der sensiblen und 
motorischen Gebiete der Hirn- und Riickenmarks- 
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Studirende. 36 Tafeln. gr. 8°. Kart. M. 12.60. 


HiProKRATES siimmtliche Werke. Ins Deutsche 
‘bersetzt und ausfiihrlich commentirt von Dr. Robert 
uchs. Bd. I. 526 Seiten. gr. 8°. M. 8.40. 


LAvE, MAXx., Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. Ein 
ertreter deutscher Naturforschung im neunzehnten 
Jahrhundert 1795-1876. Nach seinen Reiseberichten, 
seinem Briefwechsel mit A. v. Humboldt, v. Chamisso, 
Darwin, vy. Martius u. a. [Familienaufzeichnungen, | 
sowie anderm handschriftlichen material. Mit dem 
oy Bee enbere’ s in Kupferiitzung. 287 Seiten. 


Mit 92 Figuren im Text. 


Mit 257 Abbildungen. 454 Seiten. 


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CONTENTS: 


National Academy of Sciences. Report of the Wat- 
son Trustees on the Award of the Watson Medal to 
Seth C. Chandler: S. NEwcoms, B. A. GOULD, 

477 

Summary of Conclusions of a Report by Drs. D. H. 
Bergey, 8. Weir Mitchell and J. S Billings upon 
‘The Composition of Expired Air and its Effects 


DERE MURAL TASC? os 6 oo s< ciclo ermiacael aie sia 481 
American Metrological Society: J. K. R......2.50. 484 
The International Mathematical Congress: GEORGE 

PE CRTEPAE SUED, © 5 'a.0 0/60. +: «i vigiclastalainieinicininiaie o's 486 
Current Notes on Physiography (V.): W. M 

_ TE - oe oS SOR RAGRESHGRS «2 Hace Jara aees 487 
Current Notes on Anthropology (VII.): D. G. 

0 SL AS aes Foc cHicicie Seonte 488 
IO NIRA 0 ia.'a's isin v:0;05 0 sintulee sini olett sists 'a 6 489 
I RIRIONAD 2 — 5.5.3.0 0 sv sk cusfememne eeawiea mine's 490 

The Distribution of Sledges, ete.: Otis T. 

MASON. 

Beientific Literature :— . 1.2.00. ..ec ccc eeccceeees 490 


Geikie’s Life of Ramsay: JosEPH LE CONTE. 
MeMurrich’s Invertebrate Morphology: A. 8S. 


PACKARD. Vertebrate Zodlogy: C. H. M. 
Spalding’s Botany: W.P. Witson. 
RIENCE NEWS — . osc c nc cccvcnccccsscccccsens 497 


Fossil Vertebrates of Argentina; Variation in 
Orabs ; Regression and Organic Stability ; General. 


Societies and Academies : — ...+-..020e.eeeeeeees 501 

American Geographic Society ; The Biological Soci- 
ely of Washington; The Academy of Science of 
St. Louis. 7 


WBCIENESflc Journals >—.....cceesncscnccccccccces 503 
The Botanical Gazette ; The American Naturalist. 
IE ola ou, Snare win © sles acanpamernni te ai vicinie 504 


MSS. intended for publication and books, ete., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
‘McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

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REPORT OF THE WATSON TRUSTEES ON THE 
AWARD OF THE WATSON MEDAL TO 
SETH C. CHANDLER. 

On the recommendation of the Board of 
Trustees of the Watson Fund, the Academy 
last year unanimously awarded the Wat- 
son medal to Seth C. Chandler, of Cam- 
bridge, Mass., for his investigations relative 
to variable stars, his discovery of the period 
of variation of terrestrial latitudes, and his 
researches on the laws of that variation. 
It is the pleasant duty of the Trustees to 
set forth the grounds on which this award 
was recommended. 

It is a result of the well-known laws of 
dynamics relating to the rotation of a rigid 
body, as the earth is assumed to be, upon 
its axis, that the poles of the earth may be 
determined in two ways. Our globe, being 
a spheroid flattened at the poles and pro- 
tuberant at the equator, has a certain axis 
passing between the points of greatest flat- 
tening. This axis has no direct connection 
with the rotation of the earth; it would ex- 
ist if the latter, retaining its present form, 
did not rotate at all. It is called the axis 
of figure, being determined altogether by 
the shape of the earth. 

But the earth has also an axis around 
which it rotates. Now, assuming the earth 
to be a rigid solid, there is no necessity that 
the axis of rotation should correspond to 
that of the axis of figure just described. 


478 


We could take a solid body, pass an axis 
through it in any direction, and make it 
rotate on that axis. 

It was shown by Euler, more than a cen- 
tury ago, that if a solid body rotated on an 
axis different from that of figure, the posi- 
tion of the axis of rotation in the body 
would be subject to a slow change, consist- 
ing in a constant revolution around the axis 
of figure. Were this body the earth, the 
latitude of a place, as determined by astro- 
nomical observation, would change in the 
same way. The time of one revolution of 
the pole would depend upon the figure of 
the earth. The flattening of the earth is 
such that, were it a perfectly rigid body, the 
time of revolution would be about 305 days; 
that is to say, the north pole would make 
its circuit in a period of 305 days. 

There being no necessity that the two 
poles should coincide, the question was 
naturally raised whether, perhaps, there 
might actually be such a difference of the 
two poles, and, in consequence, a change of 
latitude of every place on the earth’s sur- 
face having a period of 305 days. The first to 
investigate this question with all the refine- 
ments of modern astronomy was C. A. F. 
Peters, who, half a century ago, was an as- 
sistant at the Pulkowa Observatory. In 
his classic paper on the parallax of the fixed 
stars, one section is devoted to the question 
of the variability of the latitude in a period 
of 304 days, which, according to the then 
accepted value of the flattening of the earth, 
would be the time of one revolution of the 
poles. He found a coefficient of 0.079, 
with a probable error of 0.017. This re- 
sult was so extremely minute that it might 
have arisen from unavoidable sources of er- 
ror; and the conclusion therefore reached 
was that if there was any such separation of 
the two poles, it was too small to be certainly 
detected by the most refined observations. 

In 1862 our late fellow member, Profes- 
sor Hubbard, of the Naval Observatory, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 18. 


commenced a series of observations with 
the prime-vertical transit of that institu- 
tion, which would be available for the same 
research. They were interrupted after a 
little more than a year, by his untimely 
death, but were continued four years longer 
by his successors. The result was the same 
as that reached by Peters; no change hay- 
ing a period of 305 days could be detected. 

In 1873 the question was investigated by 
Nyrén in connection with a longer series of 
observations on the latitude of the Pulkowa 
Observatory. His results were somewhat dis- 
cordant, and the only conclusion that could 
be drawn from them was that the variation 
could not be certainly detected by these 
most refined observations. 

Ten years later Nyrén repeated the de- 
termination, in connection with his obser- 
vations for the determination of the con- 
stant of abberation. These observations, 
made with the prime-vertical transit, were 
earried through with the minutest attention, 
and the utmost care to avoid every con- 
ceivable source of error. Curious discord- 
ances were nevertheless found in the re- 
sults for the constant of abberation. 

In 1885 Kistner showed that they could 
be accounted for by supposing a change 
going on in the latitude. But nothing 
could be inferred respecting the law or the 
cause of the change. 

As a result of these investigations, the 
coincidence of the earth’s axes of rotation 
and of figure has, until within a very few 
years, been assumed by astronomers as & 
practically established fact; and all their 
methods of observation have rested upon 
the idea of absolute coincidence. This con- 
fidence has not been disturbed until within 
a few years, when the question has been 
reopened. But it has now apparently been 
settled upon a new and firmly established 
basis. 

Dr. Chandler’s work upon this subject 
began with observations made by him in 


May 3, 1895.] 


1884-85, using a novel form of astronomical 
instrument of his own invention. These 
observations, continued uninterruptedly for 
thirteen months, revealed a progressive 
change of a pronounced periodical character 
in the instrumental values of the latitude. 
In publishing these results in 1885 he an- 
nounced his intention to continue the re- 
search throughout the remainder of that 
year. Yet circumstances prevented him 
from carrying out his intention at that time, 
and he did not resume his examination of 
the subject until six years later. Mean- 
‘ while Dr. Kistner, at the Observatory of 
Berlin, in 1888, published a memoir on the 
Constant of Aberration, as deduced by him 
from a series of observations also made in 
1884-85, simultaneously with Chandler’s 
series, which brought to light anomalies of 
an entirely analogous character. Kiustner’s 
series was not continuous enough to show 
the periodic nature of the phenomenon ; 
but, by an exhaustive examination of the 
possible subjective sources of error, he 
clearly demonstrated that it was no longer 
permissible to retain the hypothesis of an 
invariable position of the pole, and he 
recommended that properly organized ob- 
servations at various places be instituted 
to settle the question definitely. It was 
doubtless this work of Kiistner’s which 
compelled the attention of astronomers to 
the subject. As a result, by the codpera- 
tion of three German observatories, under 
the auspices of the International Geodetic 
Association, and the independent action of 
that at Pulkowa, the fact of the variability 
of terrestrial latitude was placed beyond 
question, and, by a corresponding series 
made at the Sandwich Islands, the further 
fact was established that the variable ele- 
ment is the position of the axis of rotation 
with respect to the earth’s body, and not 
its position in space. 
It was just before this point that a re- 
wal of Chandler’s connection with the 


SCIENCE. 


479 


problem began. The results are published 
in a series of eighteen papers in the Astro- 
nomical Journal (1891-94), exclusive of a 
series of five papers upon a topic closely re- 
lated thereto, and involving it; namely, 
the abberation-constant, which will be 
separately spoken of later. 

The keynote of these investigations, and 
the undoubted cause of the suecess which 
has attended them, lies in the fact that at 
the outset he first recognized the necessity 
of deliberately disregarding all teachings 
of the adopted theory, which had misled 
previous investigators, and of examining 
the facts by a purely inductive process, 
taking nothing for granted, and basing all 
conclusions strictly upon the observations 
themselves. 

It is impossible to give here more than a 
bare statement of the principal results thus 
established, which we arrange in their nat- 
ural order, and not in the historical order 
of their derivation. 

1. The phenomenon is not a local or a 
regional, but a terrestrial one; also it is a 
displacement of the earth’s axial rotation 
with reference to the principal axis of in- 
ertia, and not of the direction of the former 
in space. 

2. The axis of rotation, although fixed 
as regards its direction in space, performs 
a relative revolution about that of inertia 
in a period of 428 days. This motion is 
cireular, with an average radius of about 
fourteen feet, and its direction is from west 
to east. 

3. Simultaneously with the above motion, 
the actual position of the principal axis of 
inertia on the earth’s surface is in motion 
about a mean position, in a period of a year. 
Its direction is also from west to east, but 
is in an ellipse, three or four times as long 
as broad, the major and minor axes being 
about twenty-five feet and eight feet re- 
spectively. The major axis is inclined at 
present, by about 45° to the Greenwich 


480 


meridian. The motion is central, obeying 
the law of proportionality of times to areas 
described by the radius vector about the 
center of the ellipse. 

4. Both the radius and period in the cir- 
cular 428 days’ revolution are systemati- 
eally variable; the former between about 
eight feet and eighteen feet, the latter be- 
tween about 423 and 434 days; in a long 
period of apparently about sixty-six years. 
In this inequality of motion the average 
angular velocity is attained when the size 
of the circle is least or greatest when the 
circle has its mean dimensions. 

5. Similarly there are simultaneous 
changes in the apparent dimensions and 
velocity in the annual period, which are 
complementary in their character to those 
in the 428 days’ revolution; but whether 
they are the result of real changes in the 
form and dimensions of the ellipse, or the 
effect of an apsidal motion of long period, 
cannot at present be determined from the 
observations available. All that can be 
said is that observations during five years 
show that the line of apsides is either fixed, 
or, if variable, revolving only at a very slow 
rate. 

6. Besides these two motions of relatively 
short period, there is distinct evidence of a 
third motion of rotation in a much larger 
term, probably not far from twelve years, 
with a radius of ten or fifteen feet, which 
reconciles similar indications of slow 
changes which had been pointed out by 
other investigators. (A. J., XII, 178; 
XIITI., 35, 36.) 

The results thus established are the out- 
come of the examination of an immense 
number of observations, covering the whole 
interval since the era of refined practical 
astronomy began, and in fact practically ex- 
haust the materials which may be drawn 
for this purpose from existing astronomical 
annals. The endeavor to make the discus- 
sion exhaustive in this respect made it neces- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 18- 


sary to completely reduce, from the original 
instrumental readings, extensive older series 
of observations. It has, incidentally, for 
example, rescued from almost complete ob-~ 
livion the series of Pond, 1825-36, and 
shown that work to be of a character which 
will compare favorably with the most re- 
fined observations made with the meridian 
instruments of the present day. 

Intimately connected with the work on 
the variation of latitude are five additional 
papers, containing a redetermination of the 
value of the aberration-constant from eight 
different series of observations at the Pul- 
kowa Observatory, with the prime vertical 
transit and the vertical circle. The correct 
value of this fundamental element is one of 
the most important questions occupying the 
astronomy of the day. 


VARIABLE STARS. 


THE subject of variable stars was erected 
into a distinct branch of astronomical science 
by Argelander, beginning in 1843, and oe- 
cupied a large share of his activity and in- 
terest during a score of years. His classical 
labors were succeeded or overlapped by 
those of Schonfeld, who assumed the prin- 
cipal charge of the subject for another score 
of years, when his devotion to the great 
work of the Southern Durchmusterung, and 
later his failing health, left opportunity for 
other hands to take up and continue the 
work where they had left it. Since the is- 
sue of Schonfeld’s Second Catalogue the 
number of known variables has more than 
doubled, while the fund of observations per- 
taining to them has vastly increased. 
Chandler’s work in this direction, besides 
the incidental work of observation and dis- 
covery which he has contributed to it, has 
involved the collection of all the data in 
astronomical history, their discussion, and 
the formulation of the elements of their 
light-variations into numerical laws. The 
catalogues of 1888 and 1893, while filling a 


May 3, 1895.] 


very moderate number of pages of print, 
are a crystallization of all the known facts. 
Especially may be mentioned the investiga- 
tions of inequalities in the periods of these 
‘bodies. While the number of these in- 
equalities known in Schonfeld’s time 
amounted to only about half a dozen, Chand- 
ler has detected their existence in about 
eighty other stars, and has deduced the 
numerical laws in about fifty ofthem. This 
will indicate, in one direction only, how the 
labor of caring for these objects is increasing. 

It would be unjust if, while alluding to 
these important researches, no mention 
were made of Mr. Chandler’s ingenious and 
successful device of a new form of instru- 
ment for making that class of measure- 
ments of position which had previously been 
made by meridian instrument alone. Both 
the instrument and the method were novel. 
In the former, instead of a motion of rota- 
tion, determined mechanically by the pivots 
of a horizontal axis, there was substituted 
one about a vertical axis determined by 
-gravitative action of an instrument resting 
in mercury. 

As to method, instead of a vertical plane 
passing through the pole, which is the fun- 
damental plane of reference for meridian in- 
struments, there was substituted a horizon- 
tal circle. The value possessed by such an 
entirely different method consists in substi- 
tuting a totally different sort of observation, 
and hence a different set of the systematic 
errors to which all observations are liable, 
so that the combined results of the two 
methods are likely to be freer from them 
than those obtained by an adherence to a 
single system of observation. In a memoir 
of 222 pages Dr. Chandler develops the 
ry of the instrument and method math- 
tically, and gives the result of its 
ractical use in observations made with it 
a year, and directed to various astro- 
nomical problems. 

_ Although not mentioned as forming any 


SCIENCE. 


481 


part of the grounds for the award of this 
medal, Dr. Chandler’s important labors for 
many years upon cometary orbits are well 
known to astronomers. Casual mention 
may be especially made of his computations 
relative to the principal component of 
1889V, and the action of Jupiter in 1886 
upon it, which led to a complete transforma- 
tion of its orbit; also the definite deter- 
mination of the relative orbits of the sev- 
eral components into which the comet be- 
came separated in consequence of that dis- 
turbance. 

The Trustees of the Watson Fund feel 
that this brilliant series of investigations is 
preéminently deserving of the highest rec- 
ognition which can be given by the Nat- 
ional Academy, and have therefore not hes- 
itated in recommending the award of the 


medal to Dr. Chandler. 
S. Newcomes. 
B. A. GouLp. 
AG bari. 


SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS OF A REPORT BY 
DRS. D. H. BERGEY, S. WEIR MITCHELL 
AND J. S. BILLINGS UPON ‘THE 
COMPOSITION OF EXPIRED 
AIR AND ITS EFFECTS 
UPON ANIMAL LIEE.’* 

1. THe results obtained in this research 
indicate that in air expired by healthy mice, 
sparrows, rabbits, guinea pigs or men 
there is no peculiar organic matter which 
is poisonous to the animals mentioned 
(excluding man), or which tends to pro- 
duce in these animals any special form of 
disease. The injurious effects observed of 
such air appeared to be due entirely to the 
diminution of oxygen or the increase of 
earbonic acid, or to a combination of these 
two factors. They also make it very im- 
probable that the minute quantity of organic 


* Results of an investigation made under the pro- 
visions of the Hodgkin’s Fund. Read before the Na- 
tional Academy of Sciences, April 16, 1895, by permis- 
sion of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 


482 


matter contained in the air expired from 
human lungs has any deleterious influence 
upon men who inhale it in crowded rooms, 
and hence it is probably unnecessary to take 
this factor into account in providing for the 
ventilation of such rooms. 

2. In ordinary quiet respiration no bac- 
teria, epithelial scales, or particles of dead 


tissue are contained in the expired air. In- 


the act of coughing or sneezing such organ- 
isms or particles may probably be thrown 
out. : 

3. The minute quantity of ammonia, or 
of combined nitrogen or other oxidizable 
matters found in the condensed moisture of 
human breath appears to be largely due to 
products of the decomposition of organic 
matter which is constantly going on in the 
mouth and pharynx. This is shown by the 
effects of cleansing the mouth and teeth 
upon the amount of such matters in the 
condensed moisture of the breath, and also 
by the differences in this respect between 
the air exhaled through a tracheal fistula 
and that expired in the usual way. 

4, The air in an inhabited room, such as 
the hospital ward in which experiments 
were made, is contaminated from many 
sources besides the expired air of the occu- 
pants, and the most important of these con- 
taminations are in the form of minute par- 
ticles or dusts. The experiments on the air 
of the hospital ward, and with the moisture 
condensed therefrom, show that the greater 
part of the ammonia in the air was con- 
nected with dust particles which could be 
removed by a filter. They also showed 
that in this dust there were microorganisms, 
including some of the bacteria which pro- 
duce inflammation and suppuration, and itis 
probable that these were the only really 
dangerous elements in this air. 

5. The experiments in which animals 
were compelled to breathe air vitiated by 
the products of either their own respiration 
or by those of other animals, or were in- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 18. 


jected with fluid condensed from expired 
air, gave results contrary to those reported 
by Hammond, by Brown-Séquard and d’Ar- 
sonval, and by Merkel; but correspond= 
ing to those reported by Dastre and Loye, ~ 
Russo Gilibert and Alessi, Hofmann Wel- 
lenhof, Rauer, and other experimenters re- 
ferred to in the preliminary historical 
sketch of this report, and make it improb- 
able that there is any peculiar volatile poi- 
sonous matter in the air expired by healthy 
men and animals, other than carbonic acid. 
It must be borne in mind, however, that the 
results of such experiments upon animals 
as are referred to in this report may be ap- 
plicable only in part to human beings. It 
does not necessarily follow that a man 
would not be injured by continuously liv- 
ing in an atmosphere containing 2 parts 
per 1,000 of carbonic acid and other prod- 
ucts of respiration, of cutaneous excretion, 
and of putrefactive decomposition of organic 
matters, because it is found that a mouse, a 
guinea pig, or a rabbit seems to suffer no 
ill effects from living under such conditions 
for several days, weeks or months, but it 
does follow that the evidence which has 
heretofore been supposed to demonstrate 
the evil effects of bad ventilation upon hu- 
man health should be carefully scrutinized. 

6. The effects of reduction of oxygen and 
increase of carbonic acid, to a certain de- 
gree, appear to be the same in artificial 
mixtures of these gases as in air in which 
the change of proportion of these gases has 
been produced by respiration. 

7. The effect of habit, which may enable 
an animal to live in an atmosphere in which 
by gradual change the proportion of oxy- 
gen has become so low and that of carbonic 
acid so high that a similar animal brought 
from fresh air into it dies almost instantly, 
has been observed before; but we are not 
aware that a continuance of this immunity 
produced by habit has been previously 
noted. The experiments reported in the 


May 3, 1895.] 


appendix show that such an immunity may 
either exist normally or be produced in cer- 
tain mice, but that these cases are very ex- 
eeptional, and it is very desirable that a 
special research should be made to deter- 
mine, if possible, the conditions upon which 
such a continuance of immunity depends. 
8. An excessively high or low tempera- 
ture has a decided effect upon the produc- 
tion of asphyxia by diminution of oxygen 
and increase of carbonic acid. At high 
temperatures the respiratory centers are 
affected when evaporation from the skin 
and mucous surfaces is checked by the air 
being saturated with moisture ; at low tem- 
peratures the consumption of oxygen in- 
creases, and the demand for it becomes 
more urgent. So far as the acute effects of 
excessively foul air at high temperatures 
are concerned, such, for example, as ap- 
peared in the Black Hole of Calcutta, it is 
probable that they are due to substantially 
the same causes in man as in animals. 
9. The proportion of increase of carbonic 
acid and of diminution of oxygen, which 
has been found to exist in badly ventilated 
churches, schools, theatres or barracks, is 
not sufficiently great to satisfactorily ac- 
count for the great discomfort which these 
conditions produce in many persons; and 
there is no evidence to show that such an 


nitary condition of the British Army, 
operly lays great stress upon the fact that 
civilians at soldiers’ ages in 24 large 
towns the death rate per 1000 was 11.9, 
while in the foot guards it was 29.4, and in 
he infantry of the line 17.9; and shows 
that this difference was mainly due to dis- 
uses of the lungs occurring in soldiers in 


SCIENCE. 


483 


These 
have since been repeatedly 
confirmed by statistics derived from other 
armies, from prisons, and from the death 
rates of persons engaged in different occu- 
pations, and in all cases tubercular disease 
of the lungs and pneumonia are the dis- 
eases which are most prevalent among 
persons living and working in unventilated 
rooms, unless such persons are of the Jew- 
ish race. 

But consumption and pneumonia are 
caused by specific bacteria, which, for the 
most part, gain access to the air passages 
by adhering to particles of dust which are 
inhaled, and it is probable that the greater 
liability to these diseases of persons living 
in crowded and unventilated rooms is, to a 
large extent, due to the special liability of 
such rooms to become infected with the 
germs of these diseases. It is by no means 
demonstrated as yet that the only deleterious 
effect which the air of crowded barracks or 
tenement house rooms, or of foul courts and 
narrow streets exerts upon the persons who 
breathe it, is due to the greater number of 
pathogenic microorganisms in such locali- 
ties. Itis possible that such impure atmos- 
pheres may affect the vitality and the 
bactericidal powers of the cells and fluids of 
the upper air passages with which they 
come in contact, and may thus predispose 
to infections the potential causes of which 
are almost everywhere present, and espe- 
cially in the upper air passages and in the 
alimentary canal of even the healthiest per- 
sons; but of this we have as yet no scientific 
evidence. It is very desirable that re- 
searches should be made on this point. 

10. The discomfort produced by crowded, 
ill-ventilated rooms in persons not accus- 
tomed to them is not due to the excess of 
carbonic acid, nor to bacteria, nor, in most 
cases, to dusts of any kind. The two great 
causes of such discomfort, though not the 
only ones, are excessive temperature and 


crowded and unventilated barracks. 
observations 


484 


unpleasant odors. Such rooms as those re- 
ferred to are generally overheated; the 
bodies of the occupants, and, at night, the 
usual means of illumination, contributing 
to this result. 

The results of this investigation, taken in 
connection with the results of other recent 
researches summarized in this report, indi- 
eate that some of the theories upon which 
modern systems of ventilation are based 
are either without foundation or doubtful, 
and that the problem of securing comfort 
and health in inhabited rooms requires the 
consideration of the best methods of pre- 
venting or disposing of dusts of various 
kinds, of properly regulating temperature 
and moisture, and of preventing the en- 
trance of poisonous gases like carbonic 
oxide, derived from heating and lighting 
apparatus, rather than upon simply dilu- 
ting the air to a certain standard of propor- 
tion of carbonic acid present. It would be 
very unwise to conclude, from the facts 
given in this report, that the standards of 
air supply for the ventilation of inhabited 
rooms, which standards are now generally 
accepted by sanitarians as the result of the 
work of Pettenkofer, De Chaumont and 
others, are much too large under any cir- 
cumstances, or that the differences in health 
and vigor between those who spend the 
greater part of their lives in the open air of 
the country hills and those who live in the 
city slums do not depend in any way upon 
the differences between the atmospheres of 
the two localities except as regards the 
number and character of microorgan- 
isms. . 

The cause of the unpleasant, musty odor 
which is perceptible to most persons on 
passing from the outer air into a crowded, 
unventilated room is unknown. It may in 
part be due to volatile products of decom- 
position contained in the expired air of per- 
sons having decayed teeth, foul mouths, or 
certain disorders of the digestive apparatus, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 18, 


and it is due in part to volatile fatty acids 
produced from the excretions of the skin 

and from clothing soiled with such excre- 

tions. It may produce nausea and other: 
disagreeable sensations in specially suscep- 

tible persons, but most men soon become 
accustomed to it and cease to notice it, as 
they will do with regard to the odor of a 

smoking car or of a soap factory after they 

have been for some time in the place. The 
direct and indirect effects of odors of various. 
kinds upon the comfort, and, perhaps also, 

upon the health of men are more consider- 

able than would be indicated by any tests. 
now known for determining the nature and 

quantity of the matters which give rise to 

them. 

The remarks of Renk upon this point 
merit consideration. 

Cases of fainting in crowded rooms usual- 
ly occur in women, and are connected with 
defective respiratory action due to tight 
lacing or other causes. 

Other causes of discomfort in rooms 
heated by furnaces or by steam are exces- 
sive dryness of the air and the presence of 
small quantities of carbonic oxide, of illu- 
minating gas, and, possibly, of arsenic, de- 
rived from the coal used for heating. 


AMERICAN METROLOGICAL SOCIETY. 


Tuts Society held its annual meeting 
at Columbia College, on April 22d, at 3 
P.M. 

The President, B. A. Gould, of Cam- 
bridge, Mass., presided. There were present, 
Wolcott Gibbs, of Newport, R. I.; A. A. 
Michelson, of the University of Chicago; 
T. Egleston and J. H. Van Amringe, of 
Columbia College ; T. R. Pynchon, of Trim- 
ity College; T. C. Mendenhall, of Wor- 
cester, Mass.; George Eastbourn, of Phila- 
delphia; J. M. McKinlay and J. K. Rees, 
of New York City. 

President Gould made an informal ad~ 


=, ©F 8@ 


he Co 


teme nee Qe ayee! e 


May 3, 1895.] 


dress, and called attention to the rapid 
progress of the zone standard-time system 
throughout the world. This system the 
society did important work in introducing. 
Allusion was made to the report that 
Turkey had made the Metric System obli- 
gatory. The principal countries that do 
not use the Metric System are England, the 
United States and Russia. Through the 
action of the New Decimal Association of 
England, and of the American Metrological 
Society, it was hoped that some steps might 
be taken in the two countries named which 
would bring about a larger use of the Metric 
System. It was stated that Utah proposed 
to adopt the Metric System as the standard 
when she was admitted to statehood. 

The society appointed an important com- 
mittee on Metric Gauges. This committee 


consists of the President, B. A. Gould, Wol- 


eott Gibbs, T. C. Mendenhall, A. A. Michel- 
son, and T. Egleston as chairman. 

Reports were made by various officers and 
the following officers were elected for the 
year 1895-96: President, B. A. Gould, Cam- 
bridge, Mass. Vice Presidents, Wolcott 
Gibbs, Newport, R. I.; T. R. Pynchon, 
Hartford, Conn.;Sandford Fleming, Ottawa, 
Canada; T. C. Mendenhall, Worcester, 
Mass.; T. Egleston, New York City; J. H. 
Van Amringe, New York City. Treasurer, 
John K. Rees, New York City. Recording 


_ Secretary, John K. Rees, New York City. 


eg ~~ A 


Corresponding Secretary, O. H. Tittmann, 
Washington, D.C. Members of the Coun- 


ceil, H. A. Newton, New Haven, Conn.; 


Cleveland Abbe, Washington, D. C.; R. H. 
Thurston, Ithaca, N. Y.; A. M. Mayer, 
Hoboken, N..J.; Henry Holt, New York 


City ; W. F. Allen, New York City ; Simon 


Newcomb, Washington, D. C.: S. P. Lang- 


_ ley, Washington, D. C.; F. H. Smith, Uni- 
versity of Virginia; George Eastbourn, 


Philadelphia, Penn. 
Edward Atkinson, of Boston, was elected 
a member of the society. 


SCIENCE. 


485 


In this connection it may be of interest 
to state the objects of this society : 

1. To improve existing systems of weights, 
measures and moneys, and to bring them 
into relations of simple commensurability 
with each other. 

2. To secure universal adoption of com- 
mon units of measure for quantities in 
physical observation or investigation, for 
which ordinary systems of metrology do not 
provide; such as divisions of barometer, 
thermometer, and densimeter ; amount of 
work done by machines; amount of me- 
chanical energy, active or potential, of bod- 
ies, as dependent on their motion or posi- 
tion; quantities of heat present in bodies of 
given temperatures, or generated by com- 
bustion or otherwise ; quantity and inten- 
sity of electro-dynamic currents ; aggregate 
and efficient power of prime movers; ac- 
celerative force of gravity; pressure of steam 
and atmosphere; and other matters analo- 
gous to these. 

3. To secure uniform usage as to stand- 
ard points of reference, or physical conditions 
to which observations must be reduced for 
purposes of comparison, especially tempera- 
ture and pressure to which are referred 
specific gravities of bodies, and the zero of 
longitude on the earth. 

4. To secure the use of the decimal sys- 
tem for denominations of weight, measure, 
and money derived from unit-bases, not 
necessarily excluding for practical purposes 
binary or other convenient divisions, but 
maintained along with such other methods, 
on account of facilities for calculation, re- 
ductions, and comparison of values, afforded 
by a system conforming to our numerical 
notation. 


MODES OF OPERATION, 


1. Tue society will endeavor to carry out 
its objects, by appeals to Congress, State 
Legislatures, boards of education, higher 
institutions of learning, and to directors and 


486 


teachers of schools of every grade through- 
out the country, urging adoption of meas- 
ures in their several spheres for diffusing 
information as to the present state of the 
world’s metrology and recent progress in 
its reform, and specially for instructing the 
rising generation in these matters, to the 
end that our people may be early and fully 
prepared to act intelligently on the impor- 
tant questions connected with weights and 
measures. 

2. By invoking the aid and cooperation 
of bodies organized to consider questions of 
scientific or social interest, boards of trade, 
chambers of commerce, societies of engi- 
neers, industrial associations, professions 
and trades, in this country and elsewhere. 

3. By specially urging scientific bodies to 
Open communications with similar bodies 
in other countries, with a view to general 
agreement on values to be henceforth uni- 
formly given to units of measure and points 
of reference which particularly concern 
them . 7. ¢., to the so-called constants of sci- 
ence. 

4. By memorializing Congress in favor of 
laws requiring the use, in certain depart- 
ments of the public service, of metric weights 
and measures, wherever such legislation 
may tend to relieve commerce of some of 
its burdens, to facilitate international com- 
munication, to promote international juris- 
prudence, and to familiarize our own peo- 
ple with the benefits of that system of met- 
rology, with the least interference with 
their ordinary habits of thought or daily 
business. 

5. By direct appeals to the people through 
the public press, and by circulating, so far as 
means allow, books and documents inform- 
ing the public of the defects of the common 
system of weights and measures, the means 
most proper for its amendment, and the 
great advantages which the acceptance of a 
universal system would insure to all man- 
kind. J. K.R. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 18. 


THE INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICAL 
CONGRESS. 

Prorerssor A. Vasrirey, President of the 
Physico-mathematical Society of Kasan,~ 
Russia, has sent me a document prepared 
by him for the Minister of Public Instrue- 
tion, with a request that I translate such 
part of it from the Russian as bears on the 
founding of an International Mathematical 
Congress, and make it known in America. 

This is in substance as follows: 

After recapitulating the action of the 
French Association for the Advancement of 
Science at Caen (August 14, 1894) [already 
translated by me and published on pp. 21-22 
of the Bulletin of the American Mathemat- 
ical Society, October, 1894], he gives the res- 
olution offered by me that very same day, 
August 14, 1894, for their signatures to all 
the members of the American Mathemat- 
ical Society present at the Brooklyn meet- 
ing, and signed unanimously, which was as 
follows: ‘The undersigned members of the 
American Mathematical Society present at 
its summer meeting, 1894, take this method 
of expressing their cordial approval of a 
series of International Congresses of Math- 
ematicians to take place from time to time, 
as suggested by A. Vasiliev and OC. A. 
Laisant.’””’ The names of the signers may 
be found on page 290 of Vol. L., of the 
American Mathematical Monthly. I ex- 
plained the plan as contemplating a réunion 
préparatovre at Kasan in 1896, a congres con- 
stituant in Belgium or Switzerland in 1897, 
which perhaps might fix the First Interna- 
tional Congress at Paris in 1900. 

Professor Vasiliev then goes on to state 
the decisive step taken by the deutsche Mathe- 
matiker- Veremmigung in a reunion at Vienna, 
September, 1894. It was there unanimously 
resolved to take part in the organizing Con- 
gress. The action was as follows : 

“Concerning future International Con- 
gresses, the Mathematiker-Vereinigung de- 
cides in principle to participate, and charges 


May 3, 1895.] SCIENCE. 
its bureau to take in regard to this subject 


the measures that appear necessary. In 

particular, it leaves to each of its mem- 

bers entire freedom, considering alone as 

essential that the Society, on this important 

- occasion, may be assured of having the 
place due it.” 

Professor Vasiliev expects that the inau- 

guration of the Lobachévsky monument at 

_ Kasan will take place in August or Sep- 

} tember, 1896, and counts on having there 

a large number of eminent mathematicians, 

and will profit by the occasion to propose 

definitely the organization of the Interna- 

_ tional Congress, and then official calls will 

be issued to meet for the purpose of final 

organization in 1897 at a city of Belgium or 
Switzerland. 

GrorGE Bruce HAtstep. 


AUSTIN, TEXAS. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY (V.). 
THE EXTINCT LAKE PASSAIC. 

Tue annual report of the Geological Sur- 
vey of New Jersey for 1893 contains a long 
report on surface geology, in which there 
is an interesting chapter on Lake Passaic, 
an extinct glacial lake, by R. D. Salisbury 
and H. B. Kiimmel. First mentioned by 
Professor Cook in his annual report for 1880, 
_ Lake Passaic is now carefully traced by its 
shore lines and the deltas built in it by 
streams. Its basin was limited on the west 
_ by the slope of the crystalline highlands; 
on the south and east by one of the curved 
trap ridges of the Watchung or Orange 


elosed by ice. Most remarkable of all the 
‘" ore deposits i in the lake waters is the “Dl 


kK standing up with great distinctness 
north of a marshy plain, which now rep- 
resents part of the lake bottom. 


487 


The outlet of the lake was, for a time at 
least, by a notch in the trap ridge near its 
southern end, at a height of 331 feet above 
sea level. Twenty-five miles to the north, 
the records of the lake level now stand 
sixty-seven feet above the lowest shore line 
at the southern end of the basin. Many 
details of interest are considered in the re- 
port ; none more surprising than the depth 
of the drift-filling in the notch of one of the 
trap ridges at Summit (where the Morris and 
Essex Railroad crosses the ridge), from 
which a preglacial discharge of the inner 
valley at this point is fairly inferred. An 
excellent map accompanies the report. 


LOCAL DISPLACEMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 


THE annual report of the Iowa geologi- 
cal survey for 1893, just issued, contains a 
chapter by C. H. Gordon on a former channel 
of the Mississippi, now filled with drift. 
The modern river has cut a narrow rock- 
bound gorge, five miles to the east of the 
former valley, and about ten miles long ; its 
lower end being at Keokuk, where the Des 
Moines river comes in from the west. A 
general study of the surface and the records 
of a deep well indicate that the earlier 
valley was about three times as broad and 
twice as deep as the new gorge. The gorge 
being hardly more than in its youth, the 
earlier valley was certainly not advanced 
beyond its early adolescence. It therefore 
clearly indicates that during only a com- 
paratively short preglacial time did the 
region stand as high as or a little higher 
than now; most of its preglacial history 
must have been passed at a less elevation 
above baselevel. To speak of the pre- 
glacial channel as a ‘measure of vast de- 
nudation’ (p. 250) therefore seems some- 
what inappropriate ; it was only the begin- 
ning of a denudation that could in a geo- 
graphical sense be called vast. The vast 
denudation is more really shown in the 
stripping of an unknown thickness of strata 


488 


from the region, thus preparing the general 
surface in which the adolescent preglacial 
valley was eroded. 

The relation of displacements of this kind 
to the location of settlements along the 
river and to the choice of places for bridge- 
building across it, would furnish material 
for an interesting physiographical essay, ex- 
tending the well-known report by Gen. War- 
ren. The outline map on which the old 
and new courses of the river are represent- 
ed, is unfortunately without names, mak- 
ing the careful reading of the chapter a 
difficult matter for those unacquainted with 
with such places as Fort Madison and Sand 
Prairie. 

W. M. Davis. 


HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY (VIL). 
RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS IN EASTERN AMERICA. 


Ir is well known that venturous Norwe- 
gian navigators in the eleventh century 
visited at divers times the eastern coast of 
North America. The ancient sagas of Ice- 
land which narrate the events of these 
voyages are provokingly meager and ob- 
scure; so that it has been quite impossible 
to decide how often such voyages were 
made, or how far south the explorers ad- 
vaneed. Of course, it is to be supposed 
that of some such expeditions we have no 
account whatever. 

The late Professor E. N. Horsford per- 
sistently maintained that positive evidence 
of a pre-Columbian European settlement on 
the Charles river, Mass., had been discover- 
ed by him. The testimony he presented did 
not convince many, and his daughter, Miss 
Cornelia Horsford, has done well to pursue 
and extend the lines of investigation which 
her father began. The results are said to 
be confirmatory of his theory, but the only 
one which has as yet been made public is a 
neatly illustrated, privately printed pam- 
phlet, of 22 pages, entitled ‘An Inscribed 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 18. 


Stone,’ By Cornelia Horsford (Cambridge, 
1895). 

The stone referred to was discovered at 
Weston, Mass., in an uncultivated field, 
and came under Miss Horsford’s notice 
merely by accident. One of its sides bore 
a partly obliterated series of lines which 
Mr. J. B. Woodsworth, of the U. 8S. Geo- 
logical Survey, pronounces to be of arti- 
ficial origin. They are arranged after the 
manner of a runic futhore, and simulate 
certain forms of such writing. Miss Hors- 
ford does not offer an interpretation. 

A second inscribed stone near New York 
city is depicted, the runes on which Miss 
Horsford both transliterates and provi- 
sionally translates as referring to a census 
of the inhabitants by the church officials. 

On a loose sheet a large number of runic 
and ogham inscriptions from Great Britain, 
the north of Europe and Greenland are 
given for the purpose of comparison. 

The publication is one well worthy the 
attention of historians. 


WHERE WAS THE GARDEN OF EDEN? 


WE have not yet done with seeking on 
the earthly plane the pristine Paradise, 
Hden, ‘ the land of joy’. 

The latest explorer of its whereabouts is 
the distinguished Professor Paul Haupt, of 
the Johns Hopkins University, in an article, 
‘Wo Lag das Paradies?” in the ‘ Ueber 
Land und Meer,’ No. 15, 1895. He differs 
from Friedrich Delitsch, who, in his work 
with the same title, asserted that the de- 
scription of the locality in Genesis applied 
directly to the canal and river system of 
Babylonia; he differs from himself in his 
opinion as expressed in a paper published 
last year in the proceedings of the American 
Oriental Society, and concludes that the 
four rivers mentioned in the Hebrew record, 
the Pison, the Gihon, the Hiddekel and the 
Euphrates, are, reversing the order, the 
Euphrates, the Tigris, the Karun and the 


May 3, 1895.] 


| 


Kercha. The two latter are small streams 
flowing, one into the Persian Gulf, and one 
into the Schott el Arab, near the ancient 
mouth of the Tigris, both east of it. 

Though Professor Haupt supports his 
opinion with his customary depth of erudi- 
tion, I doubt if it will be adopted. That 
part of Genesis was written by the Hebrew 
author about 650 B. C., and at that period 
he certainly knew what he was talking 
about when he mentioned the Gihon and 
identified it with the river Nile. Professor 
Haupt’s former theory, which recognized 
this, seems much more plausible. 

But all such theories do not touch the 
kernel of the question. The myth of the 
Paradise, watered by its four streams, is 
found in native American mythologies as 
prominently as in those of the Old World; 
and no explanation is valid which does not 
apply to both continents. 

The true interpretation is that the four 
streams refer to the four cardinal points 
and the four winds, the rain bringers. They 
are the cosmic and celestial causes of the 
weather and its changes, and hence of fer- 
tility and growth. It were easy to prove 
this by abundant examples. The Hebrew 
realist merely endeavored to transport the 
ancient myth into terrestial geography. 

D. G. Brryton. 
_ UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


JAMES D. DANA. 

We cannot pay a tribute to the memory 
of Dana more appropriate than the letter 
addressed to him by a number of his older 
colleagues on his eightieth birthday and 
communicated by Prof. George P. Fisher to 
the Evening Post. 

New Haven, February 12, 1893. 

Dear Pror. Dana: Having had the pri- 
vilege for many years, of being associated 
with you as colleagues at Yale, we wish to 
bring you our cordial congratulations on the 
oceasion of your eightieth birthday. 


SCIENCE. 


489 


It gives great pleasure to your friends 
that after so extended a period of incessant 
and most faithful activity you are still able 
with unimpaired mental vigor to carry for- 
ward the studies which have contributed so 
much to the advancement of science and 
have conferred so great distinction, not on 
yourself alone, but equally on the Univer- 
sity and on the country. 

We recall the circumstance that it was only 
four years after your graduation, in 1833, 
that the first edition of your work on miner- 
alogy, a work which has remained a classic 
to this day, was issued. Two years later 
you embarked on the voyage of discovery, 
undertaken under the auspices of the 
government by the American Exploring 
Expedition, and during four industrious 
years collected the materials for the subse- 
quent reports on geology, mineralogy, corals 
and crustacea, which established your repu- 
tation at home and abroad as a scientific 
man of distinguished ability. 

It is now well-nigh half a century since 
you entered upon your labors as an editor 
of the American Journal of Science, your name 
having first appeared on the title-page of 
the journal in 1846. The long series of 
volumes of this periodical are a noble mon- 
ument of the extent and thoroughness of 
your labors as a naturalist. 

Tt is in truth surprising that in connec- 
tion with this continuous employment and 
with your work as professor you have been 
able to send forth from the press, in succes- 
sive editions, the elaborate text-books and 
other writings, the solid excellence of which 
is everywhere recognized. ‘ 

We cannot revert without admiration to 
the universally broad field of scientific in- 
vestigation in which you have maintained 
your place as an acknowledged master. 

Tt would be a signal achievement for any 
man to hold this position as regards geol- 
ogy, and the branches of zodlogy connected 
with it ; but when, as in your case, the sci- 


490 


ence of mineralogy is added to the list, the 
eminence which you have attained is quite 
exceptional. 

It is gratifying to know that your services 
to the cause of science have obtained full 
recognition from teachers and students of 
science and from learned bodies in all civil- 
ized countries. None will question that the 
honors which have thus been so abundantly 
bestowed and so modestly received are well 
deserved. The consciousness that the mo- 
tive of your researches has been an unal- 
loyed love of truth and an unselfish desire 
to enlarge the bounds of human knowledge 
must give to these testimonials all the value 
that such marks of honor can ever possess. 
We congratulate you that your academic 
relations both with fellow-professors and 
with pupils have been so uniformly pleasant. 
The classes which, in long succession, have 
listened to your instructions, could their 
voices be heard, would unite in expressions 
of sincere respect both for the qualities of 
character and for the talents and learning 
of their revered instructor. But it is no 
part of our purpose to enter into a detailed 
statement of the reasons which render it 
peculiarly agreeable for us, your old friends 
and neighbors, to offer to you to-day our 
heartfelt congratulations. Had it been 
thought worth while to extend the list of 
subscribers to this letter, no doubt all the 
members of the teaching body in the Uni- 
versity would gladly have added their 
names. 

But our communication is simply in- 
tended as an expression, from a few of your 
older associates, of interest in this anni- 
versary and of our earnest hope that the 
blessing of a kind Providence may continue 
to be with you and with the members of 
your family. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Timotay Dwieut, Grorce H. Day, 
GrorcE P. FisHer, Grorce J. Brusu, 
Wii1amM H. Brewer, O. C. Marsu, FRANK- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 18. 


tin B. Dexter, Epwarp E. SAtispury, 
Wittram D. Wuaitnrey, Huserr A. New- 
Ton, Samurt W. Jounson, Daniet C. 
Eaton, A. E. VeErrizt, Appison VAN~ 
Name, Srpney I. Surrn. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE DISTRIBUTION OF SLEDGES, ETC. 


Dip anybody ever read or hear of sledges, 
snowshoes or goggles for the eyes in aborig- 
inal South America? I have traced the 
skee entirely across Asia, the netted snow 
shoe from the Amur around to Klamath 
river, Cal., with extension throughout Can- 
ada, New England and our northern tier of 
States. The ice creeper for the foot covers 
the region of my migration track from 
southern Kamchatka around to the Yukon. 
The built-up sledge is everywhere in the — 
Hyperborean area of two hemispheres, the 
form depending on the exigencies of timber 
growth. The great broad skee or snow shoe 
of the Amur is the flat toboggan of the 
Dominion of Canada. 

Otis T. Mason. 

U.S. Nationa Musreum, April 20. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

Memoir of Sir Andrew Crombie Ramsay. By 
Str ARCHIBALD GxIKIE, Director of the 
Geol. Surv. of Great Britain and Ireland. 
London and New York, Macmillan & Co. 
1895. Pp. x + 397. 

This is really a charming book and ought 
to be read not only by every geologist, but 
by every one interested in the story of a 
noble life. Indeed, the memoir of such a 
man as Ramsay by such a writer as Geikie 
could hardly be otherwise than deeply im- 
teresting. 

Ramsay’s career overlaps on the one hand 
with the old heroic days of the founders of 
English Geology—Lyell, Buckland, Sedg- 
wick, Murchison, De la Beche, etc., and on 
the other with modern times and modern 
methods. He shared with the former the 


{ 


_ May 3, 1895.) 


enthusiasm of grappling with the great gen- 
eral problems of geology ; but he himself did 
much to introduce and urge forward the 
more accurate methods, if less daring theo- 
ries, of modern times. The story of his 
forty year’s connection with the British 
Survey, first as assistant and then as local 
director for England under De la Beche, 
_ then as local director of England and Scot- 
land under Murchison, and finally as Di- 
| rector General himself, is literally a history 
of the Survey itself. The book is illumin- 
: ated too and its value enhanced by the 
pictures of all the principal men of the 
_ Survey, whose work every geologist knows, 
but whose faces are now perhaps seen for 
the first time. 
= The story of Ramsay’s career is also in 
no small degree the history of the develop- 
ment of geological science in England. For 
in the beginning he sat at the feet of the 
geological Gamaliels, imbibing their spirit, 
and at the end he gathered about himself 
all the most ardent and progressive spirits 
and guided their course. Many modern 
ideas he himself initiated, while others he 
earried forward with his characteristic ar- 


in the history of science, the transfer of 
study from the remote to the near at hand, from 

the abstract to the concrete and often from the 
obscure to the obvious. Thus the field of 

study was Astronomy before Geology, the 

Science of the Stars before the Science of 
_ the Earth. So also it was dead things be- 
fore living things, and man last of all. This 
is doubtless mainly due to the fact that the 
earest things.and things most closely con- 
ected with our highest interests are also 
e most complex and most difficult to re- 
duce to law. But this is not all. There is 
fascination in the remote, the hidden and 
obscure which piques our curiosity, while 
ve neglect phenomena which lie on the sur- 
e and which therefore seem common and 


. In this connection it is interesting to note, 


SCIENCE. 


491 


trivial because we see them every day. 
The history of geology is an excellent illus- 
tration of this. The early geologists loved 
to speculate on the interior of the earth and 
its mysterious forces. Next rock strata, 
their positions, successions, foldings, faults, 
ete., engaged attention. In the meantime 
the surface configuration of the earth, moun- 
tains and plains, ridges and valleys, soils 
and underlying rock surfaces, in fact all the 
most obvious and obtrusive features were 
neglected. Now, the change from the study 
of interior structure alone to the study of 
surface configurations in relation to interior 
structures, one of the most fascinating 
branches of geology, took place during Ram- 
say’s times, and he himself was one of the 
most active agents in bringing it about. 
From the first he was deeply interested in 
the agency of exterior forces as contrasted 
with interior forces; with destructive as 
contrasted with constructive agencies. Still 
later he became interested in the signifi- 
cance of soils and underlying rock surfaces. 
He it was, therefore, who first gave strong 
impulse to glacial geology in England. 
For the seed sown by Agassiz found, at 
first, but poor soil in England. 

Again, it is instructive to note also the 
effect of physical environment on the course 
of geological science. The incessant beat- 
ing of waves on the limited shore line of 
the ‘tight little sea-girt island’ of Great 
Britain, and the ravages produced by these 
attacks on some parts, early impressed the 
minds of British geologists with a strong 
sense of the power of the sea. In the study 
of erosion, therefore, all the early geologists, 
Ramsay among the number, attributed far 
too much to marine denudation, while rain 
and rivers were almost neglected as being 
of little importance in comparison. It was 
apparently for the same reason that the 
iceberg theory of glaciation took so firm a 
hold and was so hard to displace in Eng- 
land. It was only by travel on the conti- 


A492 


nent of Europe, and especially in the Alps, 
‘that Ramsay was led to appreciate the great 
importance of rain and rivers, as compared 
with the sea, as a land-destroying and land- 
‘sculpturing agent ; and of land ice as com- 
pared with floating ice as a glaciating agent. 
But his ardent, candid nature knew no 
half-measures. His conversion was com- 
plete, and some think that he even carried 
his later views on this subject somewhat 
too far. 

The work of Ramsay is well known to 
geologists. But the readers of ScrencE are 
notall geologists. Itmay be well therefore to 
briefly mention some of the main points on 
which he contributed to geological knowl- 
edge or modified the course of geological 
thought. 

His greatest direct contribution to ge- 
‘ological knowledge is undoubtedly that 
embodied in his admirable map of Wales. 
‘The problem of Wales had been attacked 
successively by Sedgwick, Murchison and 
De la Beche. But the work of the older 
geologists was far too cursory. Nothing but 
the most careful foot-by-foot mapping could 
unravel its intricate structure. This was 
first done by Ramsay, and he devoted a large 
portion of life to its completion. His map 
is a monument of industry combined with 
rare geological insight. 

Again, he was undoubtedly one of the 
founders of the study of geographical formsin 
relation to geological structure. Surely 
this is one of the most fascinating depart- 
ments of geology (or of geography, for it 
may be claimed by both). It is this which 
constitutes the chief charm of his admirable 
work on the ‘Physical Geology and Geogra- 
phy of Great Britain.’ 

Again, he was the originator of the idea 
of other possible glacial periods in the his- 
tory of the earth and especially of glaciation 
in Permian times. His ardent uniformita- 
rianism naturally led him in this direction. 

Again, finally, he was the originator of 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 18. 
the doctrine of the origin of lake basins by 
glacial erosion. It is possible that in the 
enthusiasm of the originator, he may have 
carried this idea alittle too far; but it is &@ 
mnisrepresentation to say, as has been done, 
that he attributed all lake basins to this 
cause. His original paper was entitled 
‘Origin of Certain Lakes by Glacial Ero- 
sion.’ 

So much for Ramsay the geologist. But 
the greatest charm of the book is found in 
the vivid picture it gives of Ramsay the 
man; his intense interest in life in all its 
phases and in literature in all its depart- 
ments; his large human sympathy, embra- 
cing alike all true men from the rudest coun- 
try people in their sport and dances to the 
most eminent scientists in their discussions ; 
his deep love of art, poetry and music; his 
ardor of temperament, showing itself alike in 
the intensity of his work and in his keen en- 
joyment of fun and frolic. I never saw Ram- 
say but once, viz., at the Montreal meeting 
of the A. A. A. S. in 1857, when he was in 
his prime. I remember well on the occa- — 
sion of a geological excursion in the vicin- 
ity the rapid, eager way in which he scram- 
bled over the rocks, hammer in hand, firing 
all of us with his own enthusiasm. Is it 
any wonder that he wore himself out pre- 
maturely? Although he lived to 77, yet he 
resigned and quit work ten years earlier, 
and was already an old man at 63. 

In closing this brief account of Ramsay, 
I cannot do better than quote the closing 
words of the memoir itself, ‘‘ But above and 
beyond the impress of his scientific achieve- 
ments, Sir. Andrew Ramsay’s high posi- 
ton among his contemporaries was largely 
determined by his individual personality. 
His frank, manly bearing, his well-cut fea- 
tures beaming with intelligence and a sweet 
childlike candor, his ready powers of con- 
versation, his wide range of knowledge, his 
boyish exuberance of spirits, his simplicity 
and modesty of nature, his sterling integrity, 


perfect straightforwardness and high sense 
of duty, his generous sympathy and untir- 


May 3, 1895.] 

ing helpfulness, marked him out as a man 

of singular charm and endeared him to a 
wide circle of friends who, while they ad- 

| mired him for his genius, loved him for 
the beauty and brightness of his charac- 
ter.” 

But I cannot close this notice without a 

~ final word concer ning the memoir itself as 
a work of art. What we wish to know of 
_ great men is not only their achievements, 
but also all, even the trivial details of their 
daily life; for these, more than aught else, 
show character. All things, great and 
small, must be brought together into a liy- 
ing whole. This Geikie has done in a mas- 
terly way. Journals of petty daily occur- 
rences, narratives of more continuous work, 
discussion of important scientific problems, 
letters on all kinds of subjects to all sorts 
of people, some full of weighty scientific 
matters, some full of fun and jokes and 
humorous verse, some full of deepest filial 
or conjugal affection—all these are skill- 
fully woven into a vivid picture of the man 
as he really lived. Happy is the man who 
Shall have such a biographer. 


JosEPpH LE ConTeE. 


A Text-Book of Invertebrate Morphology. By 
J. Puayrarr McMourrick, M. A., Ph. D. 
New York, Henry Holt &Co. 1894. 

In preparing this book the author has 
Bisttowea the zodlogical method, and has 
given us a succinct though general account 
of the morphology of the different ‘ types,’ 
classes and orders of the animal kingdom; 
no special forms under each being described. 
Speaking of the word ‘type,’ we much 
prefer the older terms, branch, sub-king- 
dom or phylum, to the the rather meaning- 
ess word ‘type;’ the first and last terms 
ing naturally suggested from the evolu- 
mal point of view, the main sub-divisions 
the animal genealogical tree being more 


SCIENCE. 


493 


naturally referred to as branches or phyla. 
The increase in the number of ‘ types’ from 
eight to twelve results from dividing the 
Vermes into several, such as the Platyhel- 
minths, Nemathelminthes and Annelida, 
which the author regards as of the same 
rank as the Mollusca. The Arthropoda 
also, somewhat prematurely, we think, are 
divided into three types, viz.: Crustacea, 
Arachnida and Tracheata. That the di- 
vision is somewhat artificial is indicated by 
the fact that Limulus is assigned to the 
Crustacea, though placed in an appendix, 
whereas it is plainly neither a genuine 
Crustacean nor a true Arachnidan, and be- 
longs to an independent phylum. And then 
if we begin thus to manufacture ‘ types’ out 
of the Arthropoda and out of the Vermes, 
we can scarcely end at the point the author 
reaches. 

In agreement with some German authors, 
the Echinodermata, written Echinoderma, 
are interpolated between the highly special- 
ized Tracheata and the Protochordata. 
This seems to us in a text-book of this sort 
a shade objectionable, when we consider 
how closely allied to the lower worms, both 
in embryology andin some points in their 
adult structure, Echinoderms are. Of course 
this is a matter of individual opinion, but 
we should look for some expression of the 
reasons why they are placed so far away 
from worms, in a situation between such 
closely circumscribed and specialized groups 
as insects, and the Chordata. If the posi- 
tion assigned the Echinoderms is due 
solely to the resemblance of the Tornaria 
larve of Balanoglossa to the larve of 
Echinoderms, this seems a rather slight 
reason. 

While the descriptions of the types and 
classes are evidently clear and accurate ; 
though not always presented in simple 
Saxon words, the salient points of resem- 
blance or difference do not seem in all cases 
successfully brought out. Thus in writing 


494 


of the Brachiopoda the author speaks of 
the bivalved shell, ‘similar to that of a 
bivalve mollusk,’ but he does not add that 
the shells are dorsal and ventral, a point 
in which they differ from any mollusk. On 
p. 271 it is stated that eyes do not occur in 
these animals, meaning, of course, the 
adults, though on the next page the young 
Argiope is credited with eye-spots ; the fact, 
however, that they occur in the larva of The- 
cidium not being mentioned. In the bibliog- 
raphy the papers of Morse on the develop- 
ment of Terebratulina and of Kowalevsky 
on Argiope, Thecidium, etc., are omitted, al- 
though the lower half of the page is left 
blank, and there was abundant room for 
the titles. 

The treatment of the mollusea is in some 
respects unsatisfactory, though the anatom- 
ical details appear to be correctly and care- 
fully stated. We should decidedly differ 
from the view that Lamellibranchs, or Pely- 
cypoda, as it is now the fashion to call them, 
though the name is not nearly so apt or gen- 
erally applicable as the older term, are in- 
termediate between the Gastropoda and 
Ceptalopoda. They have no head, and it 
seems much more natural to suppose that 
they have more or less directly descended 
from the Amphineura. The position as- 
signed them by Gegenbaur, next above the 
last named group and below the Cepha- 
lophora, seems to us to be a more natural 
one. And speaking of the last named 
group, it is a pity that there should not be 
more figures of these obscure generalized 
forms, especially of the ladder-like nervous 
system of the different genera to show their 
relationship to Chiton, though the discus- 
sion of their affinities is excellent. In 
speaking of the Gastropods the use of the 
clumsy German term ‘visceral hump’ seems 
objectionable ; we should prefer to call it 
the visceral mass. The visceral ‘hump’ in 
a Cephalopod is in reality all of the body 
behind the head. 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. I. No. 18. 

The definitions or diagnoses of the sub- 
divisions of the ‘types’ placed at the end 
of each chapter are too brief or defective 
and not always, it seems to us, happily 
worded. In those of the Gastropoda and 
Cephalopoda, the fact that they have a well 
differentiated head is not mentioned, though 
the ‘ visceral hump,’ if the student clearly 
understands what that is, is.said to be well 
developed. 

The same lack of completeness applies to 
the diagnoses of the Crustacea, and particu- 
larly to those of the insects, while those of 
the Arachnida are much better. 

The Tracheata (myriopods and insects), 
as in some other recent works, are not 
treated with such detail and thoroughness, 
nor in the case of the present book, so care- 
fully and accurately as the Crustacea. It 
appears to be wholly a compilation, and 
not the result of autoptic study. This isnot 
the case in Siebold’s excellent Anatomy of 
the Invertebrates, which, though published 
forty years ago, is still for Tracheata useful 
and reliable. Our author’s account of the 
anatomy of insects is somewhat faulty and 
needs revision in numerous places. 

The spiral band of the trachea is said to 
extend along the tube, whereas it is not con- 
tinuous, but varies much in length and 
makes from one to four or five turns, a 
single tracheal branch thus haying many 
such disconnected spiral bands. 

The olfactory organs of the antennz are 
not set alone, but the pits to which the 
auther does not refer are far more numer- 
ous. The elements of the ovipositor are no& 
situated on the ‘last abdominal segment’ 
(p. 414), while the cerci (p. 489) are not 
regarded by the author a& equivalents of 
the jointed appendages, though they are 
obviously so, whatever may be said of the 
parts of the ovipositor. It is also a ques- 
tion whether the ‘spring’ of Collembola is 
not the homologue of the legs. 

It is rather venturesome to say that im 


MAy 3, 1895.] 


butterflies and Diptera the thoracic seg- 
- ments seem to be reduced to two, ete., when 
three segments are easily observed. Vesti- 
gial mandibles are attributed to the sphinx, 
though the structures so called have been 
shown by Walter not to be such. 
The chapter on the Protochordata is well 
prepared and illustrated. Why, however, 
_ Rhabdopleura and Cephalodiscus are, with- 
out apparent hesitation, regarded as belong- 
ing in this type, should, we think, be care- 
fully explained, the chordate features being 
so slight compared with those of the Enter- 
opneusta. One also is somewhat startled to 
find Amphioxus included in a work on 
invertebrate morphology when its structure 
and embryology associate it so intimately 
with the Chordata ; and why it should be 
regarded as-a lower or more generalized 
_ type than the Tunicata we do not under- 
stand. It has been the nearly universal 
opinion of anatomists that the lancelet is 
nearer to vertebrates than are the as- 
cidians. 

The figures are mostly diagramatic, and 
earefully drawn, though often coarsely so. 
We should have preferred, in many cases, 
exact and not schematic representations. 
The figures of Buccinum undatum, as regards 
the shell, reminds us more of a Strombus; 
and the figure of Nautilus should have been 
credited to Owen; several of the figures 
are credited to Leunis, and not to the ori- 
_ ginal author or artist. The style cannot 
_ always be said to -be simple and clear; the 
tendency being towards the use of long words 


worthy absence of typographical errors. 
But whatever we have said by way of criti- 
, we desire to commend the book as 
excellent in its general plan and_treat- 
2ent, usually reliable, and forming a useful 
manual of the subject. 
; A.S. Packarp. 
‘Brown UNIVErsITy. 


SCIENCE. 


495 


The Land-Birds and Game-Birds of New 
England. By H. D. Mryor. 2d edition, 
edited by William Brewster. Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., April, 1895, 8°, pp. xxiv+ 
492, outline figures. Price, $3.50. 
Eighteen years have passed since the first 

appearance of Minot’s ‘ Land-Birds and 
Game-Birds’ (published in February, 1877). 
It had a good sale and was soon out of 
print. Practically the whole book was 
original—the descriptions of the birds, nests 
and eggs, and the biographies. The latter 
are based on the author’s own field experi- 
ence and are interesting, truthful, and in the 
main well written. 

The body of the work is followed by an 
appendix comprising a bird calendar for 
eastern Massachusetts, and keys to the 
Land Birds of New England and the eggs 
of Massachusetts birds. These keys are 
based primarily on color and are not likely 
to prove of much value. 

The personality of the author deserves 
a word. When only a boy of seventeen he 
had amassed a large quantity of field notes 
and had writtenthe book now under review. 
As the editor of the new edition says in his 
preface: ‘‘ The author had a clear head, a 
true heart, and a well-defined purpose, com- 
bined with an amount of literary taste and 
ability very rare in one so young. He was 
deeply in earnest, full of warm yet rever- 
ential love of nature, wholly unconscious of 
or indifferent to certain conventional meth- 
ods of investigation and expression, yet in 
the main careful in observation, temperate 
of statement, and singularly logical and 
dispassionate in argument.’’ In his thirtieth 
year he was chosen President of the Eastern 
Railroad in Minnesota, and soon after lost 
his life in an accident on another road. 

The new edition is accompanied by a por- 
trait of the author and is an attractive, 
well-printed volume. The editor, William 
Brewster, tells us that his ‘ editorial touches 
have been of the lightest.’ He has substi- 


496 


tuted current nomenclature for the old, and 
has added numerous foot-notes, always over 
his own initials, amplifying or correcting 
statements made in the body of the work, 
which has been allowed to stand essentially 
as in the original edition. Mr. Brewster 
has also added an appendix comprising ad- 
ditions to Minot’s list and containing an ab- 
stract of the results of his study of the 
gyrfalcons—a most perplexing group. He 
agrees with Ridgway in the number and 
nomenclature of the forms, and records the 
authentic New England specimens of each. 

It is a great compliment to the worth of 
Minot’s book that one of the most eminent 
of American ornithologists, and one who 
could ill spare the time from his own im- 
portant work, was willing to edit it. 

C. H. M. 


The Central Nervous System of Desmognathus 
fusca. By Pirrre A. Fisn. Reprinted 
from Journal of Morphology, x, 1, 1895. 
Mr. Fish has made an important contri- 

bution to our knowledge of the brain of 
salamaders. His preliminary remarks em- 
brace two-statements of interest: (1) That 
the adult Desmognathus fusca lives equally 
well in the open air or wholly under water, 
even where no trace of lungs exists; and 
(2) that the mouth cavity and esophagus 
are lined with ciliated columnar epithelium. 
During arial respiration the floor of the 
mouth is alternately raised and lowered very 
rapidly, while when the animal was kept 
under water it was raised and held in that 
position along time; the inference being that 
the blood is oxygenated by means of the 
epithelium of the mouth. 

The simplicity of the amphibian brain 
renders it, as the author states, ‘‘a most 
admirable object for the study of morpho- 
logical relations; its general absence of flex- 
ure, its successive segmental arrangement 
and the degree of exposure and differentia- 
tion of these segments, give it a great ad- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 18. 


vantage over most other generalized forms.” 
It was found to be remarkable for the large 
number of ‘embryological’ features pre- 
served. 5 
About 40 pages are devoted to the brain 
and cranial nerves, and the paper is ac- 
companied by a bibliography and four 
plates. C. H. M. 


Introduction to Botang. By Vounny M. 
SpaLpine, Professor of Botany-in the 
University of Michigan. Boston, D.C. 
Heath & Co. 1895. Pp. 287. 
PROFESSOR SPALDING has added to his 

valuable book that which was needed to 

make it complete, namely, a full glossary, 
an index, a brief chapter on the organs of 
flowerless plants, and a chapter on fungi. 

These added chapters are in keeping with 

the general plan of the book. ‘The material 

required is briefly indicated and directions 
given for its care. Laboratory directions, 
brief notes directing the student’s attention 
to prominent features, follow. These are 


extremely good, and it is hoped this feature 


of Spalding’s method of studying plants, cor- 
responding, as it does, with Dodge’s method 
in biology, will be pursued by future mak- 
ers of text-books, and that we have seen 
the last of full accounts of what is to be 
seen, requiring on the part of the student 
very little thought, and only the attention 
necessary for the verification of the state- 
ments. It is remarkable, when one stops: 
to think of it, how little the inductive meth- 
od is used in the study of biology. After 
the directions, comes a little review or sum- 
mary, giving information not likely to be 
attained from laboratory practice. This is 
a very marked feature of the volume andis 
especially valuable because the information 
givenis soup todate. A very slight exami- 
nation of the foot-notes will reveal the fact 
that the very latest research work has beem 
consulted in the preparation of this text- 
book. - 


May 3, 1895.] 


Since the book is only a year old, and 
since its title is rather misleading, it may 
not be out of place here to give a short ac- 
count of it. Its strong point is that along 
with the study of the morphology of the 
seed, the root, the stem, the leaf, the flower, 
the fruit, there is an excellent course of 
physiological work indicated. Indeed, the 
whole subject is discussed on the life side, 
and, although in spite of its title, it is a 
book adapted to the needs of rather ad- 
vanced students, yet such a student could 
easily adapt it to work even in primary 
schools, according to the most modern peda- 
gogical ideas. 

After the general discussion of the life 
history of the plant, follows a similar work 
with each of the natural group of flowering 
plants, the Algze, Fungi, Mosses, Ferns, 
Equiseta,and the Club mosses, conducted 
on the same genaral plan. Then follow the 
Pines, the Monocotyledons and the Di- 
cotyledons, a special point being made of 
the relationship of the orders to each other. 
In this, as in the physiology, a thorough 
knowledge of the latest thought on the 
subject is shown, and more than this, the 
knowledge is given to the student often in a 
much more logical and understandable way 
than by consulting the original sources. 

Altogether it is the best of the modern 
text-books on the subject, both in matter 
and method, and is admirably adapted for 
use in colleges, either as a basis for advanced 
work or to give the undergraduate a good 
general knowledge of the subject. 

‘ W. P. Wuson. 


UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
FOSSIL VERTEBRATES OF ARGENTINA. 
_ WE have recently received Part II. of the 
Paleontologia Argentina, forming a continua- 
tion of the Anales del Museo de la Plata, pub- 
lished under the direction of Francisco P. 
Moreno, Director of the Museum. This 


SCIENCE. 


497 


sumptuous Memoir in royal quarto size con- 
sists of ‘ Contributions to a Knowledge of the 
Fossil Vertebrates of Argentina, by R. Lydek- 
ker, in three parts covering the Dinosaurs 
and Cetacea of Patagonia and the Ungulates. 
of the Argentine. The text is in English 
and Spanish in parallel columns, and is ac- 
companied by thirty-two large plates which 
give us some conception of the superb col-- 
lection of fossils in this Museum. In the 
first section the author describes the Dino- 
saurs from Patagonia belonging to Marsh’s 
division of Sauropoda, which have not 
hitherto been described from South America. 
The agreement of some of these animals 
with the North American Dinosaurs seems 
to be strikingly close, so far as can be judged 
from Mr. Lydekker’s description. The re- 
mains, however, are not well preserved.. 
There are several plates principally illus-- 
trating the family Titanosauride. The 
Cetacea come from a marine deposit in the 
Territory of Chubet, and embrace especially 
three skulls which are far more complete 
than any of their European congeners and’ 
represent the Physodontidie, Squalodon- 
tidee, Argyrocetidze and Platanistidee. The 
most important section of the Memoir, how- 
ever, is that relating to the extinct ungu- 
lates which are described from the superb 
collection in the La Plata Museum, belong- 
ing to the aberrant Toxodontia and Litop- 
terna, besides the typical Artiodactyla and 
Perissodactyla. The author gives a clear 
and concise description of the principal 
characters of each family and of each genus,. 
and has shown considerable skill and great 
clearness in matters of priority, for the con- 
fusion in South American paleontological 
literature and reduplication of terms is 
second only to that which prevails in our 
own country, and has arisen from the simul- 
taneous and independent publications of 
Ameghino, Moreno and Mercerat. The 
author has not gone into the labyrinthine 
problems of specific priority, but has en- 


498 


deavored to clear up the genera with what 
appears to be considerable success. Palzeon- 
tologists everywhere are placed under a 
great debt both to the author for his most 
timely review of these forms and to the 
Argentine Government for the liberal style 
in which these Memoirs have been pub- 
lished. 
VARIATION IN CRABS. 

Tur English monthly, Natural Science, 
under its recent change of publishers, has 
not lost any of the vigor which has charac- 
terized it since its establishment three years 
ago, and continues to be one of the most 
interesting of the reviews of progress in 
biology and geology which come before us. 
The general editorial attitude is that of 
entire independence of all traditional theo- 
ries and authorities. There is shown no 
bias in the present evolution controversy, 
either towards the Darwinian or the La- 
marckian side, but an impartial considera- 
tion of each. In the April number are some 
comments upon the recent discussion in the 
Royal Society of the facts brought out by 
Professor W. T. Weldon’s extensive statis- 
tical investigation of variations in the shore 
crabs, from which we take the following: 
“Although Professor Weldon did not say 
so, it must have occurred to many listeners 
that this first result of statistical inquiry 
upon yariation was in direct contradiction to 
those who asserted that variation is not a 
matter of ‘ chance,’ but has its course in de- 
termined directions... . . Hisresults have 
already established the importance of these 
methods, and we cannot doubt that wher- 
ever the methods are applied with discrim- 
ination equally important results will be 
obtaimed. .... . Pending such inquiry, he 
may be taken to have shown that there is 
a relation between selection and minute 
variation, not that selection operates upon 
minute variations.” 

It seems to us too early even to make such 
guarded inductions as these from these re- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 18. 


searches, for their significance is very largely 
diminished, if not completely destroyed by 
our absence of a knowledge of the condi- 
tions under which these seven thousand 
crabs developed. If the variations were 
due to congenital tendencies then their se- 
lection has a bearing upon the eyolution 
problem, but if the variations were due to 
varying conditions of development, as is 
more than probable in a large percentage of 
cases, their selection has no bearing what- 
ever upon the evolution problem. This is 
the uncertainty which vitiates this method, 
and is strangely overlooked by the editors 
of Natural Science as well as by others. 
None the less, this investigation is a step 
in the right direction towards a sound in- 
ductive basis for the solution of this most 
pressing biological problem of the day. 


REGRESSION AND ORGANIC STABILITY. 


Mr. Francis Gatton (42 Rutland Gate, 
London W.) would be glad to receive infor- 
mation regarding : 

(1) Instances of such strongly marked 
peculiarities, whether in form, in color or 
in habit, as have occasionally appeared in a 
single or ina few individuals among a brood; 
but no record is wanted of monstrosities, or 
of such other characteristics as are clearly 
inconsistent with health and vigor. 

(2) Instances in which any one of the 
above peculiarities has appeared in the 
broods of different parents. In replying to 
this question, it will be hardly worth while 
to record the sudden appearance of either 
albinism or melanism, as both are well 
known to be of frequent occurrence. 

(3) Instances in which any of these pecu- 
liarly characterised individuals have trans- 
mitted their peculiarities, hereditarily, to 
one or more generations. Especial mention 
should be made whether the peculiarity was 
in any case transmitted in all its original 
intensity, and numerical data would be par- 
ticularly acceptable, that showed the fre- 


5 


May 3, 1895.] 


- quency of its transmission (@) in an undi- 

_ luted form, (4) in one that was more or less 

diluted, and (c) of its non-transmission in 
any perceptible degree. 


GENERAL. 
Ar a meeting of the secretaries of the 
Scientific Societies of Washington on April 
18th, Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard, Presi- 
dent of the Joint Committee, presiding, it 
was decided to print in Scrence regular re- 
ports of the meetings of all the societies. 


PHILADELPHIA has been selected as the 
place for the next meeting of the Society of 
American Naturalists. In conjunction with 
it will meet the affiliated societies—the 
American Morphological Society and the 
American Physiological Society, and prob- 
ably the Geological Society of America, the 
Association of American Anatomists and 
the American Psychological Association. 
Proressor Wo.corr Grpps, President of 
the National Academy of Sciences, Professor 
Herman Knapp of Columbia College and 
Professor Hugo Miinsterberg of Harvard 
University have been appointed an Ameri- 
an committee to collect money for the 
memorial to Helmholtz to be erected in 


Dr. Lovts-FLoRENTIN-CAMEIL died at 
ontenay-sous-Bois on March 11th, at the 
great age of ninety-seven. He was for 
any years head physician of the Asylum 
the Insane of Charenton, being the suc- 
cessor of Royer Collard and Esquirol. 


Mr. J. C. Sumner, of the Royal College 


‘ti on to Man.’ 


climbers organized in Oregon last year, pro- 
ose sending by heliograph a message and 


SCIENCE. 


499 


reply from British Columbia to Mexico on 
July 10th. The codperation of societies 
and individuals is requested in order that 
all the intervening mountain peaks may be 
occupied. Communications should be ad- 
dressed to Mr. T. Brook White, Secretary, 
Portland, Oregon. 


A NationaL ErunoiocicaL Exposrrion 
will be held at Prague from May 16th to 
October 12th. 


Amone the papers read at the annual 
spring meeting of the Institution of Naval 
Architects on April 3d, 4th and 5th, at 
London, were ‘ Notes on Further Experience 
with First-class Battleships,’ by Sir William 
White; ‘On Solid Stream Forms,’ by D. 
W. Taylor, U. S. Navy, and ‘On the 
Method of Initial Condensation and Heat 
Waste in Steam Engine Cylinders,’ by Pro- 
fessor R. H. Thurston. 


Mr. CuristopHer Hearn, of University 
College, has been elected President of the 
Royal College of Surgeons, to fill the vacaney 
caused by the death of Mr. J. W. Hulke. 


Mr. HERBERT SPENCER has begun a new 
series of articles in The Popular Science 
Monthly for May. His general subject is 
‘ Professional Institutions,’ one of the divi- 
sions of his Synthetic Philosophy, and he 
will aim to show how each of the professions 
has been developed out of the functions of 
the priest or medicine-man. 


Tue New York Legislature has appropri- 
ated $16,000 for scientific work in horticul- 
ture. The work will be under the imme- 
diate charge of Professor L. H. Bailey of 
Cornell University. 

Tue Legislature of California has appro- 
priated $250,000 to erect a building in San 
Francisco for the professional departments 
of the University of California. 

Tue international importance of the work 
done at the Columbia College Observatory 
in investigating the subject of variation of 


500 


latitude has been recently indicated by an 
offer, from the Royal Geodetic Institute at 
Potsdam, of a considerable sum of money 
to be used in employing computers to re- 
‘duce the results. 


A society has been incorporated in the 
State of New York for the preservation of 
‘scenic and historic places and objects. Mr. 
Andrew H. Greene, to whom the move- 
ment is chiefly due, is president of the so- 
ciety, which includes among its trustees a 
number of the leading citizens of New 
York. 


THE University of Kansas will send into 
the field the present season five different 
scientific expeditions. Professor Dyche 
leaves the first of May to collect and 
study the birds and mammals of Green- 
land and adjacent regions; Professor Wil- 
liston will have two expeditions for the col- 
lection of vertebrate fossils, one in Western 
Kansas and one in Wyoming; Chancellor 
Snow, it is expected will spend the summer 
in the Southwest with a party collectiug en- 
tomological specimens; a fifth party under 
Professor Haworth will be in the field dur- 
ing the next six months engaged in map- 
ping the Tertiary outcrops of the State. 
The cost of the three geological expeditions 
is borne by special appropriations from the 
State Legislature. 

Mr. Marx W. Harrineton, Chief of the 
Weather Bureau, has issued a circular stat- 
ing that a periodical is proposed, devoted to 
Climatology and its relation to health and 
disease, similar in size and general appear- 
ance to the monthly weather review. The 
cooperation is requested of sanitary boards 
and societies, and of individuals interested 
in this work. 

Tue Italian Botanical Society met this 
year at Palermo on the 13th and 26th of 
April. The German Zodlogical Society 
will meet at Strasburg on the 4th to the 
6th of June. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 18, 


AccorDING to the Zeitschrift fiir Luftschrift- 
fahrt and the Revue Scientifique, Herr Berson, 
on December 4, made the highest baloon 
ascent on record, attaining an altitude of 
9,100 metres. The temperature at this alti- 
itude was —47.8° C. The highest tempera- 
ture, 6.1° C., was at a height of 1,400 metres. 


Tue death is announced of Dr. Peck, 
director of the Museum of Natural History 
in Gorlitz. 

Aone recent new appointments in Ger- 
many we note that Dr. Himstedt, professor 
of physics in Giessen, has been called to 
Freiburg ; Dr. Czermak, professor of oph- 
thalmology in Innsbruck, to Prague, and 
Dr. Steinmann, professor of minerology in 
Freiburg, to Tibingen. Dr. Minkowski has 
been made professor of mathematics in 
Ko6nigsberg. 

THE mathematician, Dr. E. D. F. Meissel, 
died at Kiel, on March 11, at the age of 
sixty-eight years. 


The Revue Scientifique of April 13th reports 
the speeches made at the banquet given in 
honor of M. Berthelot on April 4th. 
Speeches were made by MM. Poincaré, Bris- 
son, Perrier, Richet, Zola and M. Berthelot 
himself. 


Proressor Ryper at the time of his death 
had nearly completed the MS. of a book, 
and left other scientific work of importance 
which will probably be published shortly 
under very competent editorship. 

Tur Prince of Wales has formally pre- 
sented to Sir Joseph Lister the Albert 
Medal of the Society of Arts for ‘the dis- 
covery and establishment of the antiseptic 
method of treating wounds and injuries, by 
which not only has the art of surgery been 
greatly promoted and human life saved in 
all parts of the world, but extensive indus- 
tries have also been created for the supply 
of materials required for carrying the treat- 
ment into effect.” 


[Ay 3, 1895.] 


The American Naturalist for March con- 
tains illustrations of some remarkable forms 
deep sea fishes dredged by the U. S. 


National Museum. The genera have been 
named Hariotta, Rondletia and Cetomimus. 


M. w’Asst Maze has communicated to 


fore Fahrenheit’s invention. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. 

Av the regular meeting of the National 
Geographic Society in the large hall of 
Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C., Friday 
evening, April 19, Mr. Robert T. Hill, of 
the U. 8. Geological Survey, delivered an 
address upon the Geography and Geology 
of Costa Rica and Panama. The fact that 
he has only recently returned from a tour 
scientific investigation of the region, 
ng which he saw a good deal of the 
ailing revolutionary spirit, gave special 
iterest to his remarks. , 

Grateful acknowledgment was made for 
e opportunity to study the geology of the 
jacent continental and island areas fur- 
ed the speaker by the enlightened lib- 
ity of Prof. Agassiz. 

‘Mr. Hill’s lecture, illustrated by a large 
number of very interesting lantern slides, 
'y from photographs taken by him dur- 
s recent trip, was partly popular and 
tly technical in character, descriptive of 

® topography, vegetation, products, archi- 


SCIENCE. 


501 


tecture and customs of the widely contrast- 
ing regions of the Isthmus of Panama and 
the modern Spanish American Republic of 
Costa Rica to the northward. 

The Isthmus was discussed as a type of 
the low-lying costal lands of the tropical 
region, where Caucasian population could 
only be maintained by constant immigra- 
tion, and which would be uninhabited did 
it not lie in the track of commerce between 
two oceans. All of its population, except 
a few unconquered Indian tribes, is concen- 
trated in the two seaports of Colon and 
Panama, or along the right of way of the 
railway and canal. On either side it is 
still an unconquered jungle. The impor- 
tant commercial and political American in- 
terests in this region were discussed, show- 
ing that its traffic is entirely in the control of 
Americans, and that it is an important point 
between our Atlantic and Pacifie sea-ports. 

Costa Rica, on the other hand, is an ex- 
ample of the higher and better climatic 
conditions existing in the Tropical Ameri- 
can region, where indigenous civilization 
flourishes under healthy climate conditions. 
Mr. Hill spoke of this as an ideal country 
and praised the hospitality and progressive 
spirit of the people. Illustrations were 
given of the entire course of the Panama 
canal, showing the topography, cuttings, 
machinery and laborers at present working 
upon the construction. While not commit- 
ting himself to any preference of canal 
routes, he said that the affairs of the Pana- 
ma Canal Company had been painted in 
this country much darker than they de- 
served. A far greater amount of work had 
been accomplished than is supposed. The 
machinery instead of rotting is kept in the 
best of condition and the affairs of the 
Company are not as hopelessly involved as 
represented. A liberal sum is still in the 
treasury, and while the concern is in the 
hands of the courts, it looks as if the French 
had no intention, after having completed 


502 


the hardest part of the canal construction, 
of abandoning it. The terminal port facili- 
ties have been completed. Nearly 25 miles 
of the canal is finished, reducing the dis- 
tance between the oceans from 47 to 22 
miles; about two-fifths of the necessary 
grading has been accomplished, and every 
possible machine and tool for its completion 
is upon the ground. The great problem of 
controlling and diverting the waters of the 
Chagres has also been accomplished. It is 
the general opinion of all Americans who 
have observed the work, including the en- 
gineering of our own famous Cabin John 
Bridge, that no great obstacle stands in the 
way of the early completion of this work 
except the recuperation of its financial 
affairs from the shameful mismanagement 
they have suffered. 

The lecturer gave interesting accounts of 
the various zones of vegetation seen in as- 
cending the great voleanoes of Costa Rica, 
and, incidentally, a general description and 
classification of the region bordering the 
Gulf and Caribbean Sea. Especial atten- 
tion was called to the important bearing of 
this Spanish American region, between the 
latitude of the Orinoco and the southern 
boundary of the United States, upon the 
great problems of continental development, 
and its correlated biologic and meteorologic 
problems ; and to the great work Prof. Alex- 
ander Agassiz has undertaken at his own 
expense in studying the marine physiog- 
raphy of the region, especially as regards 
the origin of its vast areas of coral reefs. 

The relief of this portion of the earth’s 
surface, a knowledge of which involves a 
study both of the land and the submarine 
topography, was provisionally classified 
into four great divisions: mountains of 
accumulation; mountains of corrugation; 
coastal plains of uniformly uplifted mar- 
ginal sea-bottom, and land formed by the 
combined action of coral polyps and wind 
and tide (as described by Prof. Agassiz). 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 18. 


In speaking of the mountains he classified 
the systems as follows: 

1. The southern extension of the Cordil- 
leran region of the United States, which 
terminates with the great scarp of the Mex- 
ican plateau in the latitude of Vera Cruz. 

2. The Andes proper, the north and south 
ridges of which end abruptly in Northern 
Colombia. 

3. A system of more ancient mountains 
having an east and west trend and com- 
posed of folded Mesozoic rocks, with Paleo- 
zoic axes, extending along the north coast 
of South America (between the Caribbean 
and Orinoco); throughout the Greater An- 
tilles; and through Guatemala, Nicaragua 
and British Honduras. For this Mr. Hill 
proposed the name of the ‘ Antillean Sys- 
tem.’ It was shown that there were sub- 
marine topographic ridges connecting the 
Honduras peninsula with the islands of 
Jamaica, Hayti and Puerto Rico, probably 
also parts of this ancient corrugation. 

4, Protuberances of oldér volcanic ac- 
cumulation, such as the Windward Islands 
and Isthmian region. 

5. Mountains of recent voleanic accumu- 
lation, including the three widely separated 
groups, with different trends, of southern 
Mexico, Central America and the northern 
Andes, all more or less parasitic upon the 
termini of the antecedent and fundamental 
mountain systems of corrugation, and to a 
certain extent (owing to their newness and 
greater mass) concealing them. 

EVEerREerT HAYDEN, 
Secretary. 


BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 


Ar a meeting on April 6th, Dr. Theo. 
Gill read a paper ‘ On the Torpedoes.’ 

The subject was discussed from two points: 
view, taxonomic and nomenclatural. 

The family of Torpedoes, or cramp fishes, 
is well differentiated from all others by the 
development (from original muscular tis- 


May 3, 1895.] 


sues) of a pair of electric batteries in the re- 
gion between the cranium and anterior ex- 
_ tension of the pectoral fins. The family is 
divisible naturally into three sub-families 
which should be called Narcobatinz, Nar- 
einine and Hypnine. These sub-families 
are differentiated by modifications of the 
eranium and skeleton generally, disk, tail, 
position of spiracles and structure of teeth. 
The nomenclature involves a_ singular 
point. The name Torpedo was first applied 
(by Forskal in 1775) asa generic term to 
the electric catfish of the Nile subsequently 
ealled Malapterurus, and was accompanied 
by a tolerable generic diagnosis. (The full 
history and etymology of the word Tor- 
pedo was given.) Therefore Torpedo must 
be used for the Nematognath fish. The 
electric ray must consequently receive an- 
other name, and Narcobatis, of Blainville, is 
therefore available. The genera would then 
have the following names: Narcobatine, 
with Narcobatis and Tetranarce; Narcinine, 
with Narcine, Discopyge, Narbe (Astrabe) 
and Temera ; Hypninw, with Hypnos. 
Mr. L. O. Howard cited the name Taran- 
tula as a similar case in which a generic 
name had long been misapplied. It was 
first given to a scorpion, and after long ser- 
vice as the name of a spider it has recently 
been restored to its original meaning. Dr. 
W. H. Dall and Dr. C. Hart Merriam both 
eed that in all such cases the strict law 
of priority should govern. 

Major J. W. Powell spoke on the Classi- 
fication of the Subject-Matter of Biology 
and the paper was discussed at length. 


Freperic A. Lucas, 
Secretary. 


ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS. 
Tue Academy held its regular meeting on 
April 15 with President Green in the Chair 
d twenty-nine members and _ visitors 
) "es ent. 

‘Miss Mary E. Murtfeldt read a paper on 


. 


SCIENCE. 


503 


‘Habits of Certain Seed Feeding Insects,’ 
giving the result of her observations and 
experiments with insects which feed upon 
the seeds of weeds and other injurious 
plants. Some of these insects were new to 
science. Miss Murtfeldt stated as her con- 
clusion that the seed feeding insects exer- 
cise a very pronounced effect in preventing 
the spread of weeds, and in many instances 

almost exterminate them. 

A. W. DovGtas, 
Recording Secretary. 
SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
BOTANICAL GAZETTE, APRIL. 

Issued April 20, 1895. 
Present Problems in the Anatomy, Morphology 
and Biology of the Cactacee: W.F.GANonG. 
This is the first installment of a paper (to 
be concluded in the May number) setting 
forth in brief statement what is at present 
known of this group in regard to the topics 
enumerated in the title, and the problems, 
mainly to be solved by careful field observa- 
tion and a study of development, which still 

remain to be worked out. 


64 pp., 2 pl. 


Flowers and Insects, XIV.: CHAR LES ROBERT- 

SON. 

In this paper and its predecessor (Bot. 
Gaz. 20: 104, Mr. 1895) Mr. Robertson has 
somewhat changed his plan of contributions 
to the relations of flowers and insects, in 
now bringing together his information in 
regard to the several species of a genus, ac- 
companying it with a voluminous bibli- 
ography. Species of Gentiana, Frasera, 
Phlox, Lithospermum, Physalis and Mim- 
ulus are discussed. 

Notes From My Herbarium, IL: 

DEANE. 

The herbaritim of Mr. Deane is one of the 
finest private collections in this country in 
the excellence and completeness of the 
plants represented, viz., those of the range 
of Gray’s Manual. It is specially rich in 

. 


WALTER 


504 


its representation of life histories of plants 
so far as these can be shown by dried speci- 
mens. In this series of notes Mr. Deane is 
putting on record some of the information 
gained in the making of this collection. 
The fruit of Nymphea odorata Ait., a case of 
teratology in Apocynum androsemifolium L., 
and Typha latifolia L. are discussed in No. 
Il. 


Synopsis of North American Amaranthacee, IT. : 
Epwin B. Utine and Wm. L. Bray. 
This installment of the paper gives a sys- 

tematic enumeration of the N. Am. species 

of the genera Acnida and Gomphrena. 

Acnida tamariscina prostrata and Gomphrena 

Tuerckheimii are described as new. To the 

latter Telanthera Tuerckheimii Vatke is prob- 

ably to be referred. 

A Reply to Dr. Robinson’s Criticism of the ‘ Last 
of Pteridophyta and Spermatophyta of North- 
eastern America :’ FREDERICK Y. COvVILLE. 
Among Briefer Articles Mr. J. Schneck 

describes and figures the flowering and fruit- 

ing of the spider-flower, Cleome spinosa L., a 

subtropical species which reaches up the 

Mississippi valley as far as S. Ills.; Mr. 

Geo. H. Shull records some observations on 

the branching, inflorescence and flowers of 

Enslenia albida, illustrated with a plate; 

Mr. F. H. Blodgett adds some points to a 

paper (Bot. Gaz. 19: 61. F 1894) on the 

development of the bulb of the adder’s 
tongue, Erythronium Americanwm Ker.; Mr. 

Thomas Meehan gives a short biographical 

sketch of the late John H. Redfield of Phil- 

adelphia, and Professor W. W. Bailey does 
the same for the late Mr. George Hunt of 

Providence, R. I. In a note on the Syste- 

matic Botany of North America, Professor 

N. L. Britton, the chairman of the Board of 

Editors, gives a list of the parts at present 

assigned to the collaborators named. 

The editorials deal with the discussion on 
nomenclature and the progress of the Syste- 
matic Botany of North America. In the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 18. 


department of Current Literature Sayre’s 
Materia Medica (botanical part), Thomas 
and Dudley’s Manual of Histology, and 
Lister’s Monograph of the Mycetozoa are re- 
viewed, with briefer mention of several 
other works. The number closes with six 
pages of notes and news regarding botanists, 
their doings and writings. 


THE AMERICAN NATURALIST, APRIL. 

On the Presence of Fluorine as a Test for the 
Fossilization of Animal Bones. 

Experimental Evolution Amongst Plants: L. 
H. Batry. 

Observations on a so-called Petrified Man: J. M. 
STEDMAN. 

On -the Validity of the Genus Margaritana: 
Caas. T. SmMPson. 

Editor’s Table ; Recent Interature ; Recent Books 
and Pamphlets; General Notes; Geography 
and Travels ; Mineralogy ; Petrography; Ge- 
ology and Paleontology; Botany; Zoology; 
Entomology; Embryology ; Psychology; Arche- 
ology and Ethnology ; Microscopy. 

Proceedings of Scientific Societies; Scventifie 
News. 


NEW BOOKS. 

The Cambridge Natural History, Vol. IIL., 
Molluscs. A. H. Cooxr. Brachiopods 
(recent), A. E. Surerey. Brachiopods 
(fossil), F. R. C. Rrrp. New York and 
London, Macmillan & Co. 1895. Pp. 
xi + 535. $2.60. 

Elements of Mineralogy, Chrystallography and 
Blowpipe Analysis. ALFRED J. Moses and 
CHARLES LATHROP Parsons. New York, 
D. Van Nostrand Company. 1895. Pp. 
vii + 342. 

Steam Power and Mill Work. Gro. W. Sut- 
cLIFFE. New York, Macmillan & Co, 
1895. $4.50. 

A Treatise on Bessel Functions. ANDREW 
Gray and G. B. Marraews. New Yorky 
Macmillan & Co. 1895, $4.50. 


= 


Se eee 


DUE NCE. 


NEw SERIES. 
VoL. I. No. 19. 


Fripay, May 10, 1895. 


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BETHAULT, PRoF. F., Les Prairies. Prairies natu- 


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BIEDERMANN, Pror. W., Elektrophysiologie. 


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BOHM, PROSEKTOR A. A., und M. von DAVIDOFF, 
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LAUE, MAX., Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. Ein 
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MARCHLEWSKEI, Dr. L., Die Chemie des Chloro- 
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MERKEL, PROFESSOR FR., und O. BoNNET, Ergeb- 
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TUBEUF, DR. KARL FREIHERR. VY. Pflanzen- 
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EDITORIAL CoMMITTEE : S. NEwcoms, Mathematics ; R. S. WoopWARD, Mechanics ; E. C. PICKERING, As- 
tronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. ToursToN, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
JosEPH LE ConTE, Geology; W. M. DAvis, Physiography; O. C. MARSH, Paleontology; W. K. 
BROOKS, Invertebrate Zoology ; C. HART MERRIAM, Vertebrate Zoology ; N. L. BRITTON, 

Botany ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, General Biology ; H. P. Bowpitcu, Physiology ; 

J. S. Brntrnes, Hygiene ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; 

DANIEL G. BRINTON, J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Fripay, May 10, 1895. 


CONTENTS : 

Current Notes on Physiography (VI.): W. M. 

MOST eintelsie/a?ole eic'e\a's «o\on'=\s sistettiaalm ne @inia/aiei= eb. 505 
Notes on Agriculture (IJ.): Byron D. HALSTED .509 
Lagoa Santa; ERWIN F. SMITH .......--+-00-- 510 
The Progress of Paronymy: Burt G. WILDER...515 
The Marine Biological Laboratory ........++++.++ 516 
The Generic Names of the Three-toed Echidna: T. 

BEBATEMMISES gis 0.6, 2:05 s+ 0 0» so bsleidien (eae emis = 518 
EMMESVIUNCTICS 2— a) 0.0. s os w1osiscnnasee uations 519 


Spectroscopic Observations of Saturn at the Alle- 
gheny Observatory: JAMES E. KEELER. A 
General Subject-Index to Periodical Scientific Lit- 
erature: EDWARD 8. HOLDEN. 


Beientific Literature :— .... 2.22. seeceeeeseeecees 522 
Rothpletz’ Ost-Alpen: ANDREW C. LAWSON. 
Yokoyoma’s Mesozoic Plants: Wm. M. Foun- 
TAINE. Arnold’s Chemistry: EDWARD H. 
Keser. Gray’s Botany: N. L. B. Botan- 
ical: JOSEPH F. JAMES. 


MPMTMLELOTUPNLD So ac occ ccnls soe cedete dem aniaatetss 528 


_ Societies and Academies : — .2---..-eeeeeeeeeeee 531 
The Biological Society of Washington; The Bos- 
ton Society of Natural History. 


Mileientific Jotrnals:—.....cccccccscccccccsccees 532 


MSS. intended for publication and books, ete., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 

eKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

Subscriptions and advertisements should be sent to SCIENCE, 
41 N. Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or 41 East 49th St., New York. 


‘CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY (VI). 
SURFACE CURRENTS OF THE GREAT LAKES, 


A REVISED edition of the atlas of ‘ Surface 
Currents of the Great Lakes,’ as deduced 
from the movements of bottle papers during 
the seasons of 1892, 1893 and 1894, by Pro- 
fessor M. W. Harrington, has lately been 
ed as Bulletin B of the Weather Bureau. 


The text describes the method of study, and 
gives tables of the prevailing winds of the 
lake-port stations and a list of recovered 
bottles, 672 being found out of nearly 5000 
floated. The chief drifts are: eastward 
along the south side of Superior, westward 
along the north side; south along the west 
side of Michigan and Huron, north along 
the east side; generally eastward in Erie 
and Ontario. Many irregular movements 
are noted, especially near shore. Local 
and transient currents, formed during se- 
vere gales, are sometimes strong enough to 
drag vessels from their moorings. ‘“ There 
also oceurs, occasionally, on the Great 
Lakes a phenomenon which may be called 
a seiche, namely, a wave of considerable 
height which travels unaccompanied by 
other waves, and is seen by navigators as a 
white wall approaching and rapidly passing 
them.” Following the use of the term seiche 
on the Swiss lakes, where it originated, it 
would be more properly applied to the rise 
and fall of the water on the shore, in periods 
of generally less than an hour; these being 
well known at our Lake ports, but as yet 
very little studied. These white-walled 
waves also call for investigation. 


BUCHAN’S CHALLENGER REPORT ON OCEANIC 
CIRCULATION. 

Tue latest volume of the Challenger re- 

ports contains thirty-eight pages of text and 

sixteen maps, prepared by Dr. Alexander 


506 


Buchan, of Edinburgh, to illustrate the 
density and temperature of ocean water at 
different depths; all available material 
being employed in this elaborate discussion, 
whose ultimate object is the determination 
of the oceanic circulation. The charts ex- 
hibit the mean annual specific gravity of 
the surface and the bottom waters, the mean 
annual surface temperatures, and the tem- 
peratures at every hundred fathoms of 
depth to 1000, then at 1500, 2000 and at 
the bottom. At 400 and 500 fathoms the 
South Atlantic and the North Pacific are 
the colder oceans; the North Atlantic and 
the Indian are exceptionally warm. At 600 
and 700 fathoms the most remarkable fea- 
ture is the relation of North Atlantic tem- 
perature to the warm over-saline water that 
issues from the Mediterranean; a similar 
but less marked effect being noticeable in 
the Indian ocean near the Red Sea. The 
average at 700 fathoms being 38.°1, the 
northwestern Indian ocean is 44°, the 
eastern North Atlantic is 51°, with the 
maximum centering precisely towards Gib- 
raltar. At 900 and 1000 fathoms the tem- 
peratures in low latitudes are symmetrically 
warmer than in high latitudes; but the 
difference is less than two degrees. 

Dr. Buchan’s text summarizes the facts 
and deals little with theories ; but he ac- 
cepts the winds as the chief cause of the 
surface currents, and he ascribes deep 
movements to differences of density, thus 
indicating the truth of both sides of the 
Croll-Carpenter controversy of a quarter 
century ago. 


THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, 

Tue third series of the ‘Berichte der 
Commission fir Erforschung des ostlichen 
Mittelmeeres,’ recently issued in the me- 
moirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences 
of Vienna, contains further physical investi- 
gations by Luksch and Wolf on the basis of 
soundings on the ‘ Pola’ in the Megan sea 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 19, 


in 1893. The sea consists of a number of 
separate basins, of which the deepest (2250 
met.) lies north of the east end of Candia. 
Much greater depths occur in the Mediter- 
ranean east and west of thisisland. Charts 
of temperature and salinity at the surface 
and at successive depths to the bottom ex- 
hibit the distribution of these features with 
much detail. The surface temperatures are 
maintained to a depth of about thirty meters; 
then follows a rapid cooling for seventy or a 
hundred meters, below which there is a 
gradual cooling to the bottom, where tem- 
peratures a little lower than 13° C. preyail. 


AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNALS. 


It is regrettable, but for the present per- 
haps not surprising, that no American 
geographical society issues a journal from 
which a student, teacher or general reader 
can gather a thorough acquaintance with 
geographical activity over the world. A 
journal of thorough and scientific character 
needs a background of accumulated ex- 
perience, a large library and exchange list, 
a good number of active contributors and 
correspondents, and a large subscription 
list; and we have not yet been fortunate 
enough to develop all these conditions under 
a single control. The best association for 
such a journal in this country would be 
with the American Geographical Society of 
New York, its membership being large, its 
funds comparatively munificent and its 
library of long-continued growth and cer- 
tainly much superior to that of any other 
similar society in the United States ; but, 
although this society counts explorers, 
travellers, government officials, professors 
and a large representation of the general 
public among its members, the number of 
its producing geographers is small, and its 
quarterly Bulletin, now in its twenty-sixth 
volume, can hardly at present be included 
among the important geographical periodi- 
cals of the world. We understand that 


_ plans for greater activity and enlarged form 
of publication are in consideration. The 
National Geographic Society of Washington 
is but a few years old. Its activity at pres- 

ent is greatest in its home city in the matter 
; of geographical lectures, which are very suc- 
cessful. A list of this winter’s lectures was 
given in Scrence No. 11. Its Magazine is 
of irregular publication, presumably on ac- 
count of lack of funds. While it contains 
a larger proportion of physiographic matter 
than any other publication in this country, 
it gives practically nothing of general news 
or literature. Appalachia, the organ of the 
Appalachian Mountain Club of Boston, the 
Bulletin of the Geographical Club of Phila- 
delphia, the Bulletin of the Geographical 
Society of the Pacific, and the papers of the 
Sierra Club, both of San Francisco, com- 
plete the list of geographical publications in 
this country as far as known to the writer. 
Geographical notes are given in the Amer- 
ican Naturalist and in the Popular Science 
Monthly. All these geographical journals 
deserve warm support, especially in their 
own communities, but none of them pre- 
sents the subject of geography nearly as fully 
as itis presented by several journals abroad. 


- 


FOREIGN GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNALS. 


Tue small amount of space that can be 
allowed in Scrence to geography makes it 
impossible to report on the progress of ex- 
_ploration, save when results of especial im- 
portance or of immediate physiographic 
interest are announced. Exploration is, 
however, fully presented in various foreign 
geographical journals ; and, in the hope of 
extending their circulation in the libraries 
of our country, occasional notes of their 
haracter and contents will be here intro- 
duced. Preéminent among all such publi- 
cations stand the Geographical Journal of 
the Royal Geographical Society of London, 
and Petermann’s Geographische Mitthei- 
lungen, issued by the great geographical 


- May 10, 1895.) SCIENCE. 


507 


publishing house of Justus Perthes of Gotha 
and now conducted by Professor Alex. 
Supan. The Geographical Journal has for 
the great body of our students of geography 
the advantage of being in our own lan- 
guage, and it will therefore long continue 
to reach the larger circle of readers. Be- 
sides general articles and current news, 
ten or twelve pages are given in each num- 
ber to notes on geographical literature by 
Dr. H. R. Mill, the entries being conven- 
iently summarized by brief headings in 
bold type, arranged under countries. Ex- 
tended reviews are made of important 
works. But those who can consult Ger- 
man sources—and this ability is now gen- 
erally demanded of students in higher col- 
legiate and university work—will find in 
Petermann’s Mittheilungen an unrivaled 
bibliography of the whole range of geo- 
graphical literature, from the geology of 
the earth beneath to the meteorology of the 
air above. Reviews of the more important 
publications are given in so extended a 
form that reference to original sources is 
unnecessary, except for the specialist in 
some particular division of the subject. 
Anyone who follows these reviews and the 
items of monthly news will acquaint him- 
self very fully with the general progress of 
current geographical work. Other foreign 
journals will be referred to in subsequent 
numbers of ScIENCE. 


WAGNER’S GEOGRAPHISCHES JAHRBUCH. 

Tis indispensable annual, founded in 
1866 by Behm and now in its seventeenth 
volume, is a fitting supplement to the other 
geographical publications of the house of 
Perthes in Gotha. The most important re- 
views and summaries in the Jahrbuch for 
1894 are: on terrestrial magnetism by 
Schering, map projections by Hammer, eth- 
nology by Gerland, geographical meteor- 
ology by Briickner, and on the geographical 
literature of the European countries by va- 


508 


rious contributors. Several of the latter are 
of great thoroughness and may serve as 
guides in ordering the best recent publica- 
tions for public and college libraries. The 
most thorough are by Fischer on Southern 
Europe, Neumann on Germany and Sieger 
on Austria-Hungary. That by Schlichter 
on Great Britain and Ireland unwarrant- 
ably omits mention of the recent editions 
of Geikie’s Scotland and Ramsay’s England. 
The volume closes with a series of small 
scale index-maps, giving the state of ad- 
vance of topographical surveys in Europe, 
India and the United States up to the au- 
tumn of 1894. One may thus determine at 
a glance whether the sheet for a certain lo- 
eality in any country is yet published or 
not. The practical use of these indexes 
would have been increased if the name and 
address of the official bookseller from whom 
the maps may be purchased had been given. 


FORSCHUNGEN ZUR DEUTCHEN 


VOLKSKUNDE. 


LANDES- UND 


THE eighth and latest volume of these val- 
uable essays, edited by Kirchhoff of Halle, 
and published at Stuttgart by HEngelhorn, 
contains studies by Schreiber on the climate 
of Saxony, Partsch on the glaciation of the 
Riesengebirge, and Follman on the Hiffel, 
besides three others on historical and eth- 
nological subjects. Schreiber’s essay gives 
a full account of the periodic values of vari- 
ous climatic factors, but it is deficient in 
omitting all account of the unperiodic or 
eyclonie changes, which in winter are 
dominant, and fully deserve recognition as 
climatic elements. Partsch presents a care- 
ful study of the moraines and associated 
terraces of the Riesengebirge, which rise a 
few miles south of the extreme limit as- 
cribed to the northern ice sheet in that re- 
gion. The height of the snow line during 
glacial times is placed at about 1200 meters, 
by means of ratios between length of gla- 
ciers and area of snow fields, as determined 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Voz. I. No. 19, 


in the Alps. An older and a younger gla- 
ciation are separated by a considerable in- 
terval, during which normal valley making 
was in progress. The author dissents from 
Berendt’s views concerning a more general 
glaciation of the Riesengebirge. Follman’s 
account of the Hifel is chiefly geological 
and descriptive, little attention being given 
to the development of the existing topog- 
raphy or to the explanation of the present 
courses of the streams. The volcanoes and 


the maare, of course, receive special atten- 


tion. 


PENCK’S MORPHOLOGIE DER ERDOBER- 
FLACHE. 

Tus is the most important work on physi- 
ography that has appeared during the past 
year; indeed, in many respects it is a 
unique work, one that will stand long at the 
head of works of its class. It is a worthy 
successor of earlier volumes in the series 
of geographical handbooks (published by 
Engelhorn, Stuttgart) to which it belongs— 
Ratzel’s Anthropogeographie, Hann’s Kli- 
matologie, Heim’s Gletscherkunde, Bogus- 
lawski and Krimmel’s Oceanographie and 
others ; and in the matter of citations of 
authorities it is much superior to any of its 
predecessors. Penck’s acquaintance with 
the literature of his subject is truly remark- 
able. Each topic is outlined historically, 
as well as in its present status. A subject 
relatively so subordinate as the effect of the 
earth’s rotation on rivers has thirty-five cita- 
tions; sand dunes have fifty-one. Pro- 
cesses of deformation, deposition and denu- 
dation are all considered elaborately, with 
special reference to the forms that they pro- 
duce, and this part of the book might prop- 
erly be called Morphogenie. The forms them- 
selves-are considered afterwards at length. 
The more general headings in the table of 
contents are: Form and size of the earth; 
area of land and water, mean altitude of 
lands and depth of seas, volume of lands and 


May 10, 1895.] 


seas ; continents and oceans and their per- 
manence. Land surfaces; weathering and 
denudation by wind, rivers and ice; defor- 
mations of the surface. The forms of the 
land; plains, hills of accumulation, valleys, 
basins, mountains, depressions, caverns. 
The sea; its movements, coasts and bot- 
tom; islands. 

The chief deficiency of the book is the 
scarcity of illustrations and the rough qual- 
ity of nearly all the few cuts that are intro- 
duced. Many are merely diagrams, often 
with excessive vertical exaggeration. This 
is to be regretted in a subject where graphic 
aid of the highest quality is necessary for 
the adequate presentation of the facts. But 
as the work is in two volumes of 471 and 
696 pages, the omission of illustrations has 
evidently been a matter of necessity. 

W.M. Davis. 


HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


NOTES UPON AGRICULTURE (II.). 
MUSCARDINE DISEASE OF CHINCH-BUGS. 
One of the most serious of insect depre- 

dations to wheat and corn is that caused by 
the chinch-bug, and for years methods of 
checking it by employing a parasitic fungus 
have been the subject of research. In 
Kansas special appropriations have been 
made by the Legislature to determine the 
best means of propagating and applying the 
virus. The latest information upon this 
subject comes in the shape of a sixty-page 


- bulletin with eight plates (No. 38, March, 


95) from the Illinois Experiment Station 
prepared by Dr. Forbes. The fungus experi- 
mented with is Sporotrichum globuliferum, 
Speg., which was cultivated successfully 
upon a mixture of corn meal and beef broth 
and afterwards distributed to farmers in the 
chinch-bug infested portions of the State. 
The White Muscardine (Sporotrichium) 
spreads most rapidly in the field when the 
weather is moist and the ‘ catch’ is quickest 
in the low spots in the field and among 


SCIENCE. 


509 


fallen herbage. Professor Forbes is of the 
opinion that the disease may be developed 
without infection by artificially producing 
the above conditions by trampling down the 
grain in spots or cutting and stocking small 
portions as starting points for the infection. 
It was observed that mites feed upon the 
Muscardine and in some of the artificial 
cultures eat up ‘the last vestige of the 
fungus.’ The Sporotrichium lives upon many 
kinds of insects, and a plate is given of the 
appearance of it upon a leaf skeletonizer 
(Carnarsia), June Beetle (Lachnosterna), 
Walnut caterpillar (Datana). 


BACTERIOSIS OF RUTABAGA,. 


THE number of diseases of plants of bac- 
terial origin is rapidly on the increase, or, 
more strictly writing, the nature of these 
troubles is in these later days being better 
understood. A portion of Bulletin 27 of 
the Iowa Experiment Station is devoted to 
a disease of rutabagas that Professor Pam- 
mel finds, through a long course of bacteri- 
ological study, to be caused by a micro6ér- 
ganism which he names Bacillus campestris 
Heesp:; and figures in details in a plate. 
This disease is distinguished by its strong 
odor, the decay usually beginning at the 
crown of the root, the fibro-vascular zone 
becomes black, while the softer portions of 
the root become soft and finally watery. 
Healthy roots were caused to decay by in- 
troducing the Bacilli, previously isolated 
by cultural methods, into their tissue. 


WEED SEEDS IN WINTER WINDS. . 

Tr is well known that winds play an im- 
portant réle in the distribution of seeds, 
Professor Bolley, in the North Dakota Ex- 
periment Station Bulletin (No. 17, March, 
1895), records that in two square feet of a 
three-weeks old and three-inch deep snow 
drift upon an ice pond ten yards from any 
weeds he found nineteen weed seeds, and 
and in another drift quite similarly situated 


thirty-two seeds representing nine kinds 


510 


of weeds. While the wind was blowing 
twenty miles per hour a peck of mixed 
seeds was poured upon the snow crust, and 
ten minutes after 191 wheat grains, 53 flax 
seeds, 43 buckwheat and 91 rag weed seeds 
were found in a trench thirty rods from 
where they had been poured upon the crust. 


BLACK KNOT OF PLUMS AND CHERRIES. 

Tue Black Knot fungus (Plowrightia mor- 
bosa Schw.) is an old orchard enemy. Pro- 
fessor Lodeman, in Bulletin 81 (December, 
94) Cornell Experiment Station, has given 
the long bibliography of the subject and 
shows, by means of cuts, how the spores of 
the fungus may find their way between the 
adjoining layers of bark in the forks of the 
small limbs. At these places the bark is 
thin and the growing layer (cambium) 
comes near to the surface, thus facilitating 
the inoculation. Iuodgement is also pro- 
duced at these angles between stems, and 
besides it is here that knots are most apt 
to form. Experiments in spraying knotty 
trees with Bordeaux mixture gave results 
that were decidedly encouraging. 


RECENT APPLE FAILURES. 

In another bulletin (No. 84) from the 
Cornell Experiment Station—and there are 
many and fine ones—‘The Recent Apple Fail- 
ures of Western New York’ are considered 
by Professor Bailey. A glance at the cuts 
shows that failures may be due to imperfect 
pollination, injudicious application of fun- 
gicides, but more particularly to the ravages 
of the Apple Scab (Fusicladium dendriticum 
Fl.), of which Professor Bailey gives a full 
page colored plate showing the scab enemy 
in detail from the appearance of the young 
distorted fruit to the microscopic structure 
of the fungus shown in leaf sections. That 
the scab fungus is the leading cause of 
apple failures is demonstrated by the fact 
that thorough spraying to check it produc- 
tiveness has been obtained. The essentials 
for success in apple culture, as given by the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 19. 
author as his concise summary, are: ‘ till, 
feed, prune, spray.” 


DETASSELING CORN. 


Tue removal of the male flowers from a 
large or small per cent. of the corn plants in 
a fleld has been experimented upon at va- 
rious stations. Thus in Maryland where 
two-thirds of the tassels were removed the 
detasseled rows gave a decrease of nearly 
10 per cent. At the Kansas Station by 
detasseling alternate rows of six varieties in 
every case there was a reduced yield aver- 
aging 22 per cent. Delaware obtained 
under similar circumstances an increase of 
6.6 per cent. 

Before us is the bulletin (No. 37 Feb., 
1895) upon ‘Corn Experiments’ of the Illi- 
nois Experiment Station in which detassel- 
ing receives its share of consideration. “ In 
eighteen out of twenty-three comparisons 
the yield of corn was greater for the rows 
(alternate) having the tassels removed. 
For tassels pulled we have an increase of 
twenty-seven per cent., and for those cut 
only six per cent. Removed before expand- 
ing gives an increase of eleven per cent. 
The average increase is thirteen per cent.” 
At the Cornell Station one report (1890) 
gave an increase of fifty per cent. for detas- 
seling, but the next year there was no differ- 
ence. The results thus far obtained teach 
that the end of experimentation in this 
direction is not yet reached. 


Byron D. HAtstep. 
RUTGERS COLLEGE. 


LAGOA SANTA. 

Suc# is the title of a memoir published 
in 1892 by Professor Eugene Warming, of 
the University of Copenhagen. It is also 
styled Et Bidrag til den biologiske Plantegeo- 
grafi, and this sub-title sufficiently explains 
the aim of the work. Lagoa Santa is & 
small village about 835 meters above the 
sea and 200 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, 


May 10, 1895.] 


in the Brazilian campos, or hilly region be- 
yond the great virgin forests of the coast 
mountains. Warming spent three years at 
this place, 1863-66, and made large collec- 
tions of plants, which have been studied 
and described by various specialists. Now, 
_ after nearly thirty years, the author gives 
_ his general conclusions as to the flora of 
_ this region, which he considers typical of a 
great part of the interior of Brazil. The 
mean temperature is 20.5°C, with a range 
of 3.5° to 37°C. There are two seasons— 
_ dry, from April to September, correspond- 
ing to our winter, and wet, during the rest 
of the year. Spring opens in August. June 
is the coldest month, and December and 
January are the warmest months, but there 
is no winter in our meaning of the term, 
the means of the coldest month being only 
a few degrees below that of the warmest. 
The annual rainfall is not known, but it is 
_ considerable during part of the year, and 
_ there are heavy dews in the dry season. 
_ The heaviest rainfalls are in November, 
December and January. The soil is a red 


pee Aa 


_ the decomposition of the primary rocks. 
In places cavernous limestones occur. 

There are no plains here, but only an in- 
_ terminable succession of hills with narrow 
valleys through which streams have cut 
_ gorges or in which there are lakes or ponds. 
_ Forests line the water courses and cover the 
calcareous rocks. These are a meager con- 
tinuation of the luxuriant coast forests. 
; The greater part of the country is, however, 
_ destitute of trees or bears only scrubby 
growths. These surfaces are the campos. 
They consist either of barren, pebbly pla- 
_ teaus and flanks of hills which are subject to 
Washing, covered with scant herbage and 
often entirely destitute of trees, or of simi- 
Jar areas bearing deeper and more fertile 
lays and covered more or less densely with 
herbs, shrubs and smalltrees. The marsh 
and water plants form only an insignificant 


SCIENCE. 


511 


part of the vegetation, and may be left out 
of account in this synopsis. The contrast 
between the forest vegetation and that of 
the campos is very sharp, the plants of the 
latter resembling desert vegetation in many 
interesting particulars. Exceptin very rich 
parts of the campos the herbaceous vegeta- 
tion is never dense enough to hide the hard 
red earth. Grasses are the most important 
part of the herbaceous covering. There are 
about sixty species, mostly Panicums, Pas- 
palums and Andropogons. All are peren- 
nial and grow in thin scattered tufts, never 
forming a sod. The Cyperacez also grow 
in the same way. The composites are rich 
in species, especially the Vernoniese and 
Eupatoriez. The Leguminosze come next 
in number ofspecies. There are 554 species 
of herbs on the campos, but there are no 
biennials, and the number of annuals is very 
few, i. e., less than 6%. There are also 
very few climbers or twinersalthough the 
campos bears many forms intermediate be- 
tween erect herbs and climbing and twining 
plants. The great dearth of annuals is 
attributed to the great dryness and hard- 
ness of the soil at the time the seeds are shed, 
to the annual fires which consume seeds 
and seedings and may perhaps have trans- 
formed some annuals into perennials, and 
to the hard struggle for existence with tall 
herbs and bushes. Herbaceous shoots de- 
velop ordinarily in tufts and are not 
branched or but slightly, arising in great 
numbers from subterranean stems or roots. 
Exclusive of certain grasses, sedges and 
Bromeliaceze, herbs with rosettes of basal 
leaves are almost entirely wanting. Hori- 
zontal rhizomes and stolons are absent and 
horizontal cauline organs always remain 
very short. Almost all of the perennial 
Dicotyledons have a short, thick, lignified, 
irregular, and more or less tuberous subter- 
ranean axis. Sometimes a delicate little 
shoot only ten to fifteen centimeters high 
arises from a tuberous axis as large as one’s 


512 


fist. Juicy tubers and tender bulbs are 
very rare on the campos. Typical shrubs 
are not rare and in some places they form 
thickets. In other instances unbranched 
shoots arise in great numbers from a big, 
lignified, root-shaped axis and form tufts 
which are often very large. Generally, 
these tufts are only 0.85 to one meter high, 
but they cover a diameter of one to three 
meters and often more. This manner of 
growth resembles that of the herbaceous per- 
ennials, but the shoots are woody. The 
campos bears 170 to 180 shrubs. The fami- 
lies represented by most species are: Myr- 
taceze 40-50, Malpighiacez 30, Melasto- 
mace 20, Composite 15, Huphorbiacez and 
Lythracez 6-10, the rest of the species be- 
ing scattered among twenty-five families. 
The tallest trees of the campos are three to 
eight meters high, and the densest growth 
forms a kind of forest, but this is never close 
enough to shade the earth. Sometimes the 
trunks rise obliquely, and both trunk and 
branches are twisted and stunted with thick, 
rough, channeled and cross-fissured bark. 
Many of them are also blackened and 
charred by the campos fires. There are 
eighty-six arborescent species on the campos, 
but many are only one to three meters high, 
and all resemble stunted fruit trees rather 
than ordinary arborescent vegetation. Phe- 
nogamic epiphytes and epiphytic mosses 
and lichens areveryrare. Lianas are want- 
ing, but some species show a tendency to- 
ward such types and these belong to genera 
which in the forest are developed largely or 
exclusively as lianas, e. g., there are eigh- 
teen species of Serjania in the dense forest, 
all lianas, while on the campos the one spe- 
cies, 8. erecta, is a shrub with litne slender 
branches. Cactaceze and all fleshy plants, 
exclusive of members of the orchidaceous 
genus Cyrtipodium, are also wanting and 
spiny plants are very rare. Certain fami- 
lies very common on the high mountains of 
Brazil, e. g., Vellosaceze and Ericacez, have 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 19. 


no representatives on the campos. Finally 
the soil bears no mosses, lichens, algze or 
fungi. This region is dry. The coast 
mountains and their virgin forests retain — 
the moisture of the air, and the dryness is 
increased by the altitude. ‘‘ The vegetation 
of the campos, properly speaking, is xero- 
philos. It is strange to see two forest 
growths developed side by side and often 
touching but differentiated in the sharpest 
possible manner, namely, the wooded cam- 
pos and the forests. The latter accompany 
the water and streams everywhere. The 
trees are close together, tall and slender; 
lianas twine about them and epiphytes live 
upon them, and a coolness that is sometimes 
exquisite reigns in them. Proceeding from 
the streams the forests have invaded a cer- 
tain territory on both sides to which, in 
course of time, they have brought a fertile 
humus. All at once, the forest stops and 
we find ourselves on the edge of the campos, 
where there is neither moisture nor shade, 
nor humus, and where the red clay earth 
cracks open in the dry season under the in- 
fluence of the heat and desiccation. It is 
the soil conditions which have caused this 
antithesis. The difference in the quantity 
of water contained in the soil in the bot- 
tom of the valleys and on the summit and 
flanks of the hills of the campos has brought 
about these strong and curious contrasts 
between the two floras. Itis certain that 
the geological formation exhibits no differ- 
ence. In the campos and under the humus 
of the forests it is everywhere the same red 
clay.” 

The xerophilous character of the cam- 
pos vegetation is manifest first of all in the 
shapes of the trees. On account of the 
dryness of the air these are small, stunted 
and twisted the same as in the high moun- 
tains of Brazil or in the maritime forests of 
“ Restinga,’’ along the sandy shores. Fires 
have also played a great réle in developing 
stunted forms. The strong development 


May 10, 1895.] 


of the cortical system and the heavy suber- 
ization are due to the dryness of the air 
and probably also to the fires. The thick, 
irregular, ligneous, subterranean axial 
organs (it is often difficult to tell which 
part is stem and which is root) are also, 
both in herbs and shrubs, related to the 
aridity and to the fires. The absence of 
_ mosses and of hymenomycetous and other 
_ sayrophytic fungi is another indication of 
the dryness. The leaves show the dryness 
: of the climate in numerous ways. An 
abundant hairy covering is very frequent, 
and the leaves of some species have both 
surfaces covered with a white or greyish 
_ felt, while others have only the lower sur- 
face felted. The leaves of other species 
are scabrous, hispid, glandular-hairy, or 
shining as if lacquered. A few have a 
Waxy covering. Almost always, even in 
the herbs, the leaves are stiff and cori- 
aceous, unless both surfaces are tomen- 
tose, and on some trees they are so stiff 
as almost to jingle in the breeze. Most 
of the grasses and sedges have narrow 
stiff leaves. The direction of the leaves 
also shows the aridity. Many are vertical or 
pointed upward, so as to receive the sun’s 
rays at an acute angle. Some species 
are aphyllous and in others the leaves are 
much reduced. Usually, the leaves of the 
_ forest species are larger and especially 
broader than those of the campos species, 
j even when of the same family or genus. 
“The most of the peculiarities which dis- 
tinguish xerophytes are also found in the 
_ plants of the campos, although rarely to 
such a pronounced degree. The environ- 
ment does not reach the excessive dryness 
of the deserts of Africa and Asia, of the 
high plateaux of Mexico, etc., and this ex- 
plains the absence of catacez and other 
fleshy plants and the rarity or absence of 
Succulent organs, such as tubers and bulbs. 
The dryness is never so great that vegeta- 
tion is forced to disappear or dry up en- 


, 


SCIENCE. 


513 


tirely for a longer or shorter period, as hap- 
pens in the steppe or the desert, and the 
spring awakening is not so sudden as in 
these places. The dryness of the campos 
is also manifest in the fall of the leaves.” 
Every year, when the sun has parched the 
herbage so that it is almost like hay, the 
campos are fired so as to get new growths 
for the cattle. These firings occur most 
frequently from July to September, but also 
earlier and later. The fires sweep every- 
thing that is close to the ground, including 
the lower branches of the trees, and cause 
the leaves to fall by thousands. When 
they are set too early, 7. e., in May or June, 
the succeeding vegetation is feeble, and 
when they are set too late in the spring, i. 
e., after the spring vegetation has begun, 
they cause immense and lasting injury. 
When set at the proper time the campos 
are covered in a week or two with a rich 
carpet of green. Plants blossom earlier on 
the burned campos, and many species are 
seldom found in bloom elsewhere. The 
rarity of annuals has already been men- 
tioned. The unbranched tufted habit of 
many shoots and the numerous swollen tu- 
berous axial organs also seem to be due to 
the fires, and the numerous big under- 
ground stubs of trees and shrubs are un- 
doubtedly due solely to this cause. 

The forests of Lagoa Santa are notas im- 
posing, as dense or as moist as those of the 
coast mountains. Those on the calcareous 
rocks in particular are quite open, dry and 
light. Tropical forests sometimes pass for 
being poor in flowers, but this is only an ap- 
pearance, the blossoms being concealed in 
the tops of the trees. Most of the trees 
have small flowers. Like tropical forests in 
general the ground between the trunks is 
densely covered, in places impenetrably 
tangled, with bushes, small trees and lianas. 
The author observed nearly 400 arborescent 
species in the forest and thinks the actual 
number much exceeds this. These trees 


514 


belong to sixty-seven families, the leading 
ones including nearly one-half of the species, 
being Papillionaceze, Myrtacez, Rubiacec, 
Lauracee, Artocarpacez, Cesalpinacec, 
Euphorbiaceee, Meliacez, Mimosacee and 
Anonacez. The individuals of a species 
are widely scattered and it is often difficult 
to find more than one or two of a kind. 
The great number of species is attributed to 
the uninterrupted development of the forest 
during many geological ages, the campo- 
growths being a derived and more recent 
flora. The height ofthe treesis rarely more 
than 20 to 25 meters. The trunks are not 
seragey like those of the campos, and the 
bark is smoother and less corky. The well 
lighted forests havea dense undergrowth of 
shrubs 1-3 meters high, most of which bear 
small white flowers. The soil ofthe forests 
is poor in herbaceous and suffrutescent 
species. There is no carpet of mosses or 
lichens. Agarics are small and very rare. 
Grasses form no part of the covering of the 
soil, and if any exist in the forest they are 
tall perennials such as Olyra and Bambusa. 
The forest is rich in climbing and twining 
plants, in striking contrast to the campos. 
The big woody lianas belong principally to 
Bignoniacez, Convolvulacez, etc., and the 
herbaceous climbers to Cucurbitaceze, Passi- 
floraceze, ete. The Convolvulace of the 
forests are generally voluble, while those of 
the campos are erect under-shrubs. 
numerous Aristolochias of the forest are also 
all voluble, while the single species of the 
campos is an under-shrub with stems 15-30 
centimeters high from a woody, tuberous, 
subterraneanaxis. The air isso dry that even 
in the forests there are but few Epiphytes. 
Cactaceze and other fleshy plants, and num- 
erous hairy, thorny and stinging plants grow 
in the more open forests on the calcareous 
rocks. ; 

Only the forest lands are used for agricul- 
tural purposes. The trees are felled, and 
after the clearing has been subject to the 


SCIENCE. 


The ~ 


[N. 8. Von. I. No. 19. 


heat of the dry season for some months it is 
fired and then planted—sometimes to sugar 
cane and rice, but more generally to Indian 
corn, with castor bean, perennial cotton, 
beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, etc., between 
the hills. After the second year the clear- 
ing is abandoned. These neglected clear- 
ings are soon covered with a dense growth 
of weeds, which are quickly crowded out 
by various shrubs—felted leaved and spiny 
Solanums, hispid Lantanas, dirty green or 
brown hairy Crotons, numerous Sidas and 
other Malvaceze,dull composites often sticky, 
tall grasses with large leaves and many 
other plants, mingled with which are shoots 
from the tree stumps. Gradually the area 
becomes once more a forest, twenty or thirty 
years sufficing. It is said that after the 
forest has been cleared away three or four 
times it will not return, its place being 
taken by bushes, thickets of Pteris aqui- 
lina var. esculenta and dense masses of the 
glandular hairy Panicum Melinis ; 48% of 
the weeds of the gardens and clearings are 
annuals, and a few of these weeds are old 
acquaintances, e. g., Chenopodium ambro- 
sioides, Gnaphalium purpureum, Xanthium 
Strumarium, Erechthites hieracifolia, Son- 
chus oleraceus, Panicum sanguinale, Eleu- 
sine Indica, Argemone Mexicana, Phyto- 
lacca decandra, Portulacea oleracea, Phys- 
alis pubescens, Datura Stramonium and 
Solanum nigrum. 

The flora of the forest is twice as rich in 
species as that of the campos. Of the 755 
genera observed at Lagoa Santa 82 belong 
exclusively to the campos, 61 are tributary 
to the water and 364 belong to the forests, 
although the latter only occupy a small part 
of the country. The forest flora is probably 
much more ancient than that of the campos. 
Composite and Papilionacee form about 
one-quarter of the entire flora of the campos. 
The flora of the forest is made up chiefly of 
Compositee, Polypodiacez, Orchidacez, Ru- 
biaceee and Euphorbiacee. A large num- 


May 10, 1895.] 


ber of genera are common to both campo 
and forest, but often the species are not 
nearly related. In other cases the species 
resemble each other so closely that some 
botanists regard one asa variety of the others. 
The Brazilians have also noticed this in case 
of certain trees and designate one form as 
do campo and the other as do mato. Woody 
species are more common in the forest than 
on the campos, 7. e., 800 to 250. The num- 
ber of herbaceous species on the campo and 
in the forest is about thesame. Hygrometric 
eonditions determine essentially the an- 
atomy and the morphology of plants. This 
causes the difference in form and in thick- 
ness of bark of the trees of the campos and 
of the forest. In the campo plants there 
is a marked reduction of foliar surface to 
prevent excessive transpiration, and pilosity 
is most frequent in these species, although 
common in the forest, where it occurs most 
abundantly on the foliage of the trees and 
lianas, the glabrous plants of the forest be- 
ing the lower and shaded species. A great 
many of the weeds are abundantly hairy. 
These grow principally in the clearings in 
narrow valleys exposed to a burning sun. 
Plants with lacquered leaves oceur both on 
the campos and in the forest. Spiny plants 
are rare on the campos, more frequent in the 
forest, especially on the calcareous rocks, 
and most common in the clearings. Waxy 
leaved plants occur in various situations, 
but are not frequent. Coriaceous leaves 
oecur on the woody plants of the campos 
and also frequently on the forest trees. They 
are not so common on the forest shrubs and 
are still rarer on the marsh plants. Many 
plants of the forest have large thin leaves, 
entirely unsuited for the campos. The fall 
of leaves is brought about by the increasing 
dryness of the air and soil rather than by any 
change of temperature. This is much more 
_ decided in the trees of the campos than in 
those of the forest and is most noticeable 
_ in the woody plants on the calcareous rocks. 


SCIENCE. 


515 


Some trees shed their leaves in winter and 
remain bare for several months, but most 
of the leaves fall in the spring (August to 
October) simultaneously with the appear- 
ing of new leaves, so that the forest is always 
green and retains about the same coolness 
and depth of shade. The trees of the cam- 
pos as well as of the forest show annual 
rings, and the author thinks that the same 
periodicity of growth takes place every- 
where, even in the trees on the Amazon. 
Buds are not generally protected by bud- 
scales, although some of the woody plants 
of Lagoa Santa bear as characteristic buds 
and budscales as any forest trees in Den- 
mark. The author’s principal collections 
were made from the small area of 170 sq. 
kilometers, from which he obtained about 
2,600 species of vascular plants. 


Erwin F. Smita. 
WASHINGTON. 


THE PROGRESS OF PARONYMY. 

TEN years ago* I urged the desirability 
of the general employment of technical ana- 
tomic terms consisting, so far as practicable, 
of one word each (mononyms), and derived 
directly or indirectly from the Latin, consti- 
tuting paronyms of the originals. Such paro- 
nyms might be either identical with the ori- 
ginal, e. g., English pons, or changed in va- 
rious ways in conformity with the custom of 
each language, e. g., French pont, Italian 
ponte. The subject was further discussed 
in connection with Prof. 8. H. Gage in 
1886+ and in 1889,{ and the principle of 


* Paronymy versus heteronymy as neuronymic prin- 
ciples. Presidential address at the 11th annual meet- 
ing of the American Neurological Association, 1885. 
Transactions of the Association, pp. 21. Also Journal 
of Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol. XII. 

t+ Anatomical technology: an introduction to hu- 
man, veterinary and comparative anatomy. Second 
ed., 1886, O., pp. 600, 120 figs., 4 plates. 

ft Anatomical terminology. Reference Handbook 
of the medical sciences. A. H. Buck, editor, VIIL., 
pp. 24. 1889. 


516 


paronymy was approved by the Committee 
on Biological Nomenclature in the Report 
adopted by the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science, August, 1892. 
Naturally the application of the principle 
has been easier with the French and Italian 
than with the German. Yet nearly all 
recent works in this language contain paro- 
nyms either unchanged (excepting for 
capitalization), e. g., Dura, or with slight 
changes, ¢. g., Hippokamp for hippocampus. 
The last example of Germanization to 
come under my notice is in Hisler’s ‘ Das 
Gefass- und periphere Nervensystem des 
Gorilla,’”’ where the customary heteronym, 
Herzbeutel,is abandoned for the regular paro- 
nym of pericardium, Perikard. Curiously 
enough in English we have hitherto re- 
tained the useless termination, but analogy 
with pericarp (from pericarpium) not only 
warrants but demands the abbreviated form, 
pericard. — Burt G. WILDER. 
IrHaca, N.Y. 


THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 

THE annual announcement of the ‘ Ma- 
rine Laboratory’ for the eighth season, 
1895, has recently appeared. 

The officers are as follows: Dr. C. O. 
Whitman, Director, Head Professor of Zo- 
ology, University of Chicago, and editor of 
the Journal of Morphology; Dr. H.C. Bumpus, 
Assistant Director, Professor of Compara- 
tive Anatomy, Brown University. 

ZOOLOGY. 
A. Investigation. Howard Ayers, Pro- 
fessor of Biology, University of the State of 
. Missouri; E. G. Conklin, Professor of Bi- 
ology, Northwestern University ; S. Watase, 
Assistant Professor of Zoology, University 
of Chicago; M. M. Metcalf, Professor of Bi- 
ology, The Woman’s College of Baltimore ; 
C. M. Child, Fellow in Zodlogy, University 
of Chicago; F. R. Lillie, Instructor in Zo- 
ology, University of Michigan ; 0.8. Strong, 
Instructor in Zodlogy, Columbia College ; 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 19. 


H.S. Brode, Fellow in Zodlogy, University 
of Chicago. 

B. Instruction. W. M. Rankin, Instrue- 
tor in Zoology, Princeton College; J. L. 7 
Kelloge, Professor of Biology, Olivet Col- 
lege; P. A. Fish, Instructor in Physiology 
and Anatomy, Cornell University; A. D. 
Mead, Fellow in Zoology, University of 
Chicago; H. E. Walter, Chicago. 

BOTANY. 

W. A. Setchell, Instructor in Botany, 
Yale University; W. J. V. Osterhout, In- 
structor in Botany, Brown University. 

PHYSIOLOGY. 

Jacques Loeb, Associate Professor of 
Physiology, University of Chicago; W. N. 
Norman, Professor of Biology, University of 
Texas. 

The work of the laboratory is definitely or- 
ganized with reference to the needs of three 
classes of workers, namely, (1) students, (2) 
teachers of science, and (3) investigators. 
There are regular courses of instruction, con- 
sisting of lectures and laboratory work under 
the supervision of the instructors, given in 
Zoology, Botany, Embryology and Physi- 
ology. In addition to these, there will be 
courses of lectures on special subjects as fol- 
lows: Embryology, by the Director, Pro- 
fessor C.O. Whitman; on Botanical Museum 
Development, by J. M. McFarlane, and on 
Matter and Energy, by E. A. Dolbear. 

There will also be evening lectures on 
biological subjects of general interest. 
Among those who contribute these lectures 
may be mentioned: G. F. Atkinson, E. G. 
Conklin, Northwestern University; J. M. 
Coulter, President Lake Forest University; 
A. E. Dolbear, Tuft’s College; Simon Flex- 
ner, John Hopkins Hospital; E. O. Jordan, 
University of Chicago; William Libbey, Jr., 
Princeton College; F.S. Lee, Columbia Col- 
lege; W. A. Locy, Lake Forest University; 
J. M. MacFarlane, University of Pennsyl- 
vania; O.S. Minot, HarvardMedical School; 


May 10, 1895.] 
E. S. Morse, Peabody Academy of Science; 
H. F. Osborn, Columbia College; W. B. 
Scott, Princeton College; W. T. Sedgwick, 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 
William Trelease, Director Missouri Botan- 
ical Garden; S. Watase, University of Chi- 
eago; E. B. Wilson, Columbia College; B. 
G. Wilder, Cornell University; W. P. 
Wilson, University of Pennsylvania. 

The laboratory has been considerably en- 
larged and now consists of four two-story 
buildings, with forty private rooms for the 
exclusive use of investigators, and seven 
general laboratories. It is supplied with 
aquaria, a steam launch, boats, dredges, 
and all the apparatus necessary for collect- 
ing and keeping alive material reserved for 
class work or research. 

A Department of Laboratory Supply has 
been established in order to facilitate the 
work of teachers and others at a distance 
who desire to obtain material for study or 
for class instruction. Circulars giving in- 
formation, prices, etc., may be obtained on 
application. 

The forty private laboratories are dis- 
tributed as follows: Zoology, twenty-two ; 
Physiology, eight; Botany, ten. These 
rooms are rented at one hundred dollars to 
colleges, societies or individuals. 

The general laboratories for research are 
for the use of students engaged in special 
work under the supervision of the Director 
and his assistants, and for advanced courses 
preparatory to beginning investigation, such 
as the course in Embryology. There are 
_ forty-two tables, of which Zodlogy has twen- 
ty-two, Physiology ten, and Botany ten. 

Applications should be made to Professor 
©. O. Whitman, University of Chicago, 
Chicago, Ill. 


EMBRYOLOGY. 


Tue course in Embryology extends from 
July 10th to August 17th. The aim is not 
_ only to master the details of development, 


SCIENCE. 


517 


but also to acquire a thorough knowledge 
of preparing surface-views, imbedding in 
paraffin and celloidin, staining, mounting, 
drawing, reconstructing modeling, ete. The 
study is mainly confined to the fish egg as 
the best type for elucidating vertebrate de- 
velopment ; but the eggs of amphibia and 
other vertebrates as well as some inverte- 
brates will receive attention. The fee is $50. 
INVESTIGATION. 

THE course in Investigation extends from 
July 3d to August 17th. For those pre- 
pared to begin original work, ten tables are 
reserved in Zodlogy, and the same number 
in Physiology and Botany. 

Special subjects for investigation are as- 
signed to the occupants of tables, and the 
supervision of the work is so divided that 
each instructor has the care of but three or 
four students. In this way all the advan- 
tages of individual instruction are secured. 
The fee is $50. 

SEMINAR. 

A Semrar has been instituted, and, 
though specially designed for members of 
the class in Embryology and beginners in 
inyestigation, it is open to all. The third 
volume of the Biological Lectures will be 
made the basis of discussion. Most of the 
authors of these lectures will be present ; 
and from two to three mornings will be de- 
voted to the consideration of each lecture 
and such questions as may be raised. 


LABORATORY FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS 
IN ANATOMY. 

In the Laboratory for Teachers and 
Students in Anatomy, which is open from 
July 2d to August 30th, two courses are 
offered : the first, in Invertebrate Anatomy, 
and the second, a newly arranged course 
in Vertebrate Anatomy. The fee for either 
course is $40. 

VERTEBRATE ANATOMY. 


Tue list of lecturers on Vertebrate An- 
atomy will be as follows: Professor H. P. 


518 


Bowditch, Harvard Medical School; Dr. F. 
S. Lee, College of Physicians and Surgeons; 
Dr. C. F. Hodge, Clark University; Dr. O. 
§. Strong, Columbia College; Dr. C. 8. Minot, 
Harvard Medical School; Dr. J.S. Kingsley, 
Tuft’s College; Dr. J. P. MeMurrich, Uni- 
versity of Michigan; Dr. H. F. Osborn, 
Columbia College. 

Applications for admission to the labo- 
ratory for students and teachers should be 
made to Prof. H. C. Bumpus, Brown Uni- 
versity, Providence, R. I. 


BOTANY. 


TueE laboratory work in Botany (July 
10-August 17) will be restricted to the 
study of the structure and development of 
types of the various orders of the crypto- 
gamous plants, and especial attention will 
be given to the study of the various species 
of Marine Algae which occur so abun- 
dantly in the waters about Woods Holl. 


The following colleges and societies con- 
trolled private rooms or tables during the 
season of 1894: 

Boston University School of Medicine, 
Brown University, Bryn Mawr College, 
College of Medicine, Syracuse University, 
College of Physicians and Surgeons, Colum- 
bia College, Hamilton College, Harvard 
University (Professor Farlow), Lake Forest 
University (President Coulter), Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology, Miami Uni- 
versity, Mt. Holyoke College, Missouri Bo- 
tanical Garden, Northwestern University, 
Princeton College, Smith College, University 
of Chicago, University of Cincinnati, Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania (Provost Harrison), 
Vassar College, Wellesley college, Williams 
College, Women’s College Baltimore, Amer- 
ican Association for the Advancement of 
Science, American Society of Naturalists, 
Beta Alpha Chapter of the K. K. G. Fra- 
ternity of the University of Pennsylvania, 
Lucretia Crocker Scholarship, Woman’s 
School Alliance Milwaukee. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 19. 


THE GENERIC NAMES OF THE THREE-TOED 
ECHIDNA. 


TuE three-toed Echidna discovered by M. 


Bruijn in northwestern New Guinea, and 


described by Peters and Doria in 1876 as 
Tachyglossus bruijnii, has been commonly 
recognized as belonging to a different genus 
from the common five-toed Echidna of Tas- 
mania and Australia. Although the species 
was described less than twenty years ago, 
four generic names have been proposed for 
it. Early in 1877 Dr. Theodore Gill erected 
the genus Zaglossus* for it, and Gervais sepa- 
rated it in November of the same year 
under the name Acanthoglossus ;; but a few 
days later, finding that this name had been 
pre-occupied, he renamed the genus Proe- 
chidna.{ Five years later M. Dubois pro- 
posed to replace Acanthoglossus by Bruynia.$ 

Of these four names Proechidna has come 
into general use, while Zaglossus Gill seems 
never to have been mentioned by any sub- 
sequent author. My attention was first 
called to it several months ago by Dr. Gill 
himself, who suggested that it would prob- 
ably antedate Proechidna, but no copy of 
Gervais’ Ostéographie being at hand I could 
not determine which name had priority. 
Recently I have had an opportunity of ex- 
amining a copy of the Ostéographie des 
Monotrémes, and find that not only does 
Zaglossus antedate Proechidna, but in fact it 
was the earliest name proposed for the 
genus, and should be adopted to the exclu- 
sion of all the others. 

The second chapter of the Ostéographie, 
apparently the only part of the text ever 
published, contains the name Proechidna on 
page 43. In the introductory foot-note on 


*Ann. Record of Science & Industry for 1876, 
May 5, 1877, p. clxxi. ° 

+ Comptes Rendus, Ixxxy., No. 19, séance du 5& 
Noy., 1877, p. 838. 

{Ostéographie des Monotrémes Viv. et Fossiles, 
Nov. 30, 1877, p. 43. 

ZBull. Soe. Zool. de France, vi. No. 6 (1881) 1882, 
pp. 267-270, pls. ix—x. 


May 10, 1895.] 


page 41, dated ‘30 Novembre, 1877,’ M. 
Gervais gives the reasons for publishing the 
second chapter first, and states that the 
first and third chapters will probably ap- 
pear during the year 1878. From this 
statement it is evident that Proechidna could 
searcely have been published prior to De- 
eember 1, 1877. The Annual Record of 
Science and Industry for 1876, on the other 
hand, was received at the Library of Con- 
gress, Washington, D. C., on April 28, 
1877. This date, however, may be the date 
of entry for copyright, and does not neces- 
sarily show that the book was issued on 
April 28. A copy of the same volume in 
the library of the U. S. Patent Office, 
Washington, D. C., was received early in 
May, while the publishers, Messrs. Harper 
__ & Brothers, give the exact date of publica- 
tion as May 5, 1877. 

The synonomy of the genus should stand: 

Zaglossus Gill, May 5, 1877. 

Acanthoglossus Gervais, Nov. 5, 1877 (Date 
of reading, not of publication). 

Proechidna Gervais, Noy. 30, 1877 (Date 
of prefatory foot-note ). 

Bruynia Dubois, , 1882. 

The evidence seems sufficient to show that 
Zaglossus was published at least as early as 
May 5, 1877, and, therefore, antedates Acan- 
thoglossus by six months and Proechidna by 
nearly seven months. T. S. Parmer. 

WASHINGTON. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
SPECTROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS OF SATURN AT 
THE ALLEGHENY OBSERVATORY. 


To THE Epiror oF Science: As certain 
observations of mine on the spectrum of 
Saturn have been widely noticed by the 
daily press, and various reports have been 
spread, some of which are correct and some 
incorrect, but none of which were made by 
my authority, I take this opportunity to ex- 
_ plain the real character of the observations. 
It is hardly necessary for me to say here 


SCIENCE. 


519 


that I have made no ‘ claims’ whatever re- 
specting them. 

The observations furnish a direct proof of 
the accepted hypothesis that the ring of 
Saturn consists of a multitude of small 
bodies revolving around Saturn in circular 
orbits. The hypothesis is an old one, but 
its universal acceptance dates from the pub- 
lication of Maxwell’s prize essay in 1859. 
While the mathematical proofs given by 
Maxwell and his predecessors are conclusive, 
a demonstration of the hypothesis by the 
widely different method of direct observa- 
tion with the spectroscope is not, I think, 
without interest. 

The proof depends upon an application of 
the well-known principle of Doppler, by 
which the motion of a heavenly body in the 
line of sight can be determined by measuring 
the displacement of a line in its spectrum. 
Under the two different hypotheses, that 
the ring is a rigid body, and that it is a 
swarm of satellites, the relative motion of 
its parts would be essentially different ; 
hence, to distinguish between these two 
hypotheses it is only necessary to find a 
method of sufficient delicacy, in order to 
bring the question within the province of 
the spectroscope. Any method depending 
on the successive comparison of the spectra 
given by different parts of the ring would 
be almost certain to fail. The method which 
I have employed is explained below. 

If two planes, at right angles to each 
other, are passed through the observer and 
the system of Saturn, one (A) passing any- 
where through the system and the other 
(B) through its center, the velocity, resolved 
in the direction of the line of sight, of any 
point on the surface of the system where it 
is intersected by plane A can be expressed 
as a function of the perpendicular distance 
of the point from plane B. It is only nec- 
essary to consider the case when the plane 
A is parallel to the major axis of the appar- 
ent ring. On the assumption that the 


520 


ball of Saturn rotates as a solid body, and 
the ring as an assemblage of particles, each 
of which moves with a velocity determined 
by Kepler’s third law, the expressions for 
the ball and for the planet are very dif 
ferent, the former being linear, and the lat- 
ter an equation of a degree higher than the 
second. I have determined these expres- 
sions for the special case above mentioned. 
They are still further simplified by assum- 
ing that plane A also passes through the 
center of the planet. 

Now, if we bring the image of Saturn, 
formed by a telescope, upon the slit of a 
spectroscope, with the slit in the intersect- 
ing plane A, the expressions above referred 
to are also the equations to the curves of 
which the lines in the spectrum of the 
planet are a part, referred to an undis- 
placed spectral line and the perpendicular 
line through its center as axes; for, in these 
curves, x is proportional to the perpendicu- 
lar distance from plane B, and, by Dop- 
pler’s principle, y is proportional to the ve- 
locity in the line of sight. The simplest 
ease is, of course, that in which the slit co- 
incides with the major axis of the ring; this 
is also the condition for which the differen- 
tial velocity of points on the surface of the 
ring is a maximum, and it is one which can 
be approximately realized in observation. 

Hence the laws of rotation of the com- 
ponent parts of the system can be determined 
(within certain limits) by the form of the 
special lines, and the form can be determin- 
ed with very considerable accuracy by 
photographing the spectrum with a suitable 
instrument. 

According to the assumptions which have 
been made above, and which represent the 
accepted hypothesis, lines in the spectrum 
of the ball are straight, but inclined; as 
compared with their direction the general 
inclination of the (theoretically) curved 
lines in the spectra of the opposite sides of 
the ring is smaller, and it is reversed. The 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Vou. I. No. 19. 


actual aspect of the lines on my photo- 
graphs is in exact accordance with that re- 
quired by the hypothesis. 

If the ring rotated as a whole, the lines in 
its spectrum would be straight, and their 
direction would pass through the origin; 
they would be very nearly prolongations of 
the planetary lines. Such an aspect of the 
lines as this could be recognized on my 
photographs at a glance. 


The direction of a line free from displace- 


ment was obtained by photographing the 
spectrum of the full moon on the same plate, 
on each side of the spectrum of Saturn. 

For further details, with the numerical 
results of measurement of the plates, I must 
refer to the May number of the Astrophysi- 
cal Journal, in which I have described these 
observations at some length. 

James E. KEELER. 

ALLEGHENY OBSERVATORY. 


A GENERAL SUBJECT-INDEX TO PERIODICAL 
SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 
Tue Eprtor or ScrenceE—Iy Dear Sir: 
I notice that you are printing in ScrlENcE 
various replies to the circular of the Royal 
Society of London relating to the matter 
of a general subject-index to all scientific 
publications. Your correspondents have so 
far been in favor of such an undertaking. 
As I do not believe it to be practicable, it 
may be of interest to some of your readers 
to see my own reply which I venture to 
send herewith. I have made a few trifling 
changes in the copy which I enclose. 
I am, very respectfully, 
Epwarp 8. HoLpEn. 


THE LICK OBSERVATORY, 
March 30, 1895. 


Mount Hamitton, April 24, 1894. 
To Prorsssor M. Fostur, Secretary R. S., 
Chairman of the Committee on a Subject-In- 
dex, ‘ete., ete. 
My Dear Sir : I beg to acknowledge receipt 
of the circular of April 6 relating to a pro- 


ee 


- May 10, 1895.] 


posed subject-index of scientific papers, and 
to express my opinions on some of the points 
contained therein. I will not burden you 
with the arguments that might be brought 
forward in support of the opinions, at this 
time; but, of course, lam very ready to give 
my reasons in detail should you desire 
them. 

I. It appears to be of the utmost impor- 
tance that the Royal Society should continue 
to issue its author-indexes, 7. e., the quarto 
Catalogues of Scientific Papers. Such in- 
dexes can be made at comparatively small 
_ expense, and by comparatively unskilled 
workers, under the direction of a single 
competent scientific head. 

II. It is entirely otherwise with a subject- 
index. Here the routine work must be done by 
the expert. Professor Helmholtz was none 
too good to make the subject-index of his 
Optics. Ifit had been made by one of his 
pupils, it would have been less valuable ; 
if it had been made by clerks, it would have 
been of little use except to beginners. It 
is perfectly clear that, in general, we can- 
not expect our bibliographies, etc., to be 
made by the heads of science, as Helm- 
holtz, Houzeau, etc., and it therefore seems 
to me that it is unadvisable to attempt 
a general subject-index to science on any 
plan whatever. 

Ill. If it is ever attempted at all, it 
should not, in my judgement, be done by 
international codperation, but by a single 
society responsible only to itself. Inter- 
national cooperation has, I believe, gener- 
ally failed (the only marked exceptions 
that I recall are the International Geodetic 
Association and the International Bureau of 
Weights and Measures). The Zone obser- 
yations of the German Astronomical Society 
are of the highest use and excellence, but 
they were begun by international codpera- 
tion about 1866 and are not yet published. 
_ IY. If the work is attempted, it should 
be printed in English alone, one would 


SCIENCE. 


521 


think. If the past is not ours, the future 
surely is to be. 

V. My own opinion, therefore, is that the 
general subject-index should not be attemp- 
ted. The Royal Society and other great 
academies might well subsidize the making 
of special bibliographies, for example, Hou- 
zeau’s Bibliographie de 1’ Astronomie (al- 
ready printed), or Professor Cleveland 
Abbe’s Bibliography of the Literature of 
Meteorology (now in MS.), and other under- 
takings of the kind, when they are directed 
by men of special learning, and not other- 
wise. 

VI. It, however, appears to me that the 
Royal Society can do a great work in the 
direction aimed at, at comparatively litttle 
expense and trouble, as follows: I would, 
first, say that it is necessary—essential— 
that an author-index should be complete. 
It is very desirable, but by no means essen- 
tial, that a subject-index should be exhaus- 
tive. A subject-index is generally required 
to set the inquirer on his way, and once 
fairly started in his reading, the foot-notes 
will keep him informed. This being 
granted, the plan I refer to is for the Royal 
Society to undertake the publication, in one 
volume, of a subject-index, or guide, to the 
ten quartos of author-indexes already pre- 
prepared. The work could be easily done 
as follows: Select a scheme of subject- 
headings, under the advice of specialists. 
The Melville Dewey plan of library cata- 
loguing* would serve as a basis, and it is 
capable of indefinite and logical subdivision. 
This subdivision should be made under the 
advice of the heads of English science ; and, 
in my opinion, the thing to be avoided is 
too minute division. A practical point is, 
also, that the same paper should be cata- 
logued under all the headings under which 
it might be sought, not merely under the 
strictly logical and appropriate heading. 

* Which is based on the scheme of Dr. W. T. Harris, 
Editor of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 


522 


This is a detail, but it is of prime impor- 
tance. 

For each subject, as Astronomy, appoint 
a Director who should be the best man ob- 
tainable, but who may be any competent 
and faithful astronomer, even if he is 
without very wide experience and read- 
ing. Let each Director go over the author- 
indexes already in type, and mark each 
entry there printed with the numerals ex- 
pressing its class or classes. Many, in fact 
most, of these papers can be pretty well 
classified from their titles alone, especially 
if the subject-index is not too minutely sub- 
divided. All cases of doubt must be re- 
solved by a reference to the original memoir. 
A clerk follows the Director. He finds 
under Newcomb certain papers which have 
been marked by the Director as relating to 
Astronomical Opties—Class XX XIT., say. 
He, therefore, collects these on a card, thus: 


XXXII. 

Newcomb (S): Nos. 1, 11,19, 26 (vol. 1.). 

In a subsequent volume he finds other 
entries belonging under class XX XII. and 
under Newcomb, and makes a separate card 
for them, noting the volume. The same 
thing is done by the Director for Astronomy 
for all his classes and for each author; and 
by the Directors of other subjects in like 
manner; and they are followed by copyists. 
Finally all cards are sorted into one series : 

First, by the class—as XX XII. 

Second, alphabetically by authors, and 
then revised and printed thus. 

Class XX XII.—Astronomical Optics— 
Optics of the Telescope; see also classes 
XCV., ete., ete. 

Abbe (C): Vol. i., 17, 34; ii., 80; ix., 92, 
ete. 

Albrecht (fT): Vol. vii., 13 ; viii., 31. 

Auwers (A): ii., 7, 235 iii., 18, 37; iv., 
ete., etc., etc., ete. 

By following out this plan under intelli- 
gent Directors for the special topics, the 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vor. I. No. 19. 


Royal Society would very soon have a 
nearly complete subject-index in one vol- 
ume, covering its author-indexes, vols. 1.—x.; 
and the plan, once in operation, could be 
carried on without trouble and at small 
expense. Such a subject-index would, in 
my view, supply all real needs in science. 
It certainly would in my branch of it. 

The only objection that I can see to this 
plan is that it is not perfectly complete and 
logical to the extremest point. If the pref- 
ace to the proposed book declares that it is 
not intended to be so, it seems to me that 
the Royal Society need not mind. After the 
book was printed it would, I think, be used 
by everyone; and it would, I believe, meet 
the wants of every one as nearly as any 
practicable plan could do. 

If I have extended my remarks too far, 
I beg you to excuse me. I have desired to 
show what seems to me to be an easily ob- 
tained benefit to science, and I trust my 
suggestion is not impertinent to your in- 
quiry. I am, My Dear Sir, with high re- 
gard, Very faithfully yours, 

Epwarp 8S. HoLprEn. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

Ein Geologischer Querschnitt durch die Ost- 
Alpen, nebst Anhang iiber die sog. Glarner 
Doppelfalte von A. RorupietTz, mit 2 
Tafeln und 115 Abbildungen im Text. 
Stuttgart. 1894. Pp. 268. 

This valuable contribution to our knowl- 
edge of mountain structure is arranged in 
three parts. The first of these is a state- 
ment of the petrography and stratigraphy, 
and the second an account of the tectonie, 
of a cross-section of the Alps, in the merid- 
ian of Munich, from the plain of the Po 
to the Bavarian plateau, a distance of about 
230 km. The third part is a discussion of 
the general results of the author’s study. 
The details of the first two parts are well 
illustrated, both by the fine geologically 
colored profile on a scale of 7345, and by 


i 


May 10, 1895.] 


the numerous excellent cuts throughout the 
text. Only the conclusions of the author 
can be adverted to in the present brief 
notice. 

The eastern Alps have an east and west 
trend and the section js normal to the 
strike. The highest mountains have an 
elevation of about 3500 m., and lie towards 
the northern end of the section. The aver- 
age elevation is 1800 m. In the northern 
Alps there are three principal folds, in the 
middle Alps four, and in the southern 
three, with many subordinate folds through- 
out. None of these folds remain in their 
original continuity. Fractures separate 
one from another and chop each of them 
up into a series of blocks. By faulting on 
these fractures the folded arrangement of 
the strata is greatly disturbed and ob- 
secured. 

The special features of the faulting are : 
1. The prevalent dislocation of synclines 
‘in such a manner that their axial troughs 
are thrust up and the wings dropped. 

_ 2. Anticlines with dropped crests so that 
the newer strata of the crests appear below 
the older strata of the wings. Not well ex- 
emplified in the section. 

3. The occasional downthrow of the axial 
troughs of synclines with uplift of both 
ying’s. 

4. The faulting of anticlines on longitu- 
dinal axial planes and the conversion of the 
convexity of the anticlines into concavity 
by subsequent compression. 

5. Thrusts. There are five important 
overthrusts in the section ranging in in- 


for a proper appreciation of Alpine struc- 
ture. They are subsequent to the folds and 
ated longitudinal faults, and are the 


SCIENCE. 


523 


latest manifestations of the orogenic forces. 
As such they have exerted a powerful in- 
fluence upon the topography, giving the 
Alps, in the opinion of the author, their 
transverse drainage outlets and many of 
their lake basins. 

7. There are also faults which antedate 
the period of Alpine folding. 

In discussing the age of the folding of 
the Alps the author makes it clear that 
there have been at least two chief periods of 
folding, one pre-Permian, and the other 
post-Miocene. There were, however, dia- 
strophic movements in the interval. This 
is proved, first, by the faults which antedate 
the later folding, and second, by the oscilla- 
tion of the ocean border in the intervening 
time. In discussing the latter argument 
the author gives a series of nine profiles 
showing the hypothetical relative distribu- 
tion of land and water over the Alpine 
region in old Paleozoic, Permian, Muschelkalk, 
Rhetic, Lias, Neocomian, Eocene, Miocene and 
the Present. These show a trangression of 
the sea up to the close of the Triassic, fol- 
lowed by a steady recession from then on 
to the present time. The sections, consider- 
ed by themselves, might lend support to the 
hypothesis of Suess that the oscillation is 
due to the variation of the surface of the 
ocean. But other sections in neighboring 
parts of the Alps give discordant results, 
and it is concluded that the Alpine region 
was the scene of diastrophic movement 
between the Permian and Miocene, whether 
the ocean surface oscillated or remained 
constant. 

The shortening of the are of the earth’s 
surface in the line of the author’s section 
is 18 per cent., 7. e., the region has, in con- 
sequence of the folding, now only about 
four-fifths of its original breadth. If the 
folding of the central Alps be assumed to 
be pre-Alpine, then the shortening is re- 
duced to from 12 to 13 per cent., or about 
one-eighth. The author contrasts these 


524 


figures with the much higher values ob- 
tained by Heim, who places the shortening 
of the arc in the north and central Swiss- 
Alps at one-half. He discredits the struc- 
tural interpretations which have led Heim 
to so large a value. He takes issue with 
the latter, particularly in the interpretation 
of the so-called Glarner double fold, and 
discusses this structure at length in an ap- 
pendix to the volume, interpreting the 
structure as an overthrust and not a double 
fold. 

In discussing the mechanies of the lateral 
thrust, to which all are agreed the Alpine 
structure is due, the author says the earth’s 
crust may be considered a virtual arch. 
Then the continents must be either arches 
of less radius than that of the earth as a 
whole, or they must be superficial masses 
reposing upon the arch. In the latter case 
the continental masses would suffer no fold- 
ing, but would lie as a dead weight upon 
the laterally compressed and folding arch 
below. This being contrary to experience, 
it is rejected, and the alternative is adopted 
that the continents are arches of smaller 
radius. The condition of folding of strata 
by lateral compression is, then, that they 
must lie below the limiting curve of the 
continental arch. So long as they lie above 
this curve they escape folding. Where 
folding occurs under the dead weight of 
rocks lying above the curve it is manifest 
at the surface only as elevation or depres- 
sion. But the load tends to restrain fold- 
ing and the latter takes place most readily 
where the load is least. This occurs where 
the continental arch merges into the geoid 
arch. Here is the weakest part of the 
arch; here the strongest folding should 
arise. Orogenic folding is most effective 
on the borders of the oceans. This fact the 
author finds in accord with his theoretical 
deductions, for it is on the oceanic borders 
that the continental and geoid arches inter- 
sect. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 19. 


This principle is resorted to in explana- 
tion of the common up-throw of synclinal 
troughs. The deep synclinal folds will suf- 
fer most from the lateral compression. The 
consequence is that the axial troughs of the 
synclines are faulted up and the anticlines 
relatively dropped. 

Part of the transverse cleavage of the 
rocks is ascribable to pre-Permian oro- 
genic forces and part to the later com- 
pression which gave rise to the Alps. 
Most of the pre-Permian strata show 
this cleavage in a pronounced degree. 
This cleavage is best developed in the Zil- 
lerthaler towards the middle of the section, 
and least so on the margins of the Alpine 
region. The author suggests, in explanation 
of this deficiency of cleavage on the mar- 
gins, that these parts were folded under a 
less load than the more central portions and 
were earlier lifted above the line of com- 
pression. The limestones are characterized 
by suture-like cracks so well known in lime- 
stones and marbles the world over. These 
are held by the author to be due to solution 
under pressure, and evidence in favor of this 
view is adduced. 

The discussion of the metamorphism is 
perhaps the least important section of the 
book, and contributes little of importance 
to the general subject. 

The discussion of the cause of mountain 
uplift and folding is chiefly interesting for 
the clear and concise statement of the ex- 
pansion theory as an adequate explanation 
of the origin of mountain structures and 
plateau uplifts. The advantages of this 
theory over the doctrine of the earth’s con- 
traction under secular cooling are clearly 
set forth. The doctrine of secular contrac- 
tion fails to give an adequate explanation 
of the phenomena of voleanology; it does 
not account for the distribution of the force 
of gravity; and it involves too great a 
shortening of the earth’s radius. The ex- 
pansion theory does not have these objec- 


May 10, 1895.] 


_ tions. 
_ theory is based on the assumption that the 
earth magma may expand on solidifying as 


The admissibility of the expansion 


water does. The recent work of Barnes, 
however, with which our author was proba- 
bly not familiar at the time he wrote, so in- 
validates this assumption that it is no 
longer worthy of serious consideration. 

A. C. Lawson. 


UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 


Mesozoic Plants From Kosuke, Kii, Awa and 
Tosa. By Merasrro Yoxoyoma, Professor 
in the Imperial University of Japan. 

| In this paper, illustrated by nine plates of 
_ good figures, and published as part III., 
_ Vol. VII., of the Journal of the College of 
Science, Imperial University of Japan, Pro- 
fessor Yokoyoma has given us a valuable 
addition to our knowledge of the lower Cre- 
taceous flora. The plants of this age, 
known for a long time mostly in their 

Wealden types, and from a few localities in 

England and on the continent of Europe, 

have, by recent discoveries, been greatly in- 

creased in number and variety. The extent 

of the territory known to have been occu- 

pied by them has of late been still more 
‘ notably enlarged. We now know lower 
_ Cretaceous plants from such widely sepa- 
_ rated series of strata as the Potomac of the 
_ Atlantic States: the Comanche series of 
Texas, the coal group of Great Falls, Mon- 
tana; the Kootanie series of British Co- 
lumbia ; the Shasta group of California ; the 
lower strata of Newton’s Dakota group in 
Dakota and Wyoming. Professor Yoko- 
 yoma’s investigations add still another 
region on the Asiatic side of the Pacific, and 
make it probable that the lower Cretaceous 
flora was in Asia no less important than it 
in North America. These additions 
are especially gratifying, as the flora of this 
time was the last one in which angiosperms 
did not predominate. It is the flora of an 
era when predominating Mesozoic elements 


SCIENCE. 


525. 


were about to disappear forever. If we are 
ever to learn what changes caused a flora 
consisting only of Equiseta, Cycads, Ferns 
and Conifers to give way to one in which 
angiosperms overwhelmingly predominate, 
and in which all these groups, except the 
conifers, play an insignificant part, we shall 
most probably find the solution of this as 
yet unsolved problem from the examination 
of lower Cretaceous plants. 

In 1890 Prof. Nathorst, of Stockholm, ex-- 
amined a number of fossil plants from Shi- 
koku, Japan, and determined their age to 
be either upper Jurassic or Wealden. Pro- 
fessor Yokoyoma states that he was induced 
to carry the investigation of this flora far- 
ther than the Swedish paleontologist had 
done, with the hope of fixing more definitely 
its age. In consequence of this he col- 
leeted not only from the localities of Nath- 
orst, but from several others showing a 
similar flora. He succeeded in adding a 
number of species not seen by Nathorst, 
and in procuring, in some cases, better 
specimens of those previously obtained. 
In this way the total number of species was 
brought up to 26, with 2 varieties. It is 
noteworthy that, while the flora is without 
doubt lower Cretaceous in age, as Professor 
Yokoyoma determines it to be, it contains 
no angiosperms. He identifies several of 
the species with certain ones found in the 
lower Potomac strata of the eastern United 
States. He states his conclusion as to the 
age of the plants in the following words : 
“T go a step farther than Professor Nath- 
orst and say that the plant-bearing beds of 
Kozuki, Kii and Shikoku represent the 
whole Neocomian series, corresponding to 
the Potomac of America.’’ This statement, 
so far as the Potomac is concerned, would 
be more correct if it made the Japanese 
beds correspond to the ower Potomac. Amer- 
ican geologists now include in the Potomac 
the Tuscaloosa group and the South Amboy 
series of beds, both of which contain few, if 


526 


any, of the characteristic plants found in the 
lower strata of the Potomac of Virginia, 
while angiosperms overwhelmingly predom- 
inate in each. Until the Japanese beds 
show angiosperms they cannot be consid- 
ered as young as the uppermost portion of 
the lower Potomac, which, in the Brooke 
locality, Virginia, and at Baltimore, Mary- 
land, show many angiosperms. 

Prof. Yokoyoma has followed Prof. Nath- 
orst in changing from Dioonites to Zamio- 
phyllum, the name ofa cycad that, so far, 
is confined to the lower Cretaceous. This 
is the species known as Dioonites Buchianus. 
This change does not seem to be called for. 
The reason assigned by Prof. Nathorst 
does not seem weighty enough to remove a 
name so well fixed as this, and, if a change 
be made, the name Zamiophyllum seems 
open to more objections than Dioonites. 
The leaflets of Zamia are articulated at 
their junction with the rachis and deciduous, 
characters which are decidedly not found in 
Dioonites Buchianus. These features seem 
to be of more importance than the obliquity 
of the leaflets and their narrowing towards 
the base, which characters in Dioonites 
Buchianus Professor Nathorst presents as 
objections to regarding this plant as a 
Dioonites. Wu. M. Fonrarne. 

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. 


Repetitorium der Chemie. By Dr. Cart Ar- 


NOLD. Sixth Revised and Enlarged Hdi- 
tion. Hamburg and Leipzig, Leopold 
Voss. 1894. 8°. Pp. x+613. Paper. 


Price, 6 marks. 

This book has been written for medical 
students and is intended to be used by them 
as a convenient reference book in connec- 
tion with lectures upon inorganic and or- 
ganic chemistry and in preparing for ex- 
aminations. That there is a demand for 
such a book is shown by the fact that since 
it first appeared, in 1884, six editions have 
been called for. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 19. 


The work is divided into three sections. 
In the first one of fifty pages the general 
principles of the science are considered. 


Such topics as the laws of stoichiometry, 


the atomic and molecular theory, the deter- 
mination of molecular and atomic weights, 
theory of valence, constitutional formulas 
and the periodic classification of the ele- 
ments are here discussed. The treatment 
of these subjects is necessarily very brief and 
is not intended to be exhaustive. As far 
as it goes, however, it is clear and concise, 
and, on the whole, the views of the author 
represent fairly well the present position of 
the science. Toa few statements, such as 
those on pages 6 and 31 that heat, light, 
electricity and chemical affinity are known 
to be different forms of motion (bekanntlich 
nur verschiedene Bewegungsformen darstellen), 
one is inclined to take exception. 

The second section of 216 pages deals with 
descriptive inorganic chemistry. The ele- 
ments are arranged under two heads, first 
the non-metals, then the metals. The more 
important facts as to the occurrence, prepa- 
ration and properties of each element and 
its chief compounds are here systematically 
and concisely presented. Newly discovered 
facts in this field of chemistry have not been 
overlooked. Thus, for example, we find 
here described the preparation of azoimide, 
H N;, from inorganic substances ; the elec- 
trolytic preparation of aluminium and mag- 
nesium ; the statement that red phosphorus 
is crystalline, ete. . 

The last section of 295 pages gives a sum- 
mary of the more important facts of organi¢ 
chemistry. After some preliminary para- 
graphs upon the analysis of carbon com- 


pounds, molecular weight determination, — 


constitutional formulas and stereochemis- 


try, the organic compounds are taken up in © 


the usual way. In connection with each 
class of compounds the general behavior 
and chemical characteristics of the class 
are discussed. In this section of the book, 


May 10, 1895.] 


as in the earlier ones, the author has en- 
deayored to keep abreast of the times, and 
we find mentioned here the results of recent 
synthetical experiments, such as those upon 
the sugars ; and many new substances that 
in recent years have become prominent be- 
cause of their medicinal properties have 
been introduced. While the book is not 
intended to be a text-book in the ordinary 
sense, nor to serve as an introduction to 
the science, it can, nevertheless, be strongly 
recommended to all students of chemistry, 
who, in connection with their lecture and 
laboratory courses, desire to have a con- 
venient and compact reference book—a 
book containing all the more important 
facts of general and descriptive chemistry 
clearly stated and provided with an ex- 
cellent index. Epwarp H. Keiser. 


Field, Forest and Garden Botany. A simple 
introduction to the common plants of the 
United States east of the 100th Meridian, 
both wild and cultivated. By Asa Gray. 
Revised and extended by L. H. Bartry. 
American Book Co. 1895. 8vo. pp. 519. 
The first edition of this useful popular 

botany was issued in 1868 as a companion 

book to the author's ‘ Manual of the Botany 
of the Northern United States.’ The present 
revision is planned to fill the same place as 
relates to the sixth edition of the ‘ Manual,’ 
giving, as it does, concise descriptions of the 
more common native plants, and of the 
large number of species cultivated for use 
or ornament. The number of the latter 
category has greatly increased during the 
enty-seven years which have elapsed 
since the first issue of the work, and as re- 
s these the treatment is exceedingly 
complete. The selection of the ‘ common’ 
native species has been a matter of great 
culty, and in this the book will prob- 
ibly be found unsatisfactory. The more 
sual plants of the region north of Virginia 
md Tennessee are for the most part in- 


SCIENCE. 527 


eluded, but the Southern native flora is 
almost wholly omitted, so that in this re- 
spect the title is misleading. As a guide to 
the cultivated species it will find its greatest 
value. It is our opinion, however, that if 
the scope of the work had been restricted 
to the domesticated flora, and the descrip- 
tions of these plants been more fully drawn 
out, it would have been more generally 
serviceable than by treating them with the 
native species. 

The necessity which has been felt of 
making the book a companion to the 
‘Manual’ has kept up the old and unfor- 
tunate arrangement of groups which we 
find in that work, although we are pleased 
to find that the Gymnosperms have been 
brought into their logical position. 

Nine 


Description des ravageurs de la vigne. Insects 
et champignons parasites. HENRI JOLI- 
coEuR. 4°. Riems et Paris. 1894. Pp. 
vili., 236, pl. 20. 

This sumptuous volume with large pages 
and wide margins is one of the latest con- 
tributions to the rapidly increasing litera- 
ture of disease of plants. The French have 
always taken the greatest interest in dis- 
eases of the vine, and quite naturally, be- 
cause of the extent of the industry in their 
country. The author of the present vol- 
ume is the general secretary of the Society 
of Viticulture and Horticulture of Reims, 
and while he brings to the subject a knowl- 
edge of what various French authors have 
to say upon the subjects discussed, from its 
pages there never could be gleaned the fact 
that the English speaking races had ever 
done any work upon the various diseases. 
This is, perhaps, a general fault of the 
French, since they are so imbued with ad- 
miration for their own country that other 
countries hold a very subordinate place. 

The work under notice is divided into 
two parts, one treating of parasitic ani- 


528 


mals, the other of parasitic plants. The 
‘animals’ treated of are mainly insects, 
and the various orders taken up are Lepi- 
doptera, Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hemiptera 
and Arachnida. Under each of these heads 
the species belonging to the orders are dis- 
cussed, and facts are given regarding their 
life history, geographical distribution, nat- 
ural enemies, influence of external condi- 
tions on development, means of destruction 
and bibliography. The cryptogamic ene- 
mies of the vine form the subject of the 
second part, and we have here discussions 
of Oidium, mildew, anthracnose, pourridie 
(caused by Agaricus melleus), Vibrissea hypo- 
gea, melanose, black rot and one or two 
others. There are no especially new facts 
given in the volume as far as observed. 
The plates are beautifully drawn and col- 
ored and have the merit of being mainly 
new, only a very few figures having been 
copied from other authors. 
J. F. JAMes. 


Leones fungorum ad usum Sylloges Saccardiance 
Accommodate. A. N. Brrursn. Vol. 2, 
fase. 1, pp. 28, pl. 45. 

This, the first part of a new volume of 
this sumptuous work, has just been pub- 
lished. It sustains the high character of 
the first volume. In it Dr. Berlese dis- 
cusses the species of Saccardo’s section Dic- 
tyospore. of the Spheriacee, giving diagnosis 
of the species of Pleomassaria, Karstenula 
and Pleospora. Only two new species are 
deseribed, viz., Pleospora parvula on stems 
of Berberis vulgaris, and P. magnusiana on 
culms and leaves of Gilyceria vahliana. The 
latter name is proposed for P. pentamera of 


Berlese’s monograph, as the form is now ~ 


considered distinct from Karsten’s species 
of this name. Pleospora carpinicola Ell. & 
Ever. is transferred to the genus Karste- 
nula; and P. hysteroides Ell. & Ever. is re- 
garded as a sub-species of P. andropogonis 
Niessl. These are all the changes proposed, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 19. 


which seems quite remarkable in these 
days. The illustrations are excellent, and 
while some species seem to be perilously 
near others, doubtless a carefully discrimi- 
nating eye would be able to separate them, 


JosEpH F. JAMES. 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 

GENERAL JoHN Newron, U.S. A., engi- 
neer, died on May 1, at the age of seventy- 
two years. He was elected a member of 
the National Academy of Sciences in 1876. 

Dr. Kart Lupwie, professor of physi- 
ology in the University of Leipzig, died on 
April 27, at the age of seventy-nine years. 

THE Johns Hopkins University Circular for 
April contains the address made by Presi- 
dent Low on the Nineteenth Commemora- 
tion Day, February 22. The address was en- 
titled ‘A City University,’ and gives an 
admirable review of the scope of a great 
university and its relation to the city in 
which it is situated. After describing the 
different plans of the American, German, 
French and English university, Mr. Low 
continued: ‘‘The aim which the German 
university has set before itself and which 
it has very largely realized under the con- 
ditions natural to German life, is the aim, 
in my judgment, which the American uni- 
versity also should set before itself, and 
which it must realize under the conditions 
natural to American life. Because, after 
all has been said, the world is ruled by its 
thinkers, and civilization is carried for- 
ward by the patient investigators of natural 
laws; the lives of men are largely shaped 
by the teachings of experience as reyealed 
by historic study; and the literature of 
men is enriched by every addition to our 
knowledge of the literature and language 
of the past. Nature’s craftsmen in all these 
directions will produce results according to 
their gifts outside of a university ifthey get 
no opportunity within it. But the history 


May 10, 1895.] 


of Germany clearly shows that the oppor- 
tunity to serve mankind along such lines is 
much enlarged if to train such men is the 
chosen aim of the university; in part, be- 
cause, in that case, the university affords 
the material apparatus by the aid of which 
the natural thinker or investigator can best 
do his work, and, most of all, because, in a 
university so constituted, the atmosphere 
of the place and the spirit of the men who 
work there are friendly to such labors.’’ 

TurovuGH the courtesy of the Assistant 
Secretary of the Royal Meteorological So- 
ciety, we are informed that at the meeting 
of that Society on April 17th Messrs. 
‘A. C. Bayard and W. Marriott com- 
municated a paper on ‘The Frost of Janu- 
ary and February, 1895, over the British 
Isles.’ It was stated that the cold period 
which commenced on December 30th and 
terminated on March 5th was broken by a 
week’s mild weather from January 14th to 
21st, otherwise there would have been con- 
tinuous frost for 66 days. Temperatures 
below 10° Farenheit, and in some cases be- 
low zero, were recorded in parts of England 
and Scotland between January Sth and 
13th, while from the 26th to the 31st, and 
from February 5th to 20th, temperatures be- 
low 10° occurred on every day in some part 
of the British Isles. The coldest days were 
February 8th to the 10th. The lowest tem- 
peratures recorded were —17° at Braemar, 
and —11° degrees at Bucton and Drumlan- 
rig. The mean temperature of the British 
Isles for January was about 7°, and for 
February from 11° to 14°, below the aver- 
age, while the mean temperature for the 
period from January 26th to February 19th 
was from 14° to 20° below the average. 
The distribution of atmospheric pressure 
was almost entirely the reverse of the 
normal, the barometer being highest in the 
north and lowest in the south, the result be- 
ing a continuance of strong, northerly and 
easterly winds. The effect of the cold on 


SCIENCE. 


529 


the public health was great, especially on 
young children and old people. The num- 
ber of deaths in London due to diseases of 
the respiratory organs rapidly increased 
from February 2d to March 2d, when the 
weekly number was 1448, or 945 above the 
average. From a comparison of previous 
records the authors are of opinion that the 
recent frost was more severe than any since 
1814. 

THE Popular Science Monthly for May prints 
an interesting account of the naturalist 
Conrad Gesner, by Professor W. K. Brooks. 
It is illustrated by twelve photo-engravings 
taken from the original wood cuts in his 
work, Historia Animalium, published in the 
latter half of the sixteenth century. 


In the Atlantic Monthly for May Mr. Per- 
cival Lowell begins a series of articles on 
the planet Mars. He concludes that we 
have proof positive that Mars has an atmos- 
phere, that the air is thinner at least by 
half than that on the summits of the Hima- 
layas, that in constitution it does not differ 
greatly from our own, and that it is rela- 
tively heavily charged with water vapor. 
Professor Holden, on the other hand, in the 
May number of the North American Review, 
concludes from the observations on the 
spectrum of Mars made by Professor Camp- 
bell, and printed recently in the Publications 
of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, that 
there is no more evidence of aqueous vapor 
nor of an atmosphere in Mars than there is 
in the case of the Moon. 


Tue American Academy of Medicine met 
at Johns Hopkins University on May 4th 
and May 6th, under the Presidency of Dr. 
J. MeF. Gaston. 

Mr. Henry SEEBouM will write the text 
for a new work on the eggs of British Birds, 
to be published by Pawson and Brailsford, of 
Sheffield, England. The work will contain 
colored illustrations of the eggs of 400 
species. 


530 


Proressor F. N. Coin, now of the Uni- 
versity of Michigan, has been appointed 
Professor of Mathematics in Columbia Col- 
lege and Barnard College, filling one of the 
three new chairs recently endowed in 
Barnard College. 


PrRorEssorR FRANZ Posepny, known for 
his researches on mineral deposits, died on 
March 27th, at the age of fifty-nine years. 


Tue Association of Military Surgeons of 
the United States will meet at Buffalo, New 
York, on May 21st, 22d and 23d, under the 
Presidency of Dr. George M. Sternberg. 

THE twenty-second National Conference 
of Charities and Correction will be held in 
New Haven during the week beginning 
May 24th. 

Gov. Morton has signed the bill incor- 
porating the New York Zoological Society 
and providing for the establishment of a 
Zoological Garden in New York. 

Mr. Ropert Frrcu, antiquarian and ge- 
ologist of Norwich, England, died recently 
at the age of 93 years. 

THE death is announced of Lothar von 
Meyer, Professor of Chemistry at the Uni- 
versity of Tubingen, at the age of 65. 

Tue presidential address delivered before 


the recent meeting of the American Society . 


of Naturalists by Professor C. 8. Minot on 
The Work of the Naturalist in the World is 
printed in the May number of the Popular 
Science Monthly. 

TuE tenth annual meeting of the Ameri- 
can Association for the Advancement of 
Physical Education was held at the Teach- 
ers’ College, New York, on April 25, 26 
and 27. The program included a large 
number of papers of scientific interest. 

Dr. Kurt RumKer has been called to a 
professorship of agriculture in the Univer- 
sity of Breslau. 

COMMISSIONERS are being appointed by 
Governor Morton with a view to the acqui- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 19. 


sition of the Hudson River Palisades by the 
United States. 

Mr. M. 8. Reap, now of Cornell Uni- ~ 
versity, has been appointed Professor of 
Philosophy in Colgate University. 

THE departments of Mining and Geology 
of Columbia College will hold their annual 
summer school in Colorado. The School in 
Practical Mining will be in Central City 
under the charge of Professor Peele, and 
the Geological School will meet at Golden 
under the charge of Professor Kemp. 

Dr. Hans THIERFELDER has been ap- 
pointed Director of the Chemical Depart- 
ment of the Physiological Laboratory in 
Berlin. 

Tur Amherst Summer School of Library 
Economy, under the direction of Mr. Wil- 
liam I. Fletcher, will be in session from July 
1 to August 3. 

THe April number of the Bulletin of the 
Torrey Botanical Club contains a biographical 
notice of John H. Redfield by Mr. William 
M. Canby. There is an excellent portrait 
and a bibliography containing fifty-four 
titles. ‘ 

Tue presidential address on ‘ The United 
States Geological Survey,’ given before the 
Geological Society of Washington, on De- 
cember 18, 1894, by Mr. Charles D. Wal- 
cott, and published in the February num- 
ber of the Popular Science Monthly, has been 
reprinted. It should be in the hands of all 
who are interested in the great work ac- 
complished and in progress under the direc- 
tion of the United States Geological Survey. 

Wirsx the permission of the Prussian 
Minister of Education the University of 
Gottingen has conferred the degree of doc- 
tor of philosophy on Miss Grace Chisholm. 
This is a first degree conferred on a woman 
since Gottingen became a Prussian univer- 
sity. 

ProFessor Hatstep writes to Garden and 
Forest that the late winter has been very 


May 10, 1895.] 


' trying upon the English Ivy which covers 
many of the older buildings in New Bruns- 
wick, New Jersey. The leaves are mostly 
brown, many of them dead, and have the 
appearance of having been scorched by fire. 
It may be that the plants will revive with 
warm weather, but these old vines, which 
have been the pride of the city, are just now 
anything but attractive. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
Ar the meeting of April 20 Dr. Frank 
Baker exhibited specimens and gave de- 
scriptions of two anomalous forms of human 
lumbar vertibrie hitherto undescribed. 
Dr. Theobald Smith read a paper entitled 
* An Infectious Entero-hepatitis of Turkeys, 
Caused by Protozoa.’ 
The first intimation of the existence of 
this hitherto unrecognized disease was given 
by some diseased organs sent by Mr. Sam- 
uel Cushman of the Rhode Island Experi- 
meet Station in 1893. In 1894 the speaker 
had an opportunity of studying a number 
of cases in various stages of the disease. 
This begins in the ceca and manifests 
itself by a more or less uniform thickening 
of the wall. When this has continued for 
some time an exudate is poured out from 
the mucous membrane, which coagulates 
firmly and occludes the tube itself more or 
less completely. The cause of the thicken- 
ing of the cecal wall is a protozoon from 
6 to 10 y» in diameter, which multiplies very 
rapidly within the connective tissue inter- 
stices of the mucous and submucous tissue. 
The irritation produced by these bodies in- 
duces proliferation of the connective tissue 
eells. The thickening is further increased 
by cell infiltration, due to inflammatory 
processes which appear later on, and which 
may be due to the absorption of bacterial 
products from the denuded mucosa. 
In almost every case the liver is second- 
arily and usually very severely involved by 


SCIENCE. 


531 


the transportation of these protozoa from 
the seat of the disease in ceca through the 
portal system. The liver becomes covered 
with round isolated and confluent patches 
of a yellowish or brownish color, which rep- 
present necrotic foci in the substance of the 
liver itself. Within these, in the earlier 
stages, large numbers of the same protozoa 
may be found. 

The protozoon, as stated above, is a 
spherical or slightly oval body, of a homo- 
geneous appearance and containing an ex- 
ceedingly minute ring-like nucleus. It has 
shown none of the characters of sporozoa. 
Its rapid multiplication within the tissue 
spaces, where it may be seen either isolated 
or in groups of two, three, four or many in- 
dividuals, as well as the absence of any in- 
tercellular stage, has induced the writer to 
place it, at least provisionally, in the genus 
Ameeba, and, in consultation with Dr. Stiles, 
to denominate it Amaba meleagridis. A de- 
tailed account of this investigation is to ap- 
pear in a forthcoming bulletin of the Bu- 
reau of Animal Industry. 

Dr. G. Browne Goode read a paper on 
‘The Horizontal and Vertical Distribution 
of Deep Sea Fishes.’ The paper had for its 
object to demonstrate that the accepted 
ideas in regard to the distribution of deep 
sea fishes, having been founded on incom- 
plete data, are erroneous ; and that, con- 
trary to the commonly accepted opinion, 
no separation of deep sea fish life into hori- 
zontal strata is possible. On the other 
hand, the idea that the fish fauna of the 
depths of the sea is the same in all parts of 
the world is without foundation. 

Through the application of a percentage 
method eleven well marked faunal regions 
were shown to exist, as well as two sub- 
regions. The regions proposed were as fol- 
lows : 

1. Boreal Atlantic. 

2. Eastern Atlantic or Lusitanian, with a 
Mediterranean sub-region. 


5382 


3. Northwestern Atlantic or Virginian, 
with a Caribbean-Mexican sub-region 
4, Southwestern Atlantic or Brazilian. 
. Boreal Pacific or Aleutian. 
. Eastern Pacific or Galapagean. 
. Northwestern Pacific or Japanese. 
. Polynesian. 
9. Zealandian. 
10. Antarctic. 
11. Indian. 


MAID oO 


M. B. Waite, 
Recording Secretary. 


BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 

THE annual meeting was held on Wed- 
nesday, May Ist. 

A paper was read by Mr. J. L. Tilton 
On the Geology of the Southwestern part of the 
Boston Basin. 

Reports of the officers were received and 
officers for 1895-6 were elected as follows: 

President, William H. Niles. 

Vice-Presidents, Nathaniel S. Shaler, Wil- 
liam G. Farlow, Charles P. Bowditch. 

Curator, Alpheus Hyatt. 

Secretary, Samuel Henshaw. 

Treasurer, Edward T. Bouve. 

TInbrarian, Samuel Henshaw. 

Councillors for Three Years, Hermon C. 
Bumpus, Charles B. Davenport, William A. 
Jeffries, George G. Kennedy, Augustus 
Lowell, Miss Susannah Minns, Thomas A. 
Watson, Samuel Wells. 

SAMUEL HENSHAW, 
Secretary. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, MAY. 

James Dwight Dana. 

Color Relations of Atoms, Ions and Molecules : 
By M. C. Lua. 

Further Notes on the Gold Ores of California : 
By H. W. Turner. 

Some Relations between Temperature, Presswre 
and Latent Heat of Vaporization: By C. B. 
LINEBARGER. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vox. I. No. 19. 


Double Halides of Cesium, Rubidium, Sodium 
and Lithium with Thallium: By J. H. Prarr. 

Argon, Prout’s Hypothesis, and the Periodic 
Law: By EH. A. Hix1. a 

Improved Rock Cutter and Trimmer: By EB. 
KIDWELL. 

Relation of the plane of Jupiter’s orbit to the 
mean-plane of four hundred and one minor 
planet orbits: By H. A. NewrTon. 

Chemistry and Physics; Geology; Miscellane- 
ous Scientific Intelligence ; Obituary. 


BULLETIN OF THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB, 
APRIL. 

Notes on Some Florida Plants: Gzo. V. NAs#. 

John H. Redfield: Wm. M. Cansy. 

A Fossil Marine Diatomaceous Deposit at St. 
Augustine, Florida: CHARLES 8. BoyER. 
New Species of Parastic Fungi: 8. M. Tracy 

and F. 8. EARLE. 

The Systematic Botany of North America; Bo- 
tanical Notes; Proceedings of the Olub; In- 
dex to Recent Literature Relating to Ameri- 
can Botany. 


AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CHEMISTRY, MAY. 

On the Two Isomeric Chlorides of Orthosulpho- 
benzoic Acid: TRA REMSEN. 

I. The Action of Aniline and of the Tolui- 
dines on Orthosulphobenzoic Acid and its Chlo- 
ride: IRA RemMsEN and C. EH. Coarss, JR. 

IT. Further Study of the Action of Aniline 
on the Chlorides of Orthosulphobenzoie Acid : 
Ira Remsen and EH. P. KonuEr. 

III, Separation of the Two Chlorides of 
Orthosulphobenzoic Acid: IRA ReMsEN and 
A. P. SAUNDERS. 

The Sugar of the Agave Americana: W. B. 
Srone and D. Lorz. 

The Law of. Mass Action: J. E. TREyoR. 

Chromates of the Rare Earths: Chromates oj 
Thorium: CHASE PALMER. 

On a New Method for the Separation of Copper 
and Cadmium in Qualitative Analysis: Ax- 
LERTON S. CUSHMAN. 

Reviews. 


id 
i 


SCIENCE. 


New SERIEs. 


wari. No. 20. Fripay, May 17, 1895. 


SINGLE COPIES, 15 CTs. 


ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 
_ Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


_ BEHRENS, Pror. H., Anleitung zur mikrochemi- 
_ schen Analyse. 


Mit einem Vorwort von Prof. 8. 
Hoogewerff in Delft. Mit 92 Figuren im Text. 
224 Seiten 8°. M. 6. 


BETHAULT, ProrF. F., Les Prairies. Prairies natu- 


relles. Prairies de Fauche. 223 pages pet. in 8°. 
Cart. Fr. 3. 
BIEDERMANN, Pror. W., Elektrophysiologie. 


Erste Abteilung. Mit 136 Abbildungen. 440 Seiten. 
miGr. 8°. M. 9. 

BOHM, PROSEKTOR A. A., und M. von DAVIDOFF, 

Lehrbuch der Histologie des Menschen einschliesslich 
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440 Seiten. gr. 8°. Leinwandband. M. 8. 

GIRARD, PRor, HENRI, Aide-Mémoire de Zoologie. 
Avec 90 figures intercalées dans le texte. 300 pages. 
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GRAETZ, Pror. Dr. L., Compendium der Physik. 
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LAUE, MAX., Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. Ein 
Vertreter deutscher Naturforschung im neunzehnten 
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SCIENCE. 


EpIToRIAL CoMMITTEE: S. NEwcomB, Mathematics ; R. S. WooDWARD, Mechanics ; E. C. PICKERING, As- 
tronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THuRSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
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Fripay, May 17, 1895. 


CONTENTS: 


The Ballistic Galvanometer and its use in Magnetic 
Measurements: THOMAS GRAY .....-+++---- 533 

The Scientific Method and Modern Intellectual Life : 
CONWAY MACMILLAN......--.ceeseeeseeees 537 

The Liquefaction of Gases—A Controversy: JAMES 
DREMISSELONV ESN \o les os vic o'sonas ene bem anes 5 542 


BRINTON 
James Edward Oliver : GEORGE BRUCE HALSTED. .544 
James Dwight Dana 
Correspondence : — 

The Education of the Topographer: M. 

Davis. The Helmholtz Memorial: Huco Mtn- 

STERBERG. 
muctentajic Viterature — .....00..scccccccccccness 548 

Dana’s Geology: JosEPH LE CONTE. Warm- 

ing’s Systematic Botany ; Chambers’ Story of the 

Stars: DayipP. Topp. Ballard’s The World of 

Matter: Wyatt W. RANDALL. 


RIMES PIAL Sn) cc. c'xro/a 9/50. « gine rin ee iiniepatelsteiaiars 554 

Societies and Academies : — ...+-..+0+eeeeeeeeeee 558 
The Geological Society of Washington; The En- 
tomological Society of Washington. 

OIE N oi g.aiz 0'0ie.0.c 5x10; 4:1=!a vicina, sin wsleidtoleiaiaatte 560 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

Subscriptions and advertisements should be sent to SCIENCE, 
41 N. Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or 41 East 49th St., New York. 


THE BALLISTIC GALVANOMETER AND ITS 
USE IN MAGNETIC MEASUREMENTS. 
Tue ballistic galvanometer gives one of 
the most convenient and reliable means of 
Measuring the total quantity of electricity 
conveyed through a circuit by a transient 


current when the conditions are such as to 


admit of its legitimate application. It is 
ol known, however, to experienced ob- 


servers that in a large number of the com- 
mon applications of the instrument the re- 
sults are doubtful because the fundamental 
principle on which the calculations are based 
is not sufficiently attended to. The object 
of the present note is to direct more par- 
ticular attention to the conditions under 
which accurate results may be obtained. 
Most text-books on electrical measure- 
ments give formule for the calculation of the 
quantity of electricity required to produce 
a given deflection, or throw, of the galva- 
nometer needle, and also indicate how the 
constant of the instrument may be de- 
termined, and how the damping effect of 
the air and of induced currents may be al- 
lowed for. The formule assume as funda- 
mental that the duration of the flow is 
negligibly small in comparison with the 
time which the needle takes to reach its 
greatest deflection. This fundamental con- 
dition is of course implied in the name bal- 
listic, but it does not seem, from the appli- 
cations which we find continually made of 
the instrument, that the simple statement, 
as commonly given, is sufficiently explicit 
to prevent a vicious use of this method of 
experiment. For the measurement and the 
comparison of the capacities of condensers 
and similar purposes the ballistic galva- 
nometer is generally reliable, providing the 
constant is properly determined and suit- 
able appliances used for manipulation. In 
magnetic measurements, however, it not 


5384 


unfrequently happens that the duration of 
the current is much too great, and not only 
too great, but variable throughout the series 
of observations, the results of which are 
compared. The carelessness with which 
this method of experiment is recommended 
by authorities who ought to know better is 
astonishing. We find, for instance, in one 
of the most widely used text-books on the 
practical application of electricity the state- 
ment that to measure the total induction 
across the armature of a dynamo a few 
turns of wire may be wound round the sec- 
tion of commutation and connected in series 
with a ballistic galvanometer, and the throw 
of the needle, when the field circuit is closed 
or broken, will indicate the induction. For 
any ordinary galvanometer such statements 
are simply nonsense. 

Let us take, for the purpose of illustra- 
tion, the measurement of the magnetic 
quality of iron, according to Rowland’s 
method, or some one of the modifications 
of it which have come into use. Here the 
specimen is a ring, which, in most of the 
recent determinations, is made up of wire 
or thin sheet iron. The ring is surrounded 
along its whole length by one or more mag- 
netizing coils, and over a short length by a 
secondary or induction coil, included in the 
circuit of a ballistic galvanometer. The 
inductions produced by different magnetiz- 
ing forces are then measured by observing 
the corresponding throws of the ballistic 
galvanometer needle. Various modes of 
operation are adopted, as, for instance, 
the magnetizing force is changed by suc- 
cessive steps from an extreme value in 
one direction to an equal extreme in the 
opposite direction, and then back by simi- 
lar steps, thus passing the iron through a 
complete cycle of magnetization. The cor- 
responding successive throws of the galva- 
nometer needle are then taken to indicate 
the increased or diminished magnetic in- 
duction, due to the different changes of 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 20. 


magnetizing force. In another method the 
magnetization is changed always from the 
extreme in one direction as the zero for 
each observation. The change of magneti- 
zation is in this case produced either by 
diminution, and, if necessary, reversal of 
the magnetizing force in one magnetizing 
coil, or by the use of a second coil and a 
current sent through it in such a direction 
as tends to reverse the original magnetiza- 
tion. The reverse half of the cycle is then 
obtained by passing the extreme current 
through the second coil, then slowly de- 
creasing it to the required value, and after- 
wards suddenly breaking the circuit. The 
changes of induction are measured as be- 
fore by the deflections of the ballistic gal- 
vanometer. needle. Other methods might 
be mentioned, but these will serve for our 
present purpose. 

In order to illustrate the variable condi- 
tions under which such experiments are 
made, the curves given in figures 1-4 have 
been drawn by an autographie recorder 
showing the actual character of the in- 
duced current which is sent through the 
galvanometer under different circumstances. 
In figure 1 the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, give 
the curves of variation of current with 
time (the ordinate being current and the 
abscisse time) for the following set of oper- 
ations: Two magnetizing coils being placed 
on the iron a constant current was estab- 
lished in one of them; next, for curve 1, a 
small reverse current was sent through the 
other coil; for curve 2, the second coil was 
closed across the battery and the battery 
cut out; for curve 3, the battery put in cir- 
cuit and the current again established ; for 
curve 4, the current was increased by short 
circuiting part of the resistance in the cir- 
cuit; for curve 5, the short circuit was 
taken off and the current reduced to the 
same valve as at the end of 3; for curve 6, 
the coil was closed across the battery termi- 
nal and the battery taken out of circuit. 


- May 17, 1895.] 


Figure 2 shows the result of a similar 
‘series with the magnetizing force for curve 
1 greater and the operations 2 and 3 of 
figure 1 omitted. Figure 3 illustrates the 
result when the whole of the reverse cur- 
rent was put on in operation 1, and the 
eurve 2 shows the effect of short circuiting 
the battery in the second cireuit. Figure 
4 is the same as figure 3 so far as the first 
operation is concerned, but in the operation 
which gave curve 2 the second magnetizing 
circuit was simply broken. The scales of 
these curves are arbitrary, but are the same 


the different curves, and hence the rela- 
tive magnitudes of the changes of current 
may be estimated from the curves. The 
reverse current in the second coil was not 
at any time adjusted so as to give an equal 


he coil through which the constant current 
as kept flowing. The two primary objects 
drawing the curves were (a) to show 
the great difference in the time required to 
produce changes of magnetization as de- 
pending on the magnitude of the change, 
md (b) to show the differences in time 
or the two cases of short circuit and 


SCIENCE. 


535 


complete break of the magnetizing coil 
cireuit. 

The fact that the time required to pro- 
duce the change of magnetization is depend- 
ent on the amount of change shows that, 
unless the period of the galvanometer 
needle be so long that even the longest of 
these times is short in comparison, the 
measurements of the higher magnetizations 
will be more in error than the lower. The 
effect of this on the magnetization curve of 
iron is to render the steep parts of the curve 
less steep. The curves 1 and 2 of figure 4 


show the effect of the diminished inductive 
retardation when the circuit is broken in 
shortening the time required for the mag- 
netization to change back as compared with 
the time required to produce it. Curve 2 
of figure 3 compared with curve 2 of figure 
4 shows the relative times when in the first 
case the e. m. f. is removed, but the circuit 
left closed and in the other case the circuit 
is broken. Comparisons between the de- 
flection due to the application and the re- 
moval of magnetizing force should always 
be made in such a way that the circuit has 
the same inductive retardation in both cases. 


536 


The e. m. f. should therefore be introduced 
and removed without breaking the circuit. 

If we assume no damping action on the 
needle the equation to its motion is 


where n is a constant depending on the gal- 
vanometer and the intensity of the mag- 
netic field at the needle, while X depends 
on the galvanometer and on the nature of 
the transient current. If we suppose the 
impulse given to the needle to be due to 
the charge or discharge of a magnetic field 
and take the permeability of the core as con- 
stant we may put X — A e@t where A is 
a constant depending on the galvanometer 
and a = + where Ris the resistance and L 
the co-efficient of induction. 


We thus get 4 —; + n= Ae t 
The solution of this equation is 


) 


A 
6 —a t pd 
or) 2 Cm += , Sint cosnt j 


2 2 
a feet a a Z xin(ata)} 


n 
where term 2 = aie 


The constant n is equal to 2z/T, where T 
is the free period of the needle. 

Take, as a particular case, a ring of mean 
circumference / = 30 centimetres, and cross 
sectional area S = 2 square centimetres, and 
suppose the total number of turns on the 
magnetizing coil to be N = 600, the per- 
meability » = 2000, and the resistance 1 
ohm. Then the increase or decrease of in- 


duction per unit current x N = L = 
Ge NPS og i F y 

cp =e nearly in henrys. Hence 
we have a or R/L = 42, and the current at 
time t, after the removal of the e. m. f., the 
circuit remaining closed, is C, = ©, e° ¢ 
where Co is the current just before the 


e.m.f.is removed. Giving ¢ different val- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. I. No. 20. 


ues in seconds we have the following values 
of the ratio Ct / Co: 
tin seconds = 1 2 3 4 5 
Ct / Co = 0.1889 0.03565 0.00673 0.00127 0.00024 

If the resistance be taken equal to 10 ohms 
then the unit of time in the above table is 
to be taken as one tenth ofa second, and so 
on for different resistances. Precisely the 
same calculation applies to the case of in- 
creasing magnetization, only C, is then the 
final steady current, and the numbersin the 
line C, / CG. are the differences from unity 
of the ratio C, / C,,, that is, the equation 
becomes (; / C, = 1—e~® ¢. 

Hence, remembering the high value which 
L may have at certain parts of the eycle in 
the case of iron, we see that to insure the 
whole quantity ef electricity getting through 
the galvanometer coil in a small fraction of 
the quarter period the resistance would re- 
quire to be in the neighborhood of 1000 
ohms for a needle of 4 seconds period, and 
of 100 ohms for a needle of 40 seconds 
period. 

The quantity of electricity which flows 
through the coil in time ¢ is given by the 
equation 


t R 
Q=f Ge °=o,8 oe 
on aa = 


Hence in the case supposed above the 
quantity which flows in one second is about 
2 of the whole when the resistance is one 
ohm, and about # of the whole in ;{5 of a 
second when the resistance is 100 ohms. 


2 2 
eat ve 1. aa 


n 


= 


The equatim i amg a 


(n—2)| reduces to @/ — in the case 
of « being very great in comparison with n 
and this form can be readily reduced to the 
equation commonly given on the supposi- 
tion of the time of discharge being small in 
comparison with the period of the needle. 
Keeping to the case taken above of the 


May 17, 1895.] 


period 4 seconds or quarter period 1 second 
we have the following values of a :— 


10/6 2 


a = 1 
= 0.774 0.810 


md! — _ 0.632 
The middle one of these values corre- 
sponds to the ring discussed above when the 
resistance is one ohm. . In these three 
- eases the maximum deflection is reached 
after 1.54 seconds, 1.45 seconds and 1.40 
seconds from the time when the e. m. f. is 
applied to or removed from the circuit. The 
conditions here taken may be considered ex- 
treme in so far as the period of the needle 
is concerned, but it is not difficult to find 
examples of actual measurements in which 
the period has been equally short. 
j The examples here given are probably suf- 
ficient to direct attention to the care that 
must be taken in the choice of apparatus 
and the arrangements of circuits when the 
ballistic galvanometer is used in magnetic 
measurements. The method is only appli- 
_ cable when a is so large that @ and #’ are 
practically equal to each other and this 
condition is approximated to by making R 
large and Las small as possible. Hence, 
high e. m. f. s. should be used with high non- 
inductive resistance in the circuit and mag- 
netic force should be secured with small 
numbers of turns by using large currents. 
_ It is well always when comparing charge 
with discharge to keep the induction of the 
circuit the same in both cases by means of 
_ an apparatus which cuts out the battery and 
at the same time keeps the circuit closed 
_ through an equal resistance, instead of 
breaking the circuit when the discharge is 
measured. A check on the accuracy of the 
observations in any particular case may be 
obtained by observing the successive ex- 
treme deflection of the needle. If the first 
deflection has the proper magnitude the 
mean ordinate of the curves drawn through 
the extreme deflections to opposite sides of 
zero should be at all points zero. When 


EE eT ee 


a gy ol 


SCIENCE. 


537 


the duration of the current is a large frae- 
tion of the time of swing of the needle the 
mean of the deflections to opposite sides 
will lie for the first few swings on the same 
side of zero as the initial deflection. 
Tuomas GRAY. 
RosE POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 


THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND MODERN IN- 
TELLECTUAL LIFE. 

SCIENCE, as a necessary term, is possibly 
upon the verge of obsolescence. Within the 
last half-century it has spread the mantle 
of its meaning over almost every depart- 
ment of thought until to-day knowledge 
and science are perceived to be so nearly co- 
extensive that the newer term might rightly 
yield to the priority of the older. While 
twenty-five years ago one heard much about 
science and the languages as rival claim- 
ants for place in the college curriculum, 
one now listens to the message of that use- 
ful science, classical philology. Then the 
polemic between science and religion seemed 
earnest indeed; now theologians and lay- 
men are alike shocked when Mr. Benjamin 
Kidd suggests that there can not be a sci- 
ence of religion. Antithesis has softened 
into synonymy. It is not that the lion of 
science has devoured the lambs of art, liter- 
ature and philosophy ; it is rather that sys- 
tematists of opinions and beliefs have deter- 
mined a generic unity where before variety 
was supposed eternally to exist. Such con- 
dition has arisen, it may be presumed, from 
the prevalence at least among Western na- 
tions of what has come to be denominated 
the scientific method. This prevalence is 
not yet universality. It does not yet extend 
in full measure to every individual; nor does 
it, perhaps, persistently characterize the 
intellectual life of any man at the present 
time. The atavism of superstition must 
somewhere mar the image and superscrip- 
tion of one’s intellectualinheritance. Ney- 
ertheless, so widespread and so dominant 


588 


everywhere is this scientific method that in 
a broad sense it might be accorded univer- 
sality. 
matter to discover, if one can, what effects 
upon the intellectual life, not only of the 
individual, but of society in general, are re- 
sulting from the method now and will de- 
velop in the future. 

It is possible to define science as that 
orderly mass of facts and hypotheses with- 
in experience by which we criticise our 
primitive ideas. Social, not merely individ- 
ual, experience and the broader implication 
of criticism are intended. The scientific 
method is therefore that intellectual process 
by which facts are recognized, accumulated 
and arranged, hypotheses framed, tested and 
exploited and conclusions drawn, verified, 
accepted and applied where they may seem 
best to fulfil their function in the enginery 
of social progress. It would be an error to 
suppose that any clear demarcation exists 
between knowledge that is scientific and 
other knowledge that is not; nor can one, 
search as he will, discover the birth-place 
or learn the natal day of the scientific 
method. As Dr. Osborn has shown, from 
the Greeks to Darwin there exists a con- 
tinuity of speculative evolution. Bacon 
was not the first to make use of induction. 
Franklin did not discover electricity, nor 
Lamarck the impermanence of species. 
Everywhere the older phases of thought 
merge into the newer, much as one picture 
seems to follow another in the cunningly pre- 
sented dissolving views or phantasmagoria 
ofthestage. Yetit willscarcely be gainsaid 
that while yesterday the scientific method 
was indeterminate and sporadic, to-day it is 
definite, characteristic of most that is valu- 
able in thought and in a sense universal. 

Carrying farther the definitions which 
are so useful if one desires to make one’s 
meaning plain, it will appear that the intel- 
lectual life is a concept that has enlarged, 
imperceptibly at first, but surely during 


SCIENCE. 


It becomes, then, an important 


[N. S. Vox. I. No. 20: 


these later days. When one sees the phrase 
in type one does not stop with Hamerton: 
Insensibly the meaning of the word life has~ 
expanded in the minds of thoughtful men 
until the limits of individualism are instine- 
tively transcended and the instant idea is 
of the greater social, not of the lesser indi- 
vidual organism. No more impressive evi- 
dence of an onward movement in thought 
could be offered, no more conclusive demon- 
stration of some welding, hnmanizing force 
unconsciously at work generalizing and ex- 
tending the point of view. The intellectual 
life is seen to be not merely an efflorescence 
of culture; it is not the knowing of the best 
that has been said and written in the his- 
tory of the world; it is not the peace of in- 
trospective calm, nor serenity in a delightful 
oasis amid the desert sands of a crass and 
insentient materialism ; it is a strenuous, an 
austere exertion of those high human powers 
that command the world of things for the 
world of thought. Culture, essentially in- 
dividualistic, is not the concretely social 
and dynamic intellectual life. Itis true one 
must not altogether forget the traditional 
meaning of the phrase, but that traditional 
meaning is after all suggestive principally as 
a vestigial character. Jts peculiar interest 
lies in the fact that it has been outgrown. 

Having indicated the content of such 
phrases as intellectual life and scientific method, 
it remains to show briefly how the latter in 
its slow but massive development has in- 
fluenced the former, or rather how the two 
have unfolded themselves in unison. In 
the course of the examination, it will perhaps 
become apparent that the larger modern 
implication of such a phrase as intellectual 
life is due, above all, to precisely such in- 
fluences as have been brought to bear upon 
the texture of society by the progressively 
larger, though in great part unconscious, 
activity of what has been termed the scien- 
tific method. 

Noting first the evident contact points, 


May 17, 1895.] 


especially in pedagogics, between the scien- 
tific method and the intellectual life of the 
individual, one cannot but reaffirm in the 
light of experience what has long been main- 
- tained by those who advocate the funda- 
mental position of science in every educa- 
tional system. In the domain of reason, 
breadth, grasp and clarity are developed as 
under no other discipline. Sanity in emo- 
tion is secured, and vigor, together with 
modesty and a reasonable deliberation, 
tends to distinguish the active life of the 
- man who has brought himself into what 
may be styled a scientific frame of mind. 
The accumulation of any mass of facts, if 
the search be tireless, must stimulate the 
_ growth of a certain cosmopolitanism. The 
_ Scarabean doubtless found more foreign let- 
ters in his mail than did the Autocrat. 
When one goes farther and attempts an in- 
duction or an hypothesis he must hold 
firmly the facts he has, his eye must be un- 
clouded, his step steady, or he will fail. 
Still more certainly will his office remain an 
humble one if, when he ventures to make 
known to others his discoveries or conclu- 
sions, he want in transparency and pre- 
cision. Nor will the man whose life is truly 
illuminated by the sun of science lack some- 
- what of self-control ; under less favorable 
4 conditions this equipoise may take the guise 
of unenthusiasm, but at its best it is activity 
y —sympathie, tolerant, enlightened. Such 
_ being their recognized educational produc- 
tivity, the so-called sciences have taken 
_ masterful positions in the schools of Europe 
and America. It will not be necessary here 
to point outin detail the precise pedagogic 
adaptability and the importance of the 
various sciences in a general educational 
scheme ; it will suffice to inquire whether 
it be not true that whatever branch of learn- 
g popularly classed outside of the sciences 
maintains itself in school curricula, it does 
by virtue of the scientific method being 
ible in its presentation, 


SCIENCE. 


539 


Although clearly not so fundamental in 
their effect upon the individual character 
as must be these simple reactions where the 
scientific method is brought into an alem- 
bie with nascent intellect, there are some 
relatively subtle yet far-reaching influences 
that should not be overlooked. From a 
number that might be chosen I will bring 
forward three. A just appreciation and 
personal application of the scientific method 
tends to discourage introspective and meta- 
physical habits of thought, to counteract 
the insidious pessimism with which so much 
of modern life is tinged, and to impel one 
unmistakably toward a rational and sober 
altruism. I would not be understood to 
regard metaphysics as altogether pernicious. 
At its worst it may be as Walter Pater 
thought it, ‘the art of methodically mud- 
dling one’s self,’ but it has its place and its 
mission. Yet there is an individualistic 
and almost a selfish tendency in much of 
what passes for philosophy. One need not 
pursue the thorny path of dialectics to the 
end that one denies the existence of all but 
himself. Whatever intellectual attitude de- 
mands, an attentive scrutiny of one’s own 
mental, moral or physical mechanism can 
not but be self-centered. For this reason, 
if for no other, the failure of deductive phi- 
losophy to carry its influence beyond the 
lecture room or seminarium might easily 
have been predicated in advance. The stu- 
dent of the history of philosophy is scarcely 
more impressed by the cumulative intricacy 
of philosophic speculation than by its pro- 
gressive futility as a guide in the every-day 
affairs of life. Employment of the scien- 
tific method discourages on the whole that 
naive self-inspection which was the badge 
of the older intellectual cultus, just as on the 
other hand it lends encouragement to the 
open-eyed, outward searchings of the mod- 
ern investigator. This objectivity, whether 
or not it be an indication of intellectual 
maturity in a nation, is distinetly charac- 


540 


teristic of modern Occidental civilization in 
no less degree than the reverse condition is 
supposed to mould the thought and life of 
the Orient. Such objectivity—not without 
the stigma of materialism—seems to result 
from the general prevalence of the scientific 
methods in contemporaneous thought. 

If it be protested that the scientific 
method is blighting in its tendency to sup- 
press metaphysics, not so certain objections 
will be made to its efficiency as a counterfoil 
against philosophic pessimism. Whether 
one professes with Schopenhauer to believe 
that this is the worst possible world, or joins 
von Hartmann in that more dismal sugges- 
tion that this is the best possible world, but 
not worth living in; whether one sigh with 
De Musset, weep with LeConte de Lisle, 
or rave with Baudelaire, one must give the 
sanction in so doing to existence, and if to 
existence then to evolution, by which such 
existence became possible, and if to evolu- 
tion then to progress. Therefore, if we 
have the scientific spirit two escapes are 
possible from the darkness of pessimism— 
superficially by occupying one’s self with 
some scientific protocol, or more profoundly 
by turning one’s despairing thoughts aside 
in the recognition of an indwelling power 
in the social organism which makes, if not 
for righteousness, at least for social evolu- 
tion. If under the leadership of the scien- 
tific method one can actually grasp the form 
of truth there is in positivism; if one can 
really feel the existence of a social organ- 
ism and listen to his ideals as did Comte, 
believing them to be the sealed orders of 
humanity; if one can learn with Weismann 
to know the profound sense in which all 
men are brothers, for all men are one, it will 
make little odds to him whether he be 
shown with most convincing logic that the 
constitution of the nervous system makes 
pain the positive and pleasure the negative 
and that death is merely an acquired physi- 
ological trait useful to insure the perma- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 20. 


nence of the species at the zenith of its 
youth and power. But after all, perhaps 
the most fatal blow that the scientific 
method strikes to pessimism is, as argued 
above, in its settled antagonism to intro- 
spection. For pessimism as an ethical and 
metaphysical system is based peculiarly 
upon self-observation. A man does not 
despair of the world from what he sees 
around him, but from what he sees in the 
secret places of his own heart. By its dis- 
couragement of morbid subjectivity the sci- 
entific method cuts the very foundation 
from under the philosophic pessimist. 

We are led then to the third postulate— 
that the scientific method impels us unmis- 
takably toward a rational and sober 
altruism. This indeed links itself insepa- 
rably with the others. If defective this type 
of altruism is defective in fire and in en- 
thusiasm. Domination by the calm reason- 
ableness of the inductive philosophy does 
not stimulate one to take up the tambourines 
and drums of the Salvation Army. He who 
has ordered his mental processes in accord- 
ance with a scientific method is inclined to 
prefer the charity organization to personal 
alms-giving; he shrinks a little from the zeal 
of the social reformer; he is unlikely to bea 
poet in literature, a rhapsodist in music or 
a revivalist in religion. He is rather to be 
sought among the rank and file of the great, 
silent army which is behind every reform 
as ‘ public sentiment’ or as the ‘moral sense 
of the community.’ But as has been 
pointed out elsewhere this quiet acqui- 
escence is a necessary factor in social re- 
form, just as underneath every successful 
revolution there has been a subtile and 
tacit confession of faultiness in the estab- 
lished order by the very party that storms 
barricades in the struggle for its mainte- 
nance. To sum it up in a word, under the 
scientific method men may not be so ready 
to conquer rights and privileges for others, 
but they are prepared unflinchingly to con- 


——$— = 


ee 


May 17, 1895.] 


cede such rights when the request has come 
with authority. 

From this point the transition is easy to 
the consideration of what influence the 
scientific method may exert in a general 
Way upon society as a whole. There is not 
space in the compass of a review article to 
discuss adequately a matter of so many 
complications, but it is possible to offer a 
syllabus for reflection. It must first of all 
be kept in mind that world-wideness is in the 
fabric of all sceince. Since induction is 
objective, the scientific method is cosmopol- 
itan. The humble describer of a new 
species of butterfly must have passed, in 
orderly fashion, all the butterflies of the 
earth before his mind ere he ventures to set 
his own over against the rest as new. The 
question of the German University labora- 
tory— Was haben Sie neues gefunden ? ’— 
presupposes a knowledge of what the world 
has done before. This characteristic of the 
scientific method cannot be too strongly 
emphasized. What then must be the na- 
tural reflex of the method upon social in- 
stitutions ? 

Science has bound the world together by 
its spirit no less than by its discoveries. In- 
terest in others would make communication 
easy even if the telegraph did not exist. 
Sympathy is a stronger cable than those 
that lie along the bottom of the Atlantic. 
Hence in every region of human intellectual 
activity one traces the broadening influence 
of the scientific method. In polities, de- 
mocracy ; in warfare, humanity; in com- 
merce, freedom; in art and in literature, 
realism ; in all the social relations of life, 
kindliness and charity; in religion, toler- 
ance and dynamic helpfulness—these are 
the children of this scientific method. Per- 


_ haps nowhere better than in the field of re- 


ligion has the change to the new order made 
itself felt. Religion is to-day recognized as 
social rather than as individual. Faith is 
blended in works, and in place of a pitiful 


SCIENCE. 


541 


solicitude for the welfare of one’s own im- 
mortal soul there has been developed a mis- 
sionary spirit, boundless in its self-sacrifice, 
a magnificient phenomenon of altruism. 
It is very remarkable when comparing 
theological literature of say the Oxford 
Tractarian movement with that of the pres- 
ent decade, such as the discourses of Wash- 
ington Gladden or the Unitarian writings 
of Martineau, to note that the essential dif- 
ference between the two groups is that in 
the former everything is discrete and indi- 
vidualistic in tone, while in the latter every- 
thing is concrete and social. Under the 
stress of the scientific method, sanctity has 
seemed second to helpfulness, just as indi- 
vidual culture has seemed a less noble end 
than social progress. 

On the whole the influence of the scien- 
tific method upon society is two-fold. Stati- 
cally it has added organizability to the 
social character, and by virtue of this it has 
dynamically contributed to the advance in 
social progress. The influence mentioned 
upon character could scarcely strike more 
profoundly, for the capacity to take part in 
organization is possibly the most important 
trait of all in social character. Precisely 
as organization becomes most perfect will 
progress be most rapid. And here one per- 
ceives that a veritable intellectual sanction 
for progress is to be sought. The au- 
thor of Social Evolution has denied that 
such sanction exists, but apparently without 
taking into account the very method by 
which he arrived at this conclusion. There 
is quite as strong an instinctive quality in 
science as in religion. Each takes progress 
for granted, each in its own field contributes 
to the advance, and in so doing each gives 
its sanction to the movement. Since prog- 
ress lies principally within the realm of 
the social organism, its sanctions are social 
rather than individual. And the error has 
been in failing to perceive the strong social 
nature of a certain type of intellection 


542 


and in assuming the metaphysical or intro- 
spective type to be the only one worthy of 
consideration. In the phrase ‘ devotees of 
science’ there is a gleam of true meaning, 
for in its social quality, its instinctiveness, 
science is akin to religion. One might term 
science an intellectual religion and not go 
wide of the mark. While itmay be argued 
that philosophy in the traditional sense does 
not sanction progress, it cannot be argued 
that science withholds either sanction or its 
encouragement. Science is social thought 
reflected back into the mind of individuals ; 
metaphysics is individual thought radiated 
outward upon society. ‘The sanction for 
social progress is therefore derived rather 
from society as a whole than from individual 
introspection. For this reason the intellec- 
tual sanction is all the more forceful and 
takes its place beside the moral sanction 
offered by religion. ‘There need then be no 
fear that progress is intrinsically irrational, 
and there may be a science of religion, as 
there is a religion of science. It is the 
function of the scientific method to organize 
for victorious contest the battalions of the 
intellect, while religion may bring on the 
moral forces. Therefore it appears that 
progress is an open-minded movement on- 
ward, of which we are all a part, and to 
which reason, under the sway of the scien- 
tific method, gives sanction no less than 


does emotion. 
Conway MacMiruan. 


UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA. 


THE LIQUEFACTION OF GASES.—A CONTRO- 
VERSY. 

THE scientific world has been treated 
during the last few weeks to one of those 
happily to-day rather infrequent contro- 
versies which are always unseemly, the 
more so when the parties are men of emi- 
nent scientific reputation. Polemics in 
science may sometimes be entertaining, 
but are always unprofitable and tend to 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 20: 


bring discredit upon the participants, if 
not on their work. The recent discussion* 
on the subject of liquefaction of gases is no 
exception to the rule. 

Prof. Dewar, in defending his failure to 
give Prof. Olszewski due credit, has made 
what might have been looked on as a pardon- 
able omission appear almost as intentional 
deceit. In taking up the cudgels in Prof. 
Olszewski’s defense, Professor Muir has 
seemed to make an unjust and almost spite- 
ful attack upon Professor Dewar ; while Pro- 
fessor Olszewski, whose work was already 
too well and favorably known to need any 
defense, has added nothing to his reputation; 
indeed, he has rather laid himself open to the 
charge he prefers against Professor Dewar, 
inasmuch as in his article in the Engineer- 
ing and Mining Journal he makes but 
slighting reference to the work of Pictet and 
Cailletet, and the name of Wrdéblewski is 
but once, and that incidentally, mentioned. 
The following is asummary of the more im- 
portant work of these investigators in this 
field : 

In 1877 two independent experimenters 
almost simultaneously succeeded in con- 
densing to liquids the so-called permanent 
gases. Cailletet, the French ironmaster at 
Chantillon-sur-Seine, used a hydraulic press, 
and obtained the necessary lowering of tem- 
perature by suddenly diminishing the pres- 
sure on the compressed gas. A mist ap- 
pears in the glass tube containing the gas, 
and, except in the case of hydrogen, con- 
denses to small drops. Pictet, at Geneva, 
used the pressure occasioned by the genera- 
tion of the gas in wrought iron cylinders, 
and cooled his steel condensing tube with 
liquid carbon dioxid. In experimenting 
with hydrogen, Pictet obtained an opaque 
steel blue liquid, which appeared to solidify 


*On the Liquefaction of Gases. Charles Olszew- 
ski, James Dewar, M. M. Pattison Muir, Nature, Jan. 
10, 1895, and following numbers. Letters to the 
Editor. Also in The Philosophical Magazine. 


May 17, 1895.] 


on striking the ground. Later researches 
of Olszewski and Krzyzanowski have shown 
that this liquid could not have been hydro- 
gen, and that the gas obtained, as Pictet’s 
was, from potassium formate and caustic 
potash is by no means pure hydrogen. To 
Cailletet and Pictet belongs the credit of 
being the pioneers in this field, and to them 
in 1878 was awarded the Davy medal of the 
Royal Society. 

A few years later (1883) the work was 
taken up by Wréblewski and Olszewski at 
the University of Cracow, and after the 
death of the former in 1886 was carried on 
by Olszewski alone, and more recently by 
Olszewski and Witkowski. The apparatus 
used was derived from that of Cailletet, the 
production of cold being by the boiling of 
liquid ethylene in a vacuum. 

The aim of Olszewski’s researches has 
been the exact investigation of the proper- 
ties and conditions of matter at low tem- 
peratures. Many physical constants of the 
so-called permanent gases have been deter- 
mined, and especially the optical properties 
of liquid oxygen have been thoroughly 
studied. More recently Olszewski was en- 
trusted by Lord Rayleigh and Professor 
Ramsay with the liquefaction of Argon, and 
the results of this investigation have been 
widely published. His latest work is the 
determination of the critical temperature 
(—233°) and the boiling point (—2438°) of 
hydrogen, the last gas which still resists 
condensation to a static liquid. 

Professor Dewar, in his position at the 
Royal Institution of Great Britain, has been 
looked upon, perhaps, rather as a public 
lecturer and brilliant experimenter than as 
an exact investigator. In 1884 he delivered 
an address at the Royal Institution on the 
work of Wréblewski and Olszewski, during 
which oxygen and air were liquefied for the 
first time in public. He later so improved 


the apparatus, which was founded on the 


principles used by Cailletet and by Olszew- 


SCIENCE. 


543 


‘ski, that he could obtain with safety and 


without great difficulty very considerable 
quantities (‘several pints’) of liquid oxy- 
gen or air, and his public experiments with 
this liquid are famous. By the use of 
liquid air he has studied the electrical re- 
sistance of metals and alloys at low temper- 
atures, extending greatly the work of Clau- 
sius, Cailletet and Bouty, and Wréblewski 
in this direction, and has undertaken work 
on the tension of metals at low tempera- 
tures. As far as these latter experiments 
have been carried, they seem to show that 
the breaking stress of metals increases de- 
cidedly at low temperatures (—182°) and 
hence that there is no decrease of mo- 
lecular attraction as absolute zero is ap- 
proached, although the most powerful chem- 
ical affinities are in abeyance, as Professor 
Dewar has shown. He was also the dis- 
coverer of the magnetic properties of liquid 
oxygen. 

In his earlier work Professor Dewar cer- 
tainly did not fail to give Professor Olszewski 
due and full credit. Of late years he has 
failed to often refer to him, and the charge 
that he has sometimes apparently claimed 
as his own that which he should have at- 
tributed to the Polish professor is, perhaps, 
not wholly unfounded ; yet the claim of 
the latter for priority was so well under- 
stood by scientific men that his attack on 
Professor Dewar was at least unnecessary. 
That the Englishman, possibly somewhat 
rankled that his countrymen should have 
called on a foreigner to assist in their study 
of Argon, was led to make a spirited 
rejoinder, to pose as more of an inde- 
pendent investigator than the facts warrant, 
and to depreciate the work of his op- 
ponent, is perhaps not to *be wondered 
at, but certainly not to be excused. Alto- 
gether the discussion is profitless and un- 
fortunate. 

Jas. Lewis Howe. 

WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY. 


544 


CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY (VIII). 
A SPELHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

OF course, everybody knows what spelz- 
ology means—or perhaps there are one 
or two who do not, considering that the 
word was manufactured only last year. Its 
sponsor was M. H. A. Martel, a French 
scientist distinguished for his numerous 
and skillful explorations of caves for scien- 
tific purposes. In Greek Speleus means a 
cave, and ‘speleology’ is the science of 
cave-hunting,as it-was called by the English. 
A society has been formed in Paris with that 
as a specialty, concerning which the curious 
inquirer can learn more if he addresses M. 
Martel, No. 8. Rue Menard. 

The subject is one richly deserving this 
kind of concentrated and special study. No 
localities preserve more perfectly the records 
of the past than caverns. In their darkness 
and silence, guarded by their massive walls, 
layer after layer of deposits have been 
strown by their occasional visitors, by inun- 
dations and by percolation. A stalagmitic 
floor, clean, hard and imperishable, seals the 
traces of every occupant in perfect preser- 
vation through all time. Some of the most 
important discoveries in geology and arche- 
ology are due to these conditions. I need 
but mention the labors of Lartet, Christy, 
Boyd Dawkins, and in this country of Cope 
and Mercer, to attest this. 

But nowhere is ignorant excavation more 
fatal than in cave-deposits. There isa high 
science in their examination ; and M. Mar- 
tel has planned an admirable scheme to 
disseminate valuable instruction on this 
essential point. 


A VALUABLE STUDY IN PRIMITIVE ART. 


A srupy in-primitive art of the most satis- 
factory character has been lately published 
by the Royal Irish Academy. It is entitled 
“The Decorative Art of British New Guinea: 
A Study in Papuan Ethnography,’ by Alfred 
C. Haddon, M. A., Professor of Zodlogy in 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 20. 


the Royal College of Science, Dublin. The 
author approaches his topic with an exten- 
sensive personal knowledge of it, and a~ 
thorough appreciation of its bearings on the 
leading questions of ethnology in general. 
The memoir is in large quarto, with twelve 
full-page plates and many cuts inserted in 
the text. Some of the designs are colored, 
and all are copied with fidelity and clear- 
ness. Their variety is astonishing, con- 
sidering that we are dealing with the art of 
cannibalistic savages, and the sense of pro- 
portion and harmony often manifested is 
just and real. The rapid development of 
conventionalism is evident, and even in 
such primitive examples one soon loses the 
traits of the original design. This has often 
been commented on in American aboriginal 
art. 

Professor Haddon corrects the impression 
which sometimes. prevails, that art decora- 
tion, for itself, is unknown to savages. Art 
is related to ease; as he says, ‘ Art flourishes 
where food is abundant.’ Another vital 
conclusion he expresses in these words: 
“The same processes operate on the art of 
decoration, whatever the subject, wherever 
the country, whenever the age, illustrating 
the essential solidarity of mankind.” No 
truer words have been spoken on the sub- 
ject, and ethnographers should learn them 
by heart. 

In every respect the memoir is most 
creditable to the writer and to the institu- 


tion which publishes it. 
D. G. Brinton. 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


JAMES EDWARD OLIVER. 

On March 27th, 1895, after an illness of 
ten weeks, died Professor J. E. Oliver, of 
Cornell University, universally honored and 
beloved. 

For more than twenty years he has been 
at the head of the department of mathe- 
matics in this great institution. 4 


May 17, 1895.] 


Born in Maine in 1829, even from his 
graduation in 1849 he ranked as a mathe- 
matical genius, one of the most remarkable 
America has produced. But he seemed to 
have no ambition to leave an adequate 
record of his mental life in print. In per- 
sonal character he resembled Lobachéysky, 
whom he intensely admired. 

He was spontaneously loyal to the good 
and the true, enthusiastic, thorough, pains- 
taking. He loved poetry ; he loved Shake- 
speare; he was averse to religious creeds. 
For Professor Oliver goodness was spon- 
taneous. He did the right not because it 
was right, but because he intensely wished 
todojustthat. The spring of action seemed 
a combination of sympathy, perception, 
; knowledge, scientific logic. 

j In mathematics Professor Oliver worked 
_ for the love of it and because he was deeply 
convinced that mathematics affords that 
fine culture which the best minds seek for 
its own sake. 

He was a pronounced believer in the non- 

Euclidean geometry. 

I vividly recall how he came up after my 
H lecture on Saccheri at Chicago, and express- 
_ ing his interest in the most charming fash- 
7 ion, proceeded unhesitatingly to give me a 
profound lecture on stellar parallax, the 
measurement of the angles of astronomical 
triangles and the tests of the quality of 
what Cayley called ‘the physical space of 
our experience.’ 

Again, after the Brooklyn meeting of the 
American Association, he took up the same 
subject with me, explained a plan for com- 
_bining stellar spectroscopy with ordinary 
parallax determinations, and expressed his 
disbelief that C. S. Pierce had proved our 
space to be of Lobachévsky’s kind, and his 
conviction that our universal space is really 
finite, therein agreeing with Sir Robert 
Ball. 


GrorGE Bruce HALsTED. 
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. 


SCIENCE. 


545 


JAMES DWIGHT DANA. 

We take from the authorized account by 
Professor Edward 8. Dana, in the May num- 
ber of the American Journal of Science, the 
following facts concerning Dana’s life. He 
was born in Utica, N. Y., on February 12, 
1813, his father and mother being from 
Massachusetts. He early showed an inter- 
est in natural history, which increased dur- 
ing his course at Yale College from 1830 to 
1833. Immediately after graduation, Dana 
spent fifteen months as instructor in mathe- 
matics to the mid-shipmen of the United 
States Navy, the time being passed in the 
Mediterranean. He then spent two years 
at New Haven, being part of the time as- 
sistant in chemistry to Benjamin Silliman. 
The four following years were spent with 
the exploring expedition sent by the govern- 
ment of the United States under Wilkes to 
the Southern and Pacific Oceans. The fol- 
lowing years were devoted to the study of 
the material collected. In 1844 he married 
a daughter of Prof. Silliman, who survives 
him, and in 1846 became associated with 
him in the editorship of the American Jour- 
nal of Science. In 1850 Dana was made pro- 
fessor in Yale College. The remainder of 
his life was spent as teacher, editor, author 
and investigator. 

Dana was President of the American As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Science in 
1852, and was one of the original members 
of the National Academy of Sciences ; he 
received the Wollaston Medal of the Geo- 
logical Society of London, the Copley Medal 
from the Royal Society, and the Walker 
Prize from the Boston Society of Natural 
History. He received honorary degrees 
from the University of Munich, Edinburgh 
and Harvard. He was a member of the 
Royal Society of London, the Institute of 
France, the Royal Academies of Berlin, 
Vienna and St. Petersburg, and many 
other societies. 

In addition to a large number of papers 


546 


printed in the American Journal of Science 
and elsewhere, he is the author of the fol- 
lowing works : 

A System of Mineralogy, 1837, 1844, 1850, 

Zoophytes, 1846. 

Manual of Mineralogy, 1848, 1857, 1878, 
1887. 

Coral Reefs and Islands, 1853. 

Crustacea, 1852-54, 

Manual of Geology, 1862, 1874, 1880, 
1895. 

A Text-Book of Geology, 1864, 1874, 
1882. 

A System of Mineralogy, 1868. 

Corals and Coral Islands, 1872, 1890. 

The Geological Story Briefly Told, 1875. 

Characteristics of Volcanoes, 1890. 

The Four Rocks of the New Haven Re- 
gion, 1891. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 

THE EDUCATION OF THE TOPOGRAPHER. 

To THE Epitor oF Science: Part of 
Professor Merriman’s review in SCIENCE 
for April 26 interests me as being the 
direct opposite of my own opinion. He 
says, apropos of Mr. Gannett’s statement 
that the topographer must be able to gener- 
alize through his knowledge of geological 
processes : ‘‘ These are dangerous doctrines. 
The earth exists, the duty of the topo- 
grapher is to map it truly, and the study of 
the origin of its features should come later.”’ 
T should like very much to learn through 
the columns of Science the opinions of 
other geographers and topographers on this 
question. 

It is not alone the earth that exists; a 
large series of topographical maps of various 
parts of the earth also exist; and through 
their study the young topographer can learn 
much about the kind of work he will have 
when surveying those separate parts of the 
earth that are not yet mapped. This kind of 
knowledge will help him in mapping new 
regions in about the same way that prelimi- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 20, 


nary study of known forms of plants and 
animals helps the systematist to describe 
new forms when he finds them. BS 

It is certainly the duty of the topographer 
to make true maps; but the truest map is 
always only a generalization. Something is 
necessarily omitted, and the topographer 
has to choose between what he shall omit 
and what he shall represent. He sees 
many things that he can not map. How 
shall he be best aided in making on the 
small sheet of paper before him an expres- 
sive map of the broad surface of country 
around him? I do not say ‘an accurate 
map,’ because the word ‘accurate’ is so gen- 
erally misunderstood in this connection. 
It is often taken to imply that the topog- 
rapher has actually measured every part 
of the surface of the country and carefully 
constructed every line on his paper. As a@ 
matter of fact, by far the larger part of all 
maps is sketched, and in the sketching more 
facts often have to be omitted than can be 
represented. Hence, everything should be 
taught to the topographer that will aid him 
in really seeing the facts that are before 
him and faithfully representing such of them 
as come within the limit of the scale he em- 
ploys. 

Nothing is of more assistance in seeing 
the facts, and in thus making a good begin- 
ning towards sketching them properly, than 
some understanding of their origin and 
meaning. Hence I believe that the best 
course of education for topographers while 
yet in school should include a careful study 
of the development of land forms, and that ~ 
the best practical work by topographers 
will require a very careful and sympathetie 
study of the origin of the land forms on 
the ground before him. The prepossession 
that contour lines bend up-stream has de- 
ceived many a topographer into giving a 
wrong expression to flat alluvial cones. In- 
difference to the significance and impor- 
tance of the sharp edge of a gorge or a cliff 


May 17, 1895.] 


has rounded off many a truly angular con- 
tour line into an inexpressive curve. 

The objection that is sometimes made 
against this view of a topographer’s educa- 
tion and work is that, if he tries to sketch 
what he thinks he understands, he will 
sometimes sketch what is not really before 
him. There may be a certain amount of 
truth in this, but there are sufficient an- 
swers to it. A topographer who is too far 
guided by his imagination has been badly 
taught, or else he is of a mental quality that 
will prevent his ever becoming a good topog- 
rapher, quite apart from whatever education 
he has had. The well taught topographer 
will make no larger share of mistakes on 
account of being well informed on his sub- 
ject than will the well taught systematic 
botanist or zoologist. The few mistakes of 
interpretation that the well taught topog- 
rapher may make will, I believe, be far out- 
weighed by excellence of the other part of 
his work. 

It is perhaps because I have a higher 
idea of a topographer’s work than ordina- 
rily obtains that I should like to see him 
generally better educated for it. To my 
mind, a map is so far from being a copy of 
nature that I should prefer to call it a 
graphic description of nature, and in the 
making of this graphic description the 
topographer should study his subject and his 
graphic signs with the same care that a 
writer should study his thoughts and the 
words he employs to represent them. In- 
struments, to which some topographers 
seem to give their first attention, ought to 
have about the same place in their real 
work that a typewriting machine has in 
the work of a literary man. 

The chief subject of the topographer’s 
study should be the form of the land before 
him; and until this is recognized in en- 
gineering schools and enforced by a careful 
course of preparatory physiographical study, 
I believe we shall not have the best maps 


SCIENCE. 


5AT- 


that can be made. Even further, it is as 
impossible to make a good topographer by 
merely teaching him about plane tables and 
stadia and logarithms as it is to make an 
essayist by teaching him about writing and 
spelling. It seems to me, in fine, that Pro- 
fessor Merriman’s interest in the mathe- 
matical aspects of the art of topography 
leads him to place too low a value on the 
importance of studying the chief subject of 
the topographer’s attention, the forms of the 
land. W. M. Davis. 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 30, 1895. 


THE HELMHOLTZ MEMORIAL, 


A FEW months ago Hermann von Helm- 
holtz died, one of the greatest scientific 
geniuses of all time, whose name will not be 
forgotten as long as men care for the knowl- 
edge of Nature. His invention of the oph- 
thalmoscope made the success of the modern 
oculist possible; his papers on the conserva- 
tion of energy gave the strongest impulse to 
modern physics; his books on seeing and 
hearing became the basis of modern psy- 
chology. 

It seems a matter of course that the pres- 
ent generation should express its gratitude 
ina lasting monument. Not only his friends 
and pupils all over the world, but men of 
science and physicians everywhere have 
supported this idea, and so last month an 
International Committee was formed to col- 
lect money for the erection of a great Helm- 
holtz monument in Berlin, where for the 
past twenty-five years he lived and worked. 
The plan has nothing to do with local pa- 
triotism ; America, France, England, Italy 
and Russia are represented on the Commit- 
tee; not a decoration of the city of Berlin 
is in question, but a universal expression of 
devotion to the spirit of natural science. 

No doubt America will take a very high 
place in the list of givers. There has been 
seldom such an opportunity to show that 
the United States does not stand behind any 


548 


‘other country in intellectual interests. But 
America has a special reason for paying her 
respects to the genius of Helmholtz, since 
Helmholtz in his seventy-second year paid 
his tribute of respect to the genius of Amer- 
ica. One year before his death he crossed 
the ocean to study and to enjoy the scien- 
tific institutions of this country from the 
Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains, certainly 
the most famous European who has visited 
America for many years, and nobody who 
saw his noble personality in New York or 
Boston or Baltimore, in Philadelphia or 


Washington or Chicago, will ever forget - 


him. 

The American members of the Interna- 
tional Committee are Dr. Wolcott Gibbs, 
President of the National Academy of Sci- 
ences ; Dr. Herman Knapp, Professor of Co- 
lumbia College; and Dr. Hugo Munsterberg, 
Professor of Harvard University. 

Contributions may be sent before May 
25th to the undersigned Secretary and 
Treasurer of the American Committee. 
The lists of contributors will be published 
weekly in ScrENCcE. 

Huco MunstEerBerc. 

38 QUINCY STREET, CAMBRIDGE, MAss. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

Manual of Geology. By James D. Dana. 
Fourth Hdition. American Book Co. 
1895. 

The announcement, a few months ago, of 

a new edition of Dana’s Manual filled ge- 

ologists with liveliest expectations. It is 

needless to say that these expectations are 
more than realized. The Manual is so well 
known that a full account is wholly un- 
necessary—geologists need no urging to 
buy it. They simply must have it; they 
cannot do without it. I write this, there- 
fore, not to call attention to the book ; but 
partly because Iam glad to have this op- 
portunity to express my unstinted admira- 
tion for the author and for the book; and 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 20. 
partly because I wish to draw attention to 
the author’s position on some important 
questions which have come into prominencé 
since the last edition. 

1. Every geologist will be gratified to 
see that the author now comes out frankly 
for evolution; not, indeed, evolution in a 
materialistic sense, but in a reverent, theis- 
tic sense. In a certain Agassizian sense 
he has always been an evolutionist, but he 
has been often quoted by the opponents of — 
evolution as now understood (i. e., ‘ origin 
of organic forms by descent with modifica- 
tions’) as sustaining their position. In 
this edition his utterances are not to be any 
longer mistaken ; although he is, perhaps, 
more nearly Lamarckian than Darwinian, 
or, at least, than Neo-Darwinian. Surely 
such plasticity and open receptiveness of 
mind retained even to the very last is a 
noble evidence of the true scientific spirit. 

2. In this edition he separates the Pale- 
ozoic into two primary divisions with Ho- 
Paleozoic, including the Cambrian and Lower 
Silurian, and the Neo-Palewozoic, including 
the Upper Silurian, Devonian and Carbonic. 
Thus he makes the greatest break occur be- 
tween the Lower and Upper Silurian. If 
this be so, would it not be better to use 
Lapworth’s term ‘Ordovician’ for Lower 
Silurian, retaining the term Silurian for the 
Upper Silurian alone? Probably this would 
violate the priority-rule of nomenclature ; 
but, perhaps in this, as in many other cases, 
rules too strictly interpreted stand in the 
way of a rational classificatiqn. 

3. He accepts the probability of a Per- 
mian glaciation, especially in the Southern 
Hemisphere ; and of an elevation and en- 
largement of an Antarctic continent and 
its connection with the southern points of 
South America, South Africa and Australia 
as a cause of such glaciation. These great 
changes of physical geography and climate, 
and consequent wide migrations of faunas 
and floras, would go far to account for the 


May 17, 1895.] 


enormous and apparently sudden changes 
‘in organic forms which took place during 
and at the end of the Permian period. 

4. In connection with the last he accepts 
also the idea of a land-connection (Gond- 
wanaland) between India and South Africa, 
and perhaps indirectly through the en- 
Jarged Antarctic continent—with Australia 
—in Permian and Triassic times, as evi- 
denced by the great similarity of the plants 
and the reptiles of that time in these now 
widely separated countries. It is true that 
there is very deep sea between these points 
now; but it is possible that the idea of the 
permanence of deep sea basins, originated 
by Dana, may have been pushed a trifle too 
far by Wallace as a means of separating 
faunas and floras. 

5. He does not accept Algonkian as a 
system of rocks codrdinate with Paleozoic 
and Mesozoic, but regards these pre-Cam- 
brian strata as the upper part of the 
Archean, 7. e., as Huronian and upper 
Laurentian. Perhaps the time is not yet 
come to settle this question definitely. 

6. He accepts as probable the existence 
in Quaternary times of a greatly elevated 
and enlarged Antarctic continent, connect- 
‘ing with and connecting together the south- 
ern parts of South America, South Africa 
and Australia similar to that of Permian 
times, as evidenced by the faunas, and as 
accounting for the Quaternary glaciation 
of these regions. 

7. He agrees with Hilgard in thinking 
that the LaFayette formation (many geo- 
logists seem to forget that we owe this 
name to Hilgard) is a torrential river de- 
posit of the early Quaternary and not a 
marine deposit of the Pliocene times as 
aintained by McGee, and that therefore it 
indicates elevation and not depression of 
e continent. 

8. He does not accept Croll’s theory of 
e cause of the glacial climate ; but, along 


with most American geologists, regards it as 


SCIENCE. 


549 


mainly due to elevation of northern land. 
This would not only directly increase the 
cold in high latitude regions, but would in- 
directly increase the ice-accumulation by 
connecting America and Europe in these 
regions and thus limiting the northward 
extension of the Gulf Stream, which, cireu- 
lating around the Atlantic in mid-latitude 
regions, would furnish abundant warm 
vapors to be condensed as snow on the 
elevated northern land. 

9. As might have been expected, his dis- 
cussion of mountain-making is masterly. 
But one is interested, though not surprised, 
to observe that he does not accept the recent 
theories of Reade, Dutten and others as to 
the cause of mountain formation, but still 
regards the contraction-theory in some form 
as more probable. 

But a reviewer is ‘nothing if not critical.’ 
I must vindicate my character as reviewer 
by finding some faults, even though they be 
trifling. 

10. This edition, we observe, drops out 
the graphic illustrations of the distribution, 
in time, of families, orders and classes of 
animals, which constitutes so conspicuous, 
and, we may add, so attractive a feature of 
previous editions. We observe also that 
the index of authors quoted and of those 
from whom figures are taken is omitted. 
This is to be regretted in a work which 
will be so constantly referred to. 

11. We observe also a few errors of over- 
sight or of misunderstanding of authors 
quoted. On page 359, and again on page 
380, he gives, on King’s authority, the whole 
thickness of Wahsatch sediments, from the 
Cambrian to the Laramie inclusive, as 31,- 
000 feet. In fact, King gives between 31,- 
000 and 32,000 for the Paleozoic alone, page 
122; and in addition 3,800 feet for Jura- 
Trias, page 537, and 12,000 feet for the Cre- 
taceous, page 539 (49th parallel, Vol. 1). 

Again, he states on page 520 that the oldest 
known insect—Protocimex—is found in the 


550 


upper part of the lower Silurian; but on page 
566 he says that the oldest known insect is 
the Palcoblattina of the wpper Silurian. 

We might mention others, but they are 
all trifling. In fact, the accuracy of the 
book is extraordinary. 

In conclusion, we must heartily and most 
gratefully welcome the new edition. It is 
hard to say what American would be with- 
out Dana’s Manual. Its encyclopedic full- 
ness and yet extreme conciseness makes it 
hard reading for those who come to it with- 
out serious purpose. The word ‘Manual’ ex- 
actly expresses its purposes and uses. It 
must be in the hands of every special stu- 
dent; it must lie on the table of every 
teacher of Geology to be consulted on every 
subject of doubt. 


I had just finished this notice when the 
sad news of Dana’s death was flashed across 
the continent. All recognized that this 
event could not be long delayed; but none 
the less it came as a shock to every man of 
science in the country. We are thankful 
that he lived to finish this new edition, for 
it is indeed the only fitting monument. No 
monument is worthy of a man of science 
except that which he erects for himself. 

JosePH Lr Conte. 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 


A Handbook of Systematic Botany. By Dr. E. 


Warmine. Translated and edited by M. 
C. Potter. 8vo. pp. 620, fig. 610. -Lon- 
don, Swan, Sonnenschein & Co. New 


York, Macmillan & Co. 1895. 

This excellent English translation of Pro- 
fessor Warming’s important work will be 
welcomed by all students and it cannot fail 
to have a wide use as a text-book. . The de- 
scriptions of the groups are clear, concise 
and complete, the illustrations capital and 
many of them original, and the press-work 
leaves nothing to be desired. 

The arrangement of groups is from sim- 
ple to complex—the only arrangement com- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Voz. I. No. 20. 


patible with our present knowledge. The 
special application of this principle may be 
best stated in Dr. Warming’s own words as 
printed in the preface: 


“Each form which, on comparative morphological — 
considerations, is clearly less simple, or can be shown 
to have arisen by reduction or through abortion of 
another type having the same fundamental’ structure, 
or in which a further differentiation and division of 
labor is found, will be regarded as younger, and as 
far as possible, and so far as other considerations will 
admit, will be reviewed later than the ‘simpler,’ 
more complete or richer forms. For instance, to serye 
as an illustration: EpigyNy and PERIGYNY are less 
simple than Hypocyny ; the Epigynous Sympetalz, 
Choripetalz, Monocotyledones are, therefore, treated 
last; the Hydrocharitacex are considered last under the 
Helobiex, etc. ZYGOMORPHY is younger than ACTINO- 
MORPHY ; the Scitaminee and Gynandrx, therefore, 
follow after the Lilliflore, the Scrophulariacex after 
the Solanacex, Linaria after Verbascum, etc. FORMS 
WITH UNITED LEAVES indicate younger types than 
those with free leaves; hence the Sympetale come 
after the Choripetalx, the Silenex after the Alsinex, 
the Malvacez after the Sterculiacee and Tiliacex, ete. 

““ AcyCLic (spiral-leaved) flowers are older than 
cyclic (verticillate-leaved) with a definite number, 
comparing, of course, only those with the same funda- 
mental structure. The Veronica-Type must be con- 
sidered as younger, for example, than Digitalis and 
Antirrhinum; these again as younger than Scrophularia; 
Verbascum, on the contrary, is the least reduced, and, 
therefore, considered as the oldest form. Similarly 
the one-seeded, nut-fruited Ranunculacew are con- 
sidered as a later type (with evident abortion) than 
the many-seeded, follicular forms of the order; the 
Paronychiex and Chenopodiacee as reduced forms of 
the Alsinex type ; and the occurrence of few seeds in 
an ovary as generally arising through reduction of the 
many-seeded forms. The Cyperdcexr are regarded as 
a form derived from the Juncacex through reduction, 
and associated with this, as is so often the case, there 
is a complication of the inflorescence ; the Dipsacacew 
are again regarded as a form proceeding from the 
Valerianacee by a similar reduction, and those in 
their turn as an off-shoot from the Caprifoliacer, ete. 
Of course these principles of systematic arrangement. 
could only be applied very generally ; for teaching 
purposes they have often required modification.” 


While there is wide difference of opinion 
among botanists as to the relative degree of 
complexity of some of the families, and the 
sequence adopted by Engler and Prantl in 


May 17, 1895.] 


their ‘ Natiirliche Pflanzenfamilien ’ will ap- 
peal to many students as in some respects 
more philosophical, all the suggestions con- 
tained in this book must be regarded as 
-yery valuable. 

Plants are here divided into five great di- 
visions: (1) Thallophyta; (2) Muscinese ; 
(8) Pteridophyta ; (4) Gymnosperme ; (5) 
Angiospermze. We note in this a departure 
from some recent views where the divisions 
2, 3 and 4 have been grouped under the 
‘primary division Archegoniate, and from 
others where the divisions 4 and 5 have been 
grouped as Spermatophyta. 

_ Dr. Warming does not discuss the rela- 
tive value of these different views, content- 
ing himself with alluding to them. We 
“may note that the disadvantage of recog- 
nizing the Archegoniatze as above circum- 
scribed is found in the fact that the female 
organs of the Angiosperms are also arche- 
-gones. It must be admitted that the group- 
ing here maintained has many points in its 
favor, but it is our opinion that the term 
‘sub- kingdom’ is more explicit for the 
primary groups than ‘ division.’ 

. The Thallophyta are divided into ‘ sub- 
: (a) Myxomycetes, (b) Algze, (c) 
It is said of the Myxomycetes that 


are treated, unphilosophically,it would seem 
to us, asa family of Algz, being grouped 
with the Schizophyce under the class Schi- 
zophyta. The treatment of the higher Algwe 
and Fungi is not essentially different from 
that of other recent authors. (It should be 
remarked that the arrangement and descrip- 
tion of the Thallophytes is largely contri- 
buted by Dr. E. Knoblauch.) The Fungi 
imperfecti are placed at the end of the sub- 
ision, and the only groups admitted to 
this category are the Saccharomyces-forms, 
fhe Oidium-forms and Mycorhiza. Lichens 


SCIENCE. 


551 


are discussed under Ascomycetes and Basi- 
diomycetes. 

The Muscinee are treated as (1) Hepatic 
and (2) Musci frondosi. Neither in these 
nor in the Pteridophyta do we find any 
yiews very different from those of other re- 
cent authors. In the Gymnosperms we 
find the three classes, Cycadez, Conifers 
and Gnetez, maintained ; the Conifers are 
distinctly separated into two families, Tax- 
oidez and Pinoidez, which is a suggestion 
of much importance. 

Under the Angiospermee we find a discus- 
sion of the systematic value of the primary 
group Chalazogams, recently suggested by 
Treub. It will be remembered that Treub 
found that in the curious genus Casuarina 
the pollen-tube entered the ovule near the 
chalaza, and on this character proposed to 
divide the Angiosperms into Chalazogames 
and Porogames, Casuarina being the only 
genus known to him that would fall into 
his first group. Dr. Warming concludes, 
from the more recent observations of Na- 
waschin and Miss Benson, which indicate 
the similar entrance of the pollen-tube in 
Betula, Alnus, Corylus and Carpinus, that 
our knowledge of this phenomenon is as yet 
too meagre to warrant us in maintaining 
the views of Treub, and so he adopts the 
usual grouping into Monocotyledones and 
Dicotyledones. His primary grouping of 
the Monocotyledones is as follows : (1) He- 
lobiew, Juncaginaceze being taken as the 
lowest type; (2) Glumiflorz, in which he 
includes the Juncaceze, a position which we 
do not believe can be satisfactorilly main- 
tained; (3) Spadiciflore; (4) Enantio- 
blaste ; (5) Liliifloree; (6) Scitamines and 
(7) Gynandre. It will be observed that in 
this arrangement he differs considerably in 
detail from that of Eichler and Engler and 
Prantl. The primary division of the An- 
giosperme is into (1) Choripetal, begin- 
ning with Salicaceze and ending with Hys- 
terophyta (parasites such as the Lorantha- 


552 


cere and Santalacez), and (2) Sympetale, 
beginning with Bicornes and ending with 
Ageregatee. 

An appendix, contributed by the trans- 
lator, gives a useful tabulation of the sys- 
tem of Ray (1703), Linneeus (1783), A. L. 
de Jussieu (1789), A. P. DeCandolle (1819), 
Endlicher (1836-40), Brongniart (1843), 
Lindley (1845), A. Braun (1864), Bentham 
and Hooker (1862-83), Sachs (1882), Hich- 
ler (1883), Engler (1892). N. L. B. 


The Story of the Stars. G. F. CHAMBERS. 
New York. D. Appleton & Co. 1895. 
Pp. 160. 


Tue Messrs. Appleton have begun with 
this small monograph their Library of Use- 
ful Stories, a series of paper covered booklets 
intended to embrace the ground of science, 
history, ete. This initial number, by Mr. 
George Chambers, an English astronomical 
writer of long experience, proves to be 
rather better than a first impression would 
lead one to judge; for the illustrations, 
which first strike the eye, are for the most 
part simply execrable. What excuse for 
the absence of more and better ones, in 
these days of inexpensive engraving? Its 
curiously insular mannerisms might readily 
have been corrected by a half hour’s work 
of an American editor, who should also 
have toned down those provincial oddities 
of style which mar this book even more, be- 
cause of its smaller size, than the same 
author’s large Descriptive Astronomy. 

Curiously false implications are wrought 
into the first chapter, though only a page or 
two in length. If the manifold uses of as- 
tronomy are to be competently brought be- 
fore the public mind to-day, and the rea- 
sons for the support of that science from the 
public exchequer suitably defended, it is 
only by telling a few simple things exactly 
as they are. Now, it may be true in Eng- 
land that, if “‘ the staff belonging to either 
establishment [the Royal Observatory or 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 20, 


the Nautical Almanac Office] were to re- 
sort to the fashionable expedient of a strike 
for higher pay,” then, among other dire re- 
sults, * Our railway system would become 
utterly disorganized. A few trains could 
run, but the intervals between them would 
have to be considerable, and they could only 
travel by daylight and at very low speeds,” 
but we do not exactly see why. Rather the 
fact is that, if both these establishments 
were permanently closed henceforth, the 
present state of astronomy is such that all 
the public business of determining time for 
railways and of preparing data for naviga- 
ting ships could be done for the fiftieth part 
of the budget now devoted to the Nautical 
Almanac and the Royal Observatory ; and 
any government maintaining such costly es- 
tablishments, with their corps of trained ob- 
servers and expert computers, merely for this 
simple though important purpose, would 
be very foolish indeed. Not only would 
the expenditure be extravagant, but wholly 
unjustifiable. These institutions are main- 
tained for quite other purposes; and the 
significant work of the great government 
observatories (excellently done in England, 
France and Russia, and which in this coun- 
try we have been trying for a half century 
to do, though not succeeding very well be- 
cause the proper organization is lacking) 
lies in quite other fields, the immediate ser- 
viceableness of which is by no means univer- 
sally conceded. Blanketing all this under 
the antiquated plea of utility in time and 
navigation is clearly wrong and wholly in- 
defensible. 

Mr. Chambers’s attempt to popularize 
seems rather hard, and on the whole of 
doubtful success. Excellent scientific ex- 
planations go on for a while, when suddenly 
the author, seemingly suspecting that he is 
less interesting than he ought to be, plunges 
patchily into something purely literary, or — 
indulges in some incongruous expression not 
exactly ludicrous, but giving an undignified 


“May 17, 1895.] 


east to essays on the most dignified subject 
in the whole range of the sciences. No 
carelessness or vulgarity in style was ever 
a compliment to the literary taste of a 
reader, and neither the cause of literature, 
science nor anything else is likely to be en- 
hanced by allusions to ‘some Germans 
nibbling’ at stellar photometry; or by pon- 
derous anecdotes about hypothetical carrots, 
“that grew so well that the roots reached 
_ right through to the other side of the earth.” 
The proof revision has been none too care- 
fully done—illustrations on pages 60 and 
116 have been interchanged ; the incorrect 
spelling of Palitzsch would not perhaps at- 
tract attention, except that the author, being 
also the compiler of a handy little German- 
French-English lexicon, we expect better 
things of him; and while ‘ Bob’ passes cur- 
rent everywhere for Robert, ‘ Boberts’ will 
searcely do for Roberts. The general scien- 
tifie reliability of statement is fully up to 
the standard expected of Mr. Chambers, and 
only one or two inaccuracies need be pointed 
 out—at the: middle of page 18, where he 
_ should have written, ‘a vertical plane pass- 
ing through the zenith;’ and on page 73, 
where the exact opposite of what is meant 
is inadvertently said, regarding the stars 
‘converging towards’ a point in Hercules. 
Of course in so small a book one must 
not expect everything ; but some omissions 
are noteworthy. In evena magazine article 
about the stars a single page about their 
distances would be only too brief, but Mr. 
Chambers gives only this amount in a 
volume of 150 pages, with no allusion to the 
name of Bessel in this connection, or Briin- 
now or Gill. The classic work of Dr. Gould 
should not have been omitted. The superb 
advances of stellar photography in the hands 
of the brothers Henry, Russell, Gill, 
Barnard, Roberts, Wolf and others are 
barely alluded to, or left out entirely. The 
accurate researches on the brightness of 
by the Potsdam astronomers are wholly 


SCIENCE. 


5d3: 


ignored. If the space of six pages could be 
given to ‘ The Stars in Poetry,’ and a third 
of that amount to speculative ‘rubbish’ re- 
garding the origin of the Milky Way, is it 
quite the thing to have crowded out com- 
pletely the nebular hypothesis, which has 
engaged such master minds as Herschel, 

La Place, Lord Kelvin and Darwin? 

Several chapters are almost purely descrip- 

tive, or mere geography of the heavens, asi 

if a handbook for the use of small tele- 
scopes ; a little yeast here would have done 
no harm; but it should be pervasive and 
inherent—not added as an afterthought. 

Mr. Maunder has appended an excellent 

chapter on the marvels of the spectroscope: 

as applied to the stars and nebule. 

It is not, however, intended to imply that 
there is not much that is excellent in Mr. 
Chambers’s Story of the Stars, both as to form 
andarrangement. Its convenient size, clear 
type and authoritative statements (even 
with occasional lapses into ‘ dread’ techni- 
calities) render it, on the whole, an in- 
telligible and interesting booklet, which will 
be a vast help to the student and general 
reader, and is worth double what the pub- 
lishers ask for it. But the author has far 
from succeeded in making the most and best 
of his opportunity. Davin P. Topp. 

AMHERST COLLEGE. 

The World of Matter: A Guide to the Study of 
Chemistry and Mineralogy. By Harian H. 
Batiarp, A. M. Boston, D. C. Heath 
& Co. 1894. 

The object of this book is apparently to 
enable those who may not have an oppor- 
tunity to study natural phenomena in a 
thorough way to obtain some comprehen- 
sion of the objects and methods of scienti- 
fie investigation by means of a few well 
chosen experiments. The object is a good 
one; will a study of this book further it? 

It is impossible to say definitely, yes or 
no. The explanations, so far as they go, are 
generally excellent, but the tendency of the 


554 


author to preach rather than to guide is 
often noticeable. After most properly bid- 
ding the student accept as fact no scientific 
statement capable of easy demonstration 
until he has proved it such, the book con- 
tains several chapters with hardly a single 
one of the statements made supported by 
experiment. For instance, we find (p. 179) 
that “we have now become somewhat 
familiar with,” among other elements, 
“aluminum and iron; and we have inci- 
dentally become acquainted with a number 
of their more important compounds.” Ex- 
perimentally, how? Thus: The student is 
bidden to look for iron ore in soil, to write 
down what he already knows about iron, to 
examine the physical properties of siderite, 
to heat a piece of pyrite, and to note the 
physical properties of slate and of feld- 
spar. That is all. Now, this is not experi- 
mental chemistry; it is boiled-down ency- 
clopeedia. 

On the other hand, after having studied 
Ice, Water, Fire, Air, Earth and Quartz, 
molecules and atoms and all the other fas- 
cinating mysteries are brought in in a chap- 
ter called A Lesson in Chemistry (!); later, 
atomic weights are given and symbols in 
plenty. After having stated as facts the 
Laws of Chemical Combination, the author 
later, without further explanation, gives the 
following formule for some of the minerals 
the studentis to work with—of course, with 
their names: FeS,, (FeMnZn).0,, (CaMg 
AlFe)SiO,, (KFeMgAl1), Si0,, Li,AJ,Si,.0,., 
(CaMg),(AlFe),Si0... 

The directions are in some cases almost 
tediously explicit, and this is right; fre- 
quently, however, they err on the other 
side. The student is given directions to 
use phosphorus, and occasionally other dan- 
gerous substances, without a word of cau- 
tion. Considering the inexperience of the 
student, and the fact of his working proba- 
bly alone, this is a matter of some impor- 
tance. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 20. 


To sum up, if all the theoretical portion 
of the book, all symbols, atomic weights, 
ete., had been left out, and a few experi> 
ments on the chemical properties of substances 
like iron and aluminium—to mention but 
two—put in to fill the vacuum, Mr. Bal- 
lard’s book would have filled a lack. It 
cannot at present—at least, unassisted. 

Wyatt W. RanpatLt. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 

Art the meeting of the trustees of Colum- 
bia College, on May 6th, President Low sub- 
scribed one million dollars for the construe- 
tion of the new library building. He stated 
that it is to be a memorial to his father, the 
late A. A. Low, ‘a merchant who taught 
his son to value the things for which Colum- 
bia College stands.’ The trustees passed 
the following resolution : 

Resolved, That the trustees accept with the deepest 
sense of gratitude the offer conveyed by President 
Low in his letter of May 6, 1895, subject to all the 
conditions therein expressed ; and that the Clerk of 
the Board be instructed to convey to the president the 
thanks of the trustees for this most munificent and 
opportune gift, unprecedented in the scale of its gen- 
erosity, and affording fresh evidence of the president’s 
unbounded devotion to the interest of the College, 

President Low’s gift: was accompanied 
by the following conditions which add to 
rather than detract from its value: That 
twelve Brooklyn scholarships for boys be 
established in Columbia College, and twelve 
Brooklyn scholarships for girls in Barnard 
College ; that eight university scholarships, 
to be known as the President’s University 
Scholarships, be established; that a uni- 
versity fellowship, the Class of ’70 Fellow- 
ship, be established. President Low gradu- 
ated in the class of ’70. 

At the same meeting Mr. W. C. Scher- 
merhorn, chairman of the trustees, sub- 
scribed three hundred thousand dollars for 
the Natural Science Building, or other build- 
ing or part of building that may be more 
needed. 


‘May 17, 1895.] 


Caru Voer, Professor of Natural History 
in the University of Geneva, died in Geneva 
on May 5th, at the age of seventy-seven 
_ years. Vogt made important contributions 
to physiology, zoology and geology, but be- 
came most widely known through his work 
‘On Man’ (1863), written from a material- 
istic point of view. He was born at Giessen, 
July 5, 1817, studied at that place, under 
 Liebig, and at Berne, worked with Agassiz 
and was made professor at Giessen. After 
taking a prominent part in the Frankfort 
Parliament of 1848, he considered it prudent 
to retire to Switzerland, and from 1852 was 
_ professor in the University of Geneva. 


Miss Crane, through her excellent re- 
views and synopses of current brachiopod 
literature, certainly keeps the public well 
informed of the progress made in this de- 
partment, and from time to time she ventures 
to make contributions of her own to the 
knowledge of the class. Her latest paper, 
The Evolution of the Brachiopoda (Geolog- 
ical Magazine, February and March, 1895), 
is a combination of the results and con- 
clusions reached in the most recent invest- 
igations by various authorities, together 
with a general application of the facts to 
_@ scheme of phylogeny. The profound 
_ changes which have been made of late 
the classification of the Brachiopoda 


evolution are graphically stated :—‘‘ The 
Brachiopoda now seem to justify the pre- 
science of Darwin. Formerly regarded as 


favor of it.’ 


Tue building containing the entomolog- 
ical department of the Amherst State Col- 
lege is being enlarged so that the capacity 
of the laboratories will be doubled. 


Moyey has been given to defray the ex- 


SCIENCE. 


555 


penses of transporting to Mount Hamilton 
and erecting there the great reflecting tele- 
scope presented to the Lick Observatory by 
Mr. Edward Crossley, of England. A re- 
flecting telescope was included in the plans 
for the Lick Observatory made 21 years 
ago, and before Mr. Crossley presented the 
telescope to the observatory Professor Hol- 
den had been in correspondence with him, 
with a view to purchasing it. It is hoped 
that the telescope will be ready for use be- 
fore the close of the current year. 


TuRovuGH a gift of W. C. McDonald, Mc- 
Gill University has secured 35 acres of land 
for botanical gardens and an observatory. 


Tue bill consolidating the Astor, Tilden 
and Lennox libraries has been approved by 
Goy. Morton. The present site of the Len- 
nox library will probably be adopted. 


Dr. Gustav Hirscureitp, Professor of 
Classical Archzeology in the University of 
Konigsberg, died on April 20th. 


A sJomnT meeting of the Scientific Societies 
of Washington, was held on May 10th, on 
the occasion of the delivery of the annual 
address of the President of the National 
Geographic Society, the Hon. Gardiner G. 
Hubbard. The subject of the address was 
‘ Russia.’ 

Dr. FERDINAND Brawn, of Tubingen, has 
been appointed Professor of Physics in the 
University of Strasburg, succeeding Pro- 
fessor Kohlrausch. 

Dr. W. S. Hatt has accepted the Davis 
Professorship of Physiology in the North- 
western University Medical School, of 
Chicago. 

Tue trustees of the University of Penn- 
sylvania have accepted with regret the re- 
signation of Professor Harrison Allen from 
the Professorship of Comparative Anatomy 
and Zoology. 

Accorpine to the American Geologist, Mr. 
Warren Upham, recently of the Minnesota 


506 


Geological Survey, has removed to Cleve- 
land, Ohio, to accept the position of libra- 
rian for the Western Reserve Historical So- 
ciety, and Mr. H. F. Bain has been elected 


Assistant State Geologist ‘of Iowa in place . 


of Dr. Charles R. Keyes, who recently 
resigned to take charge of the Missouri 
Survey. 

Tue Provincial Legislative Assembly of 
Ontario has authorized a grant of $7,500 
towards defraying the expenses of a meet- 
ing of the British Association at Toronto in 
1897, should the Association decide to ac- 
cept the invitation that has already been 
received from Toronto. 


Tue Society of German Naturalists and 
Physicians will meet at Lubeck from Sep- 
tember 16th to 21st. 


Tue death is announced of Dr. Tomsa, 
Professor of Physiology in the University of 
Prague. 

It is stated that Dr. Bertillon has discov- 
ered a new method for identifying hand- 
writing by enlarging the letters by photog- 
raphy and measuring the alterations due 
to beating of the pulse. 

_ THe celebrated Villino Ludovisi, in Rome, 
has been leased for the new American 
School of Architecture and Archeology. 

Accorpine to the Medical Record 14 of the 
140 Medical Schools of the United States 
now require a four years’ course. 

Swan, SonnENSCHEIN & Co. announce for 
publication next autumn a translation by 
Professor H. B. Titchener, of Cornell Uni- 
versity, of Professor O. Kulpe’s Grundriss 
der Psychologie. 


Accorpine to a note in the London Times, 
the excavations by the American School at 
the Heraion of Argos, under the direction 
of Professor Waldstein, which were resumed 
this spring, have been very successful. Two 
hundred and fifty men have been employed 
on the work. Besides the two temples and 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 20. 


five other buildings previously discovered, 
a large and well-preserved colonnade 45 
metres long has now been found 25 feet be= _ 
low the surface south of the second temple. 
The discoveries include parts of metopes, 
two marble heads of the best Greek period, — 
a hundred objects in bronze and gold, gems, 
vases and terra cottas of the Homeric period, 
as well as numerous scarabs and several 
Mycenean tombs with Argive inscriptions 
on bronze, probably of a religious character. 
The excavations, which are now in the 
fourth season, will be completed this year. 
They rival the French excavations at 
Delphi in magnitude and importance, rep- 
resenting all the periods of Greek life from 
prehistoric to Roman epochs. 


THE residue of the estate of Mary D. 
Peabody has been left to the Catholie Uni- 
versity of Washington, for the foundation 
of scholarships (probably three or four of 
the value of $5,000 each) in the chemical 
and physical sciences. 


THE Medical Record gives an account of 
the malarial map of Italy, recently issued 
by the Italian Bureau of Statistics. It is 
based upon the death returns during the 
years 1890-92. The varying intensity of 
the disease in different sections is shown by 
modifications of color. In the three years 
there were 50,000 deaths from malarial 
causes, or 54 in 100,000. The worst dis- 
tricts, where the mortality is as high as 8 
in 1,000, are in southwestern Sardinia, 
southeastern Sicily, the Pontine marshes, 
the district at the head of the Gulf of Ta- 
ranto, and the southeastern slope, from the 
promontory of Gargano south to the Ionian 
Sea. Districts where malaria prevails, but 
not so intensely as to be fatal, are the lower 
reaches of the Po, Grosseto in Tuscany, the 
mouth of the Tiber, and the district near 
Salerno and the temples of Piestum. In 
Rome itself malaria has sensibly declined; 
the deaths in 1881 were 600, in 1892 only 


May 17, 1895.] 


139. The general mortality from this cause 
in Italy has remained pretty constant ; the 
average is 15 or 18 per 1,000. 

Procrams of the School of Applied Ethics, 
which opens at Plymouth, Mass, on July 
8th, may be obtained from the Secretary, 
§. B. Weston, 1305 Arch street, Philadelphia. 


Tae Metropolis Law School has been 
united with the Law School of the Uni- 
versity of the City of New York. 

AccorDInG to the prospectus of the Cot- 
ton States and International Exposition, 
which opens at Atlanta, Ga., on Septem- 
ber 18th, science will be well represented. 
There will be special buildings for machin- 
ery, minerals and forestry, agriculture, elec- 
tricity and transportation. The United 
States Fish Commission will supply an 
- aquarium with tanks occupying 10,000 
square feet, and the National Bureau of 
: 


eo 


ee ae Taye 


Forestry will exhibit models showing meth- 
ods of forest cultivation and preservation. 
We learn from a notice by Prof. Ziwet, 
in the April number of the Bulletin of the 
American Mathematical Society, that the first 
installment of the Répertoire bibliograph- 
ique des Sciences Mathématiques has been is- 
sued. This consists of a set of 100 cards, 
14x8 em., on each of which about 10 titles 
are printed. The series is published by 
_ Gauthier-Villars in Paris and sells for two 
{ francs. It was decided at an international 
meeting held in Paris under the auspices of 
_ the French Mathematical Society to pre- 
\ pare a complete bibliography of the litera- 
ture of mathematics since 1800 and of the 
history of mathematics since 1600. 


re | 


Mr. Ciemens R. Marxuam, President of 
the Royal Geographical Society, in a paper 
read before the Royal United Service Insti- 
tution, urges the importance of an Antarctic 
expedition from a scientific and naval point 
of view, and recommends that it be under- 
taken by the British Government. 

Tue correspondent of the Evening Post 


SCIENCE. 


557 


announces the following new appointments 
at Bryn Mawr College: Dr. Florence Bas- 
com, the only woman who has received the 
Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins University, 
now of the Ohio State University, Reader in 
Geology ; Mr. Richard Norton, Lecturer in 
Archeology; Dr. M. L. Earle, Ph. D., of 
Columbia, Associate Professor of Greek ; 
Mr. P. E. More, Associate in Sanserit; and 
Dr. Alfred Hodder, Lecturer in English 
Literature. 

Dr. Peat, of Butler, Pa., has cast a lens 
60 inches in diameter for the telescope for 
the American University (of Washington). 

Mr. Leonarp T. Mercarr has been ap- 
pointed Professor of Mathematics in the 
Amherst State College. 


The Bakerian Lecture before the Royal 
Society on May 9th was based upon a re- 
search conducted by Messrs. A. Vernon 
Harcourt and William Esson, on ‘The 
Laws of Connexion between the Conditions 
of a Chemical Change and its Amount.’ 


In a brochure of fifty pages issued in con- 
nection with an exhibit at the World’s Fair, 
Mr. Gifford Pinchot gives an account of an 
attempt to introduce a proper system of 
forest management upon the estate of Mr. 
George W. Vanderbilt in North Carolina, 
together with the result of the first year’s 
work. Biltmore is about two miles from 
Asheville, on the tableland in western North 
Carolina. The estate includes 3,891 acres 
of woodland on the banks of the French 
Broad River. The forest is composed chiefly 
of young oaks and other deciduous trees, 
the best timber having been cut away. 
Fires and neglect have also done much in- 
jury. This forest has been divided into 
suitable blocks and compartments, and put 
into the care of a competent forester for 
improvement while at the same time yield- 
ing money returns to the owner. The loca- 
tion of the forest, soil, climate, kinds of 
trees, treatment previous to coming into the 


508 


hands of the present owner, improvement, 
euttings and other topics are discussed. 
While it was not expected that the forest 
would be self-supporting from the start, it 
has been nearly so, the expenditures for the 
year ending April 30, 1893, being $9,911.76, 
and the income from sale of ties, cord-wood, 
lumber and posts, together with the esti- 
mated value of stock on hand, amounting 
to $9,519.36. Part of the tract will be man- 
aged on the regular high forest system with 
a 150-year rotation; the rest, on a selection 
system. Steps have also been taken to re- 
forest a thousand acres of waste land, using 
many kinds of native and foreign trees. 
In connection with this work it is de- 
signed to build up an arboretum second to 
none in the world. This is under the di- 
rection of Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted. 
Already there are in the nursery more kinds 
of trees and shrubs than in the gardens at 
Kew, and the number is being steadily in- 
ereased. This arboretum will form the 
borders of a drive about five mile long. 
Careful records are being kept in connection 
with the work, and a forest botanical library, 
already of considerable extent, will furnish 
the necessary aid to study. Accompanying 
the report is a map of the forest and a num- 
ber of good half-tones showing original con- 
dition, proper and improper methods of 
lumbering, ete. This is the first time proper 
forest management has ever been under- 
taken in the United States, and as time 
goes on the results will undoubtedly become 
an object lesson of prime importance, and 
one badly needed by the American public, 
whose delight from the earliest settlement 
of the country has been to destroy trees. 
EK. F.S. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
TuE following are abstracts of the com- 


munications presented at the 33d meeting, 
April 24, 1895 : 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 20. 


W J McGee. ‘The topographic devel- 
opment of Sonora.’ 

The territory described, lying between the 
Gila river on the north and the Rio Sonora 
on the south, and extending from the Sierra 
Madre to the Gulf of California, is about 
400 by 200 miles square. Hssentially it 
consists of an undulating plain with em- 
bossed mountain ranges. The plain varies 
from sea-level to some 4000 feet in altitude; 
the mountain ranges, commonly 4000 feet 
or less in height above the plain, are rug- 
ged, narrow and generally parallel, trending 
somewhat east of south. These ranges are 
remnants of larger mountain areas, shaped 
by erosion, and sometimes they are con- 
nected by transverse ridges which, like the 
ranges themselves, are residua of ancient 
masses. Thearea is one of complete grada- 
tion within itself, 7. e., the rainfall is so 
slight that the material degraded from the 
mountain is aggregated on the intermon- 
tane plains, as the storm-waters sink or 
evaporate —for none of the rivers between 
the Gila and Yaqui ever reach the sea. 
Certain peculiarities of the topography 
grow out of this condition. 

The entire plain inclines southwestward, 
having evidently been tilted in this diree- 
tion during late geologic time, though the 
date is not yet fixed. A consequence of 
this tilting was the stimulation of the 
streams flowing westward, southward and 
southwestward, and partial paralysis of the 
streams flowing in the opposite direction ; 
and by reason of previous adjustments of 
topographic processes and products under 
the peculiar climatal conditions of the re- 
gion these effects were greatly increased. 
Accordingly the southwestward-flowing 
streams retrogressed and pushed their head- 
waters through the parallel ranges and 
sometimes through the transverse ranges 
connecting them, while the northeastward- 
flowing streams practically ceased to cor- 
rade. Accordingly the area is characterized 


May 17, 1895.] 


by retrogression ; the main waterways di- 
verge from the main valleys, and cut 
through the ranges and athwart the val- 
leys; and the primary and secondary di- 
vides do not coincide with the mountain 
ranges, but traverse the valleys in a singu- 
larly erratic manner. By reason of the 
combination of epeirogenic and meteorologic 
conditions, the region affords a remarkable 
example of the retrogression of streams and 
of the development of unusual topographic 
forms thereby. 
Wuirman Cross. ‘The Geology of the 
Cripple Creek Gold Mining District, Col- 
orado.’ This important new gold district 
lies on a granite plateau, some ten or twelve 
miles southwest of Pike’s Peak, at an eleva- 
tion of 9,000 to nearly 11,000 feet. There 
is at this point a small voleanic vent, to be 
regarded as an outlier of an extensive vol- 
eanic region to the westward, lying between 
South Park and the Arkansas River. 
While the area of the Cripple Creek vol- 
eano is small, there has been a very com- 
plete cycle of events at this center. Explo- 
sive eruptions in the earlier periods built 
up a cone of fine tuff and breccia, through 
which numerous eruptions in narrow fis- 
sures and irregular channels took place in 
later times. Erosion has now removed a 
large part of the ejected material, though 
not clearly disclosing the voleanic neck. 
The igneus products of the voleano are 
andesites of several kinds, phonolite, pho- 
nolitic trachyte, nepheline-syenite, syenite- 
porphyry, and several dense varieties of 
basalt. Phonolite is the specially charac- 
teristic rock of the center, and in dike form 
in granite occurs for several miles about it. 
Fumarole and solfataric emanations of 
chlorine, fluorine and sulphurous gasses un- 
doubtedly characterized certain periods of 
the yoleano, followed by hot waters con- 
taining the same agents in solution. By 
these processes the rocks of the district have 
been very extensively decomposed. The 


SCIENCE. 559 


ore deposits are very intimately connected 
with the volcanic center. 

This communication presented the general 
geological results of a detailed study of the 
district made last fall. An examination of 
the ore deposits was made at the same time 
by Prof. R. A. F. Penrose, Jr., and the two 
reports, with a geological map, will be issued 
by the U. S. Geological Survey during the 
coming summer. 

W. H. Weep. ‘The Shonkin sag, an 
abandoned channel of the Missouri river.’ 
The Shonkin sag is a peculiar topographic 
feature of the country south of the big bend 
of the Missouri River in central Montana. 
It is an abandoned river channel which was 
formed by the waters of the Missouri River 
flowing around the margin of an extension 
of the great Canadian ice sheet (the Lauren- 
tide glacier). The sag consists of a wind- 
ing valley from a quarter of a mile to two 
miles wide with rocky bluff walls, and holds 
a succession of lakes, several of them with- 
out outlet. The continuity of the channel 
is interrupted by modern stream valleys 
cutting it transversely, but their later origin 
is clearly apparent, and even the settlers of 
the region recognize the fact that the sag is 
anold water way. Itbegins near the mouth 
of Highwood Creek, east of the Great Falls 
of the Missouri River, and extends in a 
general easterly direction over 100 miles to 
the mouth of Judith River. Throughout 
its course the northern wall marks the limit 
of the glacial moraine. Glacial drift is 
found in a few places a short distance south 
of the channel, but in small quantity. In 
general the sag defines the moraine front. 
It is, therefore, believed that the ice sheet 
ponding the waters of the Missouri near the 
mouth of Sun River deflected the stream, 
which at that time flowed northward, and 
caused it to flow about the margin of the 
ice. Upon the recession of the glacier the 
river abandoned this temporary channel for 
the old valley to the northward, which was 


560 


but partially filled by glacial material. The 
present course of the Missouri, for some dis- 
tance below the cataracts, is cut in black 
shales of the Fort Benton period, capped 
by 100-250 feet of glacial till and silt. 
Wauuitman Cross, 
Secretary. 


ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 

TuE 108th regular meeting was held May 
3d. Mr. L. O. Howard read a paper en- 
titled ‘Some New Scale Parasites,’ in 
which he discussed several species of the 
family Chalcididze which are new to sci- 
ence, and which are important parasites of 
destructive scales. A paper entitled ‘Two 
Leaf-beetles that Breed on the Golden-rod,’ 
by F. H. Chittenden, was read by title, and 
another, ‘Sexual Dimorphism in the Scoly- 
tid Genus Xyleborus,’ by E. A. Schwarz, 
was also read by title and referred to the 
committee on publications. Mr. Ashmead 
presented a communication on Lysiognatha, 
a new and remarkable genus in the Ich- 
neumonide. The form described was an 
extraordinary one, possessing the head and 
jaws of the Braconid sub-family Alysiine, 
the wings and remainder of the body re- 
sembling those of the Ichneumonid sub- 
family Ophionine. Mr. Ashmead con- 
sidered it typical of a new sub-family of the 
Ichneumonide. Dr. Theodore Gill ex- 
pressed himself as of the opinion that the 
form is really typical of what should be a 
new family. A note from Mr. H. G. Bar- 
ber, of Lincoln, Neb., a corresponding mem- 
ber of the Society, was read by the secre- 
tary. The note was entitled ‘ Food-habits 
of Hypatus bachmanni.’ This butterfly, 
which has recently been observed migra- 
ting in great numbers in the Southwest, has 
been previously supposed to feed only on 
species of Celtis. Mr. Barber considers 
Symphoricarpos to be probably its favorite 
food plant. Mr. W. T. Swingle made some 
remarks on the effects of the December and 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 20. 


February freezes in Florida upon the in- 
sects injuring the orange. The really im- 
portant insects, namely, the red scale and> 
the white fly, have been seriously checked. 
All specimens occurring upon foliage have 
been killed. In discussing this paper, Mr. 
C. L. Marlatt called attention to the fact 
that the serious injury to the trees caused 
by the cold has already resulted in the ap- 
pearance of a number of bark-boring beet- 
les, which will undoubtedly do much dam- 
age during the next two or three years. 

L. O. Howarp, 

Recording Secretary. 


NEW BOOKS. 

Proceedings of The American Association for 
the Advancement of Science for the Forty-third 
Meeting held in Brooklyn, N. Y., August, 
1894. Salem, The Permanent Secretary. 
1895. Pp. xiii + 486. 

Der Gute Geschmack. LotHaR ABEL. Vienna, 
A. Hartleben. Pp. vii + 368. 

The Geological and Natural History Survey of 
Minnesota, Vol. III., Part I., Paleontology. 
N. H. Wryewetzt. Minneapolis, Minn., 
Harrison and Smith. 1895. Pp. lxxy + 
A474. 

John Dalton and the Rise of Modern Chemastry. 
Sir Henry E. Roscor. London and New 
York, Macmillan & Co. 1895. Pp. 212. 
$1.25. 

Missouri Botanical Garden. 
Report. Witt1amM TRELEASE. St. Louis, 
Mo., The Board of Trustees. 1895. Pp. 
134. 

The Origins of Invention. 
London, Walter Scott; 
Charles Seribner’s Sons. 
$1.25. 

Chemical Analysis of Oils, Fats and Wames. 


New York, 
1895. Pp. 413. 


Sixth Annual — 


Otis T. Mason. — . 


From the German of Prorrssor Dr. R. 


Bernepict. Revised and enlarged by Dr.. 
J. Lewxowrtsce. London and New 
York, Macmillan & Co. 1895. Pp. xviii 
+683. $7.00. 


| 


WE = oan Cg 


DpOACANCE. 


NEW SERIEs. 


Vou. I. No. 21 FRIDAY, 


May 24, 1895. 


SINGLE COPIEs, 15 CTs. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


BEHRENS, Pror. H., Anleitung zur mikrochemi- 
schen Analyse. Mit einem Vorwort von Prof. S. 
Hoogewerff in Delft. Mit 92 Figuren im Text. 
224 Seiten 8°. M. 6. 


BETHAULT, PROF. F., Les Prairies. Prairies natu- 
relles. Prairies de Fauche. 223 pages pet. in 8°. 
Cart. Fr. 3. 

BIEDERMANN, Pror. W., Elektrophysiologie. 
Erste Abteilung. Mit 136 Abbildungen. 440 Seiten. 
Gr. 8°. M. 9. 


BoOuM, PROSEKTOR A. A., und M. voN DAVIDOFF, 
Lehrbuch der Histologie des Menschen einschliesslich 
der mikroskopischen Technik. Mit 246 Abbildungen. 
440 Seiten. gr. 8°. Leinwandband. M. 8. 


GIRARD, Pror. Henri, Aide-Mémoire de Zoologie. 
Avec 90 figures intercalées dans le texte. 300 pages. 
Pet. in 8°. Toile. Fr. 3. 


GRAETZ, Pror. Dr. L., Compendium der Physik. 
Fiir Studirende. Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte 
Auflage. Mit 257 Abbildungen. 454 Seiten. 98°. 
aT. 7. 


Hasse, Pror. Dr. C., Handatlas der sensiblen und 
motorischen Gebiete der Hirn- und Riickenmarks- 
merven zum Gebrauch fiir praktische Aerzte und 
Studirende. 36 Tafeln. gr.8°. Kart. M. 12.60. 


HIPPOKRATES siimmtliche Werke. Ins Deutsche 
tibersetzt und ausfiihrlich commentirt von Dr. Robert 
Fuchs. Bd. I. 526 Seiten. gr. 8°. M. 8.40. 


LAvE, MAXx., Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. Ein 
Vertreter deutscher Naturforschung im neunzehnten 
Jahrhundert 1795-1876. Nach seinen Reiseberichten, 
seinem Briefwechsel mit A. v. Humboldt, y. Chamisso, 
Darwin, v. Martius u. a. [Familienaufzeichnungen, | 
sowie anderm handschriftlichen material. Mit dem 
Bildniss Ehrenberg’s in Kupferiitzung. 287 Seiten. 
8°. M. 5. 

Loew, Pror. Dr. E., Einfiihrung in die Bliiten- 
biologie "auf historischer Coe Mit 50 Abbil- 
dungen. 432Seiten. 8°. M. 6 


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CONTENTS : 
Variation of Latitude: J. K. REES.........+--- 561 
| Current Notes on Physiography (VII.): W. M. 
BD DAVIS... 22.1. ee eee eee ene 568 
_ Gravity Measurements: HERBERT G. OGDEN ....571 
_ The Astronomical and Physical Society of Toronto : 
SEO STAR MUCNIIAASY «o's ajeie= «niin claimsiniein(aeisielsisic 573 
: BMITESPONUENCE S— . oo ccccscccsscececesscas sos 575 
{ 
i 


- VARIATION OF LATITUDE.* 

Tue question is frequently asked, ‘‘ How 
can latitude change?” There are two ways 
obviously. First, we may imagine that a 
rtion of the earth slips on the surface of 
e globe, due say to earthquake shock. 


*From a lecture before the New York Academy of 
iences, April 29, 1895. 


Then if the movement of the mass has been 
toward the equator the latitude of that 
place is decreased; if toward the pole of 
the earth the latitude is increased. But 
suppose that some forces at work on the 
earth cause it to revolve about a new 
axis, then we have at once a new equator, 
and the latitudes of all points on the earth’s 
surface change except at those places where 
the old and new equator intersect. 

If, for example, the earth’s axis of revolu- 
tion should be changed so as to pass through 
this hall, the latitude would be changed 
from a little over 40 degrees, as it now is, 
to 90 degrees. There are changes no doubt 
produced by the slipping of portions of the 
earth’s strata, but we know that these causes 
are insignificant and local. The only way 
that latitudes could be made to change 
throughout the world would be by changes in 
the axis of rotation of the earth, thus chang- 
ing the position of the equator. 

Are there any undisputed evidences of a 
variation in the latitude of a place and is it 
large? 

To-day the evidence is overwhelming, 
but the amount is small, so small, in fact, 
that only the refined instruments of the 
present day have been able to discover it ; 
though now, that it is discovered, older ob- 
servations show it. 

La Place, in his Mécanique Céleste 
(Tome V., p. 22), says ‘‘ All astronomy de- 
pends upon the invariability of the earth’s 


562 


axis of rotation and upon the uniformity of 
this rotation.”’ 

He considered that down to the begin- 
ning of this century astronomical instru- 
ments had not been able to show any varia- 
tion of latitudes. There were differences, 
but these he thought could be accounted 
for as errors of observation.* 

To-day, however, we feel certain that 
small variations in latitude are taking 
place, but so small that practically, in map 
making, for example, and in navigation, 
they are of no importance, though scien- 
tifically very important. 

It might also, in this connection, be stated 
that there are theoretical reasons which 
seem to indicate that the earth’s rotation 
time is not only changing, but also is not 
altogether uniform. The effect of the tide- 
wave as it moves west over the earth is to 
act as a friction-brake on the revolving 
earth, and so slow up the rotation time, and 
as this tide effect is not always the same 
the retarding effects differ, and theoretically 
produce a non-uniformity in the rotation 
time. But the shrinkage of the earth, due 
to loss of heat, would tend to make it re- 
volve more rapidly. These effects may 
work against each other. However, obser- 
vations and calculations to-day do not fur- 
nish us with any certain evidence that the 
rotation time is longer or shorter than it 
was ten centuries ago. 

It no doubt will happen that, when ob- 
servations and instruments are much im- 
proved, astronomers will discover these 
slight changes in rotation time that theory 
seems to require. 

The idea that the latitudes of places 
change is not a new one. 

Down to about the time that the tele- 
scope was invented there were many learned 
persons who believed that the latitudes of 

* The writer is much indebted to the paper by Pro- 


fessor Doolittle on ‘ Variations of Latitude’ read be- 
fore the A. A. A.S., at Madison, Wis., August, 1893. 


SCIENCE. 


A 
[N.S. Vor. I. No. 21. © 


places changed several degrees in the course 
of centuries. These ideas were based on — 
a comparison of maps made at different 
times. 

A disciple of the illustrious Copernicus 
considered that the evidence was conclu- 
sive, and was satisfied that the pole of the 
earth was changing its position in a pro- 
gressive manner ; he considered that in time 
the torrid and frigid zones would change 
places. 

However, these views of Dominique 
Maria de Ferrare were founded on poor data. 
The latitudes of a few places had been deter- 
mined, by very imperfect means, in the 
best way they had, viz., from the shadow 
cast by a gnomon; but the latitudes of many 
places on the maps were put in from the 
accounts of travelers, the time it took to 
travel from one point to another being used 
as the basis of calculation. 

Even in these enlightened days, as we 
like to consider them, there is no good 
map of our own Empire State. The lati- 
tudes of a few points only in New York 
State have been determined with accuracy. 
But there are many places in the State 
whose positions are not known within more 
than a mile. 

In the latter part of the 16th century 
Tycho Brahe, of Denmark, improved the 
instruments in use (without the telescope), 
and later, about 1610, the telescope was dis- 
covered and applied to astronomical instru- 
ments. Then new and more accurate 
methods were used to determine latitude, 
and the large discrepancies disappeared. 
Some observers found differences between 
latitudes determined in winter and in sum- 
mer, and they supposed those differences to 
be due to changes of the pole. 

In the latter part of the 17th century J. 
D. Cassini summed up the state of the prob- 
lem in his day, and arrived at the conclu- 
sion that, notwithstanding the apparent 
variations in the latitudes, the pole of the 


earth did not change to any large extent; 
that most of the apparent changes in lati- 
tude were due to errors of observation and 
defects in theory, but he thought it probable 
that small changes did occur in the position 
of the pole; he thought the changes were 
periodic, and did not amount to more than 
two minutes of are equal to about 12,000 
feet. ‘Thus, instead of several degrees 
which were conceded by the astronomers of 
of previous centuries, but a paltry two min- 
utes was now allowed; but with improved 
instruments, with the discovery of aberra- 
tion and nutation and the perfection of the 
theory of refraction, even this modest al- 
lowance was gradually reduced to a vanish- 
ing quantity.” 

The geologists, in their investigations, 
have found fossil remains in the cold regions 
of the north, belonging to the Miocene, 
Upper and lower Cretaceous, Jurassic and 
other geological periods, which seem to in- 
dicate a former temperature much higher 
than the present. In 1876 Dr. John 
Evans, then President of the British Geo- 
logical Society, discussed the problem, and 
concluded that the amount of polar light 
and heat in the past must have been much 
eater than it is now. He invited the at- 
tention of the mathematicians to this prob- 
, and asked : Would a considerable ele- 
vation and depression of the sea bottoms and 
continents produce a ‘change of 15 degrees 
to 20 degrees in the position of the pole?’ 
Sir William Thomson discussed this 
problem and gave his conclusions in 1876 
to the British Association for Advancement 
of Science. He said: ‘Consider the great 
facts of the Himalayas and Andes and 
Africa, and the depths of the Atlantic, and 
America and the depths of the Pacific, and 


one-tenth of the mean ellipticity of the 


meridianal sections of the sea level. 


SCIENCE. 


563 


“We need no brush from a comet’s tail to 
account for a change in the earth’s axis; 
we need no violent convulsions producing 
a sudden distortion on a great scale, with 
change of axis of maximum moment of 
inertia, followed by gigantic deluges; and 
we may not merely admit, but assert as 
highly probable, that the axis of maximum 
inertia and the axis of rotation, always 
near one another, may have been in ancient 
times very far from their present geograph- 
ical position, and may have gradually shifted 
through ten, twenty, thirty or forty or more 
degrees without at any time any perceptible 
sudden disturbance of either land or water.” 

Sir William Thomson gave no account of 
the calculations made by him as the basis 
of these conclusions. 

In 1877 Mr. G. H. Darwin made a care- 
ful and elaborate mathematical discussion 
of the problem. He showed that, in a per- 
fectly rigid globe, the pole could not have 
wandered more than 3 degrees from its 
original position, as the result of the con- 
tinents and oceans changing places. ‘If, 
however, the earth is sufficiently plastic to 
admit of readjustment to new forms of 
equilibrium, by earthquakes and otherwise, 
possible changes of ten or fifteen degrees 
may have occurred. This would require, 
however, such a complete changing about 
of the continents and oceans, with maximum 
elevations and depressions in precisely the 
most favorable places, as has certainly never 
occurred in geologic times.”’ 

The evidence indicates, in fact, that the 
continental areas have always occupied 
about the same positions as now. 

Thus it would seem that the geologists . 
must abandon the hypothesis of great 
changes in latitude as a factor in the earth’s 
development, unless a new cause can be 
found that will move the pole to the extent 
required by the geologists. 

In an address made before Section A, of 
the British Association in 1892, Professor 


564 


Shuster stated that he believed the evidence 
at hand was in favor of the view that there 
was sufficient matter in interplanetary space 
to make it a conductor of electricity. This 
conductivity, however, must be small, for if 
it were not, he said, the earth would gradu- 
ally set itself to revolve about its magnetic 
poles. However, changes in the position of 
the magnetic poles would tend to prevent 
this result. Perhaps the investigator in the 
near future, working on the suggestion of 
Dr. Shuster, may find some connection be- 
tween the earth’s magnetism, rotation time 
and position of rotation axis. 

The evidence, then, at this phase of the 
discussion, is in favor of the view that there 
is no adequate reason for believing that any 
large changes of latitude, amounting to sev- 
eral degrees, have occurred in geologic 
times. The evidence shows, however, that 
there are small changes. Are they progres- 
sive; does the north pole of the earth wan- 
der slowly but surely further and further 
away from its positions of ages gone by? 

At the International Geodetic Congress 
held in 1883 at Rome, Sig. Fergola, of the 
Royal Observatory Cappodimonti, Naples, 
gave a tabular statement which seemed to 
show that small but progressive changes had 
taken place in Europe and America. This 
table showed, for example, that the latitude of 
Washington, D. C., had decreased from 1845 
to 1865, 0.47” ; at Paris, from 1825 to 1853, 
the decrease was 1.8’’; at Milan in 60 years, 
1.5’; at Rome during 56 years, 0.17”; at 
Naples in 51 years, 0.22”; at K6onigsberg in 
23 years, 0.15”; at Greenwich in 19 years, 
0.51”. Fergola, at the Congress mentioned, 
suggested a plan for making systematic ob- 
servations, and he pointed out the favora- 
ble location of several observatories that 
were on nearly the same circle of latitude, 
but differing widely in longitude. Unfor- 
tunately this suggestion of Fergola’s was 
not carried out in any way until 1892, when 
the Columbia College Observatory arranged 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 21. 


to work in conjunction with the Naples Ob- 
servatory on the problem. This series of 
observations was begun in the spring of 
1893, and will be continued several years. 

The data given by Fergola at Rome in 
1883 showed a diminution of latitude in 
every case; other data showed a similar 
diminution ; however there were excep- — 
tions, where the latitudes seemed to in- 
crease. 

The investigations that have been going 
on since 1883 throw doubt on the progressive 
changes in latitude, or at least such changes 
are masked by proved periodic changes. 

For a long time, since 1765, periodic 
changes have been looked for, because the 
theory of a rotating earth, an earth hay- 
ing the form of a sphere flattened at the © 
poles, or, more accurately, an ellipsoid of 
revolution, demanded such changes ; but 
the theory did not furnish any clue to the 
amount of changes, except that they must 
be very small. This theory shows that if 
the earth was absolutely rigid and revolved 
about its shortest axis (called the axis of 
figure) at any time it would continue to 
revolve about such axis forever, unless dis- 
turbed by some outside force. If so dis- 
turbed, then the axis of rotation would no 
longer coincide with the axis of figure—the ~ 
axis of rotation would intersect the earth’s 
surface at points away from the points 
where the axis of figure comes out. But 
the theory also showed that the new axis” 
of rotation would revolve about the old one — 
in a period of 304.8 days. This period 
comes from the knowledge of the magni- 
tude of precession and nutation, and is } 
known very accurately. 

We would expect therefore that change 
in latitude would show this 305-day period. — 

Several attempts have been made to do- 
termine the distance between the two axes: 
(figure and rotation axis) from changes “ ‘ 
latitudes. 

The celebrated astronomer Bessel made . 


Be fai 


May 24, 1895.] 


the first attempt, and was unsuccessful, it 
was supposed until recently.* 

_ Observations were also made at Pulkova, 
Russia, Greenwich and Washington. The 
Washington observations were made _ be- 
tween 1862 and ’67,and included six complete 
periods of 305 days each. A rigorous dis- 
eussion by Newcomb gave the separation 
of the axes as 3 feet, or 0.03”. 

C. A. F. Peters, of Pulkova, had in 1842, 
obtained ’’.079 = 8 feet. 

These figures are small, but fairly accord- 
ant. A reinvestigation, however, showed 
that the various calculations did not agree 
in showing the same displacement at the 
same time. This made the whole result 
doubtful, so that Newcomb (in 1892, March, 
Mon. Not. R. A. S.) remarked that “the 
observations showed beyond doubt there 
could be no inequality of the kind looked 
for.” 

It was while investigations of this kind, 


* Tisserand says in Ann. Bur. Long. ’95 (P. 42, 
B. 11) that there is a letter of April 7, 1846, in which 
Humboldt replies to Gauss that Bessel had told him 
in 1844 that his observations showed that his latitude 
had decreased 0. 3’ in two years. Bessel attributed 
this variation to changes accomplished in the interior 
of the globe. See also Hagan’s letter in Astr. Nach., 
September, 1894. 

In this connection it ought to be noted also that 
Prof. J. C. Maxwell read a paper April 20, 1857, 
before the Royal Society of Edinburgh (see Transac- 
tions Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, Vol. XXI., Part iv., pp. 
559-571), ‘On a Dynamical Top for exhibiting the 
phenomena of the motion of a system of invariable 
form about a fixed point, with some suggestions as 
to the earth’s motion.’ He deduced a period of 325.6 
solar days. He examined the observations of Polaris 
made with the Greenwich Transit Cirele in the years 
1851-54. He found the apparent co-latitude of Green- 
wich for each month of the four years specified. 
“There appeared a very slight indication of a 
maximum belonging to the set of months, March, ’51; 
February, '52; December, ’52; November, ’53; Sep- 
tember, ’54.”” This result, he says, “is to be re- 

ed as very doubtful, as there did not appear to 
be evidence for any variation exceeding half a second 
space and more observations would be required to 
blish the existence of so small a variation at all.’’ 


SCIENCE. 


565 


to determine the separation of the axis of 
rotation and axis of figure, were going on 
that Sir Wm. Thomson (now Lord Kelvin) 
announced, at the Congress of the British 
Association at Glasgow in 1874, that the 
meteorological phenomena, the fall of rain 
and snow, the changes which occur in the 
circulation of the air and of the sea waters 
would modify a little the mechanical con- 
stitution of the globe, and displace a little 
the axis of figure, 7%. e., the form of the 
earth would be changed by the causes men- 
tioned, and so a new shortest axis would 
be made. The effect of this would be to 
produce a change in the latitudes of places, 
evidently. He thought that it might 
amount to ".50, which would correspond 
to a movement of the old axis (at the pole) 
of 50 feet on the earth’s surface. Sir W. 
Thomson did not publish his calculation, 
but the authority of the great English 
mathematician and physicist was such as to 
make scientific men give the statement 
great attention. These meteorologic phe- 
nomena of which Sir William Thomson 
spoke are annual in character. When this 
annual period is combined with the 305- 
day or ten-month period of Euler we see 
that complexity results. This was the 
state of the investigation when Dr. Kist- 
ner, of the Berlin Observatory, published the 
results of his observations made in 1884— 
1885. Dr. Kiistner undertook some obser- 
vations for the trial of a new method for 
the determination of the constant of aber- ” 
ration. On reducing his observations he 
obtained results which were not at all sat- 
isfactory. A careful examination of his 
work led him to make the announcement 
that the unsatisfactory value for the aberra- 
tion constant was due to a comparatively 
rapid, though very small, change in the lat- 
itude of the Berlin Observatory—‘that from 
August to November, 1884, the latitude of 
Berlin had been from ".2 to ’’.3 greater than 
from March to May in 1884 and 1885.” 


566 


This would indicate that from August to 
November, 1884, the pole of the earth had 
approached Berlin more closely by 20 to 30 
feet than in the time from March to May. 

This conclusion was fortified by the ex- 
amination of other data, obtained from the 
observations made at Pulkova by Nyrén. 

Here, then, was evidence of a compara- 
tively rapid change in latitude. New ob- 
servations were undertaken at Berlin, Pots- 
dam, Prague, and Bethlehem, Penn. (all by 
Talcott’s method), and all agreed in show- 
ing plus and minus changes in latitude for 
the years 1888-90. 

There were still some doubters. More- 
over it was decided to critically test the 
matter by sending an expedition to the 
Sandwich Islands, which is 180 degrees 
(nearly) in longitude from Berlin. If it 
was known the latitude of Berlin increased, 
then a point in the northern hemisphere 180 
degrees away from Berlin should simul- 
taneously show a decrease in latitude, for if 
the pole moves toward Berlin it must move 
from the point on the other side of the earth. 

Our own Government joined in the effort. 
Marcuse of Berlin and Preston of Wash- 
ington spent more than a year on the Sand- 
wich Islands observing for latitude, while 
at the same time observations were con- 
tinued at Berlin, Prague and Strassburg in 
Europe, and at Rockville, Bethlehem and 
San Francisco in the United States. The 
results of all these observations have been 
published, and show, without a chance of 
error, that the earth’s axis is moving, that 
the latitudes at the Sandwhich Islands in- 
ereased when the latitudes in Germany di- 
minished and vice versa. 

The law of the change was eagerly and 
industriously sought for by some of the 
ablest mathematical astronomers of the 
world. They first worked on the idea that 
the changes must conform to the 305-day 
period of Euler, combined with an annual 
change due to causes set forth by Sir W. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 21- 


Thomson, and which I have previously men- 
tioned. None of these investigations haye 
given a satisfactory formula for the predic- 
tion of the latitude of any place. 

In 1891 Dr. S. C. Chandler, of Cambridge, 
Mass., began his investigation of the prob- 


lem. He remarks: 


“‘T deliberately put aside all teaching of 
theory, because it seemed to me high time 
that the facts should be examined by a 
purely inductive process; that the nugatory 
results of all attempts to detect the exis- 
tence of the Eulerian period (of 305 days) 
probably arose from a defect of the theory 
itself, and that the entangled condition 
of the -whole subject required that it 
should be examined afresh by processes 
unfettered by any preconceived notions 
whatever. The problem which I therefore 
proposed to myself was to see whether it 
would not be possible to lay the numerous 
ghosts in the shape of various discordant, 
residual phenomena pertaining to determi- 
nations of aberration, parallaxes, latitudes 
and the like, which have heretofore flitted 
elusively about the astronomy of precision 
during the century, or to reduce them to 
some tangible form by some simple consis- 
tent hypothesis. It was thought that if 
this could be done a study of the nature of 
the forces as thus indicated, by which the 
earth’s rotation is influenced, might tend to 
a physical explanation of them.” 

Dr. Chandler proceeded to examine his 
own work with the Almucantar at Cam- 
bridge, the observations of Kustner, Gyldén, 
Nyrén, the Washington observations and 
others. He found that they all seemed to in- 
dicate that the pole of the rotation axis was 
moving from west to east about the axis of 
figure of the earth in a period of 427 days. 
Other observations did not seem to confirm 
this period. Finally he made an elaborate 
analysis of 33,000 observations between 1837 
and 1891, and the result was an empirical 
law which can be announced as follows : 


=e 


May 24, 1895. ] 


The pole of the rotation axis of the earth 
moved with its greatest velocity about the 
pole of the axis of figure about the year 
1774; the period then was 348 days. The 
velocity has diminished with an accelerated 
rate since then. In 1890 the period was 
443 days. The distance of one pole from 
the other was about 22 feet = 0.22”. 

Further elaborate examination of this 
material developed the exceedingly impor- 
tant and interesting result that the changes 
in latitude were the sum of two periodic fluc- 
tuations superposed on each other. One had 
a period of about 427 days and an ampli- 
tude of 0.12” The second had a period of 
a year with an amplitude that was variable 
between .04” and .20” 

Sometimes these two fluctuations worked 
together, giving a total range of .33”, and 
at times they conspired against each other, 
reducing the range to a minimum of a few 
hundredths of a second. He compared his 
theory with the observations, and the result 
was in the main exceedingly satisfactory. 

His conclusions were attacked as to the 
427-day term. The annual term could be 
explained as due to meteorologic causes. 

Professor Newcomb, however, in March, 
1892, explained in a paper communicated 
to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astro- 
nomical Society that in deducing the Eu- 
lerian period of 305 days the earth, as we 
have remarked, was considered absolutely 
rigid ; that when the effect of the mobility 
of the oceans and of the lack of perfect rig- 
idity of the earth were taken into account, 
the mathematics required a time of rotation 
of the true pole about the axis of figure 
longer than the previously accepted 305 
days. Making certain assumptions New- 
comb obtained a period of 443 days.* 

An additional interesting conclusion 


* Professor R. S. Woodward has lately obtained by 
a new discussion of the theoretical problem a formula 
that seems to indicate the correctness of Chandler’s 
empirical formula. 


SCIENCE. 


567 


which Dr. Chandler has lately published is 
that the fluctuation with a period of 427- 
428 days is a circular one, as theory seems 
to demand, while the annual fluctuations 
appear elliptical in character. 

An exceedingly interesting and important 
confirmation of the Chandlerian period of 
427 days, or about 14 months, was lately 
announced by M. Tisserand. Examination 
has been made of the tide records of the 
Helder in Holland. These are kept with 
greataccuracy. It has been found that be- 
tween 1851 and 1893 these tide records 
show a variation in the average sea level 
indicating a 14-month period. The greatest 
divergencies are very small, only 14 mm.= 
4 inch about, but they appear unmistakably 
and are what theory would demand. 

In a letter recently received from Dr. 
Chandler he states that he finds that the 
annual part of the polar motion is an ellipse 
three or four times as long as broad, and 
he expresses the law of the motion of the 
pole in this ellipse as that the areas de- 
scribed from the centre are proportional to 
the times. 

We can conclude safely, therefore, that 
no large changes of latitude have taken 
place for many thousands of years; in 
fact, in geologic times, that there is no 
adequate proof of progressive changes in the 
latitude of any place ; but finally that very 
small periodic changes have occurred, and 
they are such as can be and are observed. 

The feeling is growing in the minds of 
those who have given the subject close at- 
tention that we shall find that many and 
various causes enter into the problem of 
determining the law of changes. It will, no 
doubt, take many years of careful observa- 
tion to obtain the data necessary to fully 
test Dr. Chandler’s or any other hypothesis. 

The scientific men abroad are discussing 
the advisability of establishing several ob- 
servatories at various places on the earth’s 
surface, for the purpose of collecting the data. 


568 


Ultimately Dr. Chandler’s formula, or a 
slight modification of it, may be proved 
correct, and with it we may be able to state 
what the latitude of any place will be at 
any time. 


The lecture was followed by some illus- 
trations showing that revolving bodies pre- 
ferred to revolve about their shortest axis 
or around the axis about which the moment 
of inertia was a maximum. 

Charts and diagrams were exhibited show- 
ing the results of observations made at 
Pulkova, Prague, Berlin, Strassburg, Bethle- 
hem and the Sandwich Islands, ete. 

These results were compared with the 
deductions from Chandler’s formula and 
shown to agree therewith to a remarkable 
extent. 

The preliminary results of the observa- 
tions made at Columbia College from May, 
793, to July, ’94, were exhibited. 

The lecturer threw on the screen illus- 
trations of several forms of Zenith Tele- 
scopes and described the new form made 


by Wanschaff, of Berlin. 
J. K. REEs. 


COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY (VII). 
AREA OF LAND AND WATER. 

Proressor H. WaeGner, of Gottingen, con- 
tributes to the April number of the Scottish 
Geographical Magazine an abstract of his 
recent studies on the land and water areas 
of the globe for successive latitude belts. 
He contends that Murray’s figures, pub- 
lished in the same magazine for 1886 and 
1888 and based on Bartholemew’s maps, 
are inaccurate to a significant extent. 
Wagner’s measures of the better known 
lands between 80° north and 60° south 
latitude is 51,147,100, against Murray’s 51,- 
298,400 square miles. Taking 250,000 for 
lands yet undiscovered in the Arctic regions, 
and 3,500,000 for Antarctic lands, the total 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 21. 


land area of the globe would be 55,814,000 
square miles. Wagner finds confirmation 
of his figures in the results independently 
obtained by K. Karstens, who has recently 
made a new reckoning of the area and mean 
depth of the oceans. 


THE ‘FLY-BELT’ IN AFRICA. 


Tue remarkable control over the oceupa- 
tion of Africa, exercised by the little tse-tse 
fly, whose bite is fatal to horses and cattle, 
leads to the introduction of cheaply con- 
structed narrow-gauge railways across the 
belt of country dominated by this pest. 
Portuguese district, next south of the Zam- 
besi river on the east coast, with its capital 
at the little settlement of Beira, attains some 
commercial importance from its relation to 
Mashonaland and the gold district of the in- 
terior; but in order to connect the two, a 
railway a hundred and twenty miles long 
has been made ‘to bridge the fly-belt.’ 
The coast exhibits a combination of equa- 
torial and tropical rainfall, having high 
temperature and heavy rain from October 
to April, but from June to September ‘the 
weather is almost pleasant.’ At Beira the 
scarcity of water in the dryseason threatened 
a few years ago to be a serious question, as 
a supply had to be brought from the upper 
course of the rivers at a considerable cost; 
but “in 1893 a Scoteh plumber was im- 


ported, and all anxiety on this score came — 


to an end,’ as he made galvanized iron 
tanks in which rain water could be gathered 
and stored from the roofs (Scot. Geogr. 
Mag., April, ’95). 


COLD AND SNOWFALL IN ARABIA. 


Tue ordinary association of heat with 
the dryness of deserts tends to give the im- 
pression that Arabia has no cold weather. 
Nolde’s account of his expedition into the 
Nefud desert of the Arabian interior, lati- 
tude 28 north, altitude 3,000 feet, tells of 
the severe cold that he experienced there in 


The | 


_ 


May 24, 1895.] 


February, 1893. The days were warm and 
pleasant ; but the nights cooled to —5° or 
--10° C; the changes of temperature being 
extremely sudden. For example, on Feb- 
ruary 1, at noon, the thermometer read 
+5°.5, with a cool wind; at 2 o’clock, +6°, 
at 4, 7.5°; then came a rapid rise to 25.5° 
for hich no special explanation is given. 
Just after sunset there was a sudden fall of 
thirty-three degrees, to -8°; and the mini- 
mum of the night was-11°. The cold and 
blustering wind caused much discomfort in 
traveling. The greatest surprise that Nolde 
met was on February 2, when a storm 
clothed the Nefud far and wide with a 
sheet of snow several inches deep, making 
it resemble a Russian steppe rather than 
an Arabian desert. The Bedouins, how- 
ever, said that snowfall there was very un- 
usual. (Globus, 1895, No. 11.) 


CENTRAL AMERICAN RAINFALL. 


Pror. M. W. Harrineron shows in an 
article under the above title (Bull. Phil. Soc. 
Washington, xiii., 1895, 1-30) that the 
northeast slope of Guatemala and Hon- 
duras has rainfall maxima in June and Oc- 
tober, following the zenithal passages of the 
sun and a moderate winter maximum in 
January, ascribed to the encroachment even 
in these low latitudes of cyclonic areas from 
the westerly winds of the temperate zone. 
This gives an interesting repetition of the 
ase of northern India, as described by 
Blanford. The rainfall on the southwest 


while that of January and February is very 
w and for a time almost rainless. It is 


are often accompanied by strong squally 
vinds from the southwest, suspected of 
eing occasional extensions of the southeast 
ade wind across the equator into our 


SCIENCE. 


569 


hemisphere. It may be remarked that the 
association of these winds with the counter 
current that runs eastward in the Pacifie 
a little north of the equator confirms the 
suggestion that the equatorial counter 
currents in general are caused by the exten- 
sion of the trade winds of one hemisphere 
across the equator into the other hemi- 
sphere. They are thus deflected from a 
westward to an eastward course, and hence 
locally produce eastward currents. 


THE METEOROLOGISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT. 


Tue thoroughness so characteristic of 
German scientific work appears in this ex- 
cellent journal, the leader of its class, with 
its able original articles, its rich variety of 
notes and its exhaustive bibliographic re- 
views. Originally established thirty years 
ago by the Austrian Meteorological Society, 
and edited successively by Jelinek and 
Hann, of Vienna, it was enlarged eleven 
years ago by further assistance from the 
German Meteorological Society, when Kép- 
pen, of the naval observatory at Hamburg, 
became associate editor; his place being 
lately taken by Hellman of the Prussian Me- 
teorological Institute at Berlin. Dr. Hann, 
however, still retains his position as leading 
editor and is a frequent contributor to the 
pages of the journal. One of his latest es- 
says (January, 1895) is on the rainfall of 
the Hawaiian Islands, in which he brings 
together all available material, and dis- 
cusses it more completely than has hither- 
to been done. Dutton’s explanation of the 
considerable rainfall on the southwest slope 
of Hawaii is quoted with acceptance. A 
meteorological peculiarity of these islands 
seems to be that their richer windward 


sides, sloping to the northeast with a plen- 


tiful rainfall, are on a large part of the coast 
with difficulty approached from the sea on 
account of the cliffs that have been cut 
along the shore by the strong surf from 
waves driven by the trade winds. 


570 


FOEHN-LIKE EAST WINDS IN AFRICA. 

DANCKELMAN, who for some years has 
made a special study of African meteor- 
ology, contributes a note on the foehn-like 
east winds felt on the southwest coast of 
Africa, about the southern tropic (Met. 
Zeitschr., January, 1895). In the interior, 
temperatures above 27°C are unknown in 
the winter (April to October); but on the 
coast in this season, maxima over 30°, and 
even as high as 39°, are reported, east 
winds and low humidity occurring at the 
same time. Asso high a temperature can- 
not be ascribed to heat from the interior, 
Danckelman explains it as the result of the 
dynamic warming of the wind during its 
descent from the interior highlands. This 
is only one more illustration of the impor- 
tance of adiabatic changes of temperature in 
meteorological phenomena ; the Swiss foehn 
and our western chinook, the extraordinary 
foehn-like winds of west Greenland, the 
‘hot winds’ of India and of Kansas, as 
well as the ordinary warm or hot southerly 
cyclonic winds, or ‘siroccos,’ all owing a 
greater or less share of their high tempera- 
tures to the heat developed by compression 
during the descent of air from higher to 
lower levels. 


THE AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL JOURNAL. 

Tue American Meteorological Journal, 
conducted for a number of years by Profes- 
sor Harrington at Ann Arbor, and since 
1892 edited by R. DeC. Ward and published 
by Ginn & Co., Boston, is an able exponent 
of the science of the atmosphere for this 
country. The closing number (April, 1895) 
of the eleventh volume opens with a note 
by the editor, reviewing the recent work of 
the journal, and making an excellent show- 
ing for its continuation. 
cles make it of value to the investigator ; 
its notes and reviews place much important 
material before the general student; and 
its more elementary or educational articles 


SCIENCE. 


Its original arti- 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 21, 


must prove useful to the teacher, for in 

spite of a recent assertion to the effect that 
the meteorological aspects of geography are- 
well taught in our schools, there is room 

for much improvement in this direction, 

The April number contains notes on signs 

of a recent change of popular opinion con- 

cerning the effect of cultivation on rainfall 

in Iowa, the proceedings of the last meeting 

of the New England Meteorological So- 

ciety—the only society of the kind, we be- 

lieve, in this country—and diagrams of a 

curiously curved storm track from the Pilot 

chart of the Hydrographic office ; reviews 

of the Blue Hill (Mass.) observations for 

1893, of Ley’s new work on clouds, and of a 

new Danish series of monthly pressure 

charts for the North Atlantic. The editor — 
contributes an account of Swiss studies of 

thunderstorms, and a description of meteor- 

ological work in India and Australia. The 

wind known as the ‘southerly burster,’ 

as felt at Sydney, has recently been studied 

in a prize essay ; it recalls in many particu- 

lars the ‘northers’ of our Texan coast. 


NOTE ON CROLL’S GLACIAL THEORY. 

A BRIEF article by the undersigned (re- 
printed in Amer. Met. Journal for April 
from the Trans. Edinb. Geol. Soe., vii., 
1894, 77-80) suggests a common explana- 
tion for three forms of geologically recent 
climatic change, namely, the glaciation of 
many northern lands, the expansion of 
many interior lakes, and the production of 
wadies by water action in the now dry 
Sahara. Accepting Croll’s theory of the 
coincidence of glacial conditions with long 
aphelion winters during periods of great 
orbital eccentricity, it is argued that the 
chief cause of snowy precipitation at such 
times must be the greater activity of eyclonie 
processes, then intensified by the stronger 
general cireumpolar circulation, in turn ac- 
celerated by the increased winter contrast 
of polar and equatorial temperatures; 


—— 


May 24, 1895.] 


Hann’s dynamical theory, instead of Ferrel’s 
econvectional theory of extra-tropical cy- 
clones, being adopted. All those regions 
whose precipitation is in large part de- 
pendent on extra-tropical cyclonic storms 
would under these conditions have an in- 
creased annual rainfall; and the lakes of 
interior basins in temperate latitudes would 
consequently increase in volume. The 
winter rains of subtropical belts, such as the 
northern Sahara, would extend further to- 
wards the equator, for the equatorward mi- 
_ gration of the tropical belt of high pressure 
in winter is essentially a result of the in- 
ereased vigor of the cireumpolar circulation 
at such times; thus the formerly greater 
rainfall indicated by the desert wadies might 
be explained. The coincidence of greater 
_ precipitation during the same epochs of time 
over the glaciated, the lacustrine and the 
desert areas is, however, not yet independ- 
ently proved. W. M. Davis. 


HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


GRAVITY MEASUREMENTS.* 

RELATIVE measurements of the force of 
gravity were made in 1894 by the U.S. 
Coast and Geodetic Survey at twenty-six 
‘stations, mostly located along the thirty- 
ninth parallel from the Atlantic coast to 
Utah. Points were included on the Atlan- 
tie coast, Appalachian mountains, central 
plains, Rocky mountains (including the 
summit of Pike’s Peak, 14,085 feet in alti- 
tude), western plateaus, and the eroded 
valleys of the Green and Grand rivers. 


* ‘Results of a Transcontinental Series of Gravity 
Measurements,’ ‘by G. R. Putman, read February 2, 
1895, Philosophhical Society of Washington, Bulletin 
Vol. xiii.; preliminary results were presented before 

e National Academy of Sciences by Dr. Menden- 
mall, November, 1894. Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the U. 
Geological Survey coéperated in this work by mak- 
a geological examination of the stations. His 
conclusions and a discussion of the results in connec- 
ion with the theory of isostasy are published in the 
same Bulletin. 


SCIENCE. 


571 


The half second pendulum apparatus de- 
signed by Dr. T. C. Mendenhall was used, 
with methods not before employed with 
short pendulums. They were swung at a 
low air pressure (60 mm.), each swing last- 
ing eight hours, and the successive swings 
covering the entire interval between the first 
and last time observations, usually forty- 
eight hours. The two chronometers used 
were rated by star observations made with 
a portable transit in the meridian. The 
flexure of the support was measured and 
correction applied. The results indicate 
the entire elimination of errors due to diur- 
nal irregularities of rate, and show that 
there was practically no wear of the agate 
knife-edge. Determinations made at the 
base station (Washington) several times 
during the year show a range of only 
-000,004 second in the mean period of the 
three pendulums, indicating a high perma- 
neney of period, and throwing some light 
on the invariability of gravity. The aver- 
age time required per station was slightly 
over five days. 

Values of gravity for Washington de- 
rived relatively from absolute determina- 
tions made in various parts of the world show 
a considerable discordance, the range being 
from 980.047 to 980.285 dynes. The re- 
sults of the past season are based on a pro- 
visional value adopted for Washington. As 
they were carried out with the same instru- 
ments and uniform methods, it is probable 
that their relative accuracy is much higher 
than that of many of the absolute measures. 

The results are discussed principally in 
connection with the question of reduction 
to sea level, the distribution of the stations 
with respect to an unusual variety of conti- 
nental conditions rendering the series valu- 
able in this connection. This is an impor- 
tant question in the application of pendu- 
lum observations to the geodetic problem 
of the earth’s figure, and involves the vari- 
ous theories as to the condition of the 


572 


earth’s crust. It has given rise to many 
diverse opinions, and the apparent anoma- 
lies in the force of gravity have been so 
great with various methods of reduction as 
to necessitate the rejection of certain classes 
of stations even in the most elaborate dis- 
cussions, as those of Clarke and Helmert. 
Three methods of reduction were applied to 
these stations, and the effect of latitude was 
eliminated by comparison with a theoret- 
ical formula based on Clarke’s figure of the 
the earth. In each of these methods cor- 
rection was made for the elevation above 
sea level and for topographical irregularities 
near the station, and they differ only in the 
allowance made for surface attraction, as 
follows : 

1. Bougner’s reduction. The vertical at- 
traction of the entire mass above sea level 
was subtracted. With this method the re- 
sults show a large defect of gravity on the 
western mountains and plateaus, closely 
proportional to the average elevation, but 
having no relation to the altitude of the 
particular point of observation or to dis- 
tance from the ocean. 

2. Elevation reduction. No correction 
was made for attraction. The defect of 
gravity in general disappears, but there are 
large residuals in the mountainous regions, 
gravity being in excess at stations above 
the average level of the surrounding coun- 
try, and in defect at those below. The 
size of the residuals is nearly proportional to 
the difference in elevation between the sta- 
tion and the average level. 

3. Faye’s reduction. On the theory that 
the surface of the earth is in general ina 
condition corresponding to hydrostatic 
equilibriun, M. Faye proposed that no cor- 
rection be made for the attraction of the 
average mass above sea level, but that ac- 
count be taken of local deviations from the 
average level, as, for instance, the attraction 
of a mountain on a station at its summit. 
Developing this idea we may consider that 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vox. I. No. 21. 


all general continental elevations are com- 
pensated by a lack of density or other 
cause below sea level, but that local irregu- 
larities of surface are not so compensated, 
but are maintained by the partial rigidity 
of the earth’s crust. The measure of this 
lack of compensation will be the attrae- 
tion of a plain whose thickness is the differ- 
ence in elevation between the station and 
the average surrounding country. The lat- 
ter was estimated within an arbitrarily 
adopted radius of 100 miles of each point, 
and the correction applied, positive for 
stations below the average and negative for 
those above.* With this reduction all the © 
large residuals disappear. For the four- 
teen stations (4n mountainous regions) 
where it was applied, the sums of the re- 
siduals are: with Bougner’s reduction 2.577 
dynes, with elevation reduction 0.677 dynes, 
with Faye’s reduction 0.175 dynes, indica- 
ting a decided advantage for the latter. 

A similar discussion made of former 
Coast and Geodetic Survey observations on 
oceanic islands and coasts shows that the 
excess of gravity that has been found on 
islands with Bougner’s reduction largely 
disappears on the application of Faye’s idea, 
subtracting the attraction of islands con- 
sidered as displacing sea water. The resid- 
uals with Bougner’s reduction are probably 
a measure of the lack of density below sea’ 
level, and with the elevation reduction a 
measure of the lack of compensation. The 
general conclusion is that the so-called 
anomalies of gravity may be largely ac- 
counted for on general principles, and that 
the value of these measurements in connec- 
tion with the problems of geodesy and the 
intimately related questions of terrestrial 
physics will be proportionately enhanced. 

By comparing the values of g measured 
on the summit and near the base of Pike’s 
Peak the value 5.63 was deduced for the 


*Mr. Gibert independently applied this method 
of reduction, using a radius of 30 miles. 


May 24, 1895.] 


mean density of the earth. The attraction 
of the mountain was computed from contour 
maps and from information as to its density 
furnished by Mr. Whitman Cross of the U. 
§. Geological Survey. A set of quarter- 
second pendulums designed by Dr. Menden- 
hall was tested at four of the stations with 
satisfactory results. This is the smallest 
apparatus yet made for the purpose, weigh- 
ing but 106 pounds with packing boxes. 
Hersert G. OGDEN. 

_ WAsHINGTON, D. C. 


| THE ASTRONOMICAL AND PHYSICAL SO- 
CIETY OF TORONTO, 

Tuts Society, now very widely known, 
was originally formed in 1884 by a few gen- 
tlemen who, while actively engaged in busi- 
ness pursuits, were kindred spirits in their 
love for scientific study and met at inter- 
yals more or less regular at their respective 
residences for recreative reading, observa- 
tion and experimentation. The member- 
bership gradually increasing, it was finally 
_ decided to secure incorporation under a 
general Act permitting the acquiring and 
holding of real and personal property, etc., 
and in 1890 the Society became a corporate 
body. The first president of the new asso- 
ciation was the late Mr. Chas. Carpmael, 
M. A., F. R. A. S., the Director of the To- 
ronto Magnetic Observatory; the vice-presi- 
dent was Mr. Andrew Elvins, who had 
indeed been the first to gather together the 
few friends who had formed the original 
nucleus, and who is still highly esteemed 
and honored as the father of amateur as- 
_tronomy in Toronto, A constitution mod- 
eled upon that of the Astronomical Society 
of the Pacific having been framed and by- 
laws adopted, a circular was addressed to 
many scientific societies and distinguished 
astronomers and physicists throughout the 
world. Several of the latter became corre- 
sponding members, while various scientific 
bodies contributed many volumes of reports, 


SCIENCE. 


573 


ete., which formed the beginning of what 
is now a very valuable library. Without 
this very material aid the progress of the 
Toronto Society would have been very slow 
indeed, but as, at meeting after meeting, the 
secretary’s and librarian’s reports were read, 
it became soon apparent that the heartiest 
sympathy and support were being extended, 
without exception, by all who had been 
addressed. 

The first annual report of the Society was 
an unpretentious little volume of 40 pages, 
containing abstracts of papers read during 
the year 1890, and records of the more im- 
portant work done at the telescope by the 
various members who were particularly in- 
terested in observation. The frontispiece 
was a drawing of sun-spots and also of 
hydrogen flames, by Mr. A. F. Miller, who 
has always taken a keen interest in solar 
physics. Mr. T. 8. H. Shearmen contrib- 
uted a paper on ‘Coronal Photography, in 
the Absence of Eclipse.’ In common with 
many other enthusiastic observers, Mr. 
Shearmen is still engaged upon this work. 
Referring to the objection raised regarding 
the impossibility of photographing the cor- 
ona in full sunshine on account of the very 
slight difference between the intensities of 
the two lights, Mr. Shearmen cites ob- 
servations of the inferior planets seen pro- 
jected on the corona. 

The appendix to this volume contains 
a list of the presents donated by the 
various observatories and scientifie bod- 
ies in the United States, and by Mr. 
John Goldie, of Galt, Ont., a life member 
of the Society. The list of the Society’s ex- 
changes increased very rapidly after the 
publication of the first report. The vol- 
ume for 1891 contained papers by Dr. J. 
Morrison, Mr. J. Ellard Gore and Mr. W. 
F. Denning. An opera-glass section had 
been formed which met during the weeks 
alternating with the regular fortnightly 
meetings of the Society, and much interest 


574 


began to be taken in active telescopic work. 
An essay by Mr. G. E. Lumsden, entitled a 
‘Plea for the Common Telescope’ (subse- 
quently reprinted in the Scientific American 
Supplement), was the means of creating a 
very general desire for the possession of in- 
struments of moderate aperture, and there 
are now a great many telescopes ranging to 
5-inch among the members of the Society. 
Mr. Lumsden’s own telescope is a 104-inch, 
With-Browning reflector. It was with this 
that he made an observation of a double 
shadow of Sat. I in transit across the disc 
of Jupiter, on the night of September 20, 
1891. The particulars of the observation 
and comments upon theories accounting 
for the possible cause of the phenomenon, 
which has been seen but three or four 
times, appeared subsequently in L’Astrono- 
mie. A drawing of Jupiter made on the 
night of the observation forms the frontis- 
piece to the volume of Transactions of the 
Society for 1891. 

During this year the Society lost a sin- 
cere friend and earnest worker by the death 
of the Hon. Sir Adam Wilson, Chief-Jus- 
tice of Ontario. This distinguished jurist, 
one of the most eminent of Canada’s public 
men, had actively interested himself in 
scientific matters after retiring from the 
Chief-Justiceship, and had erected and 
equipped an observatory at his residence. 
Shortly after Sir Adam’s decease, which was 
quite sudden, Lady Wilson donated to the 
Society his telescope, a six-inch reflector, 
together with other apparatus and many 
works on science. Sir Adam had intimated 
that he wished these to pass to the Society 
at his death. The reflector is now mounted 
at the residence of Mr. John A. Paterson, 
M. A., vice-president, and is used by the 
members in regular observation. 

In 1892 McHlvins resigned the office of 
vice-president, in order to have more time 
at his disposal during which to take up 
active work on special lines, notably meteor- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 21. 


ology. The constitution was amended to 
admit of election of two vice-presidents, and 
Dr. Larratt W. Smith, Q. C., and Mr. John 
A. Paterson, M. A., wereappointed. During 
this year also the Hon. G. W. Ross, LL. D., 
Minister of Education, became Honorary 
President. The Society was now becoming 
very extensively known, and its list of cor- 
respondents rapidly increasing. The meet- 
ings were particularly well attended, and 
the Toronto press was most courteous and 
obliging in publishing reports of the Society’s 
work from time totime. Meetings were fre- 
quently held at the Toronto observatory, 
where practical use was made of the large 
equatorial and other instruments of the 
equipment. The great magnetic storm of 
February 13, 1892, was charted by Mr. F, 
L. Blake, of the observing staff, and a pho- 
tographic reproduction accompanied the 
volume for that year. Towards the close 
of 1892 a committee was appointed to act 
conjointly with a committee from the Cana- 
dian Institute with a view to moving in the 
matter of a change in astronomical time 
reckoning. The report of the committee 
was presented on April 21, 1893, and 
adopted. It is now widely known that the 
great majority of astronomers are in fayor 
of reckoning the astronomical as the civil 
day, from midnight to midnight, and it 
remains for the Government of the United 
States to decide whether the ephemeris shall 
be changed accordingly. The Admiralty in 
England has expressed a desire to meet 
the views of other nations. 

During 1893 the Society was enabled to — 
further the object always kept in view, the 
popularizing of science, by the kindness of 
the University authorities, who gave the use 
of the physical lecture room for popular 
lectures, illustrated by experiment. Mr. 
C. A. Chant, B. A., and Mr. G. F. Hull, B. 
A., have taken charge of this department 
of the Society’s work with eminent success. 
A very liberal interpretation of the physics 


- May 24, 1895.] 
relating to astronomy having been made, 
there has resulted a keen interest in experi- 
mental science; so that he is a welcome 
addition to the membership who takes in- 
terest in any branch of what was formerly 
styled natural philosophy. 

During the years 1893 and 1894 the sub- 
_ ject of magnetism and electricity engaged a 
large portion of the time spent at the reg- 
ular meetings. Spectroscopy, quite apart 
from its bearing upon astronomy, has also 
been a subject of interest. A valuable 
note, by Mr. A. F. Miller, on the spectrum 
of the light emitted by insects, appeared in 
the volume of Transactions for 1893. 
In the earlier years of the Society’s ex- 
_istence the meetings were held at the resi- 
_dences of members, but it was ultimately 
found that one central place of meeting 
would be preferable, and for some time past 
the regular meetings have been held in the 
rooms of the Young Women’s Christian 
Guild building. Here the library is kept 
and the secretary has his office. The So- 
ciety suffered another loss in October, 1894, 
by the death of the president, Mr. Carpmael, 
whose health had been impaired for some 
time previously. A short sketch of Mr. 
Carpmael’s very active life is appended to 
the Transactions for 1894. 
Dr. Larratt W. Smith, Q. C., sueceeded 
. Carpmael in the presidential chair, and 
the office vacated by the former is now ably 


Toronto is the founding of a popular ob- 
servatory, in the true sense of the term; 


steps will soon be taken to this end. It is 
amatter of regret that there is no astro- 
nomical equipment in Canada able to meet 
il the requirements of modern astronomy. 


SCIENCE. 


575 


Two of the members of the Society, 
Messrs. Z. M. and J. R. Collins, have been 
very successful in making silver-on-glass 
specula, and have figured several of eight- 
inch; having recently fitted up apparatus 
for the work, it is confidently expected that 
they will soon be able to undertake the 
construction of very large reflectors. It is 
not too much to hope that they will be able to 
execute the telescope when the public spirit 
of the Toronto people demands a great ob- 
servatory, and this may be in the near 
future, for, in regard to popularizing science, 
the Toronto Society has been eminently 
successful. A branch of the association at 
Meaford, Ont., has recently been formed, 
and other similar societies are already 
spoken of. Tuomas Lrnpsay. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE RIVERS OF EDEN. 


To tHE Epiror or Science: Referring to 
a note on the ‘Garden of Eden’ in Scrence 
(May 3, 1895), I desire to point out that in 
a series of articles, under the heading ‘ Gold, 
Bedolach and Shoham Stone,’ in the ‘ Ex- 
positor’ (London, 1887), I showed that the 
only possible scientific explanation of the 
geography of Eden in Genesis is that based 
on the geological explorations of Loftus, and 
now advocated by Prof. Haupt, namely, that 
the four rivers are the Kherkhat, Karun, 
Tigris and Euphrates. Farther I showed 
that the geography and geology of this 
ancient anthor are more accurate than those 
of modern maps and popular statements 
until within a very recent time, and that 
the local standpoint of the original writer 
was on the Euphrates, and his date not 
long after that of the historical deluge, 
whatever views may be held by critics as to 
the ultimate editing of the book. Delitsch 
and others have been misled by their want 
of knowledge of the condition of the dis- 
trict in the earliest human (Palanthropic) 
age, whereas this was evidently known 


576 


to the original writer, though the geograph- 
ical conditions must have been somewhat 
changed in his time. 

I rejoice that a scholar like Dr. Haupt 
has advocated a view which will almost for 
the first time bring this very ancient and 
very accurate geographical description be- 
fore the notice of modern biblical scholars 
in a manner which will be intelligible from 
their point of view. 

I may add that a popular view of the 
geological argument on the subject will be 
found in my work, ‘Modern Science in 
Bible Lands,’ published in 18887* where 
will also be found a sketch-map of the 
region, illustrating the bearing of the geo- 
logical and geographical researches of 
Loftus and others on this much vexed and 
much misunderstood question. 

J. Witi1Am Dawson. 

MONTREAL, May 7, 1895. 


COLOR-ASSOCIATIONS WITH NUMERALS, ETC. 
(THIRD NOTE). 


To tHE Eprror oF Scrence: Jn Science, 
old series, Vol. vi., No. 137, p. 242, I printed 
the results of some experiments upon the 
association of colors with letters of the 
alphabet, with numerals, etc., in the case 
of one of my daughters. In Nature for 
July 9, 1891, I gave a table exhibiting the 
results of these experiments in the years 
1882, 1883, August, 1885, December, 1887, 
June, 1889, and June, 1891, a period of 
about nine years. The table can be readily 
consulted by anyone interested, so that it 
need not be reprinted here. In February, 
1895, I again questioned my daughter on 
the subject, and I find that the colors given 
in her replies of June, 1891, are unchanged 
except in two cases. The figure 8 was 
visualized by her as white (August, 1885), 
cream color (December, 1887), white (June, 
1889), cream (June, 1891), and is again 
seen as white (February, 1895). The figure 

*Harpers, New York. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 21. 


10 was noted as brown (1885), brown 
(1887), black ? (1889), black or brown 
(1891), and black (1895). With these ex- 
ceptions there are no material changes. 
My remarks on the table, given in Nature, 
do not seem to call for any additions or sub- 
tractions. The present note, taken with 
the others cited, seems to be of value, as it 
records the results of experiments made 
under exceptionally good conditions and 
now extending over a period of some thirteen 
years. Epwarp S. HoiprEn. 
Mount HAmMILTon, May, 1895. 


UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS STATE GEOLOGICAL 
SURVEY. 

In conformity with the law under which 
the University of Kansas is now working, 
the Board of Regents at a recent meeting 
formally organized the University Geolog- 
ical Survey of Kansas with Chancellor F. 
H. Snow, ex-officio Director; Professor §S. 
W. Williston, Paleontologist; Professor 
Erasmus Haworth, Geologist and Mineralo- 
gist, and Professor H. H. S. Bailey, Chemist. 

In addition to these, other members of 
the University Faculty will be engaged upon 
the work of the Survey, as well as the ad- 
vanced students of the departments of 
Geology and Paleontology. An effort will 
also be made to centralize and unify the 


energies of different geologists in the State 


who have been doing valuable work along 
different lines of geological investigations. 
Already a considerable start has been made 
and the cooperation of different geologists of 
the State has been secured. 

The policy of the Survey will be conserya- 
tive, with the expectation that it will be 
continued and eventually include all other 
branches of the natural history of the State. 
The general stratigraphy of the State will 
first be elaborated in order that it may be 
used in the further study of various ques- 
tions of economic and scientific importance, 
all of which will be taken up as rapidly as 


May 24, 1895.] 


existing conditions from time to time will 
permit. 

Work in the Coal Measures of the State 
has been in progress for two summers, and 
Volume I. of the Report is now almost ready 

for publication. Other volumes will appear 
atirregular intervals. Those already under 
preparation are: One on Coal, Oil and 
Gas; one on the Vertebrate Paleontology 
of the State; and one on the Salt and 

Gypsum deposits of Kansas. 
F. H. Syow, 
Chancellor University of Kansas. 
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, 
April 20, 1895. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

Our Native Birds of Song and Beauty. By H. 
NEBRLING. 4°,36 colored plates from orig- 
inals by Rpeway, Gorrmne and Mtrzet. 
Published by Geo. Brumder, Milwaukee. 
To be completed in 16 parts, $1.00 each. 
Part eleven of this excellent work, carry- 

ing it nearly half through the second vol- 
ume, has been delivered to subscribers. It 
is enough praise to say that the high stand- 
ard of the first volume is maintained. Mr. 
Nehrling is a field naturalist of the kind 
who deem a bird in the bush worth two in 
the hand. He loves everything in the woods 
and fields, and in telling about the birds 
and their lives he tells also of the trees and 
flowers. 

The aim of the book is to give trust- 
worthy accounts, in popular style, of the 
haunts and habits of our birds. Occasionally 
it does more and introduces a new fact of 
scientific interest, as when the breeding of 
the Pine Grosbeak (Pinicola) is recorded 
fornorthern Wisconsin. On the other hand, 
it is not always down to date. For instance, 
under the Black Rosy Finch (Leucosticte 
ata), the statement is quoted from Ridg- 
y that ‘“‘ nothing has yet been learned as 
its range during the breeding season.”’ 
a matter of fact, the species is common 


SCIENCE. 


577 


in summer in the higher parts of the 
Salmon River Mountains in Idaho, where 
it was obtained by the reviewer five years 
ago (see North American Fauna, No. 5, 
1891, 102). Similarly, the Gray-crowned 
Rosy Finch (L. tephrocotis) is said to be ‘a 
resident of the interior of British America, 
near or in the Rocky Mountains,’ and fur- 
ther, that ‘none seem to breed in our ter- 
ritory.’ If Mr. Nehrling had consulted 
the ‘Report on the Ornithology of the 
Death Valley Expedition,’ by Dr. A. K. 
Fisher, he would have found the state- 
ment that this species ‘‘is a common sum- 
mer resident in the higher portions of the 
White Mountains and the Sierra Nevada in 
eastern and southern California,’’ where it 
breeds abundantly and where nearly 40 
specimens were secured by the expedition 
(North Am. Fauna, No. 7, 1893, 82). 

The plates are of two kinds, some show- 
a single species in appropriate surround- 
ings; others showing a number of species 
grouped together on a background of land- 
scape or dense vegetation. The reproduc- 
tions, while amply sufficient for purposes of 
identification, are evidently inferior to the 
originals, the number of stones used in 
printing being too small, and the workman- 
ship not of the best. By far the most ef- 
fective picture in the second volume is one 
of a group of winter birds—Evening Gros- 
beak, Pine Grosbeak, Redpoll, White- 
winged Crossbill, Nuthatch and Chickadee 
—on top of a spruce tree laden with snow. 
The combination of colors is striking and 
is aided by the red berries of a giant moun- 
tain ash, which, by the way, forgot to drop 
its leaves! Among the earlier plates of 
high merit, both in conception and execu- 
tion, are several by Robert Ridgway that 
give charming glimpses of birds in charac- 
teristic attitudes and surroundings. Of 
these, the Golden-crowned Kinglet, Pro- 
thonotary Warbler, and Canon Wren are 
among the best. 


578 


By some accident in binding, the two 
plates of part 10 (pls. 18 and 15) are re- 
peated from the first volume. 

The nomenclature is that of the Ameri- 
can Ornithologists’ Union, except that the 
authority given is for the combination, not 
for the species—an unfortunate departure, 
inasmuch as it does not tell who was the 
original describer of the species. 

To those unfamiliar with the first volume 
it may be said that the work is not a scien- 
tific treatise at all, but a popular book de- 
voted to the life histories of birds, and 
based mainly on the authors’ extensive field 
experiences, supplemented by quotations— 
perhaps too lengthy and frequent—from 
the writings of well-known ornithologists. 
It does not profess to cover all North Ameri- 
can birds, omitting the water birds, birds 
of prey and a few others, but treats prima- 
rily, as its title indicates, of ‘Our Native 
Birds of Song and Beauty.’ It is a large, 
well printed quarto, and of its kind is in- 
comparably the best book yet published 
in America. C. H. M. 


Municipal Government in Great Britain: By 
ALBERT SHAw. New York, The Century 
Co. 1895, 8°, viii + 385. 

The modern increase of cities, and of the 
proportion of urban population as compared 
with that of rural districts, is, according to 
Mr. Shaw, to be accepted as a permanent 
fact for this generation and its immediate 
successors, and,instead of lamenting over it, 
it is the duty of thinking men to devise 
ways and means to do away with or dimin- 
ish the evils which are at present connected 
with city life. The author states his point 
of view as being that a city government 
should so order the general affairs and in- 
terests of the community as to conduce 
positively to the welfare of its people, or, at 
all events, to make it certain that for the 
average family the life of the town shall not 
be necessarily detrimental. The object of 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 21. 


the book is to show how some of the older 
and larger British cities have dealt with 
this problem, giving details as to their 
modern forms of government, method of 
elections and modes of securing pure water, — 
cleanliness, rapid transit, prevention of 
contagious diseases, ete. 

The cities selected for this purpose are 
Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and 
London, and for each a vast amount of in- 
formation is clearly and concisely given. 

Taking Birmingham as an example, it is 
shown that in twenty years the death rate 
of the city was lowered twenty per cent., 
and, in some parts of the city, sixty per 
cent.; that the provisions for the comfort 
and recreation of the people have been 
greatly increased, and that, while over forty 
millions of dollars have been expended in 
securing these improvements, the taxes 
have not been increased, because the muni- 
cipal gas and water works, street railways, 
markets, etc., have been from the financial, 
as well as from the utilitarian, point of 
view completely successful. Surely it is 
worth while for the citizens of American 
cities to inquire how this has been ac- 
complished. 

The description of the means used by the 
city of Glasgow for the isolation and treat- 
ment of infectous disease is worthy of care- 
ful study. The Contagious Diseases Hos- 
pital has been given the semblance of a 
lovely village, and Mr. Shaw truly says that 
‘“‘the difference between popularity and un- 
popularity in a public hospital for infectious 
diseases may well mean all the difference 
between a terrible epidemic and its easy 
prevention.’”’ The sanitary wash houses of 
Glasgow are a feature of the work of the 
Health Department which finds no parallel 
in American cities but which is of great im- 
portance. One of these cost $50,000, an- 
other $75,000, and they far more than repay 
their cost. 

The author promises a second yolume 


May 24, 1895.] 


treating of municipal government in the 
_ chief countries of Continental Europe, and 
if we could be assured of a third volume, 
_ prepared with equal care and accuracy, 
~*£On Municipal Governments in the United 
States, or how not to do it,’ it would be, as 
Artemus expressed it, ‘a sweet boon.’ 
_ Meantime, let Mr. Shaw’s first volume be 
made a subject of special study by the 
younger professional men in this country, 
for the time is near at hand when they will 
be compelled to take some definite line of 
action with regard to our own cities, each 
_ of which presents its own peculiar problems, 
but problems upon which much light is 
thrown by the experiences of our transatlan- 
tic brothers. J.S. B. 


Theoretical Chemistry. By Prorressor W. 
Nernst, Ph. D., University of Géttingen, 
translated by Proressor C. S. Parmer, 
Ph. D., University of Colorado. Mac- 
millan & Co. Pp. 697. Price $5.00. 

It has long been evident that the treat- 
ment of the physical side of chemistry, in 
_ text-books avowedly devoted to chemical 
_ theory, is not satisfactory. In the present 
_ work Physical Chemistry is the main object 
in hand, and, correspondingly, chemical 
_ theory proper is relegated to a subordinate 

position. The treatment of purely chemical 

_ topics is clear and suggestive, but brief, and 

occasionally inadequate. Thus the discus- 

sion of the stereochemistry of nitrogen is 
confined to the mere statement of the views 
of Hantzsch and Werner, with not even the 
barest mention of the difficulties and ex- 
ceptions which have led many to regard the 

“spatial conception, so far as it applies to 

itrogen, as prematurely developed. 

But insufficiency of this kind is to be ex- 
pected whenever the attempt is made to 
cover the whole field of chemical and 
physico-chemical theory within the limits 
of the same work, and it would be unfair to 
criticise Professor Nernst’s book adversely 


SCIENCE. 


579 


on the ground of inadequate treatment of 
purely chemical topics which, presumably, 
were introduced simply for the sake of com- 
pleteness. We pass, therefore, to the main 
subject. 

For some time a work has been needed 
which would give concisely the remarkable 
results of the new Physical Chemistry, and 
this want Professor Nernst’s work is well fit- 
ted to meet. The material is well selected, 
the sections are well proportioned, the facts 
are accurately and concisely stated, and the 
translation has been faithfully made, too 
faithfully perhaps, by one who is evidently 
well fitted, on the scientific side, for the task. 

It may not be out of place to express the 
opinion that the almost complete abandon- 
ment of the historical method which char- 
acterizes Professor Nernst’s work is a mis- 
take, even in so small a volume. This is 
particularly plain in the account of the doc- 
trine of electrolytic dissociation. One who 
reads the fascinating chapter ‘Geschichte 
der Electrochemie’ in Ostwald’s ‘ Lehrbuch 
der Allgemeinen Chemie,’ Vol. I., part II., 
observes this concept vaguely adumbrated 
in the minds of Grotthus and Daniell, sees 
itimplicitly present in the remarkable views 
of Clausius, and finally recognizes it freed 
from all obscurity in the papers of Arrhe- 
nius. In Nernst, on the contrary, one is 
introduced to the doctrine fully formed, and, 
looking about him in some bewilderment 
to ascertain its source, discovers an incom- 
plete justification for its existence in the be- 
havior of aqueous salt solutions. 

The student who desires to devote him- 
self specially to Physical Chemistry may 
read the book with profit, but he would do 
better, having acquired the necessary phys- 
ical, mathematical and chemical prepara- 
tion, to go directly to Ostwald’s ‘ Lehrbuch’; 
to those who wish simply to obtain a broad 
view of the present state of the science the 
work will be decidedly acceptable, and this 
will be its chief function. 


580 


It is not pleasant to be obliged to record 
the complete failure of Professor Palmer’s 
attempt to ‘make the sound German speak 
good English.’ The‘sound German ’ seems 
to be unusually refractory in his hands, and 
frequently refuses not only to ‘speak good 
English,’ but also to speak any kind of 
intelligible English at all. 

An unpleasant appearance is given to the 
pages by the translator’s unfortunate prac- 
tice of introducing phrases from the original, 
sometimes directly, sometimes in curiously 
infelicitous translation. Thus, in the sec- 
tion in which the applications of the first 
law of heat to chemical reactions are dis- 
cussed we read, to express thermal evolu- 
tion or absorption, either ‘ Warme- 
tonung,’ which is clear enough, but out of 
place, or ‘heat toning,’ a phrase which one 
struggles vainly to comprehend. Thus he 
replaces the word element by the remark- 
able expression ‘ ground-stuff.’ He advo- 
cates the introduction of the term ‘ Knall 
gas,’ and employs it faithfully himself. 
Rarely the translation attains to complete 
unintelligibility, e. g., on page 149: 

‘The choice of a suitable hypothesis to 
be advanced can be easily made, now or 
never, in the case before us.” 

It must be admitted that Professor 
Palmer’s English is by no means pleasant 
reading. Those with any feeling for the 
right use of language will be incessantly ir- 
ritated by it, and even others will be not 
infrequently annoyed by the unnecessary 
difficulties which it introduces. 

The defects of the translation are un- 
doubtedly serious. But for this there is 
much compensation. It is plain that the 
translator has followed the wonderful de- 
velopment of the new science faithfully, and 
his own comprehension of the subject is 
evident on every page. The student who 
will forgive the obvious defects, which, after 
all, concern rather the appearance than the 
substance, and give to the book an earnest, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Voz. I. No. 21. 


thoughtful reading, can not fail to derive 
from it a large amount of valuable infor- 
mation. 

Ropert H. BRADBURY. 


Proceedings of the Society for the Promotion of 
Engineering Education, Vol I1., Brooklyn 
Meeting, 1894. Edited by Professors 
Swain, Baker and Johnson. $8vo, pp. 
vili., 292. $2.50. 

This excellent collection of interesting 
and helpful papers is issued to the members 
of the Society ; but, as we understand from 
an inserted slip, copies may be obtained 
from the Secretary, Professor J. B. Johnson, 
of Washington University, St. Louis, at the 
regular price paid by members. The yol- 
ume is well made up, and its contents justify 
a good form of make-up. The book con- 
tains the usual statement of the objects of 
the Society, the rules, and the lists of 
officers and members, followed by the com- 
plete papers of the the meeting of 1894. 
The Society was organized in Chicago in 
1893, and its next meeting, at Brooklyn, is 
that here given record. Its membership, 
already about 160, includes probably the 
majority of the recognized leaders among 
representatives of the department of educa- 
tion to which its belongs. The discussions 
are mainly on subjects of immediate inter- 
est to the teachers in the professional engi- 
neering schools, and are necessarily of great 
importance to them and their pupils, though 
perhaps less attractive to the average reader 
than are discussions of educational mat- 
ters generally. The requirements for ad- 
mission, the character and designation of the 
degrees properly conferred, the teachers and 
the text-books, methods and extent of shop 
and laboratory work, and forms of curri- 
cula suitable to this special work, are the 
main topics, and they are well and dispas- 
sionately treated. The volume is full of 
useful and instructive matter. 

R. H. T. 


“MAy 24, 1895.] 


Steam Power and Millwork: By Gro. W. Sut- 
cuirre. Whittaker & Co., London; Mac- 
millan & Co., New York. 12mo, pp. xv. 
886. 1895. $4.50. 
_ This book is one of the excellent series 
for specialists published recently by this 
firm, and is a very good example of the 
kind of work now coming to be so common 
in technical departments. It is written for 
those who are interested in the design, man- 
ufacture and use of steam engines, mill ma- 
chinery and similar apparatus, and pre- 
sumably represents the condensed experi- 
ence of its author. The book gives valu- 
able information relative to the most mod- 
ern systems of production and transmission 
of power, and the latest forms of engine 
boilers and transmitting mechanisms, and 
their details, including also instructions re- 
garding their proportions and for their 
maintenance. The 157 illustrations are 
numerous and good, representing every es- 
sential detail of which description is given. 
Numerous tables are distributed through 
the pages of text, and afford a condensed 
‘presentation of facts and data required in 
the computation of designs. The discussion 
relates principally to the steam engine; 
but considerable space is given to rope and 
other transmissions, and the customary 
forms of power-transmission by the older 
methods. References are freely given, and 
e book is thus made, not only intrinsically 
valuable, but a key to the extensive litera- 
ture of its subject and field. The book will 
prove an excellent contribution to the 
library, Eepeeially of the young engineer. 
Reet. AD. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
JOINTS IN THE VERTEBRATE SKELETON. 


in the last number of the Archiv fiir Ent- 
wickelungsmechanik der Organismen is the 
completion of Gustav Tornier’s elaborate 
investigation upon ‘ The Origin of the Forms 
of the Joints in the Vertebrate Skeleton.’ 


SCIENCE. 


581 


The writer is apparently unaware of the 
work which has been done upon the same 
subject by Ryder, Cope and others in this 
country, and his conclusions are therefore 
of all the greater interest since, while inde- 
pendently reached, they are in accord with 
the American Neo-Lamarckians so far as. 
the adaptive power of individual reaction 
is concerned. He concludes as follows: 
The forms of the joints arise by the adapta- 
tion of the organism to external conditions 
of life, and are the results of mechanical in- 
fluences which are directed upon the joint. 
apparatus by the action of the muscular 
system. These mechanical stimuli act 
directly upon the joints, and lead not 
through the reproductive cells, but directly 
through the transformation of those parts. 
of the body which are under these changing 
influences. Joints, therefore, arise accord- 
ing to the principle announced by Wilhelm 
Roux of ‘ functional adaptation,’ and of the 
‘self formation of the useful,’ ‘ of adaptation 
of the organism to functions through the 
exercise of these functions.’ Since com- 
parative anatomy affords the surest tests of 
the truth of these principles, proofs which 
have not had their inspiration in Roux’s 
declarations, but have led a long way to- 
ward them and are still showing the appli- 
cation of these principles in questions of 
theoretical evolution, how useful it would 
be were these principles also extended into 
other fields of research! At the same time 
these proofs indicate that comparative an- 
atomy united with pathology present two 
of the routes by which this goal can and 
will be reached. This number also con- 
tains the experimental studies in teratogeny 
by Mitrophanow, and a continuation of 
Driesch’s experimental work. 

This journal has become the medium of 
publication of the new school in Germany 
which revolts against the extreme to which 
Weismann has carried the.theory of selec- 
tion, and represents partly the thought 


582 


which is independent of all theories, partly 
that which, as seen in the above quotation 
from Tornier’s paper, is analogous to Amer- 
ican Neo-Lamarckism. It differs from the 
American school in the cardinal point, how- 
ever, that judgment is suspended as to the 
inheritance of acquired characters. 


H. F. O. 


THE PREPARATION OF ARGON. 


Sryce the announcement, by Lord Ray- 
leigh and Prof. Ramsay, of the isolation of 
a new constituent of the atmosphere, any 
information as to the nature of this sub- 
stance has been received with interest by 
the scientific world. Guntz has recently de- 
scribed, in the Comptes Rendus, a modification 
of the method used by Rayleigh and Ram- 
say for its preparation. This author has 
substituted lithium for magnesium, thereby 
securing the absorption of the nitrogen 
more readily at a lower temperature. The 
preparation of pure lithium in quantity has 
hitherto been a difficult problem, but Guntz 
has devised a simple method for its prepara- 
tion in large quantities. 

This consists in the electrolytic decom- 
position of a mixture of equal parts of 
lithium chloride and potassium chloride, the 
latter being introduced to lower the temper- 
ature at which the decomposition takes 
place.’ The decomposition is carried on 
in porcelain crucibles and the molten lithium 
poured into molds. It is free from iron and 
silica, but contains a small amount of potas- 
sium chloride. 

The experiment showing the presence of 
argon in atmospheric nitrogen and its ab- 
sence from chemical nitrogen, the latter 
term being used for nitrogen obtained from 
chemical substances by decomposition, con- 
sists in introducing the nitrogen into a 
glass tube containing the lithium in a boat. 
The glass tube is connected with a manom- 
eter to show the change in pressure. Upon 
heating the metal to dull redness, combina- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 21. 


tion of the nitrogen and lithium takes place 
with incandescence. The manometer after 
the operation shows a pressure of about 
10 mm. Upon introducing another vyol- 
ume of nitrogen and repeating the opera- 
tion about the same amount of argon is 
obtained, and this process can be continued 
until the tube is filled with argon. I, 
however, chemical nitrogen is used there is 
total absorption, showing that atmospheric 
nitrogen contains some constituents not 
present in chemical nitrogen. 


J. HE. Grip. . 


HELION. 


Pror. Ramsay has kindly sent us the 
following abstract of his paper on ‘ Helion, 
a Gaseous Consistent of certain Minerals.’ 
Part I., received by the Royal Society on 
April 27th: 

An account is given of the extraction of 
a mixture of hydrogen and helion from a 
felspathic rock containing the mineral clé- 
veite. It is shown that in all probability 
the gas described in the preliminary note 
of March 26 was contaminated with atmos- 
pheric argon. 

The gas now obtained consists of hydro- 
gen, probably derived from some free metal 
in the felspar, some nitrogen and helion. 
The density of helion, nearly free from 
nitrogen, was found to be 3.89. From the 
wave-length of sound in the gas, from which 
the theoretical ratio of specific heats 1.66 is 
approximately obtained, the conclusion may 
be drawn that helion, like argon, is mona- 
tomic. Evidence is produced that the gas 
evolved from cléveite is not a hydride, and 
a comparison is made of the spectra of 
argon and helion. There are four specially 
characteristic lines in the helion spectrum 
which are absent from that of argon; they 
are a brilliant red, the D, line of a very 
brilliant yellow, a peacock-green line, and 
a brilliant violet line. One curious fact is. 
that the gas from cléveite, freed from all 


- May 24, 1895.] 


impurities removable by sparking with 
oxygen in presence of caustic potash, ex- 
hibits one, and only one, of the character- 
istic bright red pair of argon lines. This, 
and other evidence of the same kind, ap- 
pears to suggest that atmospheric argon 
and helion have some common constit- 
uent. 

Attention is drawn to the fact that on 
subtracting 16 (the common difference be- 
tween the atomic weights of elements of the 
first and second series) from 20, the ap- 
proximate density of argon, the remainder 
is 4, a number closely approximating to the 
density of helion; or, if 32 be subtracted 
from 40, the atomic weight of argon if it be 
a monatomic gas, the remainder is 8, or 
twice the density of helion, and its atomic 
weight if it too is a monatomic gas. 


GRAVITY MEASUREMENTS. 


Ar a meeting of the Philosophical Society 
of Washington on March 16th Mr. G. K. 
Gilbert discussed the gravity determinations 
reported by Mr. G. R. Putnam, an account 
of which is given elsewhere in the present 
number of Scrence. Mr. Gilbert summa- 
rizes his conclusions as follows: 

“The measurements of gravity appear 
far more harmonious when the method of 
_ reduction postulates isostacy than when it 
‘postulates high rigidity. Nearly all the 
local peculiarities of gravity admit of simple 
and rational explanation on the theory that 
the continent as a whole is approximately 
isostatic, and that the interior plain is al- 
‘most perfectly isostatic. Most of the devia- 
ations from the normal arise from excess of 
matter and are associated with uplift. The 
Appalachian and Rocky mountains and the 
Wasatch plateau all appear to be of the 
nature of added loads, the whole mass above 
the neighboring plains being rigidly upheld. 


SCIENCE. 


583 


The fact that the six stations from Pike’s 
Peak to Salt Lake City, covering a distance 
of 375 miles, show an average excess of 
1,345 rock-feet indicates greater sustaining 
power than is ordinarily ascribed to the 
lithosphere by the advocates of isostacy. 
It indicates also that the district used in 
this discussion for estimating the height of 
the mean plain is far too small; even the 
radius of 100 miles selected by Mr. Putnam 
may not be large enough.” 


GENERAL. 

Iy a paper read before the Paris Academy 
on April 29th MM. Hericourt and Ch. 
Richet announce that they have applied 
the method of injecting serum in the treat- 
ment of cancer. Two patients only have 
undergone this treatment, one of whom is 
said to have been completely cured. 

Rey. J. M. Seetys, president of Amherst 
College from 1877 to 1890, died at Amherst 
on May 12th, at the age of seventy. For 
nineteen years before his election to the 
presidency he filled the chair of mental and 
moral philosophy and retained this chair 
until his death. His original contributions 
to philosophy were not important, but he 
exercised great influence as an educator 
and teacher. 

We learn that Deputy Surgeon-General 
John §. Billings, of the army, has requested 
that he be placed on the retired list; and 
that in October that distinguished officer 
will leave the Army Medical Museum, of 
which he is curator, and the Library of the 
Surgeon-General’s Office, of which he is 
librarian, and these magnificent institutions, 
that have been made what they are largely 
by his ability and zeal, will know him no 
longer. Before the date he has selected for 
his retirement he hopes to complete his 
work on the final volume of the Index 
Catalogue. In seeking official retirement 
Dr. Billings does not propose to give up 
work, as he has accepted the chair of 


584 


hygiene in the University of Pennsylvania. 
—N. Y. Medical Record. 

Dr. Cart Turerscu, professor of surgery 
in the University of Leipsic, died on April 
20th at the age of seventy-three. He was 
appointed professor of surgery at Erlangen 
in 1854, and in 1867 proceeded to Leipsic. 
During the Franco-Prussian war he was at- 
tached as senior surgeon to the 12th Army 
Corps. He was the author of standard 
works on cholera and embryology. 

THE number of medical journals at pres- 
ent published in Russia is 38. Of these 20 
are published in St. Petersburg, 5 at Mos- 
cow, 4 at Warsaw, 2 at Odessa, 2 at Char- 
koff, and 1 at Kasan, Kieff, Saratoff, Wor- 
onesz and Pultawa, respectively. The old- 
est of them all is the Medizinskoie Obozrenie, 
which is twenty-one years old; next comes 
the Russkaia Medizina, which is in its nine- 
teenth year; the Vratch, which is in its fif- 
teenth, being third.—N. Y. Medical Record. 

WE much regret to learn that the publi- 
cation of Insect Life will cease with the next 
number. Two new series of bulletins will 
be started from the Division of Entomology 
of the Department of Agriculture to take 
its place. The one will contain articies of 
a general economic and biological character 
—practically such articles as have been 
published most frequently in Insect Life— 
and the other will contain results of the 
purely scientific work of the office force. 

THERE has been established in Leicester, 
England, a bacteriological institution under 
the direction of a medical officer in the 
interests of anti-vaccination. 

Epwarp Burnerr Tynor, M. A., Reader 
in Anthropology in the University of Ox- 
ford, has been made Professor of Anthro- 
pology. 

Pror. W. M. L. Copziy, who holds the 
Chair of Pathology at Jefferson Medical 
College in Philadelphia, has accepted the 
call tendered him by the Trustees of Vander- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 21. 


bilt University, Nashville, Tenn., to take 
charge next fall of the departments of — 
Pathology, Biology and Bacteriology, for 
which they have just completed a new 
building.—N. Y. Evening Post. 

BRIGADIER GENERAL THomas L. Casey, 
having reached the age requiring retirement 
from the active list, has relinquished com- 
mand of the corps of engineers and charge 
of the engineer department. He is suc- 
ceeded by Col. William P. Craighill. 

We learn through the NV. Y. Medical 
Record that the Medical Department of the 
State University of Minnesota was granted 
$40,000 by the Legislature for a laboratory 
building, making a total of $150,000 appro- 
priated for buildings alone in a period of 
four years. The medical law was likewise 
amended to require of all graduates of later 
date than 1898 ‘attendance upon four 
courses of medical lectures, in different 
years, of not less than six months’ duration 
each.’ 


TuE trustees of Williams College have ac- 
cepted’ the legacy of $20,000 from Mme. 
Souberville, in memory of her father, Horace 
F. Clark, D. D. The College has also re- 
ceived a gift of $3,500 from ex-Governor 
Pennoyer, of Oregon, to found a scholarship 
in memory of his son. : 

Dr. Ernst Ritter, of the University of 
Gottingen, has been elected Assistant Pro- 
fessor of Mathematics in Cornell University. 

Tue death of Mrs. Henry C. Lewis, of 
Coldwater, Mich., leaves the art collection 
possessed by her late husband, valued at 
$300,000, at the disposal of the University 
of Michigan. At present the university has 
not accommodation for the bequest, but 
President Angell expects an art building to 
be erected by private contributions. WV. Y. 
Evening Post. 

Aw exhibition of California food products 
will be held in Berlin from the 5th of May 
to the 5th of July. 


May 24, 1895. ] 


| Tue Scientific American for May 11th con- 
tains an interesting illustrated account of 
Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana. 
THEopoR JOHANN CuHRISTIAN AMBDERS 
BrorsEn, the astronomer, died on April 3d 
at Norburg in Schleswig at the age of 76. 
He was director of the observatory of Seuf- 
tenberg for twenty years. 

Tue death is announced, at the age of 64, 
of James Price, President of the Society of 
Civil Engineers of Ireland, Professor in the 
University of Dublin and Engineer in Chief 
of the Midland and Great Western Railway 
Company. 

Tue third International Congress of Zoél- 
ogy at Leyden is divided into six sections, as 
follows: (1) General Zoélogy, Geographical 
distribution, including fossil faunas. (2) 
Classification of Vertebrates, Geographical 
distribution. (3) Comparative Anatomy 
of Vertebrates, living and fossil. Embry- 
ology. (4) Classification of Invertebrates, 
Geographical distribution. (5) Entomology, 
(6) Comparative Anatomy and Embryology 
of the Invertebrates. 

_ Tue Craven Studentship at Cambridge 
has been awarded to Mr. R. C. Bosanquet. 
This is an endowment for advanced studies 
abroad in the languages, literature, history, 
archeology, or art of ancient Greece or 
Rome, or the comparative philology of the 
Indo-European languages. 

In a demurrer filed by Mrs. Jane L. 

Stanford in the United States Circuit Court 
at San Francisco it is contended that, since 
no valid claim was ever presented to Leland 
anford during his life or to his widow 
ce his death, any claim the United 
ates Government might have had on the 
Stanford estate is vitiated. 
_ Hon. Ecxtey B. Coxe, a prominent min- 
ing engineer and writer, at one time Presi- 
dent of the American Institute of Mining 
Engineers, died at Hazleton, Pa., at the 
ge of fifty-four years. 


SCIENCE. 


585 


BRIGADIER GENERAL CHARLES SUTHER- 
LAND, formerly Surgeon-General of the 
Army, died at Washington, on May 11th, 
at the age of sixty-five years. 

TueE first conversazione of the Royal Society 
for the season was held on the evening of 
May 1st in Burlington-house, and there was 
a very large attendance of guests. The ex- 
hibits were exceptionally numerous, electric 
science and applied mathematies being well 
represented, while some interesting exhibits 
were also shown in the department of 
chemistry, astronomy and biology.— London 
Times. 

Principat Perrrson, of Dundee College, 
has been offered the presidency of McGill 
University, Montreal. 

Dr. J. H. Hystop has been made pro- 
fessor of logic and ethics in Columbia Col- 
lege, and Dr. Frederick 8. Lee, adjunct 
professor of physiology. 

Liorotp Trovveror died on April 22d 
at the Observatory of Meudon at the age of 
68. After the coup détit he left France 
and came to America, living in Cambridge 
until 1882. His first published work ap- 
peared in Boston in 1866. At this time he 
was a student of natural history, but later 
he obtained a position as astronomer at 
Harvard College. His most important work 
was on the planet Venus, published in 1892. 
He was well known for his drawings, many 
of which still remain unpublished. He 
leaves an unfinished memoir on the planet 
Mars, and at the time of his death was en- 
gaged on a study of Jupiter. 


Dr. Joun W. Byron, who died on May 
8th at the age of 34, was known for his re- 
searches in bacteriology carried out at 
Havana during the yellow-fever epidemic, 
later in the laboratories of Berlin and Paris, 
and during the last five years in the Loomis 
Laboratory, where he occupied the position 
of bacteriologist. Dr. Byron is said to have 
contracted the disease of which he died in 


586 


carrying out his experiments on tubercle 
bacilli. 

Tur American Forestry Association pro- 
posed holding its annual peripatetic meet- 
ing in southern New Jersey from May 
16th to May 19th. The privileges of this 
expedition are open to all members of 
the American Forestry Association, New 
Jersey Forestry Association and Pennsyl- 
vania Forestry Association. On May 15th 
Prof. B. E. Fernow was to deliver an il- 
lustrated lecture at Camden, from which 
place the party would start, going down the 
Delaware by steamboat, visiting all places 
of interest along the shore from Cape May 
to Atlantic City and in the pines. On the 
evening of May 17th an illustrated lecture 
was to be delivered in Atlantic City by 
Prof. Joseph Rothrock, Forestry Commis- 
sioner for Pennsylvania. 


_ Av a meeting of the Fellows of the Royal 
Botanical Society held in the Societies’ gar- 
dens at Regent’s Park, London, the question 
of the desirability of opening the gardens to 
the public on Bank holidays was discussed. 
It was stated at the same meeting that 
unless some fresh source of income could be 
obtained the gardens could not be kept up. 


Amr the spring meeting of the Iron and 
Steel Institute the Bessemer gold medal of 
1895 was unanimously awarded to Henry 
Marion Howe, of Boston, in recognition of 
his contributions to metallurgical literature. 
Among the previous recipients of the medal 
were Peter Cooper, Abram 8. Hewitt, Alex- 
ander L. Holley and John Fritz. Mr. 
Howe’s most important work is a treatise 


on the ‘Metallurgy of Steel,’ which was 


published in 1890 and for which he received 
a prize of $500 from the Société d’ Encour- 
agement of Paris. 

THE 66th anniversary meeting of the 
Zoological Society of London was held on 
April 29th. The chair was taken by Sir 
William H. Flower. The report of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Voz. I. No. 21. 


Council stated that the silver medal had 
been awarded to Mr. Henry H. Johnston, 
Commissioner for British Central Africa; 
for his distinguished services to all branches 
of natural history. The total receipts of 
the Society for 1894 amounted to £25,107, 
a decrease of £1,110 being attributed to the 
unfavorable weather of the past year. The 
expenditure amounted to £23,616, a decrease 
of £1,661. The number of animals in the 
Zodlogical Gardens on December 31st last — 
was 2,563, of which 669 were mammals, 
1,427 birds and 467 reptiles. About 30 
species of mammals, 12 of birds and one of 
reptiles had bred in the gardens during last 
summer. Sir William H. Flower was re- 
elected president.—London Times. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF WASHINGTON. 

A sornt meeting of the Scientific Societies 
of Washington was held May 10th, on the oe- 
casion of the delivery of the annual address 
of the President of the National Geographic 
Society, Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard. Dr. 
G. Brown Goode presided, and in the in- 
troductory remarks briefly outlined the 
development of the Societies and their joint 
commission. 

Mr. Hubbard’s subject was ‘ Russia.’ He 
considered it in the light of his own obser- 
vations while making an extensive journey 
through that country in 1881. Its climate, 
physiographic features, government and the 
customs and conditions of its people were 
all graphically portrayed. At the close of 
the address a series of views were shown 
upon the screen. 

In response to a motion by Prof. Simon 
Newcomb, seconded by Postmaster General 
Wilson, the large audience gave Mr. Hub- 
bard a hearty vote of thanks for his address. 

J. 8. Driuer, Secretary. 


BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
At the meeting on May 4th, Mr. Charles 
Torrey Simpson read a paper ‘On the Geo- 


May 24, 1895.] 


graphical Distribution of the Naiades,’ an 
abstract of a paper on classification and 
distribution soon to be published. 

After stating that the classification 
adopted by most authors, in which the 
family Unionide is founded on forms without 
siphons, and the Mutelide on those in which 
they are developed, cannot stand, since 
these characters vary in the same genus or 
species, the writer showed that von Ihe- 
ring’s new definition of the families, in 
which the former was based on the embry- 
onic state being a glochidium and the latter 
by its larvee being a lasidium agreed with 
the shells. In the Unionide these are schizo- 
dont, in the Mutelide they are irregularly 
taxodont. The new arrangement shows the 
former family to be world-wide; the latter 
as belonging essentially to the southern 
hemisphere. 

The Naiads are distributed in Geograph- 
ical Provinces whose boundaries may be 
mountain chains which act as watersheds 
_ between river systems, deserts or oceans, 
but these do not always divide regions, 
which sometimes have no tangible barriers. 
In the Old World and South America these 
provinces essentially agree with those es- 
tablished by Sclater and Wallace; in North 
America they do not. 

The Palearctic Region includes all Asia 
south to the Thibetan Plateau, and all the 
western part of the continent, all Europe 
and northern Africa, and all of North 
America west of the Great Cordillera; an 
area of 16,000,000 square miles, with only 
a few, not over 50, simple forms. The 
Oriental Region includes all of Asia south 
of the Himalayas, north to the Amoor, 
west to the Indus, Japan and the Malay 
Archipelago to the Salomon Islands. The 
forms are numerous, often heavy, distorted, 
elegantly sculptured, and closely related to 
ose of the United States. 

The Australian Region includes Austra- 
, Tasmania and New Zealand, with a 


SCIENCE. 


587 


few simple unios related to those of South 
America. Africa south of the Desert is an- 
other great region, the Ethiopian, contain- 
ing the African Mutelide and small unios 
allied to those of India. South America is 
all included in another province, the Neo- 
tropical, the Andes proving a barrier to the 
passage of all forms except unios, which 
have crossed to the western slope. All the 
central United States drainage from West 
Florida to the Rio Grande, including, for 
the most part, the Great Lakes and the 
Mackenzie System, constitutes a wonder- 
fully rich region of naiad life, having the 
finest and most varied forms of the globe. 
The waters of North America draining into 
the Atlantic are peopled by simple forms, 
which may have descended from those of 
the Mississippi Valley. Mexico and Central 
America constitute another region of naiad 
life, having three distinct faunas, an ancient 
one derived from the United States, a more 
recent one from that region, and a few im- 
migrants from South America. 

Mr. Simpson attempts to trace the de- 
velopment and past history of the naiads, 
and their evidence regarding past changes 
of land and sea and the Glacial Epoch. 

The paper was illustrated by a sketch- 
map in colors, showing the different regions. 

The second paper of the evening, ‘The 
Other Side of the Nomenclature Question,’ 
was by Dr. Erwin F. Smith, who spoke, in 
reply to a previous paper by Mr. F. V. 
Coville, against the unfounded claims put 
forth in behalf of the Botanical Club Check 
List. This list has introduced many radical 
changes into our existing botanical nomen- 
clature without sufficient reason. The re- 
vival of the long disused generic names of 
Rafinesque ef al., and the retro-active appli- 
cation of the rule ‘‘ Once a synonym always 
a synonym,’’ whereby many generic names 
of long standing have been discarded, are 
specially objectionable, and will not bear 
the light of criticism. Only a few people 


588 


are urging the adoption of these ultra rules. 
The best systematic botanists of the world 
are opposed to them, and there is such a 
widespread and determined opposition to 
them in the botanical fraternity generally, 
both in this country and in Europe, that 
the movement is certain to amount only to 
a lamentable schism. It has been claimed 
that nine-tenths of our American botanists 
are in favor of these rules, but such state- 
ments are wide of the mark. Some of these 
rules are’in conflict with the Paris Code, 
and others claim to be a strict interpretation 
of it; but de Candolle himself, the author of 
this code, considered such interpretations of 
it as ‘abuses,’ and urged that the Paris 
Code of 1867 be so amended as to prevent 
the swamping of our nomenclature by ultra 
theorists. 

One fact lost sight of by the movers of 
this new American system, for it has no 
following in Europe, is that science is an 
international affair, that the bulk of the 
botanical work of the world is done outside 
of the United States, and that even if we 
were all agreed on this side of the water, 
which is far from true, it would still be 
necessary to gain consent of botanists else- 
where before giving to these rules any more 
weight than mere suggestions. It will be 
time enough for American botanists to put 
them into practice when they have received 
the sanction of an International Botanical 
Congress. Another very strong objection 
to making radical changes in our botanical 
nomenclature is the extent to which botan- 
ical names are used in agriculture, forestry, 
horticulture, floriculture, pharmacy and 
medicine. There is nothing comparable to 
it in zoology. Only intolerable confusion 
can result from calling a plant by one name 
in botany and by another in horticulture or 
pharmacy, and it is surprising that the force 
of this argument was not perceived long ago. 
Finally, the Botanical Club rules do not 
have the sanction of the A. A. A. S., as 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 21, 


might be inferred from some statements 
which have been made, and the organization 
of the Club is so loose as to be a fatal ob= 
jection to regarding its doings or recommen- 
dations as in any sense binding on Ameri- 
can botanists, when these are opposed by 
counter-recommendations proceeding from 
the most famous botanists in the world. 
F. A. Lucas, Secretary. 


BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
MAY 15, 

Notes on the Dissection of a Chimpanzee, with 
Especial Reference to the Brain: Pror, 
Tuomas DwicuHr. 

The Conditions of Escape of Gases from the In- 
terior of the Earth: Pror. N. 8. SHALER. 

SAMUEL HENSHAW, 
Secretary. 


THE MINNESOTA ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCI- 
ENCES, MINNEAPOLIS, MAY 7. 

I. An Observation on Ants: O. W. OESTLUND. 

IT. Remarks on Some Birds New to Minne- 
sota: Dr. THos. S. RoBERTs. 

III, An Amine Compound of Gold: H. B. 
HoyLanp. 

IV. The Chemical Characters of the Minnesota 
Sandstones: Cuas. P. BERKEY. 


V. Miscellaneous Business. 
C. W. Hat, Secretary. 


NEW BOOKS. 


Zur Psychologie des Schreibens. W. PREYER- 
Hamburg and Leipzig, Leopold Voss. 
1895. Pp. 230. M. &. 

The Female Offender. Cmsar Lomproso and 
Witi1aAm Ferrero. New York, D. Ap- 
pleton &Co. 1895. Pp.xx+313. $1.50. 

Story of the Innumerable Company. DAyip 
Starr Jorpan. Stanford Univ. Press. 
1895. Pp. 38. 

Short Studies in Nature Knowledge. WILLIAM 
Gee. Londonand New York, Macmillan 
& Co. 1895. Pp. xiv + 313. $1.10 


— 


SCIENCE. 


New SERIEs. 


‘Vou. I. No. 2 Fripay, 


May 31, 1895. 


SINGLE CopIres, 15 cTs. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 
Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


BEHRENS, Pror. H., Anleitung zur mikrochemi- 
schen Analyse. Mit einem Vorwort von Prof. S. 


‘ Mit 92 Figuren im Text. 
204 eiten 8°. M. 6. 


BETHAULT, Pror. F., Les Prairies. Prairies natu- 
relles. Prairies de Fauche. 223 pages pet. in 8°. 
Cart. Fr. 3. 


BIEDERMANN, Pror. W., Elektrophysiologie. 
Erste Abteilung. Mit 136 Abbildungen. 440 Seiten. 
ar, 8. M. 9. 


BouM, PROSEKTOR A. A., und M. von DAVIDOFF, 
Lehrbuch der Histologie des Menschen einschliesslich 
der mikroskopischen Technik. Mit 246 Abbildungen. 
440 Seiten. gr. 8°. Leinwandband. M. 8. 


GIRARD, PRor. HENRI, Aide-Mémoire de Zoologie. 

Avec 90 figures intercalées dans le texte. 300 pages. 
Pet. in8. Toile. Fr. 3. 
GRAETZ, Pror. Dr. L., Compendium der Physik. 
‘Fir Studirende. Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte 
Auflage. Mit 257 Abbildungen. 454 Seiten. 98". 
M. 7. 


Hasse, Pror. Dr. C., Handatilas der sensiblen und 

‘motorischen Gebiete der Hirn- und Riickenmarks- 
erven zum Gebrauch fiir praktische Aerzte und 

dirende. 36 Tafeln. gr. 8°. Kart. M. 12.60. 


HIPPOKRATES siimmtliche Werke. Ins Deutsche 
uibersetzt und ausfiihrlich commentirt von Dr. Robert 
Fuchs. Bd. I. 526 Seiten. gr. 8°. M. 8.40. 
LAvE, MAX., Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. Ein 
_ Vertreter deutscher Naturforschung im neunzehnten 
Jahrhundert 1795-1876. Nach seinen Reiseberichten, 
seinem Briefwechsel mit A. v. Humboldt, vy. Chamisso, 
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rie anderm handschriftlichen material. Mit dem 
ire Ehrenberg’s in Kupferitzung. 287 Seiten. 


_LoEW, PRoF. Dr. E., Einfiihrung in die Bliiten- 
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ang 432 Seiten. 8°. M. 6. 

_ MARcHLEwsKI, Dr. L., a Chemie des Chloro- 
phy lis. 82 Seiten. 8°. M.2 

_ MERKEL, PROFESSOR FR., umd O: Bonnet, Ergeb- 
nisse der Anatomie und Entwickelungsgeschichte 


Band: 1893. Mit 49 Textabbildungen. 633 
Seiten. gr. 8°. M. 20. 
Mrrzcrn, Pror. Dr. A., und Pror. Dr. N. I. C. 


MU ter, Die Nonnenraupe und ihre Bakterien Un- 
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160 Seiten. 8°. M. 16. 


OsTWALD, PRoF. Dr. WILHELM, Elektrochemie. 
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CONTENTS : 


On the Electrification of Air; On the Thermal Con- 
ductivity of Rock at Different Temperatures : LORD 
KELVIN we we cece ccc cece cee eee eeeeeserceses 589 


Hacekel’s Monism: DAvid STARR JORDAN. 
; patho Genus Zaglossus: ELLioTr Cours. 


DANO LTMLATOLUTE S— ce cecs sucnscsecueasgens 610 


The Cambridge Natural History: W.H. DALL. 
hd Laboratory Guide of Chemistry: W. 
Oo. 


SEEMMEL ELAR 9 aa) 0 0,010 wa o\e.siv's adeleieie nieiorais 612 
The Helmholtz Memorial; The Geological Society 

of America ; Nominations before the Royal Society ; 

, aed A, Ryder ; General. 


(SS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
review should be sent to the seeperielas editor, Prof. J. 
een Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 
ibscriptions and advertisements should be sent to SCIENCE, 
N. Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or 41 East 49th St., New York. 


(1) ‘ON THE ELECTRIFICATION OF AIR.’* 
§ 1. Continvovs observation of natural 
atmospheric electricity has given ample 


roof that cloudless air at moderate heights 
bove the earth’s surface, in all weathers, 


*Two communications by Lord Kelvin, P.R.S., 
the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, meeting in 
1¢ Natural Philosophy lecture-room of the Univer- 
ity of Glasgow, March 27, ‘On the Electrification of 


is electrified with very far from homogene- 
ous distribution of electric density. Ob- 
serving, at many times from May till Sep- 
tember, 1859, with my portable electrometer 
on a flat open sea-beach of Brodick Bay in 
the Island of Arran, in ordinary fair weather 
at all hours of the day, I found the differ- 
ence of potentials, between the earth and an 
insulated burning match at a height of 9 
feet above it (2 feet from the uninsulated 
metal case of the instrument, held over the 
head of the observer), to vary from 200 to 
400 Daniell’s elements, or as we may now 
say volts, and often during light breezes 
from the east and northeast it went up to 
3,000 or 4,000 volts. In that place, and in 
fair weather, I never found the potential 
other than positive (never negative, never 
even down to zero), if for brevity we call 
the earth’s potential at the place zero. In 
perfectly clear weather under a sky some- 
times cloudless, more generally somewhat 
clouded, I often observed the potential at 
the 9 feet height to vary from about 300 
volts gradually to three or four times that 
amount, and gradually back again to nearly 
the same lower value in the course of about 
two minutes.* I inferred that these grad- 
ual variations must have been produced by 


Air’; ‘On the Thermal Conductivity of Rock at Dif- 
ferent Temperatures.’ Printed from proof sheets for 
Nature contributed by the author. 

* *Electrostatics and Magnetism,’ 
Thomson. xvi. 27 281, 282. 


Sir William 


590 


electrified masses of air moving past the 
place of observation. I did not remark 
then, but I now see, that the electricity in 
these moving masses of air must, in all 
probability, have been chiefly positive to 
cause the variations which I observed, as I 
shall explain to you a little later. 

§ 2. Soon after that time a recording at- 
mospheric electrometer * which I devised, 
to show by a photographic curve the con- 
tinuous variation of electric potential ata 
fixed point, was established at the Kew 
Meteorological Observatory, and has been 
kept in regular action from the commence- 
ment of the year 1861 till the present time. 
It showed incessant variations quite of the 
same character, though not often as large, 


as those which I had observed on the sea- 


beach of Arran. 

Through the kindness of, the Astronomer 
Royal, I am able to place before you this 
evening the photographic curves for the 
year 1893, produced by a similar recording 
electrometer which has been in action for 
many years at the Royal Observatory, 
Geeenwich. They show, as you see, not 
infrequently, during several hours of the 
day or night, negative potential and rapid 
transitions from large positive to large 
negative. Those were certainly times of 
broken weather, with at least showers of 
rain, or snow, or hail. But throughout a 
very large proportion of the whole time the 
curve quite answers to the description of 
what I observed on the Arran sea-beach 
thirty-six years ago, except that the varia- 
tions which it shows are not often of so 
large amount in proportion to the mean or 
to the minimums. 

$3. Thinking over the subject now, we 
see that the gradual variations, minute af- 
ter minute through so wide a range as the 
3 or 4 to 1, which I frequently observed, 
and not infrequently rising to twenty times 
the ordinary minimum, must have been due 

* ‘Electrostatics and Magnetism.’ 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 22. 


to positively electrified masses of air, within 
a few hundred feet of the place of obserya- 
tion, wafted along with the gentle winds of 
5 or 10 or 15 feet per second which were 
blowing at the time. If any comparably 
large quantities of negatively electrified air 
had been similarly carried past, it is quite 
certain that the minimum observed poten- 
tial, instead of being in every case positive, 
would have been frequently large negative. 

$4. Two fundamental questions in re- 
spect to the atmospheric electricity of fair 
weather force themselves on our attention :— 
(1) What is the cause of the prevalent posi- 
tive potential in the air near the earth, the 
earth’s potential being called zero? (2) 
How comes the lower air to be electrified 
to different electric densities whether posi- 
tive or negative in different parts? Obser- 
vations and laboratory experiments made 
within the last six or eight years, and par- 
ticularly two remarkable discoveries made 


_by Lenard, which I am going to deseribe to 


you, have contributed largely to answering 
the second of these questions. 

§ 5. In an article ‘On the Electrification 
of Air by a Water-jet,’ by Magnus Mae- 
lean and Makita Goto,* experiments were 
described showing air to be negatively elee- 
trified by a jet of water shot vertically 
down through it from a fine nozzle into a 
basin of water about 60 centimeters below it. 
It seemed natural to suppose that the ob- 
served electrification was produced by the 
rush of the fine drops through the air; but 
Lenard conclusively proved, by elaborate 
and searching experiments, that it was in 
reality due chiefly, if not wholly, to the 
violent commotions of the drops impinging 
on the water surface of the receiving basin, 
and he found that the negative electrifica- 
tion of the air was greater when they were 
allowed to fall on a hard slab of any material — 
thoroughly wetted by water than when they 
fell on a yielding surface of water several 

*Philosophical Magazine, 1890, second half-year. 


May 31, 1895.] 


centimeters deep. He had been engaged in 
studying the great negative potential which 
had been found in air in the neighborhood of 
waterfalls, and which had generally been 
attributed to the inductive action of the 
ordinary fine weather electric force, giving 
negative electricity to each drop of water- 
spray before it breaks away from conduct- 
ing communication with the earth. Before 
he knew Maclean and Goto’s paper, he had 
found strong reason for believing that that 
theory was not correct, and that the true 
explanation of the electrification of the air 
must be found in some physical action not 
hitherto discovered. A less thorough in- 
quirer might have been satisfied with the 
simple explanation of the electricity of 
waterfalls naturally suggested by Maclean 
and Goto’s result, and might have rested in 
the belief that it was due to an electrifying 
effect produced by the rush of the broken 
water through the air; but Lenard made an 
independent experimental investigation in 
the Physical Laboratories of Heidelberg and 
Bonn, by which he learned that the seat of 
the negative electrification of the air electri- 
fied is the lacerated water at the foot of the 
fall, or at any rocks against which the water 
impinges, and not the multitudinous inter- 
faces between air and water falling freely in 
in drops through it. 

§ 6. It still seems worthy of searching in- 
quiry to find electrification of air by water 
falling in drops through it, even though we 
now know that if there is any such electrifi- 
cation it is not the main cause of the great 
negative electrification of air which has been 
found in the neighborhood of waterfalls. 
For this purpose an experiment has been 
very recently made by Mr. Maclean, Mr. 
Galt and myself, in the course of an investi- 
gation regarding electrification and diselec- 
trification of air with which we have been oc- 
eupied for more thana year. Theapparatus 
which we used is before you. It consists of 
a quadrant electrometer connected with an 


SCIENCE. 


591 


insulated electric filter* applied to test 
the electrification of air drawn from differ- 
ent parts of a tinned iron funnel, 187 centi- 
meters long and 15 centimeters diameter, 
fixed in a vertical position with its lower 
end open and its upper end closed, except a 
glass nozzle, of 1.6mm. aperture admitting 
a jet of Glasgow supply water (from Loch 
Katrine) shot vertically down along its 
axis. The electric filter (rR in the draw- 
ing), a simplified and improved form of 
that described in the Proceedings of the 
Royal Society for March 21, consists of 
twelve circles of fine wire gauze rammed as 
close as possible together in the middle of a 
piece of block tin pipe of 1 em. bore and 2em. 
length. One end of it is stuck into one end 
of a perforation through a block of paraffin, 
K, which supports it. The other end (G@) 
of this perforation is connected by block 
tin pipe (which in the apparatus actually 
employed was 4} meters long, but might 
have been shorter), and india-rubber tubing 
through bellows to one or other of two 
short outlet pipes (a1 and P) projecting from 
the large funnel. 

§ 7. We first applied the india-rubber 
pipe to draw air from the funnel at the 
upper outlet, Pp, and made many experi- 
ments to test the electricity given by it to 
the receiving filter, R, under various condi- 
tions as to the water-jet ; the bellows being 
worked as uniformly as the operator could. 
When the water fell fairly through the fun- 
nel with no drops striking it, and through 
90 em. of free air below its mouth, a small 
negative electrification of R was in every 
case observed (which we thought might 
possibly be attributable to electrification of 
air where the water was caught in a basin 
about 90 em. below the mouth of the 
funnel). But when the funnel was slanted 
so that the whole shower of drops from 
the jet, or even a small part of it, struck 


* Kelvin, Maclean, Galt, ‘On the Diselectrification 
of Air.’ Proc. Roy. Soc., March 14, 1895. 


592 


the inside of the funnel the negative 
electrification of R was largely increased. 
So it was also when the shower, after falling 
freely down the middle of the funnel, im- 
pinged on a metal plate in metallic com- 
munication with the funnel, held close under 
its mouth, or 10 or 20 em. below it. For 
example, in a series of experiments made 


<— loch Katrine Supply 


SG OSe Gers GOO BUS EeSa OOD 


2 === ==187. Cms. = 


last’ Monday (March 25), we found .28 of a 
volt in 15 minutes with no obstruction to 
the shower ; and 4.18 volts in five minutes, 
with a metal plate held three or four centi- 
meters below the mouth of the funnel; the 
air being drawn from the upper outlet (2). 
Immediately after, with p closed, and air 
drawn from the lower outlet (at) ,but all other 
circumstances the same, we found .20 of a 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 22. 
volt in five minutes with no obstruction; 
and 6.78 volts in five minutes with the 
metal plate held below the mouth as before. 

§ 8. These results, and others which we 
have found, with many variations of de- 
tail, confirm, by direct test of air drawn 
away from the neighborhood of the water- 
fall through a narrow pipe to a distant 


electrometer, Lenard’s conclusion that a 
preponderatingly strong negative electrifi- 
cation is given.to the air at every place of — 
violent impact of a drop against a water- 
surface or against a wet solid. But they 
do not prove that there is no electrification 
of air by drops of water falling through it. 
We always found, in every trial, decisive 
proof of negative electrification; though of 


May 31, 1895.] 


comparatively small amount when there 
was no obstruction to the shower between 
the mouth of the funnel and the catching 
basin 90 em. below it. We intend to con- 
tinue the investigation, with the shower 
falling freely far enough down from the 
mouth of the funnel to make quite sure 
that the air which we draw off from any 
part of the funnel is not sensibly affected 
by impact of the drops on anything be- 
low. 

§ 9. The other discovery * of Lenard, of 
which I told you, is that the negative elec- 
trification of air, in his experiments with 
pure water, is diminished greatly by very 
small quantities of common salt dissolved 
in it, that is brought to nothing by .011 per 
cent.; that positive electrification is produced 
in the air when there is more than .011 per 
cent. of salt in the water, reaching a maxi- 
mum with about 5 per cent. of salt, when 
the positive electrical effect is about equal 
to the negative effect observed with pure 
water, and falling to 14 per cent. of this 
amount when there is 25 per cent. of salt 
in the solution. Hence sea-water, contain- 
ing as it does, about 3 per cent. of common 
salt, may be expected to give almost as 
strong positive electrification to air as pure 
water would give of negative in similar cir- 
cumstances as to commotion. Lenard in- 
fers that breaking waves of the sea must 
give positive electricity to the air over 
them; he finds, in fact, a recorded observa- 
tion by Exner, on the coast of Ceylon, 
.showing the normal positive electric poten- 
tial of the air to be notably increased by a 
storm at sea. I believe Lenard’s discovery 
fully explains also some very interesting 
observations of atmospheric electricity of 
my own, which I described in a letter 
to Dr. Joule, which he published in the 
Proceedings of the Literary and Philo- 


*‘Ueber die Electricitiit der Wasserfiille.’ Table 
XVii. p. 228. Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 1892, 
vol. xlvi. 


SCIENCE. 


593 


sophical Society of Manchester for Octo- 
ber 18, 1859. * ‘The atmospheric effect 
ranged from 30° to about 420° [of a heteros- 
tatic torsion electrometer of ‘the divided- 
ring’ species] during the four days which I 
had to test it; that is to say, the electro- 
metric force per foot of air, measured hori- 
zontally from the side of the house, was 
from 9 to above 126 zinc-copper water cells. 
The weather was almost perfectly settled, 
either calm, or with slight east wind, and 
in general an easterly haze in the air. 
The electrometer twice within half an hour 
went above 420°, there being at the time a 
fresh temporary breeze from the east. 
What I had previously observed regarding 
the effect of east wind was amply confirmed. 
Invariably the electrometer showed very 
high positive in fine weather, before and 
during east wind. It generally rose very 
much shortly before a slight puff of wind 
from that quarter, and continued high till 
the breeze would begin to abate. I never 
once observed the electrometer going up 
unusually high during fair weather without 
east wind following immediately. One 
evening in August I did not perceive the 
east wind at all, when warned by the 
electrometer to expect it; but I took the 
precaution of bringing my boat up to a safe 
part of the beach, and immediately found 
by waves coming in that the wind must be 
blowing a short distance out at sea, al- 
though it did not get so far as the shore 
. .. . On two different mornings the ratio 
of the house to a station about sixty yards 
distant on the road beside the sea was .97 
and -96 respectively. On the afternoon of 
the 11th inst, during a fresh temporary 
breeze of east wind, blowing up a little 
spray as far as the road station, most of 
which would fall short of the house, the 
ratio was 1.08 in favour of the house electro- 
meter—both standing at the time very 


* Republished in ‘ Electrostaties and Magnetism.’ 
‘ Atmospheric Electricity,’ xvi. 7 262. 


} 


594 SCIENCE. [N.S. Von. I, No. 22, — 


high—the house about 350°. I have little north-east of it; and now it seems to me 


doubt but that this was owing to the nega- 
tive electricity carried by the spray from 
the sea, which would diminish relatively 
the indications of the road electrometer.”’ 

$10. The negative electricity spoken of 
in this last sentence, ‘as carried by the 
spray from the sea,’ was certainly due to 
the inductive effect of the ordinary electro- 
static force in the air close above the water, 
by which every drop or splash breaking 
away from the surface must become nega- 
tively electrified ; but this only partially 
explains the difference which I observed 
between the road station and the house 
station. We now know, by the second of 
Lenard’s two discoveries, to which I have 
alluded, that every drop of the salt water 
spray, falling on the ground or rocks 
wetted by it, must have given positive 
electricity to the adjoining air. The air, 
thus positively electrified, was carried to- 
wards and over the house by the on-shore 
east wind which was blowing. Thus, while 
the road electrometer under the spray 
showed less electrostatic force than would 
have been found in the air over it and above 
the spray, the house electrometer showed 
greater electrostatic force because of the 
positively electrified air blowing over the 
house from the wet ground struck by the 
spray. 

§ 11. The strong positive electricity, 
which as described in my letter to Joule, I 
always found in Arran with east wind, 
seemed at first to be an attribute of wind 
from that quarter. But I soon found that 
in other localities east wind did not give 
any very notable augmentation, nor per- 
haps any augmentation at all, of the ordi- 
nary fair weather positive electric force, and 
for a long time I have had the impression 
that what I observed in this respect, on the 
sea-beach of Brodick Bay in Arran, was 
really due to the twelve nautical miles of 
sea between it and the Ayrshire coast, east- 


more probable than ever that this is the ex- 
planation when we know from Lenard that. 
the countless breaking waves, such as even 
a gentle east wind produces over the sea 
between Ardrossan and Brodick, must ey- 
ery one of them give some positive elec- 
tricity to the air wherever a spherule of 
spray falls upon unbroken water. It be- 
comes now a more and more interesting 
subject for observation (which I hope may 
be taken up by. naturalists having the op- 


- portunity) to find whether or not the ordi- 


nary fine weather positive electric force at 
the sea coast in various localities is in- 
creased by gentle or by strong winds from 
the sea, whether north, south, east or west 
of the land. 

$12. From Lenard’s investigation we 
now know that every drop of rain falling on 
the ground or on the sea,* and every drop 
of fresh water spray of a breaking wave, 
falling on a fresh water lake, sends negative 
electricity from the water surface to the air; 
and we know that every drop of salt water, 
falling on the sea from breaking waves, 
sends positive electricity into the air from 
the water surface. Lenard remarks that 
more than two-thirds of the earth’s surface 
is sea, and suggests that breaking sea- 
waves may give contributions of positive 
electricity to the air which may possibly 
preponderate over the negative electricity 
given to it from other sources, and may 
thus be the determining cause of the nor- 
mal fair weather positive of natural atmos- 
pheric electricity. It seems to me highly 
probable that this preponderance is real for 
atmospheric electricity at sea. In average 
weather, all the year round, sailors in yery 
small vessels are more wet by sea-spray 
than by rain, and I think it almost certain 
that more positive electricity is given to the 
air by breaking waves than negative elec- 


*“Ueber die Electricitiit der Wasserfille.’ Annal- ° 
en der Physik wnd Chemie, 1892, vol. xlvi., p. 631. 


ni 
4 


May 31, 1895.] 


tricity by rain. It seems also probable that 
the positive electricity from the waves is 
much more carried up by strong winds to 
considerable heights above the sea than 
the negative electricity given to the air by 
rain falling on the sea; the greater part of 
which may be quickly lost into the sea, and 
but a small part carried up to great heights. 
But it seems to me almost certain that 
the exceedingly rapid recovery of the nor- 
mal fair weather positive, after the smaller 
positive or the negative atmospheric elec- 
tricity of broken weather, which was first 
found by Beccaria in Italy 120 years ago, 
and which has been amply verified in Scot- 
landand England, *could not be accounted 
for by positively electrified air coming from 
the sea. Even at Beccaria’s Observatory, at 
Garzegna di Mondovi in Piedmont,or at Kew 
or Greenwich or Glasgow, we should often 
have to wait a very long time for reinstate- 
ment of the normal positive after broken 
weather, if it could only come in virtue of 
positively electrified air blowing over the 
place from the sea; and several days, at 
least, would have to pass before this result 
could possibly be obtained in the centre of 
Europe. $ 

§ 13. It has indeed always seemed to me 
probable that the rain itself is the real 
restorer of the normal fair weather positive. 
Rain or snow, condensing out of the air 
high up in the clouds, must itself, I believe, 
become positively electrified as it grows, 
and must leave positive electricity in the 
air from which it falls. Thus rain falling 
from negatively electrified air would leave it 
less negatively electrified, or non-electrified 
or positively electrified ; rain falling from 
non-electrified air would leave it positively 
electrified ; and rain falling from positively 
electrified air would leave it with more of 
positive electricity than it had before it 
lost water from its composition. Several 
times within the last thirty years I have 

* *Electrostatics and Magneticism,’ XVI., 2 287. 


SCIENCE. 


595 


made imperfect and unsuccessful attempts 
to verify this hypothesis by laboratory ex- 
periments, and it still remains unproved. 
But I am much interested just now to find 
some degree of observational confirmation 
of it in Elster and Geitel’s large and care- 
ful investigation of the electricity produced 
in an insulated basin by rain or snow fall- 
ing into it, which they described in a com- 
munication published in the Sitzwngsberichte 
of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, of May, 
1890. They find generally a large electri- 
cal effect, whether positive or negative, by 
rain or snow falling into the basin for even 
so short a time as a quarter of a minute, 
with however, on a whole, a preponderance 
of negative electrification. 

§ 14. But my subject this evening is not 
merely natural atmospheric electricity, al- 
though this is certainly by far the most 
interesting to mankind of all hitherto known 
effects of the electrification of air. I shall 
conclude by telling you very briefly, and 
without detail, something of new experi- 
mental results regarding electrification and 
diselectrification of air, found within the 
last few months in our laboratory here by 
Mr. Maclean, Mr. Galt and myself. We 
hope before the end of the present session 
of the Royal Society to be able to communi- 
cate a sufficiently full account of our work. 

§ 15. Air blown from an _ uninsulated 
tube, so as to rise in bubbles through 
pure water in an uninsulated vessel, and 
carried through an insulated pipe to the 
electric receiving filter, of which I have al- 
ready told you, gives negative electricity to 
the filter. With a small quantity of salt 
dissolved in the water, or sea water sub- 
stituted for fresh water, it gives positive 
electricity to the air. There can be no 
doubt but these results are due to the same 
physical cause as Lenard’s negative and 
positive electrification of air by the impact 
of drops of fresh water or of salt water on a 
surface of water or wet solid. 


[N. S. Voz. I. No. 22. j 


596 SCIENCE. 


§ 16. A small quantity of fresh water or 
salt water shaken up vehemently with air 
in a corked bottle electrifies the air, fresh 
water negatively, salt water positively. A 
‘Winchester quart’ bottle (of which the 
cubic contents is about two litres and a 
half ), with one-fourth of a litre of fresh or 
salt water poured into it, and closed by an 
india-rubber cork, serves very well for the 
experiment. After shaking it vehemently 
till the whole water is filled with fine bub- 
bles of air, we leave it till all the bubbles 
have risen and the liquid is at rest, then 
take out the cork, put in a metal or india- 
rubber pipe, and by double-acting bellows 
draw off the air and send it through the 
electric filter. We find the electric effect, 
negative or positive, according as the water 
is fresh or salt, shown very decidedly by 
the quadrant electrometer; and this, even 
if we have kept the bottle corked for two 
or three minutes after the liquid has come 
to rest before we take out the cork and 
draw off the air. 

§ 17. An insulated spirit lamp or hydro- 
gen lamp being connected with the positive 
or with the negative terminal of a little 
Voss electric machine, its fumes (products 
of combustion mixed with air) sent through 
a block-tin pipe, four meters long, and one 
centimeter bore, ending with a short insu- 
lating tunnel of paraffin and the electric 
filter, gives strong positive or strong nega- 
tive electricity to the filter. 

§ 18. Using the little biscuit-canister and 
electrified needle, as described in our ‘ com- 
munication ’* to the Royal Society ‘On the 
Diselectrification of Air,’ but altered to 
have two insulated needles with varied dis- 
tanees of from a half a centimeter to two 
or three centimeters between them, we find 
that when the two needles are kept at equal 
differences of potential positive and nega- 
tive, from the enclosing metal canister, 
little or no electrification is shown by the 

* Proceedings of the Royal Society, March 14, 1895. 


electric filter ; and when the differences of 
potential from the surrounding metal are 
unequal, electrification, of the same sign as_ 
that of the needle whose difference of po- 
tential is the greater, is found on the filter. 

When a ball and needle-point are used, 
the effect found depends chiefly on the dif- 
ference of potentials between the needle-. 
point and the surrounding canister, and is 
comparatively little affected by opposite 
electrification of the ball. When two balls 
are used, and sparks in abundance pass be- 
tween them, but little electricity is deposited 
by the sparks in the air, even when one of 
the balls is kept at the same potential as 
the surrounding metal. [The communica- 
tion was illustrated by a repetition of some 
of the experiments shown on the occasion 
of a Friday evening lecture * on Atmos- 
pheric Electricity at the Royal Institution 
on May 18, 1860, in which one-half of the 
air of the lecture-room was electrified posi- 
tively, and the other half negatively, by 
two insulated spirit lamps mounted on the 
positive and negative conductors of an elec- 
trie machine. | 


(2) ‘ON THE THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF 
ROCK AT DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES.’ 
EXPERIMENTS by Lord Kelvin and Mr, 

Erskine Murray were described, and the 
apparatus used in them was shown, by 
which it was found that the thermal con- 
ductivity of specimens of slate, sandstone 
and granite is less at higher temperatures 
than at lower for each of these rocks. The 
last tested was Aberdeen granite, for 
which experiments of fairly satisfactory ac- 
curacy showed the mean conductivity for 
the range from 146° C.to 215°C. tobe 86 
per cent. of the mean conductivity in the 
range from 81° ©. to 146° C. They hope 
to send a communication to the Royal So- 
ciety describing their work before the end 
of the present session. 


* ‘lectrostatics and Magnetism,’ xvi., 27 285, 286. 


May 31, 1895.] 


A DYNAMICAL HYPOTHESIS OF INHERI- 
TANCE.* t+ 

Tue doctrine of the preformation of an 
organism in the germ is as inconsistent 
with the fact as with the requirements of 
dynamical theory. The effects of the pre- 
conceptions of preformationism have been 
only too apparent in framing hypotheses of 
inheritance. The now dominant hypothe- 
sis is simply an amplification, in the light 
of numerous modern facts, of the preforma- 
tionism of Democritus. He supposed that 
almost infinitesimally small and very nu- 
merous bodies were brought together in the 
germ from all parts of the body of the par- 
ent. Theseminuterepresentative corpuscles 
were supposed to have power to grow, or 
germinate, at the right time, and in the 
right order, into the forms of the parts and 
organs of the new being. In this way it 
was supposed that the characteristics of the 
parent were represented in a latent form in 
the germ, which might grow as a whole, by 
the simultaneous and successive develop- 
ment of the germinal aggregate composed, 
so to speak, of excessively minute buds, or 
rudiments of the organs. In such wise also 
did the successors of Democritus, namely, 
Aristotle, Buffon, and Erasmus Darwin, 
suppose that the inheritance of parental 
likeness by offspring was to be explained. 
The later and greater Darwin greatly am- 
plified this hypothesis and proposed, pro- 
visionally, to account for the phenomena of 
inheritance by its help. Conceiving the 
process somewhat as above supposed, he 
consistently gave to his provisional hypoth- 


*From ‘Thé Biological Lectures’ of the Marine 
Biological Laboratory, Vol. III., 1895. Printed from 
the proofs by the courtesy of the editor, Professor 
Whitman. 


+ It is interesting to note that the views developed 
in this lecture lead to conclusions in some respects 
similar to those held by Professor Whitman in his 
discourse entitled: ‘The Insufficiency of the Cell- 
Theory of Development,’ published in the series of 
lectures delivered in 1893. 


SCIENCE. 


597 


esis the name of pangenesis, since the minute 
latent buds of the germ were supposed to 
come from, and thus represent potentially 
every part of the bodies of the parents, and 
possibly of still remoter ancestry. 

With the discovery of the presence of 
germinal substance in multicellular organ- 
isms, from the embryonic stages onwards, 
by Owen, Galton, Jager, Nussbaum and 
others, the theory of continuity of germinal 
matter came into vogue. Upon this basis 
Weismann distinguished two kinds of 
plasma in multicellular beings, namely, the 
germ-plasm and the body-plasm, and at 
first assumed that because of this separation 
the latter could not modify the former, 
since the fate of the respective sorts of 
plasma was predetermined by virtue of this 
separation. The one kind was the mere 
carrier of the other, and the germ-plasm 
was immortal because it was produced in 
each species from a store of it which always 
existed, either in a latent or palpable form, 
from the very beginning of development. 
He seems, however, in recent years, to have 
admitted that this germ-plasm could be in- 
directly modified in constitution through 
the influence of the body-plasm that bore 
and enclosed it. Beyond this point Weis- 
mann again becomes a preformationist, as 
truly as Democritus, in that he now con- 
jectures that the supposed innumerable 
latent buds of the germ, representative of 
the organs of the future being, are minute 
masses which he sees as objective realities 
in the chromosomes of the nuclei of the sex- 
cells. These chromosomes of the germ he 
calls ‘ids’ and ‘ idants,’ according to their 
condition of sub-division, and supposes them 
to grow and become divided into ‘ deter- 
minants’ and ‘biophors’ in the course of 
embryonic development. To these he as- 
cribes powers little short of miraculous, in 
that he asserts that these infinitesimal 
germinal particles grow and divide just at 
the right time and order, and control de- 


598 


volopment so as to build up anew the ar- 
rangement of parts seen in the parent type. 
This elaborate system of preformationism is 
bound to produce a reaction that is already 
becoming apparent; in fact, it is probable 
that its very complexity, its many incon- 
sistencies, as well as the numerous subsid- 
iary hypotheses that must be worked out to 
support it, will be fatal to it as a system. 

The path along which the solution of the 
problem of heredity is to be effected lies in 
a wholly different direction, namely, in 
that of the study of the mechanics and dy- 
namics of development, and in the resolute 
refusal to acknowledge the existence of 
anything in the nature of preformed organs 
or of infinitesimal gemmules of any kind 
whatsoever. Such devices are unnecessary 
and a hindrance to real progress in the so- 
lution of the questions of inheritance. 
They only serve to divert the attention of 
the observer from the real phenomena in 
their totality to a series of subordinate de- 
tails, as has happened in Weismann’s case. 
All this while he has been watching the re- 
sults of an epigenetic process, as displayed 
by an inconceivably complex mechanism in 
continuous transformation, and out of all of 
this the most essential thing he has wit- 
nessed has been one of the effects of the op- 
eration of that contrivance in the mere 
splitting of chromosomes that are his ‘ids,’ 
‘idants,’ ‘biophors,’ ete. The potentiality 
of the part has been mistaken for that of 
the whole. 

We must dismiss from our minds all im- 
aginary corpuscles as bearers of hereditary 
powers, except the actual chemical meta- 
meric or polymeric molecules of living mat- 
ter, as built up into ultramicroscopic struc- 
tures, if we wish to frame an hypothesis of 
heredity that is in accord with the require- 
ments of dynamical theory. The ‘ discover- 
ing’ and naming of ‘ids,’ ‘biophors’ and 
‘pangenes’ time will show to have been 
about as profitable as sorting snowflakes 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 22. 


with a hot spoon. We must also dismiss 
the idea that the powers of development 
are concentrated in some particular part of- 
the germ-cell, nor can we assume the latter 
to be homogenous.* This we are compelled 
to deny on the ground of the organization 
of the egg itself. Nor is it possible to deny 
the reciprocal effects of cells upon each 
other ; the parts are reciprocals of the whole, 
as the latter is reciprocal to a part. The 
organism during every phase of its existence 
is a molecular mechanism of inconceivable 
complexity, the sole motive force of which 
is the energy that may be set free by the 
coordinated transformation of some of its 
molecules by metabolism. An appeal to 
anything beyond this and the successive 
configurations of the molecular system of 
the germ, as a whole, resulting from the 
changing dynamical properties of its mole- 
cules, as their individual configurations and 
arrangement change, must end in disap- 
pointment. We must either accept such a 
conclusion or deny that the principle of the 
conservation of force holds in respect to 
the behavior of the ultimate molecular con- 
stituents of living substance. But to deny 
that that principle is operative in living 
creatures is to question direct experimental 
evidence to the contrary, since Rubner has 
been able to actually use an organism as a 
fairly accurate calorimeter. 

The initial configuration or mechanical 
arrangement and successive rearrangements 
of the molecules of a germ, the addition of 


*The writer finds himself unable to agree with 
Haacke, if he has properly understood that author's 
assumption as to the homogeneity or monotonous 
character of living matter, as set forth in his admir- 
able work Gestaltung und Vererbung, 1893. Nor does 
it appear that anything is gained by the acceptance 
of Haacke’s theory of Gemmaria that is not easily 
understood upon the far simpler grounds that will be 
set forth here, though there is much in the book cited 
with which epigenesists must agree, aside from the 
weighty character of its criticisms and its pregnant 
suggestiveness. 


‘ 
‘ 


4 


May 31, 1895.] 


new ones by means of growth, plus their 
chemical and formal transformation as an 
architecturally self-adjusted aggregate, by 
means of metabolism, is all that is required 
in an hypothesis of inheritance. The other 
properties of living matter, such as its vis- 
cosity, free and interfacial surface-tension, 
osmotic properties, its limit of saturation 
with water, its segmentation into cells, in 
short, its organization, must be the result 
of the operation of forces liberated by its 
own substance during its growth by means 
of metabolism. We cannot exclude exter- 
nal forces and influences, such as chemism, 
light, heat, electricity, gravity, adhesion, 
exosmosis, food, water, air, motion, etc., in 
the operation of such a complex mechanism. 
It is these agencies that are the operators 
of the living mechanism, which in its turn 
makes certain successive responses in a way 
that is determined within limits by its own 
antecedent physical structure and conse- 
quent dynamical properties. The parts of 
the whole apparatus are kept in a condition 
of continuous ‘ moving equilibrium’ by ex- 
ternal agencies, to borrow a phrase of Mr. 
Spencer’s. 

This view, it will be seen, leads to a de- 
terminism as absolute as that of the Neo- 
Darwinists, but upon a wholly different 
basis. It leads to the denial of the direct 
mutability of the germ by any means other 
than the transformation, chemical and 
structural, through metabolism of the 
germinal mechanism. It not only compels 
us to deny that the germ can be at once so 
effected by external blows as to transmit 
changes thus’ produced hereditarily except 
under exceptional conditions, as we shall 
see later. It denies also, by implication, that 
the cytoplasm can be so modified, except 

— indirectly, or through architectural transfor- 
mations of its ultramicroscopic structure. 
It is also compelled to deny that spon- 
taneous or autogenous characters can either 
arise or be transmitted without involving 


SCIENCE. 


599 


the principle of the conservation or correla- 
tion of force, since no transformation of 
such a mechanism can take place without 
involving forces directly or indirectly ex- 
erted by the external world. In short, the 
energy displayed by a living molecular sys- 
tem from within must be affected by ener- 
gies coming upon it from without. All 
characters whatsoever were so acquired, so 
that the truth is that there are no others to 
be considered. Characters acquired through 
the interaction of inner and outer forces are 
the only ones possible of acquirement. 

That through reciprocal integration (fer- 
tilization and formation of an oésperm) this 
rule may have apparent exceptions, through 
the compounding of two molecular mechan- 
isms of different strengths, dynamically 
considered, it is impossible to deny in the 
face of the evidence of breeders. Such ex- 
ceptions are apparent, however, and not 
real, as must follow from dynamical theory. 

The sorting process, called natural selec- 
tion, is itself dynamic, and simply expresses 
the fact that, by an actual operation with a 
living body of a certain kind, something 
more than a balancing of forces is involved 
between internal and external energies 
whenever a survival occurs. The princi- 
ples of dynamics therefore apply in all 
strictness to natural selection. 

What it is that makes crosses or hybrids 
more variable and often more vigorous 
than inbred forms must also have a dynamic 
explanation, since there can be no increased 
activity of metabolic processes without an 
increased expenditure of energy and an in- 
creased rate of molecular transformation. 

Variations cannot be spontaneous, as 
Darwin himself was aware. The only way 
in which they can be supposed to have 
arisen is by the blending of molecular dy- 
namical systems of differing initial potential 
strengths, by the conjugation of sex-cells 
(reciprocal integration), and by means of 
variations in the interactions of such result- 


600 


ant systems with their surroundings. 
This, however, Weismann and his followers 
deny, though no proof whatever has been 
offered that such is not the fact. Indeed, 
it is probable that,so long as the ultimate 
machinery of metabolism is beyond the reach 
of ocular demonstration, there can be no 
proof or disproof of the position assumed by 
the performationists or Neo-Darwinists. 
Such proof or disproof is, however, non- 
essential, since we are forbidden by the first 
principles of dynamics to assume that trans- 
formation of any living physical system 
whatever can occur without involving some 
forces or influences that emanate from the 
external world.* The separation and eval- 
uation of the internal and external forces 
incident to the manifestation of life, in the 
present state of our knowledge, and from 
the very nature of the case, plainly tran- 
seends the capacity of present available ex- 
perimental methods in biology. The dis- 
cussion as to whether ‘acquired characters’ 
are inherited can, therefore, have but one 
outcome, since external forces can never be 
excluded in considering the life-history of 
any organism. 

Nageli, in seeking to account for the phe- 
nomena of growth, gave us a most ingenious 
physical hypothesis of the constitution of 
living matter. This, later on, he modified 
so as to develop an hypothesis of hereditary 

‘transmission. But the micelle that were 
representative of the germinal matter of a 

*“Some of the exponents of this [preformation] 
theory of heredity have attempted to elude the dif- 
ficulty of placing a whole world of wonders within a 
body so small and so devoid of structure as a germ, 
by using the phrase structureless germs (F. Galton, 
Blood-relationship, Proc. Roy. Soc., 1872). Now one 
material system can differ from another only in the 
configuration and motion which it has at a given in- 
stant. To explain differences of function and develop- 
ment of agerm without assuming differences of struc- 
ture is, therefore, to admit that the properties of a 
germ are not those of a purely material system.’’— 


JAMES CLERK-MAXWELL, article Atom, Encycl. 
Britan., 9th ed., Vol. III., p. 42, 1878. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 22. 


species he isolated in the form of rows or 
chains of micelle traversing the rest of the 


_ living substance of the organism, and called ~ 


it idioplasm. Here again the germinal mat- 
ter was conceived as separate from that 
forming the rest of the body. Mr. Spencer 
supposed “‘that sperm-cells and germ-cells 
are essentially nothing more than vehicles 
in which are contained small groups of the 
physiological units in a fit state for obeying 
their proclivity towards the structural ar- 
rangement of the species they belong to.” 
These ‘physiological units’ are neither 
chemical nor morphological in character, 
according to Mr. Spencer’s system, but itis 
admitted that their properties and powers 
must be determined in some way by their 
own constitution, conditions of aggregation, 
and relation to the outer world. The views 
of Nageli and Spencer are akin in certain re- 
spects, but they still retain a certain amount 
of resemblance to the older ones, namely, — 
those hypotheses which assume that the 
forces of inheritance are lodged in certain 
very small corpuscles forming part only of 
the germ or organism. These hypotheses 
are also dynamical in nature, and have been 
worked out with the consciousness, in both 
cases, that the mechanism of inheritance 
must also be the one through which metab- 
olism operates. Indeed, these two authors 
seem to be the first to have distinctly recog- 
nized the necessity for such a supposition. 
Later still, with the advent of the discoy- 
ery that the male nucleus was fused with 
the female nucleus during sexual reprodue- 
tion, it was assumed that the nuclear con- 
tents were the only essential material bear- 
ers of those hereditary forces that shape 
the growing germ into the likeness of the 
parentage. With the development of this 
idea the name of Weismann is perhaps most 
closely associated. He has utilized the 
facts of development, nuclear cleavage, ex- 
pulsion of polar bodies, halving and subdi- 
vision of chromosomes, etc., as the founda- 


May 31, 1895.] 


tion of his hypothesis of inheritance. Its 
extreme elaboration is its greatest weakness, 
and in it, no less than in all preceding hypo- 
theses, the theory of a separate category of 
particles carrying hereditary potentialities 
again appears. 

The one criticism that holds of all these 
hypotheses is that they are one-sided and 
ignore a most important set of factors in in- 
heritance, namely, the purely statical ones, 
or those arising from the mere physical 
properties of the living matter of the germ 
viewed as if it were a dead, inert mass, sub- 
ject to the operation of the reciprocal at- 
traction for one another of its constituent 
particles. All of these hypotheses, more- 
over, assume that it is only some of the mat- 
ter of the germ that is concerned in the 
process of hereditary transmission, and that 
the remainder may be regarded as passive. 
The entire germ, on the contrary, or all of 
it that undergoes development, must be 
considered as a single whole, made up of a 
vast number of molecules built up into a 
mechanism. Such a molecular mechanism, 
it must be supposed, cannot set free the po- 
tential energy of its parts except in a cer- 
tain determinate order and way, within 
certain limits, in virtue of the initial phys- 
ical structure ofthe whole. If the germ is 
free to do that, as must happen under 
proper conditions, as a mechanism, its parts, 
as they are thus formed by their own metab- 
olism, it may be assumed, will inevitably 
and nearly recapitulate the ancestral devel- 
opment or that typical of the species. It 
must do this as a mere dynamical system 
or mechanism, the condition of which at 
one phase determines that of the next, and 
so on, to the completion of development. 

In the present state of our knowledge we 
are not prepared to frame a purely mechan- 
ical hypothesis of inheritance that shall an- 
swer every requirement, in spite of the fact 
that no other is possible. Herbert Spencer 
and Professor Haeckel long ago pointed out 


SCIENCE. 


601 


that such an hypothesis is a necessity grow- 
ing out of the very requirements that must 
be satisfied in any attempt to coordinate 
the phenomena of biology with those of the 
not-living world. The material basis of 
life is always a chemically and mechanically 
compounded substance. To the very last 
molecule, such a body must betray evidence 
of arrangement or structure of its parts that 
should make it a mechanism of the utmost 
complexity and requisite potentiality as a 
transformer of energy through the mere 
transposition and rearrangement of such 
parts. We find indeed that living matter 
is chemically the most complex and unsta- 
ble substance known. It is composed 
largely of carbon, a quadrivalent element 
that stands alone in its power to combine 
with itself and at the same time hold in 
chemical bondage groups of atoms repre- 
senting other chemical bodies. Such groups 
are probably held together in great num- 
bers metamerically by the reciprocal or 
otherwise unsatisfied affinities of the large 
number of carbon atoms entering into the 
composition of the proteid molecule. In 
this way the massive and structurally com- 
plex molecule of protoplasm may be sup- 
posed to have arisen. We may thus trace 
the genesis of the peculiarities of living 
matter to this singular property of the car- 
bon atom. On such a basis we may sup- 
pose that the ultimate molecular units are 
identical with the physiological units, so 
that their structures may not only deter- 
mine the nature of the metabolism they can 
undergo, but also be the ultimate units of 
form or morphological character. 

What especially gives color to these sus- 
picions is the extraordinary variety of 
changes, alteration of properties or powers, 
and the vast variety of living matter, as 
represented by the million or more of known 
distinct living species of organisms. It is 
as if the permutations, transformations, and 
the dynamical readjustment of the meta- 


602 


meres of the molecules of living matter 
were the source of its varying potentialities 
as manifested in its protean changes of 
specific form and function. That some me- 
chanical and consequently dynamical in- 
terpretation of these transformations may 
yet be forthcoming is, I take it, distinctly 
foreshadowed by the advances in the newer 
theories of stereo-chemistry developed by 
LeBel and Van’t Hoff. If this is the case 
we may yet hope for a mechanical and 
dynamical explanation of the phenomena 
of life and inheritance. Especially is this 
true if we further suppose that the large 
molecules of living plasma are rather feebly 
held together by a force almost of the na- 
ture of cohesion. We may be permitted 
thus to find an explanation of that phenom- 
enon which is always so characteristic of 
living matter, namely, the large and rela- 
tively fixed amount of water it contains, 
and also the mobility of its molecules in 
respect to one another, its jelly-like char- 
acter at one instant, its fluidity and power 
of motion at another. Itis indeed probable 
that the amount of water contained in liy- 
ing matter is controlled within certain limits 
by the forces of cohesion exerted between 
adjacent molecules against the osmotic 
pressure or capillary action of water tend- 
ing to drive them asunder, as supposed by 
Nageli, in his hypothesis of micelle. Such 
an hypothesis enables us to explain much 
that is otherwise quite unintelligible in re- 
lation to living things. Jt renders us an 
explanation of amceboid motion, of the 
surface tensions of protoplasm and lastly 
of metabolism itself through osmosis and 
the specific characters of the chemical 
transformations that must take place in 
each kind of living substance. 

Such an hypothesis may also afford us 
mechanical constructions of atoms, grouped 
into very large metameric or polymeric 
molecules of the utmost diversity of powers, 
capable of undergoing a long series of suc- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 22, 


cessive transformations, so as to manifest 
in the long run, starting with a molecular 
germinal aggregate, what we call ontogeny~ 
or development. These transformations, 
we must suppose, are effected by the metab- 
olism incident to growth, and moreover, 
that starting with an initial configuration 
of a system of molecules, as a mechanical 
and consequently a dynamical system of 
determinate powers, in the form of a germ, 
it cannot undergo any other transformations 
except such as lead to an approximate re- 
capitulation of the ancestral development 
or phylogeny. This supposition follows 
from the rule that must hold of determinate 
systems of molecules, as well as of systems 
formed of larger masses, namely, that the 
initial changes in the configuration of such 
a complex system must dynamically deter- 
mine within certain variable limits, under 
changing conditions, the nature of all of its 
subsequent transformations, including those 
due to growth and consequently increased 
complexity. We thus escape the necessity 
of invoking certain ‘ proclivities’ of physio- 
logical units, or the necessity of appealing 
to the growth and fission of ‘biophors’ or 
the scattering of ‘determinants’ at the 
proper times and places in the course of 
development. We thus escape, too, the 
mistake of assuming that a part of a germ 
controls the whole, a proposition that has 
been so long advocated by one school of 
biologists that it is astounding that its fal- 
lacy has not long since been more generally 
understood. Such a doctrine is not credi- 
ble in the face of the fact that we know of 
no development except that which takes 
place in intimate association with cyto- 
plasm, which seems to be the principal 
theater of metabolism and growth. We 
cannot conceive of the transformations of 
a germ without considering the metabolism 
of all its parts, such as nucleus, cytoplasm, 
centrosomes, archoplasm, chromatin, spin- 
dles, astral figures, microsomata, etc. 


May 31, 1895.] 


‘Tendencies’ and ‘ proclivities’ are words 
that have no legitimate place in the discus- 
sion of the data of biology any more than 
they have in natural philosophy or physics. 
Karyokinesis, now admittedly inseparable 
in thought from the idea of multicellular 
development, is a rhythmical process so 
complex in its dynamical aspects as to some 
extent lead one unwittingly to underesti- 
mate the absolute continuity of the accom- 
panying processes of metabolism. But that 
is no reason why the importance of nuclear 
metamorphosis should be exaggerated at 
the expense of the far more important 
forces developed by metabolism and growth. 
In fact, the ‘ids,’ ‘idants,’ ete., of that 
school of biologists are not causes but mere 
effects, produced as passing shadows, so to 
speak, in the operation of the perfectly con- 
tinuous processes of metabolism incident to 
development. Reciprocal relations are sus- 
tained between nucleus and cytoplasm of 
such importance that the transformation or 
fission of the one is impossible without the 
other, 

The so-called ‘reducing divisions’ probably 
have nothing but a passing and purely adap- 
tive physiological significance in every on- 
togeny of ova and sperms. The far-fetched 
and extraordinary teleological significance 
given by some to the reducing divisions 
would lead one to suppose that the clairvoy- 
ant wisdom of the original egg that thus 
first threw out the excess of its ancestral 
‘germ-plasm ’ in order to save its posterity 
from harm through the fatality of reversion 
thus entailed was greater than anything 
human, if not god-like. The complete par- 
allelism of the ‘reducing division’ in the 
sperm and egg has never been established. 
The comparison of these processes in the 
two is still only approximate, because in 
the truly holoblastic egg there is, in some 
eases, an apparent temporary substitution 
of the male nucleus for the female, as is 
shown by the former’s assuming a position 


SCIENCE. 


603 


of equilibrium at the center of the ovum 
(Ascaris), a condition of things that does 
not and could not occur in the sperm cell. 

A still more important contrast is the al- 
most incredible difference of volume of the 
two kinds of sex-cells of the same species. 
In man the ratio of volume of the male cell to 
the female cell is as 1 to 3,000 approximately. 
This extreme contrast of volume is asso- 
ciated with corresponding contrasts in their 
properties. There can hardly be any doubt 
that the mature male cell is in a nearly po- 
tential or static state of metabolic transfor- 
mation of its substance, and is characterized 
by an almost complete want of stored meta- 
bolizable reserve material. The egg is in a 
similar static state, but, on the other hand, 
contrasts with the male element in that the 
development of a more or less voluminous 
mass of reserve material within it has 
seemingly been also associated with its loss, 
as a rule, of the power to begin an inde- 
pendent development. The power of the 
male cell to begin its transformation and 
growth through metabolism appears to be 
arrested until it finds the material in which 
its mere presence will set up transforma- 
tions. This it must do by in some way set- 
ting free and diffusing some of its own mole- 
cules osmotically and mechanically through 
the egg. The substance of the egg appears 
therefore to be complementary to that of 
the spermatozoon. The power to set up 
transformations within the egg leading to 
the development of a new being is not 
manifested aside from the presence of the 
male element except in cases of partheno- 
genesis. Even the expulsion of the polar 
cells is not initiated until the stimulus of 
the presence of the male element is experi- 
enced by the egg. 

Another contrast is found in the times of 
the advent of the ‘reducing division’ in the 
two kinds of sex-cells. In the male cell 
the ‘reducing division’ occurs earliest, or 
while it is still in more or less close nutri- 


604 


tive relation to the parent; in the egg the 
‘reducing division’ or expulsion of polar 
cells does not occur till the egg is freed, as 
a rule, from the parent gonad, and generally 
asa consequence of the stimulating effect of 
the presence of the male cell. These dif- 
ferences of behavior of the two sorts of sex- 
cells seem to be correlated with their dif- 
ferences in size. 

We may contemplate the sex-cells as 
molecular mechanisms which, in virtue 
of their mechanical structure, are ren- 
dered capable of controlling the order 
and manner of rearrangement of their con- 
Stituent molecules, because of the new suc- 
cessive attractions and repulsions set free, 
amongst the latter, immediately upon the 
completion of conjugation. The new forms 
of metabolism thus initiated enable us to 
conceive a mechanical theory of fertiliza- 
tion. At any rate, the two sorts of sex-cells 
are potentially the reciprocals of each other, 
and their initial or statical states cannot 
begin to set free their energy and thus pass 
into the successive kinetic states of formal 
change until the two mechanisms are recip- 
rocally and mechanically integrated into a 
single one by means of conjugation. The 
parts of this new single body now act in 
unison. Eyen the manner in which the 
two conjoined molecular mechanisms oper- 
ate can actually be to some extent traced, 
as expressed in the complex movements as- 
sociated with fertilization, the division of 
the chromosomes and centrosomes. The ef- 
. fect of conjugation is to afford opportunity 
also for new and various combinations of 
molecular mechanisms, though the recipro- 
eal integration of pairs of cells having a 
widely different parentage. 

The great size of the egg-cell provides an 
extensive reserve material that enables the 
embryo thus built up usually to reach a rel- 
atively great size without entering for a 
time into competition for food in the strug- 
gle for existence. Sexuality is therefore 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 22. 


altruistic in nature, since it has led in both 
plants and animals to the evolution of a 
condition of endowment, or the storage of 
potential energy in the germ, so that the 
latter is the better able to cope with natural 
conditions. While it may be assumed that 
sexuality has arisen, in the main, under 
conditions determined by natural selection, 
once sexuality was attained, the added 
power thus accumulated potentially in large 
germs of double origin enabled the latter 
the more easily to overcome untoward 
natural conditions. Natural selection thus 
becomes altruistic or dotational in that it 
tends through sexuality to defeat the deadli- 
ness of the struggle for existence, just as 
we may also assert that the theory of super- 
position to which the mechanical theory of 
development is committed is also finally 
altruistic. It may be remarked that the 
greatest mortality of a species, under the 
conditions of the struggle for existence, 
also takes place inthe egg and embryonic 
stages, or before organisms can experience 
acute pain; so that here again we have a 
result that must materially ameliorate the 
pains and penalties of the struggle for 
life. 

These details are, however, of minor im- 
port for us just now. The important thing 
to bear in mind is that all of the forces of 
development are ultimately metabolic in 
origin, and that the wonderful order and 
sequence of events in any given ontogeny 
arise from the transformation or transposi- 
tion of the parts of a molecular system that 
also thus increases in bulk by the addition 
of new matter. The steps of this trans- 
formation are mechanically conditioned by 
dynamical laws with as much unerring cer- 
tainty of sequence as those that control the 
motions of the heavenly bodies. The con- 
sequence of such a view is that we can thus 
free our minds of all traces of belief in a 
theory of preformation. The embryo is not 
and cannot be preformed in the germ, as 


f 


May 31, 1895.] 


observation and physiological tests prove ; 
nor is such preformation necessary if a me- 
chanical hypothesis is adopted. 
Joun A. Ryper. 
(To be concluded.) 
CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY ( VIII.) 
CROWLEY'S RIDGE. 


CrowLey’s Ringe, rising above the al- 
luvial lowland of the Mississippi in Missouri 
and Arkansas, has long been a subject of 
discussion. Branner (Geol. Sury. Ark., 
Ann. Rep., 1889, ii., p. xiv.) has suggested 
that the lowland to the west of the ridge 
was excavated as an early path of the Mis- 
sissippi, from which it was diverted into 
its present course east of the ridge by the 
Ohio; but it is difficult to understand how 
the smaller of the two rivers could divert 
the larger one. A new explanation of the 
ridge has recently been offered by C. F. 
Marbut (Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. xxvi., 
1895), to the effect that the ridge is 
homologous with the Chunnenugga ridge of 
Alabama, and that it belongs to a family of 
geographical forms frequently found on 
coastal plains during the mature stages of 
their development. These ridges or up- 
lands normally run parallel to the coast 
line; they mark the outcrops of compara- 
tively resistant strata, dipping toward the 
coast; they descend inland by a relatively 
rapid slope, often strong enough to be 
called an escarpment, towards an inner 
lowland which has been eroded on an 
underlying and weaker member of the 
eoastal formations; they descend more 
gently on the coastal side. The inner low- 
Jand is drained by longitudinal streams, 
which enter transverse streams that cut their 
way through the ridge or upland on the way 
to the sea. Ina region of uniform uplift 
all these features of relief and drainage have 
a regular rectangular system of trends; but 
where the former shore line or the uplift is 
irregular the trends will depart more or 


SCIENCE. 


605 


less from a rectangular towards a curved 
pattern. Marbut regards Crowley's ridge 
as a portion of an inland-curving ridge of 
this kind. The master stream of the region 
is the Mississippi, which bisects the inland 
curvature of the ridge. The upland along 
whose eastern base the Tennessee river flows 
northward in an adjusted subsequent course 
forms the eastern part of the curve; while 
Crowley’s ridge forms the western part. 
The lignitic strata by which the ridge is de- 
termined weaken southwestward, and hence 
the ridge soon disappears in that direction. 
The lowland west of Crowley’s ridge, 
ascribed by other writers to erosion by the 
Mississippi, is explained by Marbut as com- 
parable to the lowland on the inland side 
of the Chunnenugga ridge of Alabama, and 
the rivers which follow this lowland are 
thought to be adjusted subsequent rivers. 


THE CUSPATE CAPES OF THE CAROLINA COAST. 

THE systematic repetition of certain 
features in Capes Hatteras, Lookout and 
Fear is explained by C. Abbe, Jr. (Proce. 
Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., xxvi., 1895) as the 
result of a number of backset eddying cur- 
rents, turning from right to left between the 
Gulf Stream and the coast. The generally 
southward movment of the sands along the 
shore being well known, some special explan- 
ation is needed for the acutely pointed capes 
between the smooth concaye curves of the 
sand bars. Although this is a conspicuous 
feature of the coast, it seems to have been 
little considered. Shaler, in his recent 
general account of Harbors (U. 8. Geol. 
Survey, 13th Ann. Rept., 1893,180 _), sug- 
gests that the greater inflow of the tides 
in the middle of the curved bays between 
the capes would cause a lateral current in 
either direction, and that the cusps would 
form where the outward flow from two 
curves became confluent; but this is contra- 
dicted not only by the general southward 
movement of sands along the shore, but also 


606 


by certain minor features to which Abbe 
gives special attention, and which indicate 
an outward movement of the prevailing cur- 
rents on the north side of each cape, but an 
inward movement on the south side. The 
V-shaped bars on the shore of ancient 
Bonneville (Monogr. I., U. 8. Geol. Survey, 
57) seem to correspond with the cuspate 
capes in essential features, but their relation 
to eddying currents is not clearly brought 
foward by Gilbert. Penck, in his recent 
Morphologie der Erdoberfldche, mentions back- 
set shore currents as of frequent occurrence, 
and suggests that the V-shaped bars of the 
Bonneville shore may have been produced 
by such movements (II., 485, 486), but he 
does not refer to other examples of this 
kind. Yet cuspate sand-bar capes of 
moderate size are certainly not rare, as may 
be seen by consulting the maps of our coast 
in the lower part of Chesapeake Bay. 

Dungeness, on the southeastern coast of 
England, seems to be a similar form; but no 
other examples are known of so great a size 
as those of our Carolina coast, nor has any 
other instance been adduced of so pro- 
nounced a control exerted by the general 
oceanic circulation upon the form of the 
continental shore line. 


THE MIGRATION OF CAPE CANAVERAL. 

In connection with the foregoing, mention 
may be made of the southward migration 
of Cape Canaveral, as indicated by the 
Coast Survey Charts (Nos. XIII., and 159- 
163). Like the capes further north, Can- 
averal is a sand-bar cusp, the details of its 
form indicating a control by two adjacent 
eddying currents,after the manner described 
by Abbe. Its history appears to have been 
in brief as follows: The position taken by 
the first blunt cusp between the adjacent 
eddies seems to have been about ten 
miles south of Mosquito inlet and forty 
miles north of the present cape; this 
being, as it were, a provisional location 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No: 22. 


adopted by the currents before much work 
had been done in shaping the coast by 
building long bars for the transportation of f 
sand. As an improved and continuous bar 
grew from north to south, its relation to 
the general curvature of the Carolina bight 
was such that it ran past the first-formed 
cape, and a new location for the cusp was 
then chosen thirty miles farther south, the 
outline of the old cape being still faintly 
traceable inside the newer bar. Buta still 
better adjustment of the currents to the 
shore brought another bar down from the 
north, this one running past the apex of the 
second cape in much the same way that the 
second bar ran past the first cape; and 
thus the third cusp, the present Canaveral, 
was formed ten miles south of the second. 
The southward migration of the cape ap- 
pears to be still continued, as indicated by 
the arrangement of the sand dunes; but it 
is now going on with a slowly progressive, 
creeping advance, and not by a leap, such 
as that which shifted the second cape from 
the first, or the third from the second. All 
this, however, is based only on a study of 
the charts. Those who have opportunity 
for a study of the cape on the ground 
might make it the subject of fruitful obser- 
vation. W. M. Davis. 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


ANNUAL MEETING OF THE CHEMICAL SO- 
CIETY (LONDON). 

In the course of his address at the anni- 
versary meeting of the Chemical Society of 
London, the President, Professor Arm- 
strong, after referring to the notable growth 
of the Society in the twenty years during 
which he had been a member, stated that 
the Council had decided to break through 
the practice which had always obtained and 
by which the Faraday Lectureship has in- 
variably been filled by some foreign scien- 
tist, and had bestowed the Faraday Medal 
upon Lord Rayleigh ‘in recognition of the 


; 


May 31, 1895.] 


services rendered to chemical science by the 
discovery of argon.’ The President added 
that the Medalist would address the Society 
on the subject of argon. 

Lord Rayleigh said that, in returning his 
thanks to the Society, he was somewhat 
embarrassed, because he felt that there 
ought to be another standing at his side. 
It was true that his researches, to which 
the President had referred, upon the densi- 
ties of gases had rendered it almost certain 
that a new gas of some sort was concerned, 
and probably that the new gas was in the 
atmosphere. But from this point to the 
isolation and examination of argon was a 
long step, and the credit must be shared 
equally between Professor Ramsay and him- 
self. In some quarters there had been a 
tendency to represent that antagonism ex- 
isted between chemists and physicists in the 
matter, though such a thought never entered 
hismind. Professor Ramsay was a chemist 
by profession, while he himself had dabbled 
in chemistry from an early age, and had 
followed its development with a keen in- 
terest. 

During the course of the same meeting 
Professor Ramsay and Mr. Crookes spoke 
of the isolation and spectroscopic examina- 
tion of the gas containing helium derived 
from cléveite. 

At the anniversary dinner in the even- 
ing of the same day the principal address 
was made by the Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour. 
The following extracts from this will be of 
interest. Speaking of the attitude of the 
statesman towards science, he said: ‘ For 
my own part, though the last thing I wish 
to do is to suggest that the work of a prac- 
tical politician is other than a work which 
taxes the highest qualities of a man, still I 
have to admit, on looking back at the his- 
tory of civilization, that if we want to iso- 
late the causes which more than any other 
conduce to the movements of great civilized 
Societies, you must not look to the great 


SCIENCE. 


607 


politician of the hour, on whom it may be 
all eyes are fixed; you must look to those, 
often unknown by the multitude, whose 
work, it may be, is never properly realized 
by the mass of their countrymen till after 
they are dead. You must look at them, 
and at their labors, to find the great sources 
of social movement. We, who are carry- 
ing on a work which I hope is not useless, 
which, I am sure, receives its full meed of 
public recognition, do, after all, not belong 
to that class to which the community is 
most beholden for all that is to improve the 
lot of man upon earth. It is to those who, 
very often with no special practical object 
in view, casting their eyes upon no other 
object than the abstract truth and the pure 
truth which it is their desire to elucidate,pen- 
penetrate ever further and further into the 
secrets of Nature and provide the practical 
man with the material upon which he works. 
Those are the men who, if you analyse the 
social forces to their ultimate units, those are 
the men to whom we owe most, and to such 
men, and to produce such men, and to 
honor such men, and to educate such 
men, the Society whose health I am now 
proposing devotes its best energies. 

“T should like to do what I can to dispel 
the prejudice which certainly exists at 
this moment in many influential quarters 
against technical education properly under- 
stood. Technical education, properly under- 
stood, suffers greatly under technical educa- 
tion improperly understood, and there is so 
much nonsense talked upon this subject; 
there is so much money uselessly spent ; 
there are so many things taught to persons 
who do not want to learn them and who, if 
they did want to learn them, could by no 
possibility turn them to practical account ; 
that it is no matter of astonishment that 
some persons are disposed to say that 
‘technical education is only the last bit of 
political humbug, the last new scheme for 
turning out a brand new society ; it is worth- 


* *K 


608 


less in itself; not only is it worthless, but 
it is excessively expensive.’ I am sure Mr. 
Bryce * would agree with everything I have 
said upon this point, and everything I am 
going to say upon it—for I shall not go 
into controversial matter—because, while I 
think that those who object to technical 
education have their justification, it yet re- 
mains true that if you include, as you ought 
to inelude, within the term technical educa- 
tion the really scientific instruction in the 
way of turning scientific discoveries to prac- 
tical account, if that is what you mean— 
and it is what you ought to mean by tech- 
nical education—then there is nothing of 
which England is at this moment in greater 
need. There is nothing which, if she, in her 
folly, determines to neglect, will more con- 
duce to the success of her rivals in the 
markets of the world, and to her inevitable 
abdication of the position of commercial 
supremacy which she has hitherto held.” 
““T do not deny that, if manufactures and 
commerce have an immense amount to gain 
from theoretical investigations, on the other 
hand—as everybody will admit that has 
even the most cursory acquaintance, let us 
say, with the history of the discoveries in 
electricity and magnetism—pure science it- 
self has an enormous amount to gain from 
industrial development. While both these 
things are true, I am the last person to deny 
that it is a poor end, a poor object, for a 
man of science to look forward to, merely 
to make money for himself or for other 
people. After all, while the effect of science 
on the world is almost incaleulable, that 
effect can only be gained in the future, as it 
has only been gained in the past, by men 
of science pursuing knowledge for the sake 
of knowledge, and for the sake of knowledge 
alone; and if I thought that by anything 
that had dropped from me to-night I had 
given ground for the idea that I looked at 


* The Rt. Hon. James Bryce, President of the 
Board of Trade. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 22. 


science from what is commonly called the 
strictly utilitarian standpoint—that I meas- 
ured its triumphs by the number of success 
ful companies it had succeeded in starting, 
or in the amount of dividends which it gave 
to the capitalist, or even by the amount of 
additional comfort which it gave to the 
masses of the population—I should greatly 
understate my thought; but I know this 
great Society, while it has in view these 
useful objects, still puts first of all the pur- 
suit of truth, which is the goddess to which 
every man of science owes his devotion. 
And truth, not profit, must necessarily be 
the motto of every body of scientific men 
who desire to be remembered by posterity 
for their discoveries. These things can 
only be done through a disinterested mo- 
tive, and it is because I believe that so- 
cieties like the great Society I am address- 
ing do more than any other organization to 
attain that great object: because I think 
they bring together men engaged in con- 
genial pursuits; because the stimulus of 
mind brought close to mind, and the hon- 
orable ambitions and the honorable rival- 
ries of men engaged in the same great task 
must lead to an enormous extension of our 
knowledge of the secrets of Nature; that I, 
as an outsider, not belonging to your body, 
do, in the name of a public for which I 
venture to speak, wish you all success and 
wish you all prosperity.” W. W. &B. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
HAECKEL’S MONISM. 

Epiror or Scrence: In reponse to your 
kind note of recent date concerning Haeck- 
le’s ‘ Monistic Creed,’ I may state that I 
find myself in the fullest sympathy with 
the views expressed by Professor Brooks. 

I may perhaps be permitted to add the 
following :— 

These nses of man, as of other animals, 
yield certain impressions which so far as 
they go are of the nature of truth. We 


s | 


May 31, 1895.] 


know truth only through approximation, 
the revision and extension of these sense 
impressions. These impressions and the 
inductions from them serve as guides to ac- 
tion. - In this relation these common im- 
pressions must be true, because trust in 
them has been safe. Wrong action must 
have led to the destruction of the actors. 
One test of truth, perhaps the only one, is 
the safety that comes from trusting it. The 
power of choice implies that right choice 
must be made. Only those who in the nar- 
row range of choice choose safely can sur- 
vive. To this end of safe choice, sensa- 
tions, desires and reason must codperate. 
The adaptation to complex conditions rests 
on the ability of the individual to receive 
the degree of truth he needs to make safe 
choice possible, and no more. For truth- 
fulness in sensation exists only in the range 
within which action and choice are de- 
pendent on it. Beyond this range truth 
would have no value as an aid to adapta- 
tion. Our senses tell us something of truth 
as to bread and fruit and stones, which we 
may use or touch or avoid. They do not 
give us just impressions of the stars or sky, 
which we cannot reach,nor of the molecule, 
which we cannot grasp. Our sense powers, 
as well as our powers of reasoning, are emi- 
nently practical. They are bounded by the 
needs of the lives of our ancestors, to whom 
any form of hypercsthesia would have been 
destructive and not helpful. 

The methods and the appliances of science 
serve as an extension of the truthfulness of 
the senses into regions in which truth was 
not demanded for the life-purposes of our 
ancestors. ‘These methods yield truth of a 
similar kind, which can be measured by 
the same test. We may trust the informa- 
tion given by the electrometer or the micro- 
scope or the calculus just as implicitly as 
we receive what our own eyes have seen or 
our own hands have felt. We may depend 
on the truth given by these instruments of 


SCIENCE. 


609 


precision to a greater degree than on that 
which the common senses furnish us, be- 
cause the guards and checks on scientific ap- 
pliances are more perfect. The information 
gained by observation and sifted by reason 
constitutes science. In the struggle for ex- 
istence, knowledge is power. Our civiliza- 
tion rests directly on the growth of scien- 
tific knowledge and on the availability to 
the individual of its accumulated power. 
Its basis is the safety of trusting to human 
experience. The ‘ Laws of Nature,’ as we 
know them, are generalizations of such ex- 
perience. Their statement may form part 
of a ‘scientific creed’ to those who have 
tested them, if such feel that ‘I believe’ 
adds force to ‘I know.’ 

The essence of the ‘ Monistic Creed’ as 
set forth by Haeckel is not, as I understand 
it, drawn from such sources. It is an out- 
growth from Haeckel’s personality, not from 
his researches. So far as I know, no change 
has taken place in it as a result of any dis- 
covery its author has made. If its details 
have been changed at any time since it was 
first formulated, the reason for such change 
must be sought for in Haeckel, not in Sci- 
ence. 

Perhaps, indeed, there is ‘‘ one spirit in 
all things, and the whole cognizable world 
is constituted and has been developed in ac- 
cordance with one fundamental law.” But 
this is no conclusion of science. It rests on 
no human experience. If it be the indue- 
tion resulting from all human experience, 
that fact has not been made plain to us. 
The hypereesthesia of the microscope or the 
Caleulus brings one no nearer to it. Its 
place is in the boundless realm of guess- 
work. It value lies in the stimulus which 
clever guesses give to the otherwise plod- 
ding operations of scientific men. It seems 
to me that ‘ Monism’ belongs to the domain 
of speculative philosophy, a branch of 
thought which, according to Helmholtz, 
deals with such ‘schlechtes stoff;’ that its 


610 


conclusions, however brilliant, can have no 
value as guides to life or as guides to re- 
search, which is the second power of life. 
The theory of Monism has no interest to 
Science, until men can come to deal with 
the ‘Stoff’ on which its speculations rest. 
Every conceivable theory of life, its nature, 
origin and destiny, can be traced back to 
the pre-scientific philosophy of the Ancients, 
Monism with the rest. What we have 
found to be true was not unknown to the 
Greeks. But that which we find to be false 
had equally the weight of their authority. 
It is the business of Science to test by its 
own methods the value of the supposed basis 
of these theories. The use of logic is one of 
these methods. The only logical necessity 
Science can recognize, as Dr. Brooks has 
well said, is “that when our knowledge 
ends we should confess our ignorance.” 

I have myself not the slightest objection 
to ‘Monism’ as philosophy. As a dogma 
it is certainly more attractive than many 
others which have been brought like light- 
ning from the clouds, as a stimulus to creep- 
ing humanity. My objection lies against 
the use of the divining rod in connection 
with the microscope. These instruments do 
not yield homologous results. If both yield 
Truth, then Truth is a word of double mean- 
ing. This method seems to carry us back 
to the days when truths were made known 
to the spirit without the intervention of the 
body. When some theologian of the past 
brought to Luther the revelations his spirit 
made to him, the sturdy Reformer said, 
“Thren Geist haue ich tiber die Schnautze ”’ 
(1 slap your spirit on the snout). Scientific 
men may have as individuals their own 
visions and guesses and formule of Uni- 
versal Philosophy. Spiritual gymnastics are 
not without value to any worker, and men 
of science have often suffered from their 
neglect. But this suffering is purely indi- 
vidual. The running high jump does not 
hasten the progress of knowledge. Science 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 22. 


will have none of it. Nor will she tolerate 

a divining rod even in the hands of her 

wisest devotees. In other words, where — 

the facts stop Science stops also. 
Davin STARR JORDAN. 

STANFORD UNIVERSITY. 

THE GENUS ZAGLOSSUS. 

To tHE Eprror or Scrence: Mr. T. §. 
Palmer’s article in Scrence of May 10th fixes 
the synonymy of this genus with precision ; 
but one statement he makes is incorrect, 
namely, that ‘ Zaglossus Gill seems never to 
have been mentioned by any subsequent au- 
thor.’ The Century Dictionary has three 
articles from my pen on the subject. 1. Zag- 
lossusis defined as ‘the proper name of that 
genus of prickly ant-eaters which is better 
known by its synonym Acanthoglossus (which 
see).’ 2. Under Acanthoglossus the genus 1s 
characterized, with the statement that this 
name ‘is antedated by Zaglossus of Guill.’ 
3. Under Echidnide the animal is figured 
with the legend ‘ Zaglossus or Acanthoglossus 
bruni.’ Exxiotr Cougs. 
SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

The Cambridge Natural History, ITI., Molluses : 
By the Rev. A. H. Coox; Brachiopods 
(Recent) : By A. E. Surerey ; Brachiopods 
(Fossil): By F.R.C. Remp. New York, 
Macmillan & Co. 1895. XIYV., 536. 
Pp. 8°. Illustrated. 

This work is one of a series intended es- 
pecially for intelligent persons without 
scientific training, but in which the attempt 
is made to combine popular treatment and 
untechnical language with the latest re- 
sults of scientific research. 

Mr. Cooke, who is known as a pains- 
taking and well informed conchologist, has 
endeavored to unite in one general classifi- 
cation the views of specialists in the various 
groups, such as Hoyle for the recent, Foord 
and Fischer for the fossil Cephalopods, Bergh 
for the Nudibranches, Pelseneer for the 
Pelecypoda, etc.; but, in conformity with 


AA 


—— 


May 31, 1895.] 


the general purpose of the work, much 
more space is devoted to the geographical 
distribution and general natural history 
of mollusks than to the details of system- 
atic arrangement or technical discussion. 
Twelve chapters of 377 pages are devoted 
to generalities, and four, comprising 66 
pages, to classification. 

The work deserves high commendation 
for the thorough manner in which Mr. 
Cooke has foraged for fresh data, bringing 
together a vast number of facts on the 
biography, distribution, growth, anatomy 
and reproduction of mollusks. The style is 
clear and easy, and the facts are well selected 
and agreeably presented. For the audience 
for which the book is intended it seems ad- 
mirably adapted, and so far as we know 
there is no work available at present which 
can be more cordially recommended to a 
beginner or the general reader. 

It would be easy to criticise details of 
classification here and there, and on many 
points the opinions of experts will differ in 
the present state of our knowledge; but in 
recognizing the aim of the author and pub- 
lishers it must be conceded that it has been 
well carried out. 

It does not appear to have been necessary 
to separate the recent from the fossil brach- 
iopoda, and recent efforts at a revised 
classification of the group have been so 
successful and complete that Mr. Reed’s 
work appears already somewhat antiquated 
and too brief, but this perhaps was inevit- 
able from the necessity of preserving due 
proportion between the parts of the series. 
Mr. Shipley’s account of the anatomy and 
embryology is good, and his conclusions as 
to the relations of the class are conservative 
and reasonable. 

The book is fully illustrated with rather 
unequal woodcuts, many of which are good 
and others rather ‘wooden,’ but an un- 
usually large proportion of them are original 
and fresh. There are four very good maps 


SCIENCE. 


611 


of geographical distribution and an excel- 
lent index. W. H. Dat. 


A Laboratory Guide for a Twenty Weeks’ Course 
in. General Chemistry. By Grorcre WiL- 
LARD Benton, A. M., Instructor of Chem- 
istry, High School, and Chemist for the 
City of Indianapolis. Boston, D. C. Heath 
& Co. 

This book might be better termed ‘A 
Guide for a Course of Test-Tubing,’ since 
nearly all the reactions are performed in a 
test-tube, and the sole object of the book 
seems to be to acquaint the unfortunate pu- 
pil who uses it with ‘ Tests’ for the various 
elements and compounds. 

The manual is supposed to be put into 
the hands of beginners in the subject, and 
yet before a single element is considered or 
anything is said about elements, compounds 
or formulas, quite a number of formulas and 
reactions are given. As an illustration of 
what the author calls compounds, a piece 
of wood and granulated sugar are taken 
and the equation C,,H,,0, , +H,SO,=12C 
+11H,O+ H,SO,, is written out. Then 
the student is asked to explain the equation 
and to define a compound. And yet the 
author, according to his preface, is one of 
those ‘who see in the Laboratory (with a 
big L) the means of high development on 
approved pedagogical grounds.’ 

It would require more space than the 
book is worth to point out all its faults. 
It will, perhaps, be sufficient to state that 
directions are given for making dangerous 
compounds without any mention of the 
danger connected with the work. The pu- 
pil is asked, for example, to determine the 
odor of carbon monoxide, and not an inti- 
mation is given that it is one of the most 
poisonous gases known to the chemist. 

Altogether, the book is one that can be 
most cordially recommended as the kind of 
a book for both teachers and students to 
avoid using, if possible. W.R.O. 


612 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
THE HELMHOLTZ MEMORIAL. 

Tue following subscriptions have been 
paid to Prof. Hugo Miunsterberg, Secretary 
and Treasurer of the American Committee, 
Cambridge, Mass. Further subscriptions 
should be sent to him at an early date : 


A. Agassiz, Cambridge,....................- $ 25 
S. P. Avery, New York, .................. 10 
Clarence J. Blake, Boston,................. 20 
Francis Blake, Boston,..................... 50 
H. P. Bowditch, Boston..................... 20 
W.N. Bullard, Boston,..................... 10 
J. McK. Cattell, New York,.............. 5 
FF. A. Christie, Meadville, Pa............. 2 
Clarence N. Clark, Philadelphia,......... 25 
A.. Monner, Boston,................-.------»- 25 
Mrs. M. A. P. Draper, New York,...... 50 
W. G. Farlow, Cambridge.................. 5 
H. N. Gardiner, Northampton,.......... 3 
E. Griining, New York,.....:...........-.- 15 
C. C. Harrison, Philadelphia,............. 100 
A. Jacobi, New York,...........-2.2-2-2-++- 10 
W. James, Cambridge,..................... 5 
J. Jeffries, Boston,.....:.........52-.20e0e005 5 
H. Knapp, New York,..................... 100 
Seth Low, New York,..................-+-- 100 
‘Oswald Ottendorfer, New York.,......... 200 
E. C. Pickering, Cambridge,............... 20 
J.J. Putnam, Boston,.............. 02.2... 5 
WAS.) New, Works .k 10 
G. de Schweinitz, Philadelphia,......... 25 
N.S. Shaler, Cambridge,.................. 5 
Society of Eye Surgeons, San Francisco, 25 
D. P. Todd, Amherst, Mass.,.............. 10 
Q. F. Wadsworth, Boston,................ 20 
H. C. Warren, Cambridge,................. 25 
D. Webster, New York,.................... 5 
Henry W. Williams, Boston,............. 25 
NN. Wilmer, Washington,.................. 10 

ARON eee onehcodscoqsacccoasencOMee $970 


THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA. 


THE Geological Society of America will 
hold its seventh Summer Meeting at Spring- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 22. 


field, Mass., Tuesday and Wednesday, Au- 
gust 27 and 28. The Council will meet 
Monday evening and the Society will con- 
vene Tuesday morning at 10 o’clock. 

The Fellowship of this Society includes 
nearly all the working geologists upon the 
continent. The roll now contains 223 
names of Fellows. 

The former Presidents of the Society have 
been James Hall, James D. Dana, Alexander 
Winchell, G. K. Gilbert, J. William Daw- 
son and T. C. Chamberlin. 

The officers for 1895 are as follows: 

President, N. S. Shaler, Harvard Uni- 
versity. 

Vice-Presidents, Joseph Le Conte, Uni- 
versity of California; Charles H. Hitch- 
cock, Dartmouth College. 

Secretary, H. L. Fairchild, University of 
Rochester. 

Treasurer, I. C. White, Morgantown, W. 
Va. 

Editor, J. Stanley-Brown, Washington, 
D.C. 

Councillors : 

F. D. Adams, McGill College, Montreal. 

Rk. W. Ells, Geological Survey of Canada. 

I. C. Russell, University of Michigan. 

E. A. Smith, University of Alabama. 

C. R. Van Hise, University of Wisconsin. 

C. D. Walcott, U. 8. Geological Survey. 

The Society has just completed the sixth 
volume of its Bulletin, which is a handsome 
octavo, with 528 pages and 27 plates. This 
volume includes twenty-one brochures. 

Information concerning the Society and 
its publications can be obtained by address- 
ing the Secretary, H. L. Fairchild, Roches- 
ter, N. Y. 


NOMINATIONS BEFORE THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 


Tue following fifteen candidates were i 
selected by the Council of the Royal Society — 
to be recommended for election into the — 
Society: J. Wolfe Barry, civil engineer, a 
Vice-President of the Institution of Civil — 


i 


j 


ee ea eee 


May 31, 1895.] 


Engineers ; Alfred Gibbs Bourne, Profes- 
sor of Biology in the Presidency College, 
Madras ; George Hartley Bryan, Fellow of 
Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Lecturer on 
Thermodynamics on the University list; 
John Eliot, Meteorological Reporter to the 
Government of India; Joseph Reynolds 
Green, Professor of Botany in the Pharma- 
ceutical Society of Great Britain; Ernest 
Howard Griffiths, physicist Private Tutor; 
Charles Thomas Heycock, Lecturer on Na- 
tural Science, King’s College, Cambridge ; 
Sydney John Hickson, biologist, Fellow of 
Downing College, Cambridge ; Henry Capel 
Lofft Holden, Major Royal Artillery, electri- 
cian; Frank McClean, astronomer; William 
Mac Ewan, Professor of Surgery, University 
of Glasgow; Sidney Martin, Assistant Physi- 
cian, University College Hospital and Hos- 
pital for Consumption, Brompton ; George 
M. Minchin, Professor of Mathematics in 
the Royal Engineering College, Cooper’s 
Hill; William Henry Power, Assistant 
Medical Officer, H. M. Local Government 
Board ; Thomas Purdie, Professor of Chem- 
istry in the University of St. Andrews. 


JOHN A. RYDER. 

A somnt meeting of members of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, the American 
Philosophical Society and the Academy of 
Natural Sciences was held in the hall of 
the Academy of Natural Sciences on the 
evening of Wednesday, April 10, in mem- 
ory of the late Professor John A. Ryder. 
General Isaac J. Wistar presided and Philip 
P. Calvert acted as secretary. Addresses 
were made by Dr. Harrison Allen on ‘ Dr. 
Ryder’s Relation to the Academy of Natural 
Sciences;’ Dr. Bashford Dean, of Columbia 
College, on ‘ Dr. Ryder’s Work in the U. S. 
Fish Commission’; Dr. Horace Jayne, on 
“Dr. Ryder and the School of Biology’; 
Prof. E. D. Cope, on ‘The Evolutionary 
Doctrine of Dr. Ryder;’ Dr. H. F. Moore, 
on ‘Dr. Ryder as a Teacher,’ and Dr. W. 


SCIENCE. 


613 


P. Wilson, on ‘Dr. Ryder as a Collegian.’ 
The speakers all bore testimony to Professor 
Ryder’s merits as an investigator and as a 
teacher and to his amiability and honesty 
as a man.—American Naturalist. 


GENERAL. 

THE Gesellschaft fiir Erdkunde at Berlin 
has just issued the first volume of a bibli- 
ography of geographical science entitled 
Biblioteca Geographica, edited by Otto Bas- 
chin with the assistance of Dr. Ernst Wag- 
ner. The volume covers 1891 and 1892 and 
the society proposes to continue the publi- 
cation annually. The scope of the work is 
in full accord with the widest understand- 
ing of the word geography. The editor, 
Otto Baschin, Berlin, W. Schinkenplatz 6, 
requests that authors send titles and works 
relating to geography to him. 

Tue Imprimerie Polytechnique at Brussels 
announces an important Egyptological work 
by G. Hagemans, which will include a his- 
tory of Egyptian civilization, a summary of 
Egyptian literature and a discussion of the 
Egyptian writing, including a comparison 
between its hieroglyphs and those of Yuca- 
tan; this is to be followed by a Copto- 
Egyptian grammar, an Egyptian-French 
and a French-Egyptian dictionary. The 
entire work will appear in sixty parts at 
25 cents per part. 

WE learn from La Nature that at the an- 
nual meeting of ‘Le Congris des Sociétés 
Savantes’ at the Sorbonne, Paris, on April 
20th, under the presidency of M. Poincaré, 
M. Moissan called attention to the rapid 
progress and brilliant discoveries of modern 
chemistry, and their practical outcome in 
stimulating national industries. He passed 
under review the processes of manufacturing 
iron, steel, aluminium, ete., the artificial 
production of the diamond, the erystaliza- 
tion of metallic oxides, and the use of elec- 
tricity in the decomposition of those oxides 
hitherto regarded as irreducible. At the 


614 


close of the meeting M. Poincaré was elected 
president for a second term, The Legion 
of Honor was conferred on MM. le comte 
d’Avenal, O’Ehlert and Herluison. 

Tue honorary degree of D. Sc. has been 
conferred on Mr. Francis Galton by the 
University of Cambridge. 

Tue statute establishing degrees for re- 
search at Oxford has now been finally ap- 
proved by Congregation, with the adoption 
of several amendments, principally of a 
technical nature. 

THE University of Aberdeen is about to 
confer the degree LL. D. on Miss J. E. 
Harrison in recognition of her researches 
in Greek archeology. Miss Harrison will 
be the first woman to receive this degree 
from a British university. 

Dr. RichHarp HanitscH, demonstrator of 
zoology at University College, Liverpool, 
has been appointed tothe curatorship of the 
Raffles Museum, at Singapore. 

THe Evening Post states that the Her- 
barium of Rousseau, composed of fifteen 
quarto volumes in cardboard and contain- 
ing about 1,500 plants, is about to be sold 
at Orleans. 

Av a recent sale in London, Gilbert 
White’s Natural History of Selborne, the 
author’s original manuscript, in the form of 
letters to Thomas Pennant and Daines Bar- 
rington, first printed in 1789, was sold for 
£294. Themanuscript contains many pass- 
ages not printed in the several editions, and 
has never before been out of the possession 
of the lineal descendants of the author. 

A CATALOGUE of the Philosophical Trans- 
actions of the Royal Society from 1824 to 
1893 has been issued by Dulau & Co., Lon- 
don. A large number of separate articles 
are included. Especially worthy of note is 
a paper on ‘ Observations on the Parallel 
Roads of Glen Roy * * * with an attempt 
to prove that they are of Marine Origin’ 
(1839), by Darwin, as also articles by Sir 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 22. 


Humphrey Davy, William and Sir F. 
Herschell, Sir E. Sabine, Sir David Brews- 
ter, Faraday, Sir Richard Owen and Cayley. 


Mr. Arrnaur M. Wetiineton, the well F 


known engineer, died in New York at the 
age of forty-eight. 

Pror. E. Ray LANKESTER is giving a 
course of four lectures at the Royal Insti- 
tution on ‘Thirty Years’ Progress in Bio- 
logical Science.’ 

Mrs. Ropert E. Prary delivered an 
illustrated lecture based on her experiences 
in the North on May 23. This lecture was 
given under the auspices of the National 
Geographic Society, which aided Lieut. 
Peary in his first enterprise. The proceeds 
of the lecture will be devoted to a fund 
which is being raised to defray the expenses 
of an expedition that will enable Lieut. 
Peary to return to America. It is not be- 
lieved, however, that he is in any immediate 
danger. The expedition (which will cost 
from $9,000 to $12,000, of which about $7, 
000 has already been raised) will probably 
start about July 5th, so as to reach Lieut. 
Peary’s headquarters before September Ist. 

Art the meeting of the Boston Scientific 
Society, was held on May 28th, an address 
on ‘Some Problems in the Use of Water 
Power as Applied to the Electrical Trans- 
mission of Power’ was delivered by Allan 
V. Garratt. 

Proressor DycuE, of Kansas University, 
is starting for Greenland in search of speci- 
mens of mammals and birds to add to his 
collection. 

CHANCELLOR JAMES HULME CANFIELD has 
accepted a call to the presidency of the 
Ohio State University, Columbus. 

Aw infirmary in connection with Harvard 
University, which is proposed as a me- 
morial to Dr. Peabody, is projected, costing 
not less than $12,000. President Eliot, in 
the name of the overseers of Harvard Uni- 
versity, has offered a site for the infirmary, 


May 31, 1895.] 


providing the money to build it can be 
raised. 

Dr. James E. Russert has been made 
professor of pedagogy in the University of 
Colorado. 

Tue American Institute of Archeology, 
which had already given a fellowship of 
$600 to the American school at Athens, 
voted a second fellowship of $600-$800 at 
the semi-annual meeting of the committee 
held at Middletown, Conn., on May 17th. 
These scholarships will probably — be 
awarded to students and graduates of the 
codéperating colleges on competitive ex- 
amination. The first examination will 
probably be held at the end of a year. 

Pror. E. §. Horpen has been made a 
commander of the Order of the Ernestine 
House of Saxony in recognition of his 
services to science. 

Dr. P. DancEarD has been appointed 
professor of botany to the Faculty of 
Sciences at Poitiers.— Nature. 

We learn from the Naturwissenschaftliche 
Rundschau that Prof. Overbeck of Greifswald 
has been appointed professor of physics in 
the University of Tiibingen as successor to 
Professor Braun. Dr. Hermann Struve, 
astronomer in the Observatory of Pulkowa, 
has been made professor of astronomy in 
the University of Kénigsberg; Prof. Koken 
of Kénigsberg, professor of geology and 
mineralogy in Tiibingen; Prof. Hauser of 
Erlangen, Director of the Erlangen Anatom- 
ical Institution; Prof. Brauns of Karlsruhe, 
professor of geology and mineralogy in 
Giessen, and Dr. Schutt of Kiel, professor 
of botany in the University of Greifswald. 

Proressor V. Knorr has been called to 
the new chair of electro-chemistry in the 
technical High School at Berlin-Charlotten- 
burg. 

Tue death is announced on May 4th of 
Surgeon-Major Carter, F. R. S., also of 
Prof. Manuel Pinheiro Chagas, General 


SCIENCE. 


615 


Secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences 
at Lisbon, at the age of fifty-three. 

Ir is announced that Dr. J. P. D. John, 
who resigned the presidency of De Pauw 
University a few days ago, will be asked by 
the trustees to reconsider his resignation.— 
Evening Post. 

THEOBALD Situ, M. D., has been elected 
professor of applied zodlogy, and Henry 
Lloyd Smythe assistant professor of mining, 
in Harvard University. 

Ar the semi-annual meeting of the trus- 
tees of the American University it was an- 
nounced that $127,300 had been subscribed 
towards the erection of the first building 
(the Hall of History), but that $150,Q00 
were required. Those present at the meet- 
ing subscribed and assumed the entire 
deficiency. 

Dr. Ros. Sacussg, assistant professor of 
agricultural chemistry in Leipzig Univer- 
sity, died on April 26. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
THE ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, MAY. 
The Modern Spectroscope, XII: WU LLIAM 

Hveens. : 

Dr. Huggins here describes the Tulse 
Hill ultra-violet spectroscope. An earlier 
arrangement of telescope and spectroscope 
had consisted in exchanging the small mir- 
ror of an eighteen-inch Cassegrain telescope 
for a spectroscope with its slit in the prin- 
cipal focus of the large mirror. Difficulties 
of adjustment and the sacrifice of either 
light or purity due to the restricted size of 
the spectroscope led to the abandonment of 
this form. The small speculum was re- 
placed and the collimator was then inserted 
in the hole through the large mirror. The 
long equivalent focal length of the Casse- 
grain form is of advantage where it is de- 
sirable to have images of considerable di- 
mensions upon the slit, while the instrument 
itself and the building may remain of mod- 
erate size. 


616 


On the Spectrographic Performance of the Thirty- 
inch Pulkowa Refractor: A. BELOPOLSKY. 
The work of the great refractor with a 

spectrograph not well adapted to it com- 

pares unfavorably with that of the new 
thirteen-inch photographic telescope. 


Note on the Spectrum of Argon: H. F. NewaLu. 
A line spectrum obtained last year under 
peculiar conditions of low pressure has been 
identified as that of argon. A glass bulb 
was sealed to a mercury pump and the air 
exhausted. Two photographs, with an ex- 
posure for each of thirty minutes, differed 
in that the second showed the nitrogen 
bands much weaker than the first, besides 
containing lines since identified as those of 
argon. 
Preliminary Table of Solar Spectrum Wave- 

Lengths, V: Henry A. Rowuanp. 

The table is continued from A 4414 to A 
4674. 

On Martian Longitudes: PeRctyAL LOWELL. 

A series of observations on the positions 
of thirty-six points on Mars with a view to 
the construction ofamap. A discrepancy of 
five degrees between present longitudes and 
those determined by Schiaparelli in 1879 
suggests that the received time of rotation 
of the planet is too small. 

A Combination Telescope and Dome: A. E. 

Dovueiass. 

The article describes a novel plan of 
mounting a telescope within a hollow sphere 
supported like an ordinary globe, but with 
much of the weight taken off from the sup- 
ports by floating the sphere in water. The 
plan is the result of an effort to reduce the 
instability of the usual mounting by flota- 
tion, and the application of the motive power 
as far as possible from the axes of rotation. 
Stars Having Peculiar Spectra; Eleven New 

Variable Stars: M. FLemine. 

Some Arequipa photographs show eleven 
peculiar star spectra and eleven new vari- 
ables. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 22. 


A Spectroscopic Proof of the Meteorie Constitu- 
tion of Saturn’s Rings: JAmEs E. KEELER. 
The spectrum of the planet was photo- 

graphed with the slit parallel to the major 
axis of the rings. The inclination of the 
spectral lines of the ansze show that the 
inner part of the ring is moving faster than 
the outer portion, which would not be the 
case were the rings moving asasolid. The 
indicated velocities of the different parts 
satisfy Kepler’s third law. 

Remarks on Professor Pickering’s ‘Comparison 
of Photometric Magnitudes of the Stars,’ in A, 
N. 8269: G. Murtrr and P. Kemer, 

A criticism of the Cambridge catalogues, 
translated from the Astronomische Nach- 
richten. 

The Short Wave-Lengths of the Spark Spectrum 
of Aluminium: C. RuNGE. 

A Large Eruptive Prominence; On a Photo- 
graphic Method of Determining the Visibility 
of Interference Fringes in Spectroscopic Meas- 
urements ; Note on the Exposure Required ir 
Photographing the Solar Corona Without an 
Eclipse: Grorce E. Hate. 

Terrestrial Helium (?). 

A Large Reflector for the Lick Observatory : 
Epwarp 8. HoLpEn. 

8. B. BARRETT. 


NEW BOOKS. 

The Natural History of Plants; their Forms, 
Growth, Reproduction and Distribution. 
From the German of Anton Kerner yon 
Marilawn, by F. W. Outver, with the as- 
sistance of Marran Busk and Mary F-. 
Ewart. With almost 1,000 original 
wood-cut illustrations and 16 plates in 


colors. New York, Henry Holt & Co. 
1895. 40, Vol. L.,in two parts. Pp. 777. 
Price $7.50. 


Twentieth Annual Report of the Secretary of the 
State Board of Health of the State of Michigan. 
Lansing, Robert Smith & Co. 1894. Pp- 
exlvi + 416. 


SSCIENCE. 


New SERIEs. 
VoL. I. No. 23. 


Fripay, JuNE 7, 1895. 


SINGLE Copies, 15 CTs. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


BEBBER, Dr. W. J. von. Hygienische Meteoro- 
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BEeRGH, Dr. R. 8. Vorlesungen tiber allgemeine 
Embryologie. Mit 126 Figurenim Text. 289 Seiten. 
Gross 8°. MK. 7. 

DAMMER, Dr. O. Handbuch der chemischen Tech- 
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HANDWORTERBUCH DER ASTRONOMIE, Unter Mit- 
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HARTLEBEN’S statistische Tabelle iiber alle Staaten 
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KRAMER, INGENIEUR Jos. Wirkungsgrade und 
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A DYNAMICAL HYPOTHESIS OF INHERIT- 
ANCE (II.). 

THE egg cannot be isotropic—as follows 
from observation as well as experiment—in 
the sense in which the word isotropy is used 
by physicists of repute. If the egg is a dy- 
namical system it cannot be isotropic or ab- 
solutely the same throughout, or along 
every possible radius from its center, as is 
proved by its reactions in respect to its sur- 


roundings. Itmay, however, be potentially 
zolotropic in directions parallel toa certain 
axis, as experiment has shown by separa- 
ting the cells that result from segmentation 
of the egg. Such fragments, if in excess of 
a certain minimal size, will undergo a larval 
development of apparently normal char- 
acter. But this result is fatal to the ordi- 
nary corpuscular hypotheses, according to 
which every future part is represented in 
the chromosomes by certain hypothetical 
corpuscular germs. It has, indeed, been 
shown by Loeb that larval development of 
portions of an egg can go on whether the 
divisions be equal or unequal or in any 
radius. This seems to indicate that an egg 
is not necessarily isotropic in the undivided 
state, but that the moment that separation 
of its mass has occurred there is a readjust- 
ment of the relations and potentialities of 
its molecules simulating that of the original 
entire egg. The very definition of isotropy, 
as given by one author (Lord Kelvin), 
states that it may be assumed only of a 
spherical mass of matter whose properties 
are absolutely the same along every one of 
the infinite number of radii drawn from its 
center outward, and, as tested by any means 
whatsoever, shows that such a condition 
cannot be assumed, on the ground of obser- 
vation alone, of any known egg. The con- 
dition of the egg we must therefore also as- 
sume from its known properties to be seolo- 
tropic, or different along every one of the 


618 


infinite number of radii drawn from its 
center. When we make this assumption, 
however, we need not necessarily assume 
that nucleated fragments that will still de- 
velop into larve after division of the oos- 
perm, natural or artificial, must be isotropic. 
They may be eolotropic from the beginning, 
but in precisely the same way in each case, 
as a result of the successive cleavages of the 
germ-mass, by means of planes that cut each 
other at right angles, as in the diagram Fig. 
1, where each of the four segments are pre- 
cisely alike from the pole a to that of b. 


Fie. 1. 
The unlikeness of the pole a from 6 is indi- 


cated by the stippling. This unlikeness 
would manifestly be unimpaired by segmen- 
tation of the germ into four quadrants by 
the first two cleavages, as shown in the dia- 
gram. The same might hold of octants of 
the spherical germ. Here the initial <olo- 
tropy of the whole egg determines that of 
its segments; that must therefore become 
four or eight molecular mechanisms, each 
with precisely the same type of potentiality 
as that of the whole egg. (See concluding 
note. ) 

There may, according to the foregoing 
view, be such a thing as perfect isotropy in 
every radius lying in a plane cutting the 
line from a to 6 at rightangles. This would 
not, however, be the perfect isotropy of our 
definition that we are compelled to accept 
in the form in which it comes to us from 
* the physicist. 

As development proceeds, moreover, we 
have reason to believe that this colotropy 
becomes more and more marked, so that 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 23. 


eventually the huge metameric molecules 
become arranged in definite linear, parallel 


systems, as in the axis cylinders of nerve — 


cells and in muscular tissue. Here the 
characteristics of the system become the 
the same in parallel lines, and in any diree- 
tions at right angles to an axis parallel to 
these parallel lines of molecules. That is, 
in certain rectangular directions there is an 
approximation toward homogeneity. But 
the completest homogeneity is found to oe- 
cur in only one direction in parallel lines 
extending through the mass. This condi- 
tion we may designate as monotropy. 
Starting with the extreme zolotropic condi- 
tion of the germ, we must, therefore, assume 
that as organization becomes more and 
more complete, in the progress of develop- 
ment, in the specialized systems of tissues 
and organs, the molecules become more and 
more definitely monotropic. Therefore they 
at last become incapable, as dynamical sys- 
tems, of exhibiting a complex development 
such as is manifested by a germ, but cap- 
able only of manifesting the special phys- 
iological functions entailed by their dyna- 
mically and mechanically evolved mono- 
tropism. 

We can now understand why it is that 
the germinal matter of a species always re- 
mains in an eolotropic state. Since germ- 
inal matter is always relieved of specialized 
functions in the body of the parent, it must 
perforce remain in its primitive condition of 
germinal potentiality as a molecular mech- 
anism. Since the germ is material that 
has been produced in excess of the needs of 
metabolism of the parent body, as supposed 
by Haeckel and Spencer, it can do no work 
for that body. The unbroken continuity of 
the processes of metabolism has provided 
the conditions for the continuous or inter- 
rupted production of germinal matter. 

The nearest approach to a condition of 
continuity of germinal matter is found in 
the tissue of the ‘ growing points’ of plants, 


JUNE 7, 1895.] 


where, as in the banana, it has maintained 
its unabated vigor for probably not less 
than two thousand years without the help 
_ofsexualreproduction. In many organisms 
the germinal elements must grow and be- 
come mature. While in the immature 
state they do not, for the moment, have the 
- latent potentiality of germs that can, then 
and there, develop, but may even be de- 
stroyed phagocytically, or absorbed by other 
non-germinal tissues. In still other cases 
there is no proof that the germinal matter 
is differentiated, as a complete mechanism, 
from the first stages of ontogeny onwards, 
so that the theory of its continuity is not 
only not always true but is also of small 
importance. At any rate, it is of far less 
importance than the fact of continuous 
metabolism and the gradual advent of 
monotropism, from a state of germinal zolo- 
tropism, effected by the dynamical process 
of tissue metamorphosis and specialization. 

This development of monotropism cannot 
take place except through the sorting and 
grouping of specialized molecules, under 
the domination of forces, the operation of 
which remains to be discovered in the laws 
of physiological chemistry and molecular 
mechanics, and not by an appeal to an un- 
workable hypothesis that merely covers up 
our ignorance and impedes our progress by 
invoking the help of ‘gemmules’ or ‘ bio- 
phors’ that grow and divide like cells. 
There is no evidence that will enable us to 
conceive the growth of the molecules of 
living matter in this way, since we are now 
dealing with very complex metameric mole- 
cular bodies, the growth and disintegration 
of which is probably essentially similar to 
the growth and solution of crystals, during 
the process of metabolism, with this differ- 
ence that growth and disintegration go on 
at the same time in living bodies. We do 
not even know the real nature of the 
chemical changes that go on in these mole- 
cules and determine their structure. That 


SCIENCE. 


619 


the forces that do determine this are of a 
chemical nature, operating under very pecu- 
liar conditions, we may be certain. The 
complexity of these bodies, and their com- 
plex relations to one another, give us all the 
mechanism we need in order to account for 
the phenomena of heredity. 

One-half or one-quarter, or an uneven 
part of the odsperm (Loeb), will operate in 
the same way as the whole. If we accept 
the dynamical hypothesis here proposed we 
are relieved of going to the length of the 
absurdity of assuming that by dividing a 
germ we multiply its ‘biophors’ as many 
times by two as we have made divisions, or 
of postulating ‘double’ or ‘quadruple de- 
terminants.’ The arithmetical impossibility 
of multiplying by a process of division is, 
as we see in this case, too much for any 
non-dynamical corpuscular hypothesis. 
Where the division of the germ is unequal, 
as in some of Loeb’s experiments, we should, 
on the basis of a preformation hypothesis, 
be compelled to suppose that the ‘double 
determinants’ were unequally divided. 

Regeneration is also to be explained upon 
the basis of a dynamical theory, as well as 
polymorphism, alternation of generations, 
reversion, and soon. We find indeed that 
it is only the same kind of tissue that will 
regenerate the same sort after development 
has advanced a considerable way. Mono- 
tropism has been attained by each kind of 
tissue, and this prevents the production of 
anything else but the one sort, in each case, 
after tissue differentiation has proceeded a 
little way. Polymorphic or metagenetic 
forms are to be accounted for in the same 
way as constantly repeated ones. Like the 
latter they are produced by the operation 
of a molecular mechanism, the story of the 
transformation of which is not told off in a 
single generation, but in the course of sev- 
eral distinct ones. Sex itself is thus de- 
termined and must in some way depend 
upon subtle disturbances of the transforma- 


620 


tion of the molecular mechanism of the 
germ, the nature of which is still quite un- 
known to us. 

Equally remarkable are the phenomena of 
heteromorphosis described by Loeb, whose 
experiments prove that some animals, like 
most vegetable organisms, may adjust the 
molecular machinery of their organization 
in any new direction whatever that may be 
arbitrarily chosen, so as to realize the con- 
tinuance by growth of the same morpho- 
logical result as that which characterized 
them normally. These experiments would 
at first thought seem to prove that some 
organisms were isotropic, but such a con- 
clusion is exceedingly doubtful. It may be 


that such organisms are, as molecular . 


mechanisms, when subjected to new geo- 
tropic and heliotropic conditions, capable of 
correspondingly new adjustments of their 
molecular mechanical structure. But this 
would not be proof of isotropy—only proof 
of the assumption of a new condition of 
zeolotropy, adjusted in respect to a new 
axis of reference, that also coincides with 
some part of the earth’s radius prolonged 
into space. This readjustment of the mole- 
cular mechanism may be effected in some 
way by gravity, as Loeb himself has sus- 
pected. It is certainly not due to the con- 
trol of any lurking ‘ biophors,’ since itis a 
purely mechanical readjustment of an ultra- 
microscopic structure to new conditions 
which cannot be effected in any other than 
a mechanical way. 

The production of monstrosities also may 
be explained by a dynamical hypothesis, 
provided we assume that the forces of 
ontogeny must operate against the statical 
equilibrium of the parts of the germ at 
every step. Especially if we assume in ad- 
dition, as is born out by facts, that the 
eolotropy and consequent recapitulative 
power of the germinal substance is most 
marked in certain regions of the embryo. 
These regions, if their molecular equilib- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 28. 


rium be mechanically or otherwise disturbed 
by division during development, will assert 
their germinal potentiality and produce an> 
embryo, the relations of which to that 
already formed alongside of it will be modi- 
fied by the statical conditions of surface- 
tension afforded by the adjacent embryo or 
the underlying yoke, or by both combined. 
This is beautifully illustrated by a host of 
facts. Double toes must have so arisen, as 
is proved by the direct experiments of 
Barfurth, some of which I have repeated, 
as well as by what happens when the toes 
of an Axolotl are persistently nibbled off 
by another animal, when duplication may 
not only take place in the horizontal plane 
of the foot or hand, but also in the vertical 
one. In this way a number of supernum- 
erary toes may be caused to arise from a 
single stump, provided the re-growth of the 
toe be so interfered with as to compel 
regeneration from two terminal re- 
generative surfaces instead of one. This 
must follow from the law demonstrated by 
Barfurth’s experiments, namely, that the 
regeneration of an organ tends to occur uni- 
formly over and in a direction normal to 
the regenerating surface. In this way it is 
possible to mechanically determine the di- 
rection in which a regenerated part shall be 
reproduced by merely making changes in 
the angular relations of the plane of the re- 
generating surface to that of the axis of the 
body, as indicated by the diagram in Fig. 2 
of the regenerated tail of a tadpole. Here 


Fic. 2. 


the line I indicates the plane along which 
the tail has been removed, upon which re- 
generation will restore the tail straight 


JuNE 7, 1895.] 


backward to the dotted area a. If the 
plane of section is along the line II the tail 
will regenerate upward so as to be restored 
over the area indicated by the dotted line 
enclosing 6. If the plane of section of the 
tail be along III the tail will be regenerated 
downward to the dotted line enclosing the 
area c. It is therefore evident that Bar- 
furth’s law determines the inclination of the 
axis of the regenerated part to the body- 
axis, through the different conditions of 
surface tension that must be set up over re- 
generating surfaces, whenever the inclina- 
tion of these to the axis of the whole or- 
ganism is changed. 

New equilibria of surface tension estab- 
lished reciprocally between the cohering 
but independently developing segments of 
the odsperm of the sea-urchin, that have 
been imperfectly separated by mechanical 
or other means, also cause changes to be 
produced in the forms of the single larve 
of such coherent groups, and in the spicular 
skeleton, for the same reason, as is proved 
by Figs. 23 to 25 given by Professor Loeb.* 
Those figures also illustrate the thesis that 
the xolotropy of the distinctly developing 
segments of the egg must be nearly the 
same, and that component or resultant equi- 
potential surfaces are developed by the in- 
teracting molecular machinery of such co- 
herently developing or compound larve. 

The angular divergence of duplicated tails 
and toes as well as the axes of monstrous 
embryos is explained by Barfurth’s discoy- 
ery, taken together with the principle that 
division of a germ does not change the 
eolotropy of its segments. If this inter- 
pretation is the correct one, the origin of 
supernumerary digits must be traced back 
to mechanical disturbances of the processes 
of ontogeny. The rationale of the manner 
in which divergent supernumerary toes 
may be produced is shown in Fig. 3, repre- 

* Biological Lectures (No. I11.). Delivered at Woods 
Holl, Mass., in 1893. Ginn & Co., Boston. 


SCIENCE. 621 


senting the regenerating toes of the foot of 
a salamander. 


If the toes were cut straight across at 
the points I., II., I1I., IV., the toes would 
regenerate normally. If, however, the re- 
generating surfaces were divided into two 
areas in each case by a line along which re- 
generation were prevented, two toes would 
arise from each surface. The angular 
divergence of the pairs of supernumerary 
toes thus produced would be measured by 
the angular inclination to one another of 
the two areas at the end of each original 
toe that was thus doubly regenerated. In 
other words, supernumerary digits are the 
results directly or indirectly of something 
akin to mutilations. That such duplica- 
tions may be produced by mutilations there 
can be no doubt, and of their transmission 
by inheritance to offspring there is also no 
doubt. These facts make it probable at 
any rate that regeneration of distal parts, 
and the likelihood with which they reappear 
in duplicate, is due to causes similar or 
identical in character with those that lead 
to the production of double monsters, by 
shaking, mutilation or other physical inter- 
ference with the normal development of the 
odsperm. The question of the inheritance 
of mutilations is consequently far from be- 
ing concluded as viewed from this new 
standpoint. Much evidence might be ad- 
duced in support of my contention did space 
allow. The hereditary transmission of 
such monstrosities as supernumerary digits 


622 


is well known, and it is a singular fact that 
it is only the outer digits, 7. e., minimus and 
pollex, or hallux, or those most exposed to 
the liability of injury during development, 
that are, as a rule, duplicated. If the fore- 
going view is correct, the origin of super- 
numerary digits is not always to be ascribed 
to reversion. It must not be understood, 
however, that the theory is here defended 
that mutilations effected after adolescence 
is reached are likely to be transmitted. 

The ‘mutilations’ here referred to are 
hardly to be regarded as such, but rather 
as the results of mechanical interference or 
disturbance of the statical equilibrium of 
those parts of the developing germ that are 
duplicated, as we see, in obedience to the 
principle discovered by Barfurth. 

Another dynamical factor in develop- 
ment is so generally ignored that it must be 
especially referred to here. I now refer to 
the statical properties of the germinal sub- 
stance in modifying development. Some of 
its effects we have already taken note of 
above. Karyokinesis has been shown by 
Hertwig to be dominated by the principle 
that the plane of division of a cellis always 
at right angles to its greatest dimension, a 
fact readily verified. The greatest dimen- 
sion of the cell in turn is also often, if not 
usually, determined by the conditions of 
free and interfacial surface-tension mani- 
fested between the members of a cellular 
ageregate composing a segmenting egg. 
This appears to have a determining effect 
upon the plan of the cleavage. How far 
and in what way the remarkable move- 
ments of the centrosomes that occur during 
cleavage, and that have been most exhaus- 
tively studied by Professor E. G. Conklin, 
regulate segmentation still remains to be 
determined. There can, however, be but 
one explanation of such movements, and 
that must be a mechanical one, but its nature 
is entirely unknown. Wilson has shown 
that the conditions of free and interfacial 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 23. 


surface-tension in Amphioxus vary in dif- 
ferent eggs from some unexplained cause, 
so that the earlier cleavages of this form~ 
also vary to a corresponding and remark- 
able degree. In other cases surface-ten- 
sional forces operate under similar recurring 
conditions. In the fish-ege I have wit- 
nessed the reappearance of the same or 
similar interplay of statical energies thrice 
in succession, so as to produce three similar 
successive sets of formal changes in the egg 
that are traceable to the action of simi- 
lar statical agencies. In A, Fig. 4, the 


ms 


Fie. 4. 


germ a has assumed a lenticular form of 
statical equilibrium; after segmentation of 
the same disk has proceeded some way, as 
in B, the disk, as a cellular aggregate, has 
again assumed the lenticular form of equi- 
librium, while the outermost row of cells, ec, 
are individually in a similar condition of 
equilibrium. 

These facts are quite sufficient to estab- 
lish the general truth of the statement that 
at no stage is the ontogeny of a species ex- 
empt from the modifying effect of the sur- 
face-tensions of its own plasma acting be- 
tween the cells as if they were so much 
viscous dead matter. Such statical effects 
are not overcome at any stage of the devel- 
opment, or even during the life of any or- 
ganism. On account of the universal pres- 
ence and effect of this factor in both the 
plant and animal worlds, as a modifier of 
form, we are obliged to consider it as an 
agent of the first importance in the possible 
development of the future science of exact 
dynamical morphology. Its action is so 


Se ey ee ee eee 


JUNE 7, 1895.] 


constant an accompaniment of development 
that the forces of the latter may be divided 
into the kinetogenetic, or those that develop 
movement, and the statogenetic, or those 
that develop rest or equilibria, amongst the 
partsof thegerm. The kinetogenetic forces 
are the consequences of metabolism, but 
the statogenetic forces, though dependent 
upon metabolism, are produced as a conse- 
quence rather of the interaction of the sur- 
face layers of the plasma of the cells, con- 
templated as if they were small cohering 
masses of viscous dead matter. These 
masses are separated, in the organism or 
germ, by interfacial planes, free and inter- 
facial curved surfaces that are the results 
of segmentation and growth, and the extent 
of the areas of which obey a law first pointed 
out in relation to soap-bubbles by the blind 
physicist Plateau, who showed that such 
bubbles tended to form interfacial films and 
surfaces, wherever in contact with each 
other, of an area that was the minimal con- 
sistent with their statical equilibrium.* In 
this connection it may also be remarked 
that, inasmuch as the cells of a germ or or- 
ganism are always in statical equilibrium, 
their surface layers of molecules also always 
represent complex systems of equipotential 
surfaces, no matter how intricate the form 
of the organism may be. Since the equi- 
libria between the molecules of the surface 
layers of cells can normally be disturbed 
only by the metabolism incident to physio- 
logical activity, it is evident that the figure 
of the organism must ultimately be ascribed 
to the action of metabolism or to the func- 
tions of the organism as affecting the phys- 
ical properties of its plasma. 

A statical equilibrium in a living cell 
may be one in which it is not in contact 
with others at any point on its surface, as 


* Some interesting applications of the geometrical 
theory of radical axes and centers also apply here 
that have never been studied in connection with the 
phenomena of segmentation. 


SCIENCE. 


623 


in the case of blood-corpuscles or disks. 
Or a cell may be greatly extended in one 
direction, as in the case of the axis-cylinder 
of a nerve-cell, owing to very unequal sur- 
face-tensions developed in one or more di- 
rections so as to draw it out into a condi- 
tion of equilibrium, in assuming which it 
acquires a greatlength. Formal changes in 
cells, no matter how irregular these may 
become, must be due to alterations of sur- 
face-tension due to molecular transforma- 
tions at certain points on the surface 6f 
globular or polyhedral embryonic cells. 
The final mature form of a cell is a conse- 
quence of the assumption of a statical equi- 
librium amongst its parts, due to the nature 
ofits metabolism and its consequent molecu- 
lar structure. The statogenetic factors of 
development are therefore of just as much 
importance as the kinetogenetic, or those 
involving motion. The statical forces that 
are developed in individual cells also act 
reciprocally between all of the cells of the 
organism, so that in this way the effect of 
statogeny extends throughout the entire 
organism. 

If there were no such statical forces to be 
overridden by the purely kinetic ones de- 
veloped by the molecular transformations 
and consequent motions incident to metab- 
olism, provided the latter, together with 
assimilation, took place, during develop- 
ment, with great rapidity, the ontogeny of 
an organism would take place with such 
swiftness that it could not be successfully 
studied by embryologists. In other words, 
ontogeny would take place in the twinkling 
of an eye, and organisms as large as whales 
might even mature in an instant, provided 
the coefficients of viscosity and surface-ten- 
sion of their plasma were to fall nearly to 
zero, while assimilation and metabolism 
proceeded with infinite rapidity. 

It follows also from what has preceded 
that we can now form some idea why ap- 
parent rejuvenescence occurs in every on- 


624 


togeny. Every germ must, for assignable 
reasons, begin its existence in the original, 
highly complex, zolotropic condition of the 
plasma of its species. It must therefore 
begin its career somewhat in the guise of 
the mechanically unspecialized plasma of a 
remote unicellular ancestor. Unlike that 
ancestor, however, the cells that result from 
its growth and segmentation cohere until a 
multicellular aggregate results, the different 
regions of which fall into certain statical 
states in relation to one another and to the 
earth’s centre, in virtue of the action of the 
forces of cohesion, friction, gravitation, ete. 
The different regions of such an aggregate 
now adjust themselves to the surroundings 
in such a way that nearly constant effects 
of light, heat, etc., begin to control or affect 
the functions of such an aggregate dynamic- 
ally through its metabolism. Function, 
thus conditioned, asserts itself under the 
stress of mechanical adaptation or adjust- 
mentthat becomes increasingly complex with 
every advance in ontogeny. Every step in 
ontogeny becomes mechanically adaptive 
and determinative of the next. It is thus 
only that we can understand the wonderful 
molecular sorting process that goes on in 
ontogeny, for which others have invoked 
infinite multitudes of needless ‘ gemmules,’ 
‘pbiophors’ and ‘ determinants.’ 

It is the whole organism that develops in 
continuity or codrdination ; not its nuclei, 
centrosomes, and asters only. The whole 
organism, molecularly considered, is as 
fixed and immutable, within variable limits, 
as a crystal. Its development, moreover, 
becomes intelligible only if we contemplate 
its ontogeny somewhat as we would the 
growth of a crystal, with the additional 
supposition that its growth is not condi- 
tioned by forces operating along straight 
lines having a constant angular divergence 
as in the latter. On the contrary, living mat- 
ter is capable of developing curved bound- 
ing surfaces in consequence of the perma- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 23. 


nently mobile nature and cohesion of its 
molecules, that, as a complex dynamical 
mechanism, can operate so as to tell off the 
tale of its transformation in but one way, in 
consequence of the order and way in which 
the energy of its constituent molecules is 
set free during ontogeny. Upon the com- 
pletion of ontogeny a phrase is reached in 
which the income and outgo of metabolism 
is in equilibrium. The duration of life de- 
pends upon the length of time that this 
equilibrium can be maintained without fatal 
impairment of the harmonious operation of 
its mechanism under the stress of the dy- 
namical conditions of life. This may be 
considered the cause of death, so that the 
length of the life of the individual is deter- 
mined by the possible number of harmo- 
nious molecular transformations of which its. 
plasma is capable as a mechanism. 

The doctrine that cells undergo differen- 
tiation in relation to other adjacent cells, or 
that the destiny of a cell is a function of its 
position (Driesch), is no doubt true. Ney- 
ertheless, we have in organisms machines of 
such complexity, dynamical potentiality, 
and power of transformation, that in com- 
parison a study of the theories of erystal- 
lography is simplicity itself. In organisms. 
we have the polarities of head and tail, 
stem and root, right, left, dorsal and ven- 
tral aspects, as definitely marked out as. 
are the relations of the axes of crystals. In 
the organism we have diffuse, intussuscep- 
tional growth in three dimensions, by means 
of the osmotic interpolation of new mole- 
cules, whereas, in the crystal, growth is 
superficial, but consequently also tri-dimen- 
sional. In the organism the molecules are 
mobile within limits ; in the crystal they are 
fixed. Nevertheless, we may justly regard 
organisms as developing after the manner 
of crystals, but with the power of very 
gradually varying their forms by means of 
variation in the structure, forms and pow- 
ers of their constituent molecules, in the. 


JUNE 7, 1895.] 


course of many generations of individuals. 

This variation may be directed by the 
concurrence of a series of natural conditions 
operating dynamically (natural selection). 
Or, interbreeding and crossing, with care 
or under Nature, may unite by means of 
reciprocal integration (fertilization) two 
molecular mechanisms whose total struc- 
ture and sum when thus united, as in sex- 
ual reproduction, may vary by the mere 
combination of the two dynamical systems 
(egg and sperm), differing slightly from one 
another in potentiality. Finally, adaptive 
changes may be called forth dynamically in 
the internal structure of such developing 
reciprocally integrated systems that must 
be traced back to changes in the mechanism 
of metabolism of the parent as well as in 
the germs it gives off. Such changes pro- 
duced in the germ must become visible in 
the effects they produce, as transmitted for- 
mal changes exhibited in the course of de- 
velopment. 

The tendency or trend of development, 
however, of a given form must be pretty 
constant, and controlled within compara- 
tively narrow limits by the initial adult or 
attained structure. That is, what has been 
attained must formally affect that which is 
to be attained in future. This is the idea 
that underlies the Vervollkommnungs-Princip, 
principle of perfecting, of Nageli. This 
view also tacitly recognizes the theory of 
change of function proposed by Dohrn, as 
well as the theories of substitution, super- 
position and epimorphosis of Kleinenberg, 
Spencer and Haacke. Once a condition of 
stable equilibrium has been reached in the 
series of transformation of the molecular 
_ mechanism represented by the germ, dur- 
ing the development of an organism, we may 
have what Eimer has called Genepistasis, re- 
sulting in the fixity or stability of an or- 
ganic species, under stable conditions. 

The cell is a complete organism, but it 
loses its physiological and morphological 


SCIENCE. 


the centrosome as focal points. 


625 


autonomy when combined with other cells. 
We may regard the nucleus, cytoplasm and 
centrosome as reciprocally related parts; 
one of them not much more important than 
the others. The observed behavior of the 
centrosome would indicate, as Verworn has 
held, that it is the important agent in cellu- 
lar metabolism. If this is true, metabolism 
has certain centers in the cell to and from 
which molecular transformations are ef- 
fected rythmically in every direction, with 
This view 
agrees perfectly with the facts, since the 
rays of the asters may be regarded as the 
morphological expression of a dynamical 
process of intermolecular diffusion due to 
metabolism, as Kolliker has suspected ( Ge- 
webelehre, 6th ed.). 

Such a process would not only serve to 
alter the surface and interfacial-tensions of 
the cells during ontogeny, but also vary the 
osmotic pressure within them. Conse- 
quently, we may conceive that all of the 
phenomena of development, including the 
appearance and disappearance of cavities 
within a germ by changing conditions of 
osmosis, may receive a dynamical explana- 
tion. The centrosomes may, moreover, be 
conceived to lie at the foci of very complex 
material figures, the boundaries of which 
are finite equipotential cellular surfaces. 
These focal points are clearly near or within 
the nuclei. The equipotential surfaces de- 
veloped by the sorting or readjusting pro- 
cess that goes on during segmentation in 
order continually and rythmically to re- 
store the dynamical equilibrium of the molec- 
ular germinal aggregate as a mechanically 
constructed system during life and develop- 
ment, through growth and metabolism, 
must maintain the shapes of organisms as 
we see them. The epigenetic theory of in- 
heritance therefore promises us a secure 
basis upon which to found a theory of the 
mechanics of development, as well as a 
theory of the origin of morphological types. 


626 


The theory of life may indeed be regarded 
as having its foundations in cellular, inter- 
and intra-cellular mechanics and dynamics 
as conditioned by ontogentic metabolism. 
The fact that centrosome, nucleus and cy- 
toplasm are represented almost coexten- 
sively with the presence of life itself is 
proof that the fundamental machinery of 
organization must be the same in the prin- 
ciples of its action, no matter how widely 
its forms may differ from one another. 

The theory that the surface layer of 
molecules of organisms, whether interior or 
exterior, are in equilibrium also carries with 
it the idea that the configuration of all 
organs and organisms are merely the ma- 
terial expression of gradually built up equi- 
potential surfaces. This gives us a far 
more rational foundation for a theory of 
general morphology than the hypothesis of 
gemmaria proposed by Haacke. During 
growth and metamorphosis these equipo- 
tential surfaces undergo formal changes in 
size and shape, due to the internal processes 
of molecular transformation or metabolism. 
But such changes are continuous, and one 
stage or form passes into the next palpable 
one through an infinite number of slightly 
different forms. Examples of such surfaces 
may be seen in any organism, vegetable or 
animal, and at any stage of thesame. The 
principle istherefore of universalapplication. 

Summary.—Preformation of any organ- 
ism in the germ has no foundation in fact. 

All that it is possible to account for upon 
the basis of a theory of preformation may 
be much more logically and scientifically 
accounted for upon the ground of dynamical 
theory. Such a theory must deny the ex- 
istence of separate corpuscles or gemmules 
of any sort in the germ, whose business it 
is to control development. All that is re- 
quired is the assumption of a determinate 
ultra-microscopic molecular mechanism, the 
initial structure of which determines all of 
its subsequent transformations. The pres- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 23. 


ent theory also denies that there is or can 
be anything passive in the germ that enters 
into its composition. 

_ A dynamical hypothesis of inheritance is 
correlated with all the facts of physiology. 
It is in harmony with the dynamical theory 
of sex, that sees only in sexuality the means 
developed by another dynamical process 
(natural selection ) that increases the powers 
of a compound germ to survive and vary. 
It is consistent with the facts of morpho- 
logical super-position, with the dynamical 
theory of the limit of growth, and duration 
of life of organic species. It is also consis- 
tent with the view that the initial or poten- 
tial states of the germs of species are those 
that must result whenever they are relieved 
from physiological service to the parent or- 
ganism. The apparent continuity of germ- 
plasm is, in many cases, only an effect of 
the equilibration of the forces of the organ- 
ism, and has no further significance. It 
must also deny any assumed isotropy of the 
germ as inconsistent with fact. It assumes 
that the zeolotropy of the molecular struc- 
ture of the germ is followed by a gradually 
increasing simplification of molecular struc- 
ture of organs as these are built up. Metab- 
olism is assumed to be the sole agent in 
effecting the mechanical and dynamical re- 
arrangement or sorting of the molecules 
into organs during development. Specially 
endowed corpuscles or ‘biophors’ are not 
only needless as conditioning form or func- 
tion, but also outof the question, dynamically 
considered. No creature can be supposed 
to have its life or germinal properties asso- 
ciated only with certain corpuscles within 
it, since we cannot suppose an organized 
whole dominated by a portion of it; it is 
not possible, for example, to conceive of in- 
dividual life except from the entire organ- 
ism that manifests it. There can be no 
‘pbiophors ’—bearers of life; the whole or- 
ganism must do that as an indivisible unit. 
Corpuscular doctrines of inheritance are 


JUNE 7, 1895.] 


merely a survival in philosophical hypothe- 
sis of a pre-Aristotelian deus ex machina. 
The dynamical hypothesis rejects the deus 
ex machina, but finds a real mechanism in 
the germ that is an automaton, but that is 
such only in virtue of its structure and the 
potential energy stored up within it. Every 
step in the transformation of such a mech- 
anism is mechanically conditioned within 
limits by what has preceded it, and which 
in turn so conditions within limits what is 
to follow, and so on forever through a suc- 
cession of descendants. The theory of 
equipotential surfaces, as here applied to 
organisms, leads to a theory of general mor- 
phology that holds of all living forms, and 
that is at the same time consistent with the 
facts of development. 


EXPLANATORY NoTE TO PARAGRAPH ON PAGE 618. 


It now appears that the statement that the quarters 
or eighths of an odsperm are to be regarded as ‘ mole- 
cular mechanisms of precisely the same type of po- 
tentiality ’ as the whole egg, must be taken with con- 
siderable qualification. Loeb (Ueber die Grenzen 
der Theilbarkeit der Eisubstanz, Archiv fiir Ges. 
Physiologie, vol. L.IX., 1894) has shown that the eggs 
of echinoderms, if artificially divided, by means of a 
method of his devising, into quarters or eighths, lose 
the power of developing beyond the blastula stage. 
This would appear to indicate that if the egg is sub- 
divided so as to have its parts fall below a certain size, 
these parts no longer have locked up within them, as 
molecular mechanisms, as Loeb points out, enough 
potential energy to transform themselves into com- 
pletely equipped larvee. Or, perhaps, the initial 
zolotropy of the egg does not permit of its subdivision 
into quarters and eighths without impairing their 
structure and powers of development. 

My own recent experiments have shown that it is 
possible to incubate for some time the germ of the 
bird’s egg outside of the egg-shell in a covered glass- 
dish. These experiments also show that restraints to 
growth developed by the dying of a film of albumen 
over the germ causes it to be most extraordinarily 
folded, with many abnormal tumor-like growths from 
both entoderm and ectoderm, that differ, however, in 
histological character from the cells of both these 
layers. These experiments also prove that it is pos- 
sible to mechanically divide the germ of the warm- 
blooded Avian type into halves or quarters, and to 
have these continue to develop for a time. 


SCIENCE. 


627 


The converse of the process of mechanical division 
of the germ we have in Bor’s remarkable experi- 
ments in cutting recently-hatched Amphibian em- 
bryos in two, and placing the separated halves again 
in contact under such conditions as to cause them to 
grow together, or even to thus graft the half of a larva 
of one species upon that of another. Thatsuch graft- 
ing is possible, I can testify, asa result of a repetition 
of some of the experiments. See Born’s paper in 
Schlessischen Gesellsch. f. viterliindische Cultur : Medi- 
cinische Section, 1894. pp. 13. Supplementing Born’s 
results are Roux’s experiments on eytotropism, or the 
reciprocal attraction of isolated blastomeres of Am- 
phibian eggs (Archiv f. Entwickelungsmechanik, L., 
1894), if brought close together, though at first not in 
actual contact. There is also some evidence of 
asexual caryotropism as witnessed in the conjugating 
nuclei of the cells of the intestinal epithelium of land- 
Isopods (Ryder and Pennington, Anéit. Anzeiger, 
1894). 

The experiments of O. Schultze (Anat. Anzeiger, 
Ergiinzungsheft zum Bd. IX., pp. 117-132, 1894), by 
very slowly rotating in a mechanically fixed position 
the segmenting eggs of Amphibians on a specially 
constructed clinostaf, with the result of disorganizing 
and killing them, show that such eggs are not 
isotropic. His production of double monsters in such 
ova by disturbing, for a time, their geotropic relations, 
is also significant, while his conversion of the mero- 
blastic amphibian egg into a holoblastic, evenly seg- 
menting one by merely rotating it through 180° out 
of its normal geotropic relation, and allowing it-to 
complete its segmentation in an inverted position, 
proves that. the egg can be made structurally homo- 
genous by mere mechanical means, but at the expense 
of its power to complete its development. This is 
further proof that the egg is not isotropic in the sense 
in which that word is used by natural philosophers. 

Since the appearance of the short but important 
paper by Prof. E. B. Wilson and A. P. Mathews 
(Jour. of Morphology, Vol. X., No. 1, 1895), in which 
they deny the existence of the centrosome, it becomes 
necessary for me to explain that the word ‘centro- 
some’ is used in the text in the sense in which they 
use the expression ‘attraction spheres.’ Their dis- 
covery that the ovocenter, or attraction sphere of the 
egg, disappears after the expulsion of the two polar 
cells in echinoderm eggs, to be replaced by the sperm- 
center, is of the greatest significance, and may ex- 
plain the reason why parthenogenetic eggs develop, 
namely, as a consequence of their retention of an 
ovocenter. The new facts that these two able work- 
ers have disclosed are entirely in harmony with a 
dynamical theory of fertilization and sex. 

Joun A. Ryper. 


628 


SCIENCE IN CANADA. 

THE awakening from long indifference 
as to the constant wasting, from various 
causes, of the timber resources of this conti- 
nent, which some dozen years ago gave 
rise to a series of forestry congresses, has 
produced a considerable mass of literature, 
mainly economic, but to some extent also 
scientific, in Canada as well as in the United 
States. Not only the Dominion, but the 
provincial authorities as well, took action 
on the matter for the purpose of at once 
arresting wanton destruction of still exist- 
ing forests, of re-afforesting denuded areas 
and of planting trees in the scantily tim- 
bered region between the Great Lakes and 
the Rocky Mountains. Something has also 
been done in the introduction of varieties, 
for sanitary and ornamental uses, from the 
like climates of the Old World. The scien- 
tific societies have done their share in keep- 
ing alive the interest created by this far- 
reaching movement. The latest of the 
monthly meetings of the Natural History 
Society of Montreal was devoted to this 
subject, the Hon. J. K. Ward having 
réad a comprehensive paper on ‘ Canada’s 
timber resources and lumber industry.’ 
Mr. Ward’s paper was largely historical 
and economic. He gave an interesting 
sketch of the lumber business from the year 
1667, when the first timber ship was des- 
patched from Canada to Europe; spoke of 
the relations between lumbering and colo- 
nization and touched on the great wealth of 
precious timber growing in Canada west of 
the Rockies. The lecture was scientific in- 
directly only and in its suggestions. 

In view of the agitation for the admis- 
sion of the island of Newfoundland into 
the Dominion, it may be of interest to re- 
call that Mr. B. L. Robinson and Mr. Her- 
mann Schrenk, of Harvard University, 
made a botanical exploration last July and 
August through the Exploits Valley and 
other parts of that island. They obtained 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 23. 


more than 7,000 specimens of flowering 
plants and vascular cryptogams, as well as 
CGneidentally) a number of thallophytes. 
What is especially noteworthy, as parallel 
phenomena are well known in Canada, is 
that though the Exploits Valley is more 
than 200 miles north of St. John’s it 
“showed a richer and more advanced vege- 
tation, indicative of a deeper soil and milder 
climate.’ The report was published in the 
Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. 

A society that is destined to give a fruit- 
ful impetus to botanical research in the 
Dominion is the Botanical Club of Canada, 
which originated in a recommendation of 
the Fourth Section (Biology and Geology) 
of the Royal Society of Canada, at the an- 
nual meeting held in Montreal, in May, 
1891. It is, however, entirely independent 
of that Society, with which it holds only 
the relations common to the other associated 
scientific societies of the Dominion. “ The 
objects of the Club are to adopt means, by 
concerted local efforts and otherwise, to 
promote the exploration of the flora of 
every portion of British America, to publish 
complete lists of the same in local papers as 
the work goes on, and to have these lists 
collected and carefully examined in order 
to arrive at a correct knowledge of the pre- 
cise character of our flora and its geograph- 
ical distribution.” This Club comprises 
Newfoundland (as does the Royal Society of 
Canada), not only in the scope of its opera- 
tions, but by official representation. Prof. 
George Lawson, Ph. D., LL. D., of Halifax, 
N.5S., is president; Dr. A. H. MacKay, B. 
Se., Halifax, is general secretary-treasurer. 
Prof. D. P. Penhallow, B. Se., MeGill Uni- 
versity, is secretary for the province of 
Quebec; Dr. J. A. Merton Wingham, for 
Ontario; Dr. A. H. MacKay, for Nova 
Scotia; Mr. G. U. Hay, M. A., Ph. D., St. 
John, for New Brunswick; Mr. Francis 
Bain, North River, for Prince Edward Is- 
land; Rey. A. C. Waghorne, St. John’s, 


JUNE 7, 1895.] 


for Newfoundland; Rey. W. A. Burman, B. 
D., Winnipeg, for Manitoba; Mr. T. N. 
Willing, Calgary, for Alberta; Rev. C. W. 
Bryden, Battleford, for Saskatchewan; Mr. 
A. J. Pineo, B. A., High School, Victoria, 
for British Columbia. The foregoing officers 
were elected on the 25th of May, 1894. 

An interesting report of the work of the 
year 1893-94 was presented at last year’s 
May meeting of the Royal Society at Ottawa, 
and is published in the Proceedings. What 
is most striking in it is the evidence which 
it affords that the creation of the Society 
has proved an incentive to increased in- 
dustry in field work in distant and out-of- 
the-way places—in Newfoundland (special 
attention being called to Mr. Waghorne’s 
work), in the Territories, in British Colum- 
bia and on Prince Edward Island. In 
British Columbia 100 members had been 
enrolled through Mr. Pineo’s efforts, and 
1,400 species (of which 30 were new) col- 
lected under the direction of Prof. Macoun. 
In Nova Scotia the work was largely asso- 
ciated with phenological observations. Be- 
sides excellent local work, the operations in 
Ontario included a series of papers by Mr. 
James Macoun on the plants in the Her- 
barium of the Geological and Natural His- 
tory Survey at Ottawa, which appeared in 
the Canadian Record of Science. In Quebec 
the most important work done was that of 
Prof. Penhallow, in the determination of 
the species of American Coniferze by the 
structure of the stem, a research of recog- 
nized importance in the development of 
phanerogamic botany. In all the provinces 
the creation of the Club has already had a 
marked educational effect, the more intelli- 
gent teachers in many localities having en- 
gaged with energy in the work. Before 
the formation of the Club the only Canadian 
institution whose operations covered the 
Dominion was the Survey just mentioned, 
to the botanical work of which Mr. Robin- 
son makes laudatory mention in his Ex- 


SCIENCE. 


629 


ploits Valley report. In all the older prov- 
inces, however, there have long been scien- 
tifie societies of whose objects botanical ex- 
ploration formed a leading feature. 

The gift by Mr. W. C. McDonald, of 
Montreal, of thirty-five acres of convenient 
and suitable land for the formation of a 
Botanic Garden in connection with MeGill 
University, must very materially aid in the 
promotion of botanical research in Montreal 
and will prove a prized boon to Prof. Pen- 
hallow and his students. This gift, the 
deeds for which were formally signed on the 
3dinst.,is only one ofmany substantial proofs 
that Mr. McDonald has given of his interest 
in scientific education. At the convocation 
of the University on the 30th ult. the vice- 
principal was able to announce that, during 
the session just closing, the students had for 
the first time surpassed the thousand. That 
this augmentation is largely due to the in- 
creased attendance of the Scientific Facul- 
ties (medicine, comparative medicine and 
applied science) is an open secret. Ten 
years ago the attendance did not reach five 
hundred. As the vice-principal (Dr. Alex- 
ander Johnson) pointed out, increase of 
numbers, though desirable, is not the swm- 
mum bonum. He hoped the time would 
come when all graduates would be first of 
all graduates in arts. Prof. Callendar, 
without decrying Latin or Greek, depre- 
cated the neglect by scientific students of 
their mother tongue, which every student 
of science should be able to write correctly 
and clearly. 

Professor Bovey, D. C. L., M. Inst. C. E., 
Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science, af- 
ter saying that the students enrolled in his 
Faculty this year numbered 187, an in- 
crease of 15 per cent. over the previous 
year, mentioned among recent improve- 
ments a course in Kinematics (Professor 
Nicholson); the addition of practical min- 
ing and underground surveying to the 
course in Mining Engineering (Professor 


630 


Carlyle); the establishment of graduates’ 
courses and arrangements made to facilitate 
the prosecution of research work, so as to 
take advantage of the splendid equipment 
for that end now possessed by the Univer- 
sity. This consists of laboratories of mathe- 
matics and dynamics, fully provided with 
instruments of measurement, gravity bal- 
ances, machines for experimenting on the 
laws of motion, ete.; three chemical labora- 
tories for qualitative and quantitative work 
and for original investigation, and supplied 
with Becker & Son (4) and Bunge (1) bal- 
ances; a Troemner bullion-balance ; a Lau- 
rent polariscope, Dubosq spectroscope, etc. ; 
the McDonald physical laboratory of five 
stories, each 8000 square feet area, includ- 
ing elementary and special laboratories for 
heat and electricity; rooms for optical work 
and photography; two large laboratories 
arranged for research, with solid piers and 
the usual standard instruments, etc.; the 
electric laboratory, with Kelvin electric 
balances, a Thomson galvanometer, two 
dynamo-meters (Siemens), voltmeters, am- 
meters, ete.; the magnetic laboratory, the 
dynamo room, the lighting station, the ac- 
eumulator room, geodetic, hydraulic test- 
ing, thermo-dynamic and mechanical labor- 
atories. The McDonald Engineering Build- 
ing and its equipment were the gift of the 
same generous friend of scientific education 
whom McGill University has just thanked 
for its botanic garden. Mr. McDonald also 
contributed liberally towards the erection 
of the workshops built on the endowment 
of the late Thomas Workman, merchant, of 
Montreal. These consist of machine shop, 
foundry, smith shop and carpenter, wood- 
turning and pattern-making departments, 
and are intended, under the direction of 
the professor of mechanical engineering, to 
familiarize the student with the materials 
and implements of construction. 

Although Prof. Milne (whose recent loss 
every friend of science deplores) and other 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 23. 


seismologists are wont to class the earth 
movements of the United States and Canada 
under a common head, Canada has had a ~ 
fair proportion of such disturbances all to 
herself. Every student. of Canada’s annals 
has had his attention drawn to the series of 
earthquakes which caused such consterna- 
tion in the year 1663, and its extraordinary 
moral effects. On the 17th ult. a shock 
varying from severe to slight or barely per- 
ceptible was felt on both sides of the St. 
Lawrence, though mainly on the south side 
in what are called the Eastern Townships. 
Nearly two years ago a somewhat similar 
shock was felt, and nearly at the same hour, 
between eleven and noon. This earthquake 
was distinctly felt in Montreal. The most 


formidable visitation of the kind in recent 


times occurred twenty-five years ago. It 
cleared even the court rooms and filled the 
streets with frightened groups. 

The Royal Society of Canada met at Ot- 
tawa on the 15th inst. A programme of 
considerable scientific interest was gone 
through. 

The death of Mr. Walter H. Smith, well 
known in Montreal for more than twenty 
years as an astronomer and publisher of 
Smith’s Planetary Almanac, is sincerely 
regretted by all who knew him. He was 
for many years connected with the Montreal 
Witness, in which paper his contributions 
on astronomical subjects were always read 
with interest, and were widely reproduced. 
He died on the 3d inst., in his forty-third 
year. He was a native of Wiltshire, Eng- 
land, but had lived more than half his life 
in Canada. J. Die; 


CARL LUDWIG. 


WirHin a few months Germany and the 
world have lost three great men, Helm- 
holtz, Freytag and Ludwig. Of these three 
Carl Ludwig, the physiologist, and the inti- 
mate friend of the other two, died in Leip- 
sic on April 27th, 1895, at the age of 


JUNE 7, 1895. ] 


seventy-eight, after a life rich in scientific 
achievement. 

The world at large can never realize the 
great debt that the world of science, and 
through it the world at large, owes to the 
tireless brain and the skilful hand of this 
modest Leipsic professor. Ludwig com- 
bined, in an almost ideal manner and insep- 
arably, great investigating power and great 
teaching power. An investigator himself, 
throughout the course of his busy life he 
trained between two and three hundred in- 
vestigators, and more than any other man 
since Johannes Miiller he has directed the 
course of physiological research. The num- 
berless publications from his laboratory 
bear the names of his pupils and rarely his 
own, but the inscription, ‘Aus dem physio- 
logischen Institut zu Leipsic,’ is the seal of 
their worth. 

Ludwig was a man of the broadest sym- 
pathies and culture, restless and eager for 
knowledge within or without the bound- 
aries of his own science. But he was con- 
tent to study specific problems and to refrain 
from baseless and sweeping hypotheses. In 
the fifty-three years of his constant labor 
he left untouched few fields of the physiol- 
ogy of his time, and he never delved lightly 
or superficially. A record like his is rarely 
equalled. To the end he maintained his 
interest and activity fresh, and at the age of 
seventy-five he wrote to an American 
friend, ‘‘ Ueberall liegt so viel brach, iiberall 
giebt es so viele Liicken, dass man bald 
mehr Aufgaben als Krafte besitzt.”’ 

It was a memorable day for biology when 
Ludwig conceived the idea of the kymo- 
graph, the instrument used for recording 
physiological movements, for the invention 
of the kymograph marked the introduction 
of the graphic method into physiology. 
Ludwig once wrote, ‘‘ Observation and ex- 
periment alone bring the light that illumin- 
ates the secret ways ofnature.’’ The graphic 
method has made observation and experi- 


SCIENCE. 


631 


ment exact, and has revolutionized the bio- 
logical sciences. Ludwig is responsible 
for much of the apparatus of precision now 
in use in physiological laboratories. To 
him must be ascribed also the fruitful 
method of separating single organs from the 
rest of an animal body, and maintaining 
them for study in a vital condition, a pro- 
cess indispensable to the understanding of 
function in a complicated organism. 

Besides these additions to method, among 
the more noteworthy of his many contribu- 
tions to physiology, either alone or in con- 
junction with his pupils, may be mentioned: 
numerous facts and principles regarding the 
dynamics of the circulation of the blood; 
the details of the heart’s action; the loca- 
tion of the vaso-motor centre ; the discovery 
of the depressor nerve ; the mutual relations 
of respiration and circulation ; the blood 
gases ; many anatomical and physiological 
advances regarding the lymphatic system ; 
the secretory function of the chorda tym- 
pani nerve ; the mutual relations of gland 
secretion and blood circulation; gas exchange 
and production of heat in tissues ; the pres- 
ence of inosit, uric acid and other substan- 
ces in the animal body; numerous facts 
regarding the metabolism of specific tissues; 
the course taken by the food-stuffs in ab- 
sorption ; the minute physiological anatomy 
of the kidney, the liver, the intestine, the 
pancreas, the salivary glands, the heart, the 
skin, ete.; many facts regarding general 
muscle and nerve physiology, the central 
nervous system and the special senses. 

The leading events in Ludwig’s life are 
as follows: Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Lud- 
wig, the son of a Hessian army officer who 
served in the Napoleonic wars, born in Wit- 
zenhausen December 29th, 1816; studied in 
Erlangen and Marburg; M. D., Marburg, 
1839 ; prosector inanatomy, Marburg, 1841; 
privat-docent in physiology, Marburg, 1842; 
extraordinary professor of comparative anat- 
omy, Marburg, 1846; professor of anatomy 


632 


and physiology, Zurich, 1849; professor of 
physiology and zodlogy, Vienna, 1855; pro- 
fessor of physiology, Leipsic, 1865. 

Probably few American physiologists re- 
ceived the news of Ludwig’s death without 
a feeling of sadness far beyond that occa- 
sioned by the losstoscience. Ludwig liked 
America and Americans, and many of his 
colleagues upon this side of the Atlantic 
have been his pupils and have found in 
him a warm personal friend. His wit, his 
sympathy, his breadth of mind, his love of 
books and of music, were conspicuous. To 
work with him was to receive the undy- 
ing stimulus of a master mind and to feel 
the charm of a simple, sweet, winning per- 
sonality. 

FREDERIC §. LEE. 
CoLUMBIA COLLEGE. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


THE FROG WAS NOT BRAINLESS BUT DECERE- 
BRIZED. 


In the report of the meeting of the Asso- 
ciation of American Anatomists last De- 
cember in Science for March 15, 1895, p. 
297, it is said that ‘ Dr. Wilder exhibited a 
Brainless Frog, etc.’ The animal shown 
had been deprived of his cerebrum Dee. 7, 
1894, for demonstration to my class in physi- 
ology of the points first, I believe, observed 
by Goltz. The brain was transected at the 
diencephal (thalami) and the entire cere- 
brum removed as described by mein 1886.* 
The frog was unusually large and vigorous, 
and was exhibited partly on that account, 
and partly because when it dies the condi- 
tion of the brain will be determined and re- 
ported to the Association. At this writing, 
however, it is still living and has been 


*Remarks upon a living frog which was decere- 
brized more than seven months ago. Amer. Neurol. 
Assoc. Trans., 1886. Jour. Nerv. and Mental Dis., 
XIII, p. 30. (Abstracts in V. Y. Med. Record, July 
31, 1886, SCIENCE, Aug. 7, 1886, and JDedical News, 
Aug. 7, 1886. ) 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 23. 


photographed in various attitudes, amongst 
others while maintaining its balance on a 
cylinder by ‘backing’ instead of going for- 
ward as usual. 

The object of the present note is to repro- 
bate the use of brainless and decerebrized as’ 
interchangeable terms. The latter alone 
was used by me at the meeting, and was 
accessible in type-writing to all who were 
present. Nevertheless, both at that time 
and afterward, there appeared many news- 
paper paragraphs as to ‘Dr. Wilder’s 
brainless frog.’ An attempt to correct the 
misapprehension through the Associated 
Press only made the matter worse, for I 
was promptly credited with ‘another brain- 
less frog.’ 

Perhaps, however, we ought not to con- 
demn the popular confusion of terms too 
strongly in view of the following example 
among professional anatomists. At the 
Tenth International Medical Congress in 
Berlin, August 5, 1890, Professor Sir Wil- 
liam Turner, F. R. S., ete., delivered an 
address, the official title of which, as printed 
in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology for 
October, is ‘The Convolutions of the 
Brain ;’ the real subject is The Fissures of 
the Cerebrum. 

Burt G. WILDER. 

ItHaca, N. Y., May 25, 1895. 


TEXT-BOOK OF INVERTEBRATE MORPHOLOGY. 


To THE EprTor oF Science: A reply to 
a book review is undoubtedly in many cases 
inadvisable, but there are certain state- 
ments in the review of my Text-book of 
Invertebrate Morphology in your issue of 
May 3d which seem, as a matter of justice, 
to call for some comment. <A reviewer has 
a perfect right to express his opinion con- 
cerning the views set forth by an author, 
but the latter has a right to expect that his 
statements will not be misrepresented either 
directly or by implication, and I wish to 
eall attention to certain misrepresentations 


JUNE 7, 1895. ] 


contained in Professor Packard’s review. 

In the first place the following statement 
is made: ‘“ Thus in writing of the Brachio- 
poda the author speaks of the bivalved 
shell ‘similar to that of the bivalve mol- 
lusk,’ but he does not add that the shells 
are dorsal and ventral, a point in which 
they differ from any mollusk.’ Professor 
Packard must have read my description of 
the Brachiopoda very perfunctorily; other- 
wise he would have seen fifteen lines further 
onthestatement: ‘Since the mantle-lobes 
are dorsal and ventral in position, so too 
are the valves of the shell,’ and a little 
further on still he would have found an 
express statement that there are impor- 
tant differences between the shells of the 
Brachiopods and those of the bivalve mol- 
lusks. 

Secondly, it is implied in the review that 
I state that the thoracic segments in the 
butterflies and Diptera ‘seem to be reduced 
to two, etc.’ If my entire statement had 
been quoted my meaning would have been 
clear. The concluding words of the sen- 
tence, replaced in the review by ‘etc.,’ read- 
ing ‘owing to the close association of the 
metathorax with the first abdominal seg- 
ment.’ The reviewer implies that I state 
that but two segments occur in the insects 
mentioned, whereas I distinctly imply that 
all three are present. 

Thirdly, the reviewer implies that I state 
on p. 414 that the elements of the oviposi- 
tors (in insects) are situated on the ‘last 
abdominal segment.’ As it happens at p. 
414, it is the Isopods, and not the Insecta, 
which are under consideration. My state- 
ment regarding the ovipositors of insects 
are: (1) “ Cerci, ovipositors and copulatory 
organs are frequently borne by the posterior 
abdominal segments’ (p. 489); (2) ‘“ The 
genital orifice is situated on the ventral 
surface of the ninth abdominal segment 
and is usually surrounded by a number of 
papille, or sometimes by long processes 


SCIENCE. 


633 


which serve as ovipositors, and are to be re- 
garded simply as processes of the segments 
from which they arise, and not as modified 
limbs”’ (p. 497). In both cases I use the 
word ‘segments ’ and not ‘ segment,’ and in 
neither case do I state that the ovipositors 
are on the last segment. 

There are several other points which 
might be similarly commented upon, but I 
do not desire to occupy space by multiply- 
ing examples of inaccuracies in the review. 
Surely, in the review of a scientific book 
evidence of ordinary care in the preliminary 
perusal of it is to be expected. 

Yours truly, 
J. Prayrark McMcrricu. 
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, May 7th, 1895. 


[Ix reply to Professor MeMurrich I regret 
to say that I did overlook the words on p. 
269, to which he draws attention, although 
Istill think the dorsal and ventral relations 
of the valves had better have been empha- 
sized in the beginning of the last paragraph 
of the preceding page. In regard to the 
second point, I still think that the expres- 
sion ‘seem to be reduced to two’ is un- 
necessary and a grain misleading. Third, on 
p. 489 (‘p. 414’ is a printer’s error, for 
which the reviewer is not responsible) the 
sentence in question still seems to me to be 
vague, inexact, and in part incorrect. The 
cerci are the homologues of the other 
jointed appendages of the body, as may be 
seen in the cockroach and other orthoptera, 
as well as Lyda, and the Cinura (Machilis). 
This and the few other errors noted by us 
are blemishes which can easily be corrected 
in a second edition. The charge that ‘ or- 
dinary care’ was not exercised by the re- 
viewer is a gratuitous one. In conclusion, 
I may say that I regard the book as a most 
excellent and useful one, and wish it every 
success, as it fills a vacancy hitherto exist- 
ing in our literature. 

A. S. Packarp.] 


634 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 


The Mechanical Engineer’s Pocket Book. By 


Wm. Kent. New York, J. Wiley & 
Sons, 1895. 168 illustrations, pp. xxxi.; 
1087, 16 mo. $5.00. 


This ‘ pocket-book,’ although altogether 
too large for the pocket—as are, in fact, all 
these books, when meeting the require- 
ments fully—is the most important and 
valuable accession to the portable library 
of the engineer that has recently appeared. 
Its scope is purposely confined to those 
subjects which are of main interest to the 
mechanical engineer, including the electric- 
al engineering branch, and matters assign- 
able to civil engineering, distinctively, are 
omitted ; it being assumed that the inter- 
ested engineer will find them in his ‘ Trau- 
twine.’ The author of the new ‘ pocket- 
book’ is a distinguished engineer and met- 
allurgist, and has had a peculiarly fruitful 
and fortunate variety of experience in those 
departments. He supplemented a mercan- 
tile education and some experience with a 
course of study in mechanical engineering, 
and subsequently had charge of iron and 
steel works in Pittsburgh, edited a technic- 
al journal, was the responsible laboratory 
assistant in charge of important. work of the 
‘United States Iron and Steel Board,’ and 
has enjoyed a most unique and helpful ex- 
perience as a consulting engineer. No one 
could better comprehend precisely what is 
demanded of the author of such a book. 

Throughout a period of now many years 
material was in process of accumulation, as 
advised by Nystrom: ‘Hvery engineer 
should make his own pocket-book.’ The 
construction of the book in hand was com- 
menced at the request of the publishers, 
who selected the presumably best prepared 
man for the work, and the result of four 
years of labor is an admirable, an extensive 
and a ‘meaty’ volume. 

The section devoted to the materials of 
engineering, their strength and their prop- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Voz. 1. No. 23. = 


erties, is peculiarly valuable and complete. 
It is a departmeut in which the author is 
thoroughly at home and with which he has 
all his life been familiar. The revision of 
the old formule and their constants has been 
very carefully and completely performed, 
and this work in itself constitutes a great 
boon to the engineer. The wide range of 
difference of proportions of parts of engines 
and machines observed among contempo- 
rary builders and ‘authorities’ has been 
the subject of long and conscientious labors. 
When it is said that sizes of important 
parts, in the best practice, for ‘ low-speed’ 
and ‘high-speed’ engines, respectively, av- 
erage as four in the one to seven in the 
other, and when it is known that variations 
of ten to one, in certain proportions of parts, 
among well-known makers, are known to 
exist, the importance of this revision be- 
comes appreciable. 

Experimental data are collated to date, 
and in immense quantity in all depart- 
ments, and the theory of construction, as 
far as required and appropriate to such a 
book as this, has been well condensed and 
revised, not only by the author, but by 
specialists whose aid has been sought by 
him. 

The book is especially rich in matter re- 
lating to the steam-engine and steam-boilers, 
stationary, marine and locomotive, and a 
moderate amount of space is well utilized 
by a very condensed resumé of principles 
and practice in electrical engineering. It 
may perhaps be fairly anticipated that this 
section will grow somewhat with the rap- 
idly succeeding editions of the book which, 
it is safe to predict, will follow. Refriger- 
ating machinery here, for the first time, 
finds space in some degree commensurate 
with its growing importance, and theory 
and practice are judiciously presented with 
data derived by the best experiments yet 
reported. 

This book has more importance, and de- 


JUNE 7, 1895.] 


serves much more space, than so incomplete 
a notice would indicate; but it is only 
practicable here to give the briefest pos- 
sible indication of its contents, and to ad- 
vise everyone interested in the subjects 
treated to examine the work and judge it 
for himself. Mr. Kent and his publishers 
—who have put up the book in excellent 
shape in all respects—are to be heartily con- 
gratulated on the outcome of their long 
struggle with the most difficult task that 
authorship knows—the condensation of a 
a great mass of useful special information 
into manageable and compact form. The 
product of their efforts is a mechanical 
engineer’s pocket-book covering the field 
with remarkable completeness, correct as to 
theory, rich in data, supplying all the 
tables, ‘constants of nature,’ and results of 
scientific research in its department, re- 
quired by the practitioner, and in marvel- 
lously compact form. 

In size, type, paper and presswork, bind- 
ing and finish, the book is fully up to the 
established standard for such publications. 
It seems remarkably free from printers’ 
and other errors—although it must un- 
doubtedly fail of absolute perfection in this 
respect in a first edition —and is a credit to 
all concerned in its production. It is a 
great work well done. 
| R. H. Tuvrston. 


Birderajft, a Field Book of Two Hundred Song, 
Game and Water Birds. By Maset OsGoop 
Wricur. Pp. 317. 15 double plates, 
mostly colored. New York and London, 
Maemillan & Co. 8°. May, 1895. Price, 
$3.00. 

On opening Mrs. Wright’s Birderaft, fresh 
from the press, one is likely to exclaim 
‘what horrible pictures!’ and wonder how a 
reputable publisher or author could permit 
such atrocious daubs to deface a well 
printed book. But in spite of these staring 
eyesores, which certainly prejudice one 


SCIENCE. 


635 


against the work, the text contains much of 
interest and, taken as a whole, is well writ- 
ten. The spirit of the book is in touch 
with the popular and growing fashion of 
studying birds in the field, and its chief 
purpose seems to be to interest the novice 
and aid in identifying birds ‘in the bush.’ 
It contains introductory chapters on ‘the 
spring song,’ ‘the building of the nest,’ 
‘water birds,’ ‘ birds of autumn and winter,’ 
and ‘how to name the birds.’ The book 
proper begins with a ‘synopsis of bird fam- 
ilies,’ followed by popular descriptions and 
short biographies of 200 species—mostly 
well-known eastern birds—and ends with 
keys for the ready identification of males in 
spring plumage. The utility of such keys 
can be tested only by actual use. These 
are simple and look as if they would be 
helpful to the beginner, though it almost 
takes one’s breath away to find the robin 
classed with the cardinal and tanager under 
‘birds conspicuously red.’ 

Most of the biographies are based on the 
author’s field experience in southern Con- 
necticut, and as a rule are interesting and 
accurate. Now and then misleading state- 
ments creep in, particularly with reference 
to the geographic ranges. For instance, 
the white-eyed vireo, chat, orchard oriole, 
and other Carolinian birds are said to in- 
habit the ‘ eastern United States,’ while, as 
a matter of fact, they are absent from the 
northern tier of States and New England, 
except in the southern parts. Other sur- 
prising statements may be traced to popular 
prejudice. Thus the author says of the Blue 
Jay: “ Here isa bird against whom the hand 
of every lover of song-birds should be turned 

* %* % for the Jay isa cannibal, not a whit 
less destructive than the crow. * * * Day 
by day they sally out of their nesting places 
tomarket for themselves and for their young, 
and nothing will do for them but fresh eggs 
and tender squabs from the nests of the 
song-birds ; to be followed later by berries, 


636 


small fruit and grain.” The same sweep- 
ing ignorance and prejudice characterizes 
her account of the crow, of which she says : 
“This is another bird that you may hunt from 
your woods, shoot (if you can) in the fields 
and destroy with poisoned grain. Here he 
has not a single good mark against his 
name. He is a cannibal, devouring both 
the eggs and young of insect-destroying 
song-birds.” As a matter of fact, the eggs 
and young of wild birds and poultry to- 
gether form less than one per cent. of the 
food of the crow, as determined by the ex- 
amination of about a thousand stomachs in 
the U. S. Department of Agriculture. So 
with grain ; sprouting corn forms only two 
per cent. of the entire food, most of the 
corn eaten by crows being waste grain 
picked up, chiefly in winter, in fields and 
other places where its consumption is no 
loss to the farmer. On the other hand, 
mice and other injurious mammals form 
14 per cent. of the food of crows; and in- 
sects no less than 234 per cent. 

The colored plates are execrable. Most 
of them are cheap, coarse, dauby carica- 
tures, taken second-hand from Audubon, 
who would turn in his grave if he saw them. 
In addition to these, there are five uncol- 
ored process reproductions of water birds 
and birds of prey. The latter are from Dr. 
Fisher’s Hawks and Owls of the United States 
(published by the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture) and, though poor, are by far 
the best illustrations in the book. 

Excepting the plates, the book is neatly 
gotten up and well printed. A novel and 
useful feature is the insertion of the com- 
mon name of the bird in heavy-face type at 
the top corner of the page, in the place usu- 
ally occupied by the pagination. 

On the whole, Mrs. Wright’s ‘ Birderaft’ 
may be recommended as a source of pleas- 
ure and assistance to the many lovers of 
nature who are trying to learn more about 
our common birds. C. H. M. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 23, 


Anleitung zur Microchemischen Analyse: Von 
H. Berens, Professor an der Polytech- 
nischen Schule in Delft. Mit 92 Figuren 
im Text. Hamburg, Leopold Voss. 1895. 
224 pp. 

Professor Behrens first wrote this book in 
French, and it was published in 1893. An 
English translation by Professor Judd ap- 
peared soon after. That the author pub- 
lished a German edition so soon speaks for 
the value of the book. Professor Behrens’ 
text-book is the only one, as indeed he is 
the chief authority, on this new and im- 
portant subject. The first half of the book 
describes the reactions of the elements, 
giving plates of the crystalline precipitates 
as seen through the microscope. Part 
Second treats of the systematic analysis of 
water, rocks, ores, alloys, and compounds of 
the rare elements. The chapter on the 
micro-chemical examination of rocks, by 
study of slides and of powdered rock is very 
interesting ; indeed, for petrographic re- 
search the manual is invaluable, but it is 
also of great value to the metallurgist in the 
study of ores and alloys, and to the general 
chemist in the ordinary run of chemical 
analysis. E. RENOUF. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION. 


THE preliminary announcement of the 
forty-fourth meeting of the American As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Science, 
to be held in Springfield, Mass., August 28 
to September 7, 1895, has now been issued. 
The arrangements promise an interesting 
and successful meeting. 

The first general session will be held on 
the morning of Thursday the 29th, This 
will give Friday, Monday, Tuesday and 
Wednesday as the four days entirely de- 
voted to the reading of papers in the sec- 
tions. Saturday will be given to excursions 
in the vicinity of Springfield, and more dis- 


JUNE 7, 1895.] 


_ tant excursions have been arranged to fol- 
low the close of the meeting. 

At the first general session the President- 
elect, Prof. E. W. Morley, will be introduced 
by the retiring President, Prof. D. G. Brin- 
ton. Addresses of welcome will be made 
by his Honor, Mayor Chas. L. Long, and 
Hon. Wm. H. Haile, President of the Local 
Committee. 

The addresses of the vice presidents be- 
fore the sections are as follows : 

W. Le Conte Stevens, before Section of 
Physics: The Problem of Aerial Locomotion. 
F. H. Cusurixe, before Section of Anthro- 
pology. 

Jep. Horcuxiss, before Section of Geology 
and Geography: The Geological Survey of 
Virginia, 1835-1841. Its history and in- 
fluence in the advancement of Geologie Science. 
B. E. Frernow, before Section of Economic 
Science and Statistics: The Providential 
Function of Government in relation to natural 
resources. 

McMvrris, before Section of Chemistry. 
J.C. Arruur, before Section of Botany : 
The Development of Vegetable Physiology. 
Witiram Kent, before Section of Mechan- 
ical Science and Engineering. 

In the evening the address of the retiring 
President, Dr. Dante, G. Brinton, on The 
Aims of Anthropology will be given, followed 
by a reception by the Ladies’ Reception 
Committee of Springfield. 

The affiliated societies meeting in con- 
_ junction with the Association are: 

_ The Geological Society of America ; August 27 
and 28. Pror. N. 8. SHarer, Cambridge, 
President ; Pror, H. L. Farrcw1ip, Roches- 
ter, Secretary. 

Society for Promotion of Agricultural Science ; 
August 26. Pror. WILLIAM SAUNDERS, 
Ottawa, President; Pror. WILLIAM FREAR, 
State College, Pa., Secretary. 

Association of Economie Entomologists. 
Association of State Weather Service. Mas. H. 
H. C. Dunwoopy, Washington, President; 


SCIENCE. 


637 


James Berry, Washington, Secretary. 
Society for Promoting Engineering Education ; 

September 2, 3,4. Guo. F. Swamy, Bos- 

ton, President; Pror. J. B. Jounson, St. 

Louis, Seeretary. 

American Chemical Society; August 27 and 
28, EnpcGar F. Siu, Philadelphia, Presi- 
dent; Pror, AtBerT C. Hate, Brooklyn, 
Secretary. 

American Forestry Association ; September 3. 
Hon. J. Srertiye Morton, Washington, 
President ; F. H. Newe.t, Washington, 
Secretary. 

The Botanical and Entomological Clubs 
of the Association will meet as usual during 
the Association week. 

For information relating to membership 
and papers Pror. F. W. Putnam, Perma- 
nent Secretary, Salem, Mass., should be ad- 
dressed. For all matters relating to local 
arrangements, hotels, railway rates and cer- 
tificates, Mr. W. A. Wesrster, Local Secre- 
tary, A. A. A. S., Springfield, Mass., should 
be addressed. 


THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 


THE arrangements are now completed for 
the meeting of the British Association, to 
be held at Ipswich from September 11 to 19, 
under the presidency of Sir Douglas Galton. 
The following is the list of sectional presi- 
dents nominated by the Council : Section A 
(Mathematical and Physical Science), Pro- 
fessor W. M. Hicks, of Firth College, Shef- 
field; B (Chemistry), Professor R. Meldola, 
of the City and Guilds Technical College ; 
C (Geology), Mr. W. Whitaker, of the 
Geological Survey; D (Zodlogy, including 
Animal Physiology), Professor W. A. Herd- 
man, of Liverpool University College; E 
(Geography), Mr. H. J. Mackinder, Reader 
at Oxford; F (Economie Science and Sta- 
tistics), Mr. L. L. Price, Bursar of Oriel 
College, Oxford; G (Mechanical Science), 
Professor L. F. Vernon Harcourt, of Uni- 
versity College, London; H (Anthro- 


638 


pology), Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, 
of University College, London; K (Botany), 
Mr. W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, Director of the 
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The new 
President will deliver his inaugural address 
on September 11th. The two evening dis- 
courses will be given by Professor Silvanus 
Thompson, on ‘ Magnetism in Rotation,’ and 
by Professor Perey F. Frankland, on ‘The 
Work of Pasteur and its Various Develop- 
ments.’ There will be, as usual, two soirées, 
and also excursions to places of interest in 
the neighborhood of Ipswich. 


MECHANICAL INTERPRETATION OF VARIATIONS 
OF LATITUDE. 


Unoper this title, in No. 345 of the Astro- 
nomical Journal, Professor R. S. Woodward 
seeks to deduce the law of variations of 
latitudes from dynamical considerations. 
Starting with the hypothesis that the earth 
is a body of variable form, the general differ- 
ential equations of rotation of such bodies 
are derived by means of the Lagrangian 
method. These equations are then shown 
to admit of considerable simplification when 
applied to the earth by reason of the fortu- 
nate circumstances that the variations of 
latitudes are very small, and that the prin- 
cipal moments of inertia of the earth vary 
exceedingly slowly. The integrals of the 
resulting equations give the rectangular co- 
ordinates of the instantaneous pole of the 
earth with respect to its pole of figure. 
The characteristic motion of the instan- 
taneous pole is found to be the resultant of 
three distinct parts, namely, motion in a 
circle about the pole of figure with two 
series of elliptical motions superposed. This 
characteristic motion is subject, neverthe- 
less, to some fluctuations arising from vol- 
canic and similar impulsive disturbances, as 
well as from irregularities in meteorological 
processes. 

The general features of latitude variations 
thus deduced from a purely theoretical basis 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 23. 


agree with those arrived at inductively by 
Dr. Chandler in his elaborate researches, 
Only one difficulty, in fact, seems to stand 
now in the way of a satisfactory accordance 
of theory and observation, and that is the 
prolongation of the period of the Eulerian 
eycle from 305 to 428 days. <A considerable 
amount of space is devoted by the author to 
a discussion of this difficulty. He attacks 
the validity of the method of deriving the 
period of that cycle from the ratio furnished 
by precession, and concludes that the period 
so derived ‘can no longer be maintained as 
a dogma of dynamical astronomy.’ Of 
several causes which may modify this period, 
he considers the principal one to be the tide 
entailed by the motion of the instantaneous 
axis of rotation about the axis of figure. 
The order of magnitude of such a cause es- 
sential to account for the discrepancy is 
shown to be very small. The main object of 
the paper, however, is to obtain a correct 
specification of the analytical form of the 
variations in question, leaving to observa- 
tion and subsequent investigation the de- 
termination and reconciliation of the con- 
stants which enter that form. 


THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 


Tue Sixth Annual Report of the Mis- 
souri Botanical Garden,* issued on May 3rd, 
is an octavo volume of 134 pages, with 6 half 
tone views taken in the Garden, and 56 
plates illustrating plants described in the 
report. 

The report of officers of the Board of 
Trustees shows that the receipts for the year 
1894 were $95,555.97, and the disburse- 
ments $75,800.69, of which $35,483.39 was 
spent on the maintenance and improve- 
ment of the Garden and the performance 
and publication of scientifie work; $3,692.29 
was for banquets, exhibition premiums, 4 

* Missouri Botanical Garden. Sixth Annual Report. 


St. Louis, Mo., Published by the Board of Trustees. 
1895. 


ft 


} 


JUNE 7, 1895.] 


sermon on flowers, and other designated an- 
nual bequests of the founder of the Garden, 
the late Henry Shaw; $21,334.85 went for 
taxes, and the remainder for office and other 
expenses incident to the administration of 
the trust. The report shows an invested or 
eash reserve of $35,405.03. 

From the report of the Director it ap- 
pears that the herbarium was increased by 
the addition of 9,307 sheets of specimens, 
making a total of 231,527 sheets ; and 752 
books and 1,165 pamphlets were added to 
the library, making a total of 7,631 books 
and 9,822 pamphlets. Attention is called to 
the establishment of a ‘ Henry Shaw medal 
for the introduction of a valuable plant,’ 
open to competition in any line of decora- 
tive horticulture at the annual flower show 
held in St. Louis, and to the provision now 
made for receiving additional pupils in gar- 
dening at the nominal charge of $25 per 
‘year for tuition. 

The scientific papers, which constitute the 
bulk of the volume, consist of a revision of 
North American species of Sagittaria and 
Lophotocarpus, by Jared G. Smith, with 
habit and detail illustrations of all of the 
species; a study of Leitneria Floridana, by 
William Trelease, illustrated by 15 plates 
showing the structure of this curious tree, 
the wood of which has a specific gravity of 
only 0.207, which is much lower than that 
of any other described wood, or even cork 
(0.240); studies of the dissemination and 
leaf reflexion of Yucca aloifolia, made in 
Florida, by Herbert J. Webber, and illu- 
strated by three plates; notes and observa- 
tions on new or little known species, by 
Jared G. Smith, accompanied by nine plates, 
and describing six new species from the 
Southwest; and notes on the interesting 
mound flora of Atchison county, Missouri, 
by B. F. Bush. 


THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. 


Ar the last meeting much of the interest 


SCIENCE. 


639 


of the evening centered in a comparison of 
two photographs of a well-known nebula— 
that near 15 Monocerotis—the one by the 
American astronomer, Professor E. E. Bar- 
nard, with a six-inch portrait lens, the other 
by Dr. Roberts, of Crowborough, with his 
20-inch reflector. The exposures given and 
the ratio of aperture to size of image were 
practically the same in both cases. But the 
results were very different. Dr. Roberts’ 
photograph showed a great amount of very 
delicate and beautiful detail in the nebula; 
Prof. Barnard’s, when enlarged to the same 
seale, was of a much coarser character, but 
traced the nebula over a wider area. Dr. 
Roberts argued strongly against the reality 
of these faint extensions of the nebula 
shown in Professor Barnard’s photograph, 
but the president showed, by a detailed com- 
parison of the two photographs projected 
on the screen, that the contention was un- 
founded, and that the smaller instrument, 
though inferior to the larger for the exhibi- 
tion of minute detail, had decidedly the 
advantage in the detection of faint nebu- 
lous masses. Another photograph by Dr. 
Roberts of the well-known crab nebula in 
Taurus also gave rise to some discussion, as 
it differed from the drawing made of the 
nebula by the late Lord Rosse in 1844. Mr. 
Chambers, however, pointed out that later 
visual observations had thrown doubt on 
the reality of some of the filaments shown 
in the sketch referred to. A paper from 
Professor Barnard gave a most convincing 
proof of variation having occurred in a 
nebula, that known as Hind’s, in Taurus. 
Mr. Newall presented some recent observa- 
tions of Phobos, the inner satellite of Mars, 
showing that the orbit of the satellite was 
distinctly elliptical, and the ephemeris some 
ten minutes in error. Mr. Stanley Wil- 
liams contributed a very remarkable paper 
showing that spots in different longitudes 
of Saturn had different rotation periods. 
Mr. Wilson, of West Meath, described his 


640 


method of determining the heat radiation 
from the nucleus of a sun spot.—London 
Times. 

GENERAL, 

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND has extended the 
‘Civil Service Rules in the Department of 
Agriculture so as to include all officers and 
employees, excepting the Secretary and the 
Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and their 
private secretaries, the Chief of the Weather 
Bureau and his private secretary, the chief 
clerk of the department, and the laborers 
and charwomen. 


In congregation at Oxford a new statute 
has been promulgated, adding anthropolog 
to the list of subjects in the Honor School of 
Natural Science. 


A MEMORIAL tablet to John Couch Adams, 
the Cambridge astronomer and mathema- 
tician, was unveiled in Westminster on 
May 9th. 


THE province of Ontario is to have a great 
reservation for the preservation of its ani- 
mals and plants. The Algonquin Natural 
Park will comprise about a million acres of 
forest land. No hunting, trapping or de- 
struction of animal life will be allowed 
within its precincts.—American Naturalist. 


It is announced that the sum of $250,000 
‘or more has been given to the University 
of the City of New York for the purpose of 
erecting a central building on University 
Heights to contain the library, commence- 
ment hall, museum, and offices of admini- 
stration. In accordance with the wish of 
the donor the name is not announced. 

Mas. J. W. PowEtt is announced as lec- 
turer on the ‘ History of Culture,’ and Prof. 
Otis T. Mason as lecturer on the ‘ Origin of 
Culture,’ in Columbian University. 

Accorpineé to the accounts of Oxford Uni- 
versity for 1894, recently presented to con- 
vocation, the revenue amounted to £63,760 
and the payments to £64,390. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 23. 


Str Grorce Bucwanan, M. D., F. R.S., 
died on May 3d, at the age of 64. He was 
one of the first medical officers of health in~ 
London, having been appointed to St. Giles’s 
in 1856. He originated methods of in- 
quiry in sanitary matters not before at- 
tempted, working at the relation of over- 
crowding and other insanitary conditions 
of disease, at the prevention of smallpox, 
typhus fever, cholera and consumption, and 
originating a system of collecting statistical 
information of the public health of the dis- 
trict. He was chairman of The Royal 
Commission on Tuberculosis, which reported 
shortly before his death. 


Tue death is announced of Mr. Arthur 
Edward Durham, a member of the Council 
and late vice-president of the Royal College 
of Surgeons, of England. He was the au- 
thor of Sleeping and Dreaming and The Phy- 
stology of Sleep. ; 

Francis P. HARPER announces The Expedi- 
tions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike to the head- 
waters of the Mississippi River, the interior 
parts of Louisiana, Mexico and Texas, in 
the years 1805-6-7, reprinted in full from 
the original Philadelphia edition of 1810, 
with full explanatory, geographical and sei- 
tific notes to the text, compiled from many 
unpublished sources of information and in- 
cluding the results of a canoe voyage of the 
editor to the sources of the Mississippi 
River, a new memior of Pike and an index 
to the whole by Dr. Elliott Coues. _ 

Aw Austrian expedition for polar re- 
search under the direction of M. Julius von 
Payer will start for Greenland in June, 
1896. 

Ar the recent meeting of the Boston Sci- 
entific Society it was stated that Dr. Perci- 
val Lowell would observe the opposition of 
Mars in December, 1896, from a suitable 
location, not yet decided on. For this pur- 
pose a telescope of twenty-four inches’ aper- 
ture has been ordered. 


June 7, 1895.] 


Tue Spectacle Makers’ Company recently 
presented Mr. W. H. M. Christie, Astrono- 
mer Royal of England, with its honorary 
freedom. The Master, in opening the cere- 
mony, said that the spectacle makers claimed 
to be identified with those trades which, by 
the instruments they made, notably tele- 
scopes, microscopes, compasses, &c., enabled 
astronomers to pursue their studies and re- 
searches. In his reply, the Astronomer 
Royal said he could not but acknowledge 
what had been done for astronomy by op- 
ticians. It was true that a great deal was 
done by the early astronomers with very in- 
efficient means. He might particularly 
mention Tycho Brahe, who, coming after 
the Greek, Chaldean and Jewish astrono- 
mers, besides others, had made great ad- 
vances without the aid of the telescope. 
Astronomy and astrology continued to be 
one science up to the time when the tele- 
scope was invented.—London Times. 


Dr. Morris Henry, a well known sur- 
geon, died recently in New York at the 
age of seventy. He was the founder and 
editor of the American Journal of Dermatology. 


THe May Forum contains an interesting 
article by Professor R. H. Thurston on Our 
Debt to Inventors—Shall We Discharge Them ? 
Professor Thurston says: ‘The promotion 
of the arts and manufactures by suitably 
rewarding inventors and providing that 
they shall be permitted to collect profits, as 
in all other departments of business, as 
large as the business will yield, and in due 
proportion to the value to the country of 
the invention or discovery, is one of the 
most important features of an enlightened 
public policy; and it is the duty of every 
intelligent and patriotic citizen, and espe- 
cially of every one in any manner connected 
with any department of engineering, of 
manufactures, or of the mechanic arts, to 
exert every power and to apply all his in- 
fluence to promote the perfecting of the 


SCIENCE. 


641 


patent system, to increase the facilities of 
the Patent Office, and, especially, to insure 
the inventor of new and valuable devices a 
liberal period of possession of the products 
of his genius.”’ 


Tue Microscopical Society of Washing- 
ton held recently its annual exhibition. A 
large number of microscopical specimens 
and microscopes were exhibited. 


Proressor O. C. WHirMAN was announced 
to lecture on The Utilities of Biology at 
Mount Holyoke College on May 28th. 


In the Massachussetts Institute of Tech- 
nology four instructors have been made 
assistant professors—Frederick 8. Woods, 
Ph. D., in mathematics; Theodore Hough, 
Ph. D., in biology; Williom Z. Ripley, Ph. 
D., in sociology, and Richard W. Lodge in 
mining engineering. Samuel P. Milliken, 
Ph. D., was made instructor in organic 
chemistry, in place of Dr. Evans, resigned. 
The following assistants were raised to 
the position of instructors—W. Felton 
Brown, free-hand drawing; Simeon C. 
Keith, Jr., 8. B., biology; Ervin Kenison, 
S. B., mechanical drawing; Frederick H. 
Keyes, S. B., mechanical engineering ; 
Charles L. Norton, 8. B., physies; Kilburn 
8. Sweet, S. B., civil engineering. 


TueE following instructors in the Sheffield 
Scientific School of Yale University have 
been made assistant professors: 5S. E. 
Barney, Jr., civil engineering; Dr. F. E. 
Beach, physics; Dr. W. A. Setchell, botany; 
Dr. Perey F. Smith, mathematics. 


Dr. O. S. Strone has been appointed 
tutor in comparative neurology, and Dr. 
Hermann 8. Davis assistant in astronomy, 
in Columbia College. 

W.S. Marrnew has been made assistant 
inthe American Museum of Natural History. 

Ir is reported by telegraph from Naples 
that Mt. Vesuvius is in an unusually active 
state of eruption. 


642 


Ir is stated that S. A. Andée’s plan 
for reaching the North Pole by balloon 
under the auspices of the Royal Swedish 
Academy of Science will be assisted by a 
subscription of 30,000 kroners by King 
Oscar. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL JOURNAL FOR MAY. 
THE principal articles in this number are 
those containing reports of the investiga- 
tions carried on by Remsen and others, on 
the chlorides of orthosulphobenzoic acid. 
Early in the investigation it was found that 
when the chloride was treated with aniline 
two products were obtained, which were 
most easily explained on the hypothesis 
that the chloride is a mixture of two iso- 
meric chlorides corresponding to those of 
phthalic acid. This was afterwards shown 
to be the fact. Two chlorides were isolated 
and studied, and the results led to the con- 
clusion that the so-called higher-melting 
chloride (melting point 76°) is the sym- 

metrical one, having the formula 


1 1 
o.1.<.8 


and the other, the lower-melting chloride 
(melting point 21.5°-22.5°), the unsymmet- 
rical one, with the probable structure 

Cyne 
Both chlorides give ordinary orthosulpho- 
benzoic acid when treated with water, but 
act differently when treated with ammonia, 
the symmetrical one forming benzoic sul- 
phinide thus: 


1, So 


Cy Hy <66,c. +4 NH=Ce H.<g9,>5- NH,-2 NH,O1 


while the unsymmetrical one forms the am- 
monium salt of orthocyanbenzenesulphonie 
acid, 

Cy Ha <gg 20 +4NH,=C, HO NH, t2 NH,Cl. 
As the unsymmetrical chloride is acted upon 
much more readily than the symmetrical 
one, it is only necessary to treat the mixture, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 23. 


under certain conditions, with ammonia, to 
obtain the symmetrical one in pure cou- 
dition. The action of benzene and alumi-— 
num chloride, on the mixture or on the 
pure symmetrical chloride, leads to the 
formation of two products, 

C, 1S a and CHa <56.G i. 
The latter breaks down when treated with 
potassium hydroxide, yielding diphenyl- 
sulphone and benzoic acid : 

Cs SO, --KOH = C,H,80..C,H, +-C,H, COOK. 


Besides these articles there are several 
shorter ones, one by Stone and Lotz show- 
ing the identity of the sugar called Agavose, 
with Sucrose, and one by Trevor on ‘ The 
Law of Mass Action.’ Chase Palmer gives 
the results of an investigation of the chro- 
mates of thorium, and Cushman deseribes 
a method of separating copper and cadmium, 
which is more satisfactory than the method 
depending upon the precipitation of the 
cadmium in presence of the copper. He 
fmds that cadmium sulphide is easily 
soluble in warm dilute hydrochlorie acid in 
the presence of an excess of alkaline chlo- 
rides, and is easily precipitated, after filter- 
ing to remove the copper sulphide, which is 
unacted upon. There are also two very 
interesting reviews, by Professor Mallet, of 
the Reports on Chemical Industry at the 
World’s Fair, prepared by the German and 
French chemical representatives. 
J. ELiiorr GrLPin. 


THE BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 
Issued May 18, 1895. 48 pp., 2 pl. 

The Development of Botany in Germany during 
the Nineteenth Century: EpuARD STRAS- 
BURGER. 

Professor Strasburger wrote an account 
of the progress of botany in Germany dur- 
ing the present century for the sumptuous 
work, Die Deutschen Universitdten, prepared 
under the direction of the imperial govern- 
ment for the educational department of the 


JUNE 7, 1895.] 
: 

World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago. 
This work is so costly and so inaccessible 
that Dr. Geo. J. Pierce has translated the 
paper into English, and, with the approval 
of Professor Strasburger and the editor of 
the work named, it is being published in 
the Gazette. It is particularly valuable in 
that it forms a supplement to Sachs’s His- 
tory of Botany, in a measure bringing it 
down to date. The conclusion will appear 
in the June number. 

The Embryo-sac of Aster Nove-Anglie : Cuas. 

J. CHAMBERLAIN. 

In this study of the structure of the em- 
bryo-sac of one of the highest spermaphytes 
the author shows that the formation of the 
secondary nucleus of the sac has no relation 
to a sexual process; comments on the re- 
markable uniformity in size of the nucleoli of 
the egg apparatus and endosperm; finds the 
number of the antipodal cells varying from 
2 to 13 and the number of nuclei in each 
from 1 to 20 or more; and, most remark- 
able of all, announces that he has found an 
undoubted egg in the antipodal region. 
Present Problems in the Anatomy, Morphology 

and Biology of the Cactacee: Wm. F. 

GANONG. 

Professor Ganong continues his account 
of these plants, in this concluding install- 
ment indicating the problems connected 
with the flowers; the relation of form-con- 
ditions to climate; the internal anatomy 
and its relation to external conditions; the 
newness of the family and its geographical 
distribution ; and briefly discusses the bear- 
ing of the solution of these problems on 
adaptation and natural selection. 

Some Recent Cell Literature: J. E. Humpurey. 

At the request of the editors Dr. Hum- 
phrey has prepared a review of recent cell 
literature and a summary of our present 
knowledge of the nucleus and centrospheres. 

In Briefer Articles Dr. C. R. BARNEs notes 
the retention of vitality in the spores of 
Marsilia quadrifolia, whose sporocarps had 


SCIENCE. 


643 


been continuously for nearly three years in 
95 per cent. alcohol; Mr. G. E. DavEeNPorT 
adds stations for his new New England 
species, Aspidium simulatum, which is likely 
to be in many collections under the name 
A. Thelypteris or A. Noveboracense; Dr. J.C. 
ARTHUR condenses a biographical sketch of 
the late Dr. Joseph Schreeter; and Miss 
AicE E. Keener notes that the peculiar 
protection of the nectar gland in Collinsia 
bicolor by the free bearded tips of the wings 
of the filaments is a good diagnostic char- 
acter which occurs in no other Collinsia ex- 
cept (less strikingly) in C. franciscana. The 
Editorial is on the recent transfer of the 
National Herbarium to the care of the 
Smithsonian Institution. In Current Liter- 
ature appear reviews of ‘ Field, Forest and 
Garden Botany;’ the second edition of 
Spalding’s ‘Introduction to Botany ;’ the 
‘Bushberg Catalogue and Grape Growers’ 
Manual ;’ together with notices of several 
short papers. The number closes with four 
pages of Notes and News. 


THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW. 


The Psychological Review for May is devoted 
to experimental work. The first article is 
a ‘Preliminary Report on Initation’ by 
Professor Josiah Royce. He reports the 
first-fruits of an attempt to submit the imi- 
tative functions to an experimental test by 
giving adult subjects series of rhythmical 
sounds, such as taps by an electric hammer, 
which it is their task to reproduce exactly 
in rhythm and sequence by second series of 
taps. He promises in a future communica- 
tion to report on the results, which he finds 
sufficiently encouraging. The main body 
of this paper is further devoted to an acute 
discussion of the definition of imitation and 
the demarcation of the truly imitative func- 
tions. A large part of the number is taken 
up by a series of ‘Studies from the Prince- 
ton Psychological Laboratory,’ by J. Mark 
Baldwin, H. C. Warren and W. J. Shaw, 


644 


five papers in all, giving the output of this 
new laboratory for the first year. Among 
the results of most interest reported in 
these studies may be mentioned the follow- 
ing: The relative falling off in the accuracy 
of memory after intervals of 10, 20 and 40 
minutes is shown by curves, the thing re- 
membered being square magnitudes exhib- 
ited to large classes of students. A con- 
trast effect of squares of different sizes 
shown simultaneously to the eye was dis- 
covered, as is reported in a detailed re- 
search. It was found that the distance be- 
tween two squares of different sizes can not 
be accurately bisected by the eye. There 
is a constant error in judgment toward the 
smaller square, whether the two be arranged 
horizontally or vertically. And the error 
in finding the midpoint increases as the dis- 
proportion between the two squares becomes 
greater, but always in the same direction. 
This was tested by different methods, one 
of which was designed to rule out the effect 
of eye-movements. Another ‘Study,’ on 
‘Types of Reaction,’ reports two cases of 
reagents who give shorter ‘sensory’ than 
‘motor’ reactions. Professor Baldwin, the 
author of this paper, accounts for these 
cases, and earlier ones reported by Cattell 
and Flournoy, on the general view of men- 
tal types founded on recent cases of apha- 
sia. ‘Shorter Contributions,’ by H. C. 
Wood, on the ‘Haunted Swing Illusion,’ 
and H. R. Marshall on ‘ Heat Sensations 
in the Teeth,’ make up the rest of the ar- 
ticles. The usual section on ‘ Psycholog- 
ical Literature’ is fulland varied. Many 
readers will be interested by the review in 
this section of Nordau’s book on Degeneration 
by Professor William James, who also re- 
views several other recent works on ‘ De- 
generation and Genius.’ 


NEW BOOKS. 
Canyons of the Colorado. J. W. Powerit. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 23. 


3 

With many illustrations. Meadville 
Flood and Vincent. 40. Pp. 400. 

A Brief Descriptive Geography of the Empiré 

State. C. W. BARDEEN. Syracuse, N. Y., 

C. W. Bardeen. Pp. viii +126. 75 ets. 


Engineering Education. Proceedings of the 
Second Annual Meeting of the Society for the 
Promotion of Engineering Education, Vol. 
II. Edited by Gro. F. Swary, Ira O. 
Baxer, J. B. Jonnson. Columbia, Mo. 
1895. Pp. vi + 292. $2.50. 


Birderaft. Masri Oscoop Wricut. New 
York and London, Macmillan & Co. 
1895. Pp. 317. $3.00 

Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden. F. 
ScouyteR Maturews. New York, D. 
Appleton & Co. 1895. Pp. viit308. 
$1.75. 

Articles and Discussions on the Labor Question. 
WHEELBARROW. Chicago, Open Court 
Publishing Co. 1895. Pp. 308. 35 ets. 


Crystallography. N.Story—MAsKkELYNE. Ox- 
ford, The Clarendon Press, New York, 
Macmillan & Co. Pp. xiit521. $3.50. 


Official Year-Book of the Scientific and Learned 
Societies of Great Britain and Ireland. Lon- 
don, Charles Griffin & Co., limited. 1895. 
Pp. iv+ 254. 7s. 6d. 


Complete Geography. ALEX. EVERETT FRYE. 
Boston and London, Ginn & Co. 1896. 
iv+175. 

The Horticultwralists’ Rule-book. lL. H. Bar 
LEY. New York and London, Macmil- 
lan & Co. 1895. Pp.ix+302. 75 ets. 


The Diseases of Personality. Tu. Rrsor. 
Authorized translation. Second revised 
edition. Chicago, The Open Court Pub- 
lishing Co. 1895. Pp. viii+163. Cloth, 
75 cts; paper, 25 cts. 


Major James Rennell and the Rise of Modern 
English Geography. CremENT R. MArK- 
Ham. New York, Macmillan & Co. 1895. 
Pp. vii+ 232. $1.25. 


— —_—— —— CO EEE EE ee a ee 


SCIENCE. 


New SERIEs. 
Vou. I. No. 24. 


Fripay, June 14, 1895. 


SINGLE COPIEs, 15 CTS. 
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 


GUSTAV E. STECHERT’S 


Recent Importation of Scientific Books. 


BEBBER, Dr. W. J. von. Hygienische Meteoro- 
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den Text gedruckten Abbildungen. 8°. MK. 8. 

BERGH, Dr. R.S. Vorlesungen tiber allgemeine 
Embryologie. Mit 126 Figurenim Text. 289 Seiten. 
Gross 8°. MK. 7. 

DAMMER, Dr. O. Handbuch der chemischen Tech- 
nologie. Unter Mitwirkung von Th. Beckert, Dr. 
Bender, Dr. Benedict, Dr. Bornstein, u. A. Band I. 
Mit 191 in den Text gedruckten Figuren. gr. 2". 
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HANDWORTERBUCH DER ASTRONOMIE, Unter Mit- 
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HARTLEBEN’S statistische Tabelle iiber alle Staaten 


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Flacheninhalt, absoluter und relativer Bevélkerung, 
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Kose, Bruno. Einfiihrung in die Electricitiits- 


lehre. Band II. Dynamische Elektricitit. Mit 
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KRAMER, INGENIEUR Jos. Wirkungsgrade und 
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Lepuc, A. Manipulations de Physique Avec. 
144 figures intercalées dans le texte. 392 pages. 8°. 
Fr. 6. 

Metssner, G. Die Hydraulik und die hydraul- 
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CONTENTS: 

The Lowest of the Vertebrates and their Origin: 

BREN GIEE: 005.6 sene es Rice wel Mivoikdieia's:efue » 45 
Current Notes on Anthropology ( IX. ) : 

RR ISENEOM, a's. clee vicieleia e's +/nisinjelainie oie. ss 649 
Current Notes on Physiography ( IX.) : 

DWeret DAVIS 2.2... ccc ewer ec ccecccccccees 651 
Science in Canada: J.T. C........-.- peace 653 
PPT EAPONGENCE o— |. wl swe cec vce cemeccicssinis 2+: 656 


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of the Puerco Beds: W.B. Scorr. Ridgway’s 
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Tests of Glow-Lamps: T. C. M. 

VOLES ERG) NEWS S— «5 os 2 - oce ote awesuscenvecens 663 
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tional Geographic Society ; Botanical Books at Auc- 
tion ; General. 

Societies and Academies :-— .......2eeeeeeeeeee 668 
Geological Society of Washington ; The New York 
Academy of Science. 

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THE LOWEST OF THE VERTEBRATES AND 
THEIR ORIGIN.* 


In many seas have been found—and in 
almost all temperate and tropical seas may 


* Columbia University Biological Series. II. Amphi- 
oxus and the Ancestry of the Vertebrates. By ARTHUR 
WILLEY, B. Sc., Tutor in Biology, Columbia College. 


be found—small animals of peculiar appear- 


ance and habits and of extraordinary inter- 
est. They have a translucent, compressed 
and elongated fusiform body attenuated at 
both ends, and therefore have received one 
of their names—Amphiorus; this form may 
be superficially modified, however, by the 
development of a membrane around the 
caudal portion of the body and the exten- 
sion downwards of cirri from an oral ring. 
The existence of these cirri and the erro- 
neous attribution to them of a respiratory 
function have given rise to another name 
for the group—Branchiostoma. Lancelet is a 
semi-popular equivalent of Branchiostoma 
and Amphiovrus. 

The animals thus distinguished externally 
are unique in their organization. The 
nervous system is manifest in an elongated 
tube without any expansion forwards into 
an externally specialized brain, and with its 
anterior portion only distinguished by the 
fact that there are (in front of the first my- 
otome) two symmetrical pairs of sensory 
nerves which innervate the snout and have 
no corresponding ventral roots. A skeleton 
is represented by a simple notochord ex- 
tending to both ends of the body, and there 
is no rudiment of a cerebral case or of sense 
capsules ; the only other hard parts are de- 
veloped around the anterior aperture, where 


With a preface by HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN. 
Macmillan & Co. 1894, 8vo, xiv+316. Frontis- 
piece. $2.50. 


646 


a ring is formed by a number of subcartila- 
ginous segments, which give rise to as many 
processes for the support of cirri just before 
their posterior ends, which connect with 
the succeeding segments. A specialized 
heart is also wanting, and so likewise are 
paired eyes, as well as auditory and olfac- 
tory organs. The sense of sight or light is 
subserved imperfectly by a median ‘eye 
spot’ sessile on the forward end of the 
nerve tube between the foremost pair of 
nerves. Immediately behind the eye spot 
is ‘a small pit in the body-wall, reaching 

_ from the outer surface of the body to the 
anterior wall of the brain. This is known 
as Kolliker’s olfactory pit, after its discov- 
erer’ (p. 19). Every other feature of the 
organization of the animals in question is 
noteworthy, and Mr. Willey tells about 
them in detail in the work which is here 
noticed, and to that reference may be made 
for further information. 

The species of Lancelets are few; only 
nine or ten at most are known. They are 
of small size, ranging from about half an 
inch to little more than three inches in 
length. Most of them are found along 

__sandy shores and are prone to bury almost 
the entire ‘body in the sand, leaving only 
the mouth with the expanded buecal cirri 
protruding’ (p. 9). Nevertheless one 
specimen was described in 1889 in the ‘ Re- 
port on the pelagic fishes’ of the Challenger 
Expedition (p. 43), and affirmed to have 
been taken ‘a few degrees north of Hono- 
lulu,’ from ‘a deep haul 1,000 fathoms’ of an 
open-mouthed dredge. 

Diverse are the views that have been 
held respecting the affinities of the Lance- 
lets. From a single small specimen obtain- 
ed on the Cornish coast, Pallas in seven 
lines described the species in 1774* (not 
1778, as Mr. Willey states) and called it 
Limax lanceolatus or lanceolaris. Under the 

*Spicilegia Zodlogica [ete.]. Fasciculus decimus. 
Berolini [ete.], 1774. (p. 19, pl. 1., fig. 2.) 


SCIENCE. 


_ [N.S. Von. I. No. 24. 


name Limax, Pallas included naked gastro- 
pods, whether broad or narrow, having a flat 
foot, and he mistook the metapleural folds 
and intermediate area of the new species 
for a foot. No further notice was taken of 
the species till 1834, when Costa described 
it anew as Branchiostoma lubricum, and in 
1836 Yarrell redescribed it, and, with the 
assistance of John Edward Gray, identified 
it with the long-neglected Limax of Pallas 
and called it Amphioxus lanceolatus. 

Both Costa and Yarrell thought that it 
belonged with the Lampreys and Hags. J. 
Muller first recognized how important were 
its peculiarities and in 1844 gave it subclass 
rank. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire in 1852 
and C. Bonaparte in 1856 first elevated it 
to class rank. Haeckel in 1866 advanced 
still further and contrasted the class of lan- 
celets as a subphylum (Acrania) with all 
the other vertebrates (Craniota). This last 
view is adopted by Mr. Willey who how- 
ever prefers the later name, Cephalochorda, 
for the ‘division.’ The family name, 
Branchiostomide, was first given by Bona- 
parte in 1846. : 

With so much interest attached to them, 
the lancelets naturally have received much 
attention, and many elaborate memoirs on 
various parts of their structure have been 
published. Of the 140 (133 + 7) titles re- 
corded by Mr. Willey in his bibliographical 
‘references’ (pp. 295—309), 66 are under 
the head ‘ Anatomy of Amphioxus,’ and 37 
under the caption ‘Development of Am- 
phioxus.’ Mr. Willey very properly adds 
that ‘this bibliography does not by any 
means include all that has been written on 
the anatomy of Amphioxus.’’ Indeed, the 
titles could be more than doubled, but with- 
out material advantage to the value of the 
work for most readers. Really Mr. Willey 
has prepared a very useful and well made 
list and mainly with well considered restric- 
tions. In view of such an abundant litera- 
ture the need for a general work embodying 


ee ee Oe eee 


—s 


JUNE 14, 1895.] 


the most important data respecting the lan- 
celets was urgent. Mr. Willey’s volume to 
a very large extent administers to this 
need. He has judiciously combined the ob- 
servations of himself and others and classi- 
fied them under (I.) ‘Anatomy of Amphi- 
oxus’ and (II.) ‘ Development of Amphi- 
oxus;’ under the former caption, he has 
data ‘ Historical,’ on ‘ Habits and Distri- 
bution,’ ‘External Form,’ and ‘Internal 
Anatomy ;’ under the latter he treats of the 
‘Embryonic Development’ and ‘ Larval 
Development,’ enunciates certain ‘ General 
Considerations,’ and concludes with a com- 
parison of ‘Amphioxus and Ammoccetes.’ 
We need only refer specially to the section 
on‘ The Excretory System’ (pp. 55-75), 
because it contains information on ‘organs’ 
which were long undiscovered, or at least 
not appreciated. Mr. Willey is ‘ convinced 
as to the essentialidentity of the excretory 
tubules of Amphioxus with the pronephros 
of the craniate vertebrates.’ The informa- 
tion respecting other structural features are 
up to date and the inferences as to homolo- 
gies and functions reasonable and judicious, 
although there may be occasion sometimes 
(but rarely) for dissent. But we could 
have wished that the radical differences 
between the lancelets and true fishes had 
been emphasized by the use of terms indi- 
eating that analogous parts were not homo- 
logous. For instance, Mr. Willey correctly 
states that there is a dorsal fin ‘supported 
by a series of gelatinous fin-rays, each of 
which lies in a chamber of its own,’ and fur- 
ther says that ‘the ventral portion of the 
fin in the region between atriopore and 
anus is supported by a similar series of fin- 
rays, but there are two of them placed side 
by side in each compartment.* Such struc- 
tures are very unlike the specialized rays of 
teleostomous fishes, and to avoid the mis- 
leading tendency of such terms it has been 
recently proposed to designate the so-called 
rays of the lancelets actinomimes and their 


SCIENCE. 


647 


inelosing chambers actinodomes, while the 
compound ventral fin has been designated 
as the sympodium. Such terms will be use- 
ful in systematic zoblogy as well as mor- 
phology. 

The ground is now prepared for further 
advance, and one of the first of the prob- 
lems that need examination is the amount 
of variability among the Branchiostomids. 
The first preliminary is the differentiation 
of known variation into generic and specific 
characters, instead of confounding all under 
one generic name, as Mr. Willey has done. 

Applying the mode of valuation current 
for the higher groups, we have several 
modifications of different systems that are 
available for genera. Such are the develop- 
ment of the hinder end, the unilaterality 
or bilaterality of the gonads or sexual organs, 
the coordinate development of the meta- 
pleural folds, the presence or absence of a 
sympodium, and the development of the 
dorsal fin, and especially the relative extent 
of the actinomimes and actinodomes. Vari- 
ations in these structures are expressible 
under five generic terms already named, 
Branchiostoma, Paramphioxus, Epigonichthys, 
Asymmetron and Amphioxides. Two of the 
genera (Paramphioxus and Epigonichthys) 
have recently been combined in one to 
which the new name Heteropleuron has been 
given, but even if such a union is favored, 
Epigonichthys should be used as the first dis- 
tinctive name given to a member of the 
group; the two, however, appear to be suffi- 
ciently distinguished by the fins. Epigo- 
nichthys has an unusually high dorsal mem- 
brane and contracted actinomimes. 

Eight species of lancelets are recognized 
by Willey, as had been previously by Dr. E. 
A. Andrews; one described in 1889 (‘ B. 
pelagicum’) was overlooked and another 
(Paramphioxus Singalensis or Heteropleuron 
Singalense) been described _ since. * 


*On the species of Amphioxus. By J. W. Kirkaldy. 
Rep. Brit. Ass. Ady. Sc., 1894, pp. 685-686. 


has 


4. 


648 


These have been simply distinguished by 
Mr. Willey by the number of myotomes, 
but most of them may be distinguished by 
other characters. Of the ten species, five 
belong to Branchiostoma, two to Paramphioxus, 
one to Epigonichthys, one to Asymmetron, and 
one to Amphioxides. 

What are specific characters in any Bran- 
chiostomoid genus is a question as yet un- 
determined. The only one that has been 
generally used (exclusive of what are 
rather of generic importance) is the number 
of myotomes as a whole and in different 
regions. Hven such a character has not 
been constantly adhered to. For example, 
in Dr. EH. A. Andrews’ useful and able 
memoir on ‘An Undeseribed Acraniate’ 
two eastern American species are recogniz- 
ed, ‘ B. lanceolatwm’ and ‘ B. caribeum.’ The 
former has an average of (35.6+13.6+ 
11.8=) 61 myotomes, and the latter an 
average of (34.8+14+48.9=) 57.8 myo- 
tomes, but one individual from the Chesa- 
peake Bay, referred to ‘ B. lanceolatum,’ has 
(86+16+7=) 59 myotomes, and another 


»>\Florida, referred to ‘ B. caribeum,’ has (385+ 


17+7—=) 59 myotomes. Inasmuch as no 
other differential characters have been given, 
it is evident that Dr. Andrews was mainly 
influenced by the consideration of associ- 
ation or geographical distribution rather 
than morphological characters in the iden- 
tification of the different specimens. The 
relations of the forms of our coast, indeed, 
still remain to be determined, and it is 
doubtful whether any American forms will 
prove to be conspecific with the European. 
Specific characters may perhaps be found in 
numerous details, e. g., the number and pro- 
portions of the dorsal and ventral or sym- 
podial rays, the development of the cirri 
and skeletal bases; details of the velar ten- 
tacles and gillbars, form of the caudal, 
relative proportions of the various regions, 
ete. But numerous as have been the me- 
moirs on Branchiostoma lanceolatum, no de- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 24. 


tailed study of variations has yet been 
published. Until this is done much is left 
undone. The material now in museums, ~ 
however, is generally insufficient for such 
studies and should be especially prepared 
therefore. If the labor of students, so often 
frittered away in verifying oft-repeated 
observations, could be in part directed to 
such preparation and observation, a boon 
to systematic zodlogy would be realized and 
certainly no less would be the benefit to the 
student. We may hope that Mr. Willey 
will continue studies so well begun and 
enlighten us on some of the many points 
still obscure. That we are ignorant as to 
the questions in point is not his fault. 

The ancestry of the vertebrates is a fas- 
cinating subject for consideration, and the 
search for their nearest relatives began 
early in the century. Before the lancelet 
was known—at least as a vertebrate—Hti- 
enne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire endeavored 
to homologize constituents of the bodies of 
insects and vertebrates. (We may here re- 
mark that Mr. Willey has repeatedly refer- 
red to the French naturalist as Saint Hi- 
laire, but Saint Hilaire was only an ag- 
nomen, the true cognomen or family name 
being Geoffroy.) Long after the lancelet 
had been carefully investigated, and indeed 
very recently, a naturalist trained in mod- 
ern methods, but who did not exercise a 
‘scientific use of the imagination,’ actually 
contended that the vertebrates had arach- 
noid or rather limuloid ancestors! A less 
extravagant view has been that Annelid 
worms were nearest of kin to the vertebrate 
ancestors, and this has gained several fol- 
lowers. But the highly specialized character 
of annelids and still more of arthropods 
appears to forbid the serious consideration 
of such conceptions. Much more probable 


‘is the view that the nearest relatives of 


typical vertebrates are the Tunicates. 
This is the idea adopted by Mr. Willey, 
who has accepted a ‘group’ called ‘ Proto- 


: : 


G 


oe ed 


JUNE 14, 1895.] 


chordata’ and included thereunder three 
divisions, (1) Hremrcnorpa, or Balanoglos- 
sids, Cephalodiscids and Rhabdopleurids ; (2) 
UrocuorbA, or Ascidians, and (3) CepHALo- 
cHORDA, or Lancelets. It is the present fash- 
ion to consider this affiliation as established, 
but it has not been proven beyond cavil. 
As a provisional hypothesis, however, it is 
the best of those that have been proposed, 
and there is no need to offer here any ob- 
jections. Nevertheless, we should recall the 
fact that the lancelets and all other so-called 
* Protochordata’ must have very widely di- 
verged from their common ancestors and 
that some of the characteristics of the first 
are probably the result of degeneration. 
When, for example, we find a specialized 
heart and auditory organs in Tunicates, as 
well as in many true invertebrates (even 
though they be not homologous), it is diffi- 
cult to resist the inference that their ab- 
sence in the lancelets is due to loss rather 
than to original failure of development. 
But now, with the necessary precautions 
and much hesitancy, we may assent to the 
possibility of the conclusions with which 
Mr. Willey closes his work. 

‘For the present we may conclude that 
the proximate ancestor of the Vertebrates 
was a free-swimming animal intermediate 
between the Ascidian tadpole and Amphi- 
oxus, possessing the dorsal mouth, hypophy- 
sis, and restricted notochord of the former; 
and the myotomes, ccelomic epithelium, and 
straight alimentary canal of the latter. 
The ultimate or primordial ancestor of the 
Vertebrates [or Chordates] would, on the 
contrary, be a worm-like animal whose or- 
ganisation was approximately on a level 
with that of the bilateral ancestors of the 
Echinoderms.” 

The length to which this notice has already 
extended forbids attention to various other 
features of Mr. Willey’s work. It must suf- 
fice to add that the fourth and fifth sections 
are devoted respectively to ‘the Ascidians ’ 


SCIENCE. 


649 


(pp. 180-241) and ‘the Protochordata in 

their relation to the problem of vertebrate 

descent’ (pp. 242-293). For these we owe 

further thanks, and for all we feel assured 

future students of the groups in question will 

be grateful. TueEo. GILL. 
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 


CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY (IX.). 
THE RITUAL CALENDAR OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 

In the Globus, No. 18, 1895, Dr. E. Forste- 
mann has one of his ingenious studies of the 
Central American Calendar, this time that 
portion of it called by the Nahuas the 
Tonalamatl, or Book of Days. This consisted 
of a period of 260 days, and strenuous efforts 
have been made by Mrs. Zelia Nuttall and 
other writers to treat it as a time-count, 
that is, as an aliquot part of the computa- 
tion of astronomical years and cycles. 

In this article Dr. Férstemann shows that 
this certainly ‘does not hold good for the 
Tonalamatl as it constantly recurs in the 
Mayan manuscripts. In them it appears to 
be introduced for exclusively divinatory 
purposes, a basis for predicting events re- 
lating to persons or tribes, or else the 
weather, wars, disasters, ete. Not unfre- 
quently a multiple of the period is embraced 
in the forecast, and very generally refer- 
ence is made to the divinities assigned to 
the subdivisions of the TYonalamatl. Or, 
again, it is occasionally divided into its 
fourths, fifths or tenths; and what is note- 
worthy, the manuscripts present numerous 
similarities in these respects, proving that 
their writers were working on a like system 
of horoscopy. 

I may add that the result of this investi- 
gation corroborates the position that I took 
in my ‘ Native Calendar of Central America 
and Mexico’ (Phila. 1893), in which I 
maintained that the Tonalamatl was invented 
for and practically exclusively applied to 
divination, and not to the cyclical measure 
of astronomical time. 


650 


THE TREE AND THE CONE. 

Every one who has given the least atten- 
tion to works on ancient Assyria is familiar 
with the engraving which shows a winged 
deity, holding in one hand a small basket 
or bucket, and in the other something like 
a pine cone, which he is generally present- 
ing toward a tree. This used to be con- 
strued as the ‘cherub’ offering the cone, 
a symbol of reproduction, etc., to the ‘ sacred 
tree’ of Babylonian mythology. 

A few years ago Dr. E. B. Tylor advanced 
the explanation that the true meaning is a 
representation of the fertilization of the fe- 
male date palm, artificially, by the agricul- 
turist impregnating its flowers with the in- 
florescence of the male tree. This was at 
once accepted by many writers, while others 
withheld their assent, asking why a winged 
cherub instead of a mortal should be de- 
picted; and still further pointing out that 
this same ceremony is not rarely shown 
where there is no tree at all, but, say, the 
gate of a city, or some exalted personage, 
like a king. 

These arguments have been repeated 
with emphasis by Dr. H. Bonavia in his re- 
cent work, ‘The Flora of the Assyrian 
Monuments’ (London 1894). He shows 
that the bucket or basket is certainly a 
bucket, intended for fluids, and inappropriate 
to carrying flowers. He offers the very 
plausible theory that it was designed to 
contain holy water, and the cone was an 
aspergillum, as it still is in the Hast. The 
winged cherub is the rain-bringer typified, 
ete. 

This is far the most satisfactory interpre- 
tation which has yet been offered, and allies 
itself closely with numerous rites and myths 
of ancient Mesopotamia. 


NATIONAL VERSUS INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT. 

Tue French have a knack of putting their 
conclusions in an aphoristic form, which, 
whether they are right or wrong, impresses 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 24 


the mind. An example is the following 
from a memoir by M. Dumont, published 
by the Paris Society of Anthropology last 
year: 

“The inerease of a nation in numbers is 
in inverse ratio to the efforts of its imdi- 
vidual members toward personal develop- 
ment.” f 

Now, if this is true, it means the discovery 
of a momentous law in sociology, which, 
among other consequences, will do away 
with all fears of over-population in free 
and enlightened states. Its corollaries 
would also dismiss both the dread of 
socialism and likewise of unscrupulous in- 
dividualism, which two are the Sceylla and 
Charybdis of modern political economists. 

Of course, ‘efforts toward personal de- 
velopment’ must be construed as sensible 
and properly directed efforts towards a de- 
velopment which is really such, according 
to the highest criteria we now have. ‘The 
reasons why such efforts would necessarily 
limit the numerical increase of a nation are 
evident enough. Whether these in the 
long run might not work as badly as the 
laissez faire, or ‘go as you please’ policy, 
is the question underlying this sociological 
puzzle. 


THE SOURCES OF PERUVIAN CIVILIZATION. 

In a paper in the Denison Quarterly, Vol. 
IIl., Dr. George A. Dorsey discusses ‘ The 
Character and Antiquity of Peruvian Civi- 
lization.’ 

He is inclined to assign it a greater age 
than has usually been allowed it. He 
would place its earlier periods contempora- 
neous with ‘the golden age of Greece, or 
when the people of the Nile valley were in 
the zenith of their power.’ 

Generally, the historic or even the tradi- 
tional cycles of the Quichuas are not sup- 
posed to carry us beyond about 1000 A. D. 
One historian, Montesinos, who names dy- 
nasties far more remote than this, has been 


cae: ea 


JUNE 14, 1895.] 


generally discredited, though he claimed 
native sources for them; and it is fair to 
add that we have no positive certainty how 


the Quichuas, their knotted and colored 
cords, the quipus, may have been. It has also 
been more than once argued that there must 
have occurred important modifications in 
climate since the great temples and cities 
on the cold plateaus were built, and har- 
bored the large populations which must 
have dwelt in them. This would require a 
long period. 
As Dr. Dorsey speaks from personal ob- 
servations and extensive archeological ex- 
plorations in Peru, his opinion, however at 
variance with that usually entertained, 
merits careful consideration. 

D. G. Brinton. 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY (IX.) 
THE GLACIAL ORIGIN OF LAKE BASINS. 
As tone as lakes are regarded simply as 
locally deepened valleys, their explanation 
by glacial erosion may be fairly maintained; 
for when the problem is thus vaguely stated, 
the requirements to be met by the theory 
are so simple that the hypothesis of glacial 
erosion finds perhaps better reasons for ac- 
ceptance than any other hypothesis. But 
as the facts to be explained are more care- 
fully observed, they generally become more 
highly specialized and more peculiarly cor- 
related; and their glacial origin may then 
be either confirmed or excluded. The pe- 
culiar association of features described by 
‘Lincoln (Amer. Jour. Sci., xliv., 1892, 290) 
and by Tart (Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., v., 
1894, 339), regarding Cayuga Lake, seems 
on the one hand to demonstrate the glacial 
excavation of this basin; but, on the other 
hand, the extraordinary correlation of facts 
determined by various observers around 
Lake Zurich does not seem to be within 
reach of explanation by so simple a process 


SCIENCE. 


great the value of the mnemonic system of 


651 


as glacial erosion. In spite of so good a 
general argument for the competence of ice 
action as has been presented by Bohm 
(Verein zur Verbreit. Naturw. Kenntnisse 
in Wien, xxxi., 1891, 477), and in spite of 
the emphatic disapproval by J. Geikie of 
various other processes that have been sug- 
gested for the production of Alpine lakes 
(Great Ice Age, 3d ed., ch. xix.), the origin 
of Lake Zurich is certainly not to be ac- 
counted for by generalizations at a dis- 
tance, but only by a special process that will 
fit all the facts found on the ground. Evi- 
dence tending to this end has gradually been 
accumulating for a number of years; but at 
an accelerated rate since Heim and Bodmer 
interpreted the meaning of the rock tet- 
races on the valley sides, and since Penck, 
DuPasquier and others deciphered the rec- 
ords of the several glacial epochs on the 
north slope of the Alps. 


THE ORIGIN OF LAKE ZURICH. 


Tue problem of Lake Zurich is presented 
in a masterful manner by Aeppli in the 
thirty-fourth number of the Beitrdge zur 
Geologischen Karte der Schweiz, in brief as 
follows: The valley of the Limmat, in which 
the lake lies, was eroded in broad upland 
over which the Deckenschotter of the first 
glacial epoch had been previously spread. 
That the erosion of the valley was performed 
in the normal fashion by weather and water, 
and not by ice, is shown by the graded ter- 
races or rock benches, traceable more or 
less continuously along its sides ; these ter- 
races being independent of rock structure, 
and associated with similar terraces in . 
other valleys, all leading agreeably to the 
conclusion that after the first glacial epoch 
the region was generally elevated and the 
streams thereby given increased power of 
erosion. The Deckenschotter, where preserved 
on the ridges between the adjacent valleys, 
together with the terraces on the valley 
slopes, are bent backwards across a belt six 


652 


or eight kilometers broad, so as to slope 
towards instead of from the Alps; and the 
deformation of the Deckenschotter and of the 
earlier higher terraces is greater than that 
of the lower and younger terraces, thus 
proving the progressive action of the de- 
forming forces. Associated with this change, 
there was a general depression of the Molasse 
belt, between the Jura and the Alps, and in 
the depressed part of the valley of the 
Limmat, thus generally outlined by the 
latter process and locally deepened by the 
former process, the lake had its birth. 
The belt in which the terraces are deformed 
crosses the valley somewhat obliquely, but 
runs parallel to the strike of the general 
Alpine deformations of the region. Into 
the lake thus formed, the glaciers of the 
second and third epochs advanced; but 
they exercised so little destructive power 
that they did not obliterate the terraces on 
the valley sides. The lateral moraines of 
the last epoch are distinctly discordant with 
the terraces ; the moraines reaching succes- 
sively higher and higher terraces up-stream, 
and crossing the belt of deformation with- 
out indication of disturbance. Outside of 
the several terminal moraines, the former 
lower end of the lake received the valley 
gravels that were washed from the ice. 
Hence while the later glaciers may have 
acted to some degree in altering the form of 
the lake, their chief effect was to diminish 
its size by supplying plentiful gravels from 
the inner Alps, with which a part of the 
lake basin that they entered was filled. 


TARNS OF THE ENGLISH LAKE DISTRICT. 

J. E. Marr has examined the tarns or 
smaller lakes of the mountainous district of 
northwest England, and finds that their re- 
puted dependence on rock basins is not jus- 
tified by local study. They appear to re- 
sult from drift obstructions, by which their 
outlets have been turned to one side of the 
former valley troughs and detained in dis- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 24, 


charging the lakes by settling on rock ledges. 
In many cases lakes of similar origin have 
been converted into meadows when their 
outlets did not depart greatly from the for- 
mer valley line, and hence encountered only 
drift in trenching new discharging channels 
(Quart. Jour. [London] Geol. Soce., li., 
1895, 35-48). This does not bear so much ~ 
on the general question of glacial erosion as 
on the particular question of the ability of 
glaciers to form basins by local erosion in ex- 
cess of their general action along their floor. 


THE REGION ABOUT MUNICH. 

In celebration of its twenty-fifth anniver- 
sary, the Geographical Society of Munich 
has issued a handsome volume of 440 pages, 


containing a number of essays by Gunther, ~ 


Ratzel, Penck and others. Ratzel makes 
the coast line of Maine 4,300 miles in actual 
length; though a direct line from Eastport 
to Kittery measures only about 200 miles. 
The essay most likely to interest American 
readers is on the geology of the region 
about Munich by Ammon, illustrated with 
a geological map, plate and cuts. It may 
serve as a guide to excursions from this at- 
tractive center; from few other points can 
so many phases of piedmont glacial geology 
and geography be seen to so good adyan- 
tage. Wurm and Ammer lakes lie twenty 
odd miles to the southwest, enclosed by the 
younger morainic belt. Older moraines 
stretch farther out from on the plain, es- 
pecially to the east of the city ; and beyond 
them are’ spread the flat confluent gravel 
fans that are associated with various epochs 
of ice advance. On the sloping plain stands 
Munich, and across it the Isar and the Am- 
per have trenched their new valleys. The 
illustrations of morainic topography are 
very characteristic. A good bibliography 
accompanies the article; while on an ear- 
lier page, Simonsfeld contributes a thirty- 
page Bibliotheca geographica bavarica. 


W. M. Davis. 


HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


2 0 


«t dy 


JUNE 14, 1895.] 


SCIENCE IN CANADA. 
THE CANADIAN ROYAL SOCIETY’S ANNUAL 
MEETING. 


THE annual meeting of the Royal Society 
of Canada opened at Ottawa on the 14th 
ult. and closed on the 17th. Mr. J. M. Le 
Moine, the well known historian and friend 
_of Parkman, presided. This institution, 
which was founded in 1882 by the Marquis 
of Lorne, then Governor-General of Can- 
ada, consists of four sections, of which two 
are entirely scientific—the third being de- 
voted to the mathematical, physical and 
chemical sciences; the fourth to the geo- 
logical and biological sciences. The first 
and second have also a scientific element, 
for though nominally set apart for English 
and French literature, respectively, they 
admit, under the head of archeology a 
class of subjects that are not unrelated to 
important branches of science. During the 
recent session, for instance, three papers of 
a scientific character were presented in the 
second section: ‘The present position of 
American Anthropology,’ by Professor John 
Campbell, LL. D., of Montreal ; ‘ Religion 
and Aerolites,’ by Mr. Arthur Harvey; and 
‘An Iroquois Condoling Council,’ by the 
venerable ethnologist, Mr. Horatio Hale. 
Those who are acquainted with Mr. Hale’s 
excellent monograph, ‘The Iroquois Book of 
Rites,’ in Dr. Brinton’s ‘ Library of Abo- 
riginal American Literature,’ will not be en- 
tire strangers to the subject of Mr. Hale’s 
paper. 

Of the papers of the scientific sections, 
the first read in Section 3 was the presiden- 
tial address of Dr. Harrington (MeGill Col- 
lege), which dealt with a subject of consid- 
-erable interest. Professor Harrington urged 
the necessity of using absolutely pure ma- 
terials in chemical operations where the ob- 
ject was to establish formule. The address, 
which was illustrated by abundant exam- 
ples, gave rise to an interesting discussion, 
in which Mr. T. Macfarlane, chief analyst 


SCIENCE. 


653 


of the Dominion; Professor Goodwin, of 
Kingston, Ont., and Dr. Ells, of Toronto, 
took part. Professor Harrington also read 
a paper on ‘The Chemical Composition of 
Andradite from two localities in Ontario.’ 
It gave the results of the examination of a 
black garnet, occurring in association with 
the magnetic iron ore of the Paxton mine, 
Lutterworth, Ont., and of a brown andra- 
dite present in the nepheline syenite of 
Dungannon, Ont. Of these andradites the 
former was found to be free from titanium, 
the latter to be titaniferous. 

Other papers read in Section 3 were the 
following : ‘A short essay on an attempt to 
measure the relative easterly and westerly 
transmission lines through an Atlantic ca- 
ble,’ by Professor C. H. McLeod (McGill 
College); ‘On the estimation of Starch,’ by 
Mr. Thos. Macfarlane, Ottawa; ‘ Viscosity 
in Liquids and Instruments for its Measur- 
ment,’ by Mr. Anthony McGill; ‘ Periodi- 
city of Aerolites,’ by Mr. Arthur Harvey, 
Toronto; ‘On Some Applications of De 
Moivre’s Formule,’ by Professor F. N. 
Dupuis, Queen’s College, Kingston, Ont.; 
‘On the Hypotheses of Dynamics,’ by Pro- 
fessor McGregor, of Dalhousie College, Hali- 
fax. Ina former paper Professor McGregor 
had tried to express the ordinary hypotheses 
employed in dynamics in a form suited to 
the conception of bodies as consisting of 
particles acting upon one another at a dis- 
tance. In the later paper he endeavors to 
express those hypotheses in a form suited 
to the conception of bodies and intervening 
media, as consisting of parts which act 
directly on one another only across sur- 
faces of contact. 

In the 4th Section Sir J. William Daw- 
son, of Montreal, read a ‘ Note on Tertiary 
Fossil Plants from the vicinity of the City 
of Vancouver, B. C.’ This important 
paper related to a series of beds holding 
lignite and vegetable fossils and estimated 
at 3,000 feet or more in thickness and oc- 


604 


curring in the southern part of British 
Columbia, between Burrard Inlet and the 
United States boundary. These beds, which 
have been noticed in the Reports of the 
Geological Survey by Dr. G. M. Dawson 
and the late Mr. Richardson, are believed to 
be newer than the Cretaceous coal-measures 
of Nanaimo and Comox, and probably 
equivalent to the ‘Puget group’ of the 
United States geologists in the State of 
Washington. Collections of the fossil plants 
have been made at various times by officers 
of the Geological Survey, and more recently 
by Mr. G. F. Monckton, of Vancouver, who 
placed his material in the hands of the 
author, along with that previously en- 
trusted to him by the Geological Survey. 
The species contained in the several col- 
lections are mentioned in the paper, and 
are compared with those of the Puget 
group, as described by Newberry and Les- 
quereux, and with those of other localities 
in British Columbia and the United States. 
The conclusion as to the age of the flora is 
similar to that arrived at by Newberry for 
the Puget flora, making it equivalent to the 
Upper Laramie or Fort Union group. It 
thus intervenes in date between the Upper 
Cretaceous of Nanaimo and the Oligocene 
or Lower Miocene of the Similkameen dis- 
trict, and is therefore of Eocene age, filling 
a gap hitherto existing in the mesozoic 
flora of the West coast. Much, according 
to Sir W. Dawson, still remains to be 
known of this interesting flora, and as the 
formation containing it, which seems to be 
estuarine in character, extends over a wide 
area in British Columbia and Washington, 
and is of considerable thickness, more es- 
pecially in its extension south of the Cana- 
dian boundary, it may ultimately be shown 
to include several sub-divisions represent- 
ing the long interval between the Cretaceous 
and the Middle Tertiary. 

Mr. J. F. Whiteaves, paleontologist of 
the Geological Survey, Ottawa, read an in- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 24. 


teresting ‘ Note on the occurrence of Prim- 
noa Reseda on the coast of British Colum- 
bia.’ The main value of Mr. Whiteaves’ paper 
lies in the fact that Primnoa Reseda (a tree- 
like Aleyonarian coral), though known for 
over a century as occurring in the Atlantic, 
has not hitherto been with certainty as- 
signed a Pacific habitat. Dr. R. W. Ells 
and Mr. A. E. Barlow presented a joint 
paper on ‘ The Geology of the proposed Ot- 
tawa Ship Canal,’ the route of which is of 
unusual interest from a geological, as well 
as historical and commercial, point of view. 
A contribution to the history of botanical 
research on this continent was offered by 
Prof. (Mgr.) Laflamme, of Laval Univer- 
sity, who seeks an answer to the question, 
‘Where did J. Cornut, who published his 
Canadensium Plantarum Historia 11 1635, ob- 
tain the specimens from which he wrote his 
descriptions, and by whom were they trans- 
ported to Europe?’ Mr. G. U. Hay dis- 
cussed ‘some variations in Epigea repens.’ 
Dr. G. F. Matthew, of St. John, New 
Brunswick, continued a series of studies on 
the organic remains of the Little River 
Group in that province. Dr. Wesley Mills 
(McGill College) presented a series of 
papers embracing results of investigations 
into the psychology of the dog, the cat, the 
rabbit, the guinea pig and certain birds, 
with corresponding physical indications. 
The papers also compared the mongrel with 
the pure-bred dog; the dog with the cat, the 
rabbit with the guinea pig, ete. These in- 
quiries were conducted with extreme care 
with the aid of the best equipment for ob- 
servation and experiment. 


ee > pie 


One of most important of the scientific 


papers contributed to the Society was pre- 
sented, not in section, but before a public 


audience. Prof. John Cox, M. A. (Cantab), — 


late fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, — 


and William C. 
Experimental Physics in MeGill Univer- 


sity, Montreal, had been asked to give a — 


McDonald Professor of — 


JUNE 14, 1895.] 


public lecture on Thursday evening the 
16th inst., in connection with the Royal 
Society’s meeting. Prof. Cox has a gift too 
rare with men of science, and most precious 
to him whose chosen path of research leads 
him into selve oseure of abstruse problems 
where for the many no light shines—the 
gift of clear and eloquent exposition. His 
subject was ‘ Unsolved Problems in The 
Manufacture of Light,’ and, in order to illus- 
trate it worthily, he had brought with him 
from Montreal the admirable apparatus of 
his laboratory necessary for a series of exper- 
iments and lantern views. He was assisted 
by Messrs Barnes and Pitcher, and the large 
and cultivated audience gathered in the 
hall of the Normal School listened enrap- 
tured as he made plain mysteries that most 
of them had regarded as impenetrable. 
After referring to the time-honored sources 
of light—the candle, oil lamp, gas, Auer 
light, and the lime light—and showing that 
each consisted in heating something till it 
was incandescent, the lecturer pointed out 
that none of these gave an efficiency of more 
than one per cent., the only scientific sys- 
tems of combustion being the Auer light 
and lime light. The modern method of elec- 
trie lighting dated from Sir Humphrey 
Davy’s first production of the are, with a 
battery of 2,000 cells. The current thus 
produced was still ample to heat refractory 
substances to incandescence, but as zine and 
acid were many times as expensive as coal 
and air the light could not come into prac- 
tical use until the invention of the dynamo 
forty years afterward. With the dynamo 
the modern system was completed, and con- 
sisted of three stages—the steam-engine, the 
dynamo and the lamp. The purpose of 
the lecture was to show that in the steam- 
engine and the lamp there is still an enor- 
mous waste. After pointing out that light 
was not created but was produced by the 
conversion of energy, and explaining the 
nature of energy as stored up in coal, Prof. 


SCIENCE. 655 


Cox dealt with the three stages in detail. 
“The conversion of the coal-energy into the 
mechanical energy,” he said, ‘‘ is of course 
effected by the steam-engine, but in practice 
not more than from 7 to 16 per cent. of the 
energy stored in the coal can be extracted by 
the steam-engine, and theoretical considera- 
tions fix an absolute limit to the perfection of 
the steam-engine, showing that we can never 
hope to convert so much as 30 per cent. of 
the energy of coal by any form of heat- 
engine. This is one unsolved problem in 
the manufacture of light—unsolved but still 
capable of solution if some means of extract- 
ing energy from coal otherwise than by heat, 
and more like the methods used in burning 
zine in a battery, can be discovered. At 
present we are recklessly wasting our coal 
supplies, and posterity will have a serious 
grievance against us for squandering these 
priceless stores.” 

In the second stage of the process, the 
dynamo, though sv recently invented, is 
already nearly perfect, and scarcely any 
energy is lost in its conversion by the 
dynamo into an electrical current. We 
reach the third stage, that is, the lamp, 
with some 7 per cent. of the original energy 
still available. The lecturer here showed 
a number of interesting experiments to 
prove that the only form of energy useful 
in producing vision consisted of a short 
series of very minute waves, ranging from 
the forty-thousandth to the sixty-thous- 
andth of an inch in length, and that to pro- 
duce these our only means at present was 
to heat the molecules of some substance, 
whereby we were compelled to waste the 
greater part of our efforts in producing heat, 
which was worse than useless, before we ob- 
tained the luminous rays. ‘ Here then,” 
said Professor Cox, ‘‘ is the second unsolved 
problem, since even in the incandescent 
lamp and the are lamp not more than from 
three to five per cent. of the energy supplied 
is converted into light. Thus, of the original 


656 


store in the coal less than three parts in a 
thousand ultimately become useful. In the 
last six years, however, some hint of means 
to overcome this difficulty has been obtained 
from the proof by Maxwell and Hertz that 
light is only an electric radiation. Could 
we produce electric oscillations of a suffi- 
cient rapidity we might discard the mole- 
cules of matter and directly manufacture 
light without their intervention. To effect 
this we must be able to produce oscillations 
at the rate of five hundred billions per 
second. Tesla has produced them in 
thousands and millions per second, and 
Crookes has shown how by means of high 
vacua to raise many bodies to brilliant fluor- 
escence at a small expense of energy.” Il- 
lustrations of these processes having been 
given, the lecturer concluded: ‘These are 
hints toward a solution of the problem, but 
give no solution as yet. Professor Langley 
states that the Cuban firefly spends the 
whole of its energy upon the visual rays 
without wasting any upon heat, and is some 
four hundred times more efficient as a light 
producer than the electric are, and even ten 
times more efficient than the sun in this re- 
spect. Thus while at present we have no 
solution of these important problems we 
have reason to hope that in the not distant 
future one may be obtained, and the human 
inventor may not be put to shame by his 
insect rival.” 

At the general final meeting on Friday 
(17th inst) it was moved by Dr. Sandford 
Fleming, C. M.G., of Ottawa, and seconded 
by Sir William Dawson, F. R.S., that the 
Royal Society of Canada was of opinion that 
it is in the interests of science and seamen 
in all parts of the world that a final de- 
termination be speedily reached regarding 
the unification of the nautical, astronomical 
and civil days, so that all may begin every- 
where at midnight, and that as the proposal 
can with least difficulty be carried into 
effect on January Ist, 1901, the Council 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Vou. I. No. 24. 


be requested in the name and on behalf of 
the Society to adopt such measures as may 
be considered expedient to bring about the 
desired result. This isa subject to which 
Dr. Sandford Fleming has devoted much 
and fruitful attention. 

The following officers were elected for 
the ensuing year: President, Dr. R. 8. C. 
Selwyn, C. M. G., F. R.8., ex-Director of the 
Geological and Natural History Survey ; 
Vice-President, the Archbishop of Halifax, 
Dr. O’Brien ; Secretary, Dr. J. G. Bourinot, 
C. M. G.; Treasurer, Prof. J. Fletcher. 
Prof. Bovey, Dean of the Faculty of Ap- 
plied Science, McGill University, was chosen 
president of the third section ; Prof. Dupuis, 
of Queen’s College, Kingston, Ont., Vice- 
President, and Capt. E. Deville, Surveyor- 
General of the Dominion, Secretary. In the 
fourth section, the following choice was 
made: President, Prof. Wesley Mills, M. 
A., M. D., MeGill University ; Vice-Presi- 
dent, Prof. Penhallow, B. Sc., of the same 
institution ; Secretary, Dr. Burgess, Super- 
intendent of the Protestant Insane Asylum, 
Verdun, near Montreal. Sete (C. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 

VOLCANIC DUST IN UTAH AND COLORADO. 

Scrence of April 26th contains an article 
by H. W. Turner, of Washington, D. C:, 
upon ‘ Volcanic Dust in Texas.’ It may perhaps 
be of interest to some of the readers of Scr- 
ENCE to learn that large deposits of voleani¢ 
dust occur in Utah, and also in the extreme 
northwestern portion of Colorado. In the 
year 1890, while I was a professor in the 
University of Utah, my attention was called 
to an extensive deposit of a grayish-white 
substance near Stockton in the Oquirrh 
range of mountains, some sixty miles south- 
west of Salt Lake City, by Mr. Ben Johnson 
of that place. Upon examination I found 
it to consist almost wholly of microscopic, 
transparent, siliceous flakes of various, ir- 
regular forms, one of the most common be- 


a 


_ JUNE 14, 1895.] 


ing curved and nearly triangular. When 
put into pure water, it invariably showed 
a slight acidity, reddening blue litmus pa- 
per. It can be taken from the deposit in 
lumps ; but they readily fall to powder, the 
particles or flakes becoming separated by the 
pressure of one’s hand. During a tour 
through southern Utah in the year 1893 I 
found another large deposit of the same 
kind of voleanic product on the east side of 
the Wasatch Mountains in the vicinity of 
Monroe village, in Sevier county. I could 
find no difference between this latter and 
that which occurs near Stockton. Both 
give a slight acid reaction, which, I suspect 
to be due to a sulphur compound. 
In the same year, 1893, there was brought 
to me a good sample of grayish white, strati- 
fied mineral substance, said to be kaolinite 
and to have been taken from an immense 
deposit of a similar character east of Green 
River and in northwestern Colorado. This 
so-called ‘ kaolinite’ proved upon examina- 
tion to be similar volcanic dust, which had 
been subjected to the action of water mixed 
with clay, deposited in layers under the 
water, and afterwards hardened. 

Henry MontTGoMery. 
TRINITY UNIVERSITY, TORONTO. 


VOLCANIC DUST IN TEXAS. 


Unper the above title Mr. H. W. Turner 
contributes an article to Scrence of April 
26, 1895, briefly describing a specimen 
from the Llano Estacado region. Some of 
the previous notices of this or similar ma- 
terial are noted below. 

- The first specimen of the material which 
came under my notice was received by the 
Texas Survey in February, 1890, with other 
material forwarded by Professor W. F. 
Cummins. It was collected from the beds 
to which he gave the name ‘ Blanco Can- 
yon’ from the place of their most char- 
acteristic development, and in his first de- 


SCIENCE. 


657 


scription of them* he calls it chalk. 
Later, microscopic slides of this material 
were prepared in the Survey laboratory, by 
Mr. J. 8. Stone, under the direction of Pro- 
fessor R. T. Hill, and these exhibited a 
large number of very finely preserved 
diatoms. 

These diatoms were partially identified 
by Mr. C. H. Kain and published by Prof. 
Cope in his first notice of the probable 
Pliocene age of the Blanco Canyon beds.+ 

The diatomaceous character of this ma- 
terial was further noted by Messrs. Lewis 
Woolman and C. Henry Kain, and list of 
species given in The American Naturalist for 
1892, p. 505, under the title ‘ Fresh-Water 
Diatomaceous Deposit from Staked Plains, 
Texas.’ 

In 1892 an examination of this material 
by the writer showed the presence of vol- 
canic dust, but the diatoms constituted by 
far the greater part of the mass examined, 
and it was therefore classed with other ma- 
terials of a similar kind from the coast 
region as diatomaceous earth, and only 
those siliceous deposits of like character 
which failed to reveal diatoms were classed 
as voleanic dust and briefly described in 
the Transactions of the Texas Academy of 
Science.t Further reference to these sili- 
ceous deposits are also made by Kennedy 
in the Fourth Annual Report Geol. Sur. 
Texas, pp. 20, etc. 

The stratigraphic position of the deposit 
referred to by Mr. Turner has been accu- 
rately determined, as will be seen by refer- 
ence to the different reports of Professor 
Cummins on northwest Texas and the 
Llano Estacado. The hill mentioned, on 
Duck Creek, in Dickens county, is in the 
type locality of the Blanco Canyon beds, 
and sections are given of it in the first three 


*First Ann. Rep. Geol. Sur. Texas, p. 190. 

+ Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 1892, p. 123. 

t Vol. I., Part I., 1892. P. 33. ‘Voleanic Dust 
in Texas.’ 


658 


annual reports of the survey. The fossils 
of these beds (one of them, a turtle, from 
the hill in question) were sent Professor 
Cope, and are described by him in the fourth 
annual report of the survey. He says: 
““Tts position is between the Loup Fork 
and Equus terranes. The fauna is inter- 
mediate and peculiar, as nota single species 
occurs in it which has been found in ter- 
ranes prior or subsequent to it in time. 
The horizon is more nearly and strictly 
Pliocene than any of the lacustrine terranes 
hitherto found in the interior of the conti- 
nent.” HB. T. DuMBLE. 


ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF SKULLS. 


To THE Eprror oF Science: I learn from 
an article by Dr. Harrison Allen (ScimENcE 
April 5, 1895) that, in a paper entitled 
‘Observations on the Cranial Forms of the 
American Aborigines,’ Proceedings of the 
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- 
phia, 1866, 232, J. Aitkin Meigs classified 
various types of crania, using nomenclature 
which in some part coincides with that pro- 
posed by me in my new ‘ Method of Classifi- 
cation of Skulls.’ 

I am very glad to learn that Meigs dis- 
tinguished the various forms of human 
skulls as early as 1866, as I have done 
twenty-six years later. When two men, at 
so great a distance in time and space, have 
conceived a similar idea it is a strong argu- 
ment that this idea is not a fantastic one. 

I first tested my new method in the 
summer of 1891, examining a large collec- 
tion of Malanesian skulls, and published 
my first memoir in the spring of 1892, 
which was translated into German (Die 


Menschen Varietiten in Malanesian. Archiv. 
fur Anthropologie, XXI., 1892). In the 


same year, 1892, I had fortunately the 
opportunity of examining more than 2,200 
skulls of the Mediterranean and Russian 
races, ancient and modern. I then sys- 
tematized my classification, which was im- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 24. 


perfect, and distinguished varieties and sub- _ 


varieties of human skulls in a systematic 
catalogue of ancient Russian skulls. 

This method has the approval of many 
Italian anthropologists, a notable excep- 
tion being Mantegazza, a strange type of 
man, and of some German anthropologists, 
as Ranke and Benedict. The French ‘an- 
thropologists are indifferent, but they find 
the method useful as an analysis of forms. 

The memior of Meigs is not known in 
Europe. The only work of this author that 
I possess is the Catalogue of the Specimens 
contained in the collection of the Academy 
of Natural Science of Philadelphia, 1857. 
In view of the notice published by Dr. Allen 
in Scrence, I am anxious to read the work 
referred to, and I should be much obliged 
if some American friend will procure a copy 
for me. I shall be glad to refer to the work 
of Meigs in a special note. G. SERGI. 

UNIVERSITY OF ROME, April 23, 1895. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

The Geological and Natural History Survey of 
Minnesota, Volume IlI., Part I. Palwon- 
tology. 4to, 1895, Pp. Ixxv., 474. Plates 
XXXIV. 

Considerable activity has been manifested 
of late in a more careful and systematic 
study of the invertebrate faunas of the 
various geological horizons of this country, 
and several works upon the subject have 
already been published or are now under 
preparation. The value of a thorough ex- 
amination and proper illustration of the 
faunas of many of our geological divisions. 
will be very great to the stratigraphical 
geologist, for many problems are now ob- 
scure on account of the lack of knowledge 
of the very criteria most important for cor- 
relative purposes. 

What is most required in this field is not 
so much the increase in number of species, 
although many horizons even in the eastern 
portion of the country have as yet been but. 


~ 


JUNE 14, 1895.] 


partially explored, as the thorough revision 
of the synonomy and geological distribu- 
tion of the well-known forms described by 
the earlier paleontologists. At present the 
confusion is so great in many faunas that it 
becomes almost a hopeless task for the 
geologist to use the evidence with any hope 
of satisfactory results. 

It is therefore very gratifying to find that 
- the elaborate volumes upon the geology of 
Minnesota are to be accompanied by ex- 
haustive reports upon the paleontology of 
the State. The first of these monographs, 
constituting Part 1., of Volume III., of the 
Final Reports, has just appeared and treats 
chiefly of the Lower Silurian faunas of the 
southeastern portion of the State. 

The introductory chapter consists of an 
‘Historical sketch of investigation of the 
Lower Silurian in the Upper Mississippi 
Valley’ and contains a chronological cata- 
logue of the paleontological writings upon 
this subject, including lists of the species 
described. 

Although the introduction deals only 
with the Lower Silurian, the first chapter 
is devoted to the Cretaceous fossil plants, 
a posthumous publication of Leo Lesque- 
reux. Some twenty-eight species, six of 
them new, are described, the majority of 
the forms being also figured. More than 
half of the determinable species have been 
found in the States to the west, and the 
flora as a whole indicates the Dakota group 
as the geological horizon. 

The second chapter deals with the micro- 
scopical fauna of the Cretaceous and is chief- 
ly given up to a description of the Foramini- 
fera, most of which are from boulder clay, al- 
though regarded as derived originally from 
the Cretaceous. Thirty species, represent- 
ing eighteen genera, are determined. The 
authors are Woodward and Thomas. 

The three remaining chapters of the 
volume are devoted to the fauna of the 
Lower Silurian, the third and fifth chapters 


SCIENCE. 


659 


being by Winchell and Schuchert and deal- 
ing with the ‘Sponges, Graptolites and 
Corals’ and the ‘ Brachiopoda.’ The au- 
thors follow Hinde in placing Receptaculites 
and Ischadites among the Hexactinellid 
sponges, and Ulrich in regarding Cylindro- 
coelia and Heterospongia as Calcispongiz. 
If the latter reference should prove correct 
it is of interest as the earliest occurrence of 
representatives of that order. Among the 
corals a new genus, Lichenaria, regarded 
as related to Columnaria, but without septa, 
is established. 

The rich Brachiopod fauna receives very 
exhaustive treatment, as might be antici- 
pated from so thorough a student of the 
subject as Mr. Schuchert. Altogether 
eighty-two species with many varieties are 
recognized, of which several are new. 

The longest chapter in the volume is that 
upon the Bryozoa by E. O. Ulrich. As a 
class the fossil Bryozoa are most difficult, 
and the different attempts at their syste- 
matic classification have not been attended 
hitherto with the most satisfactory results. 
To the author of the present chapter we 
are indebted more than to any one else for 
our knowledge of the Paleozoic repre- 
sentatives of this group. In the classifica- 
tion adopted, however, the reference of the 
Monticuliporoid forms to the Bryozoa is not 
in accordance with the more recent conclu- 
sions in this line. 

The report as a whole is a most valuable 
contribution to the paleontology of the 
Upper Mississippi basin, and will supply a 
distinct want to the invertebrate palzon- 
tologist. The State Geologist is deserving 
of much credit for the admirable manner in 
which the volume has been brought out, 
and it is to be hoped that other State Sur- 
veys, which pay little attention to the 
paleontology of their States, may be in- 
duced to pursue the same course. 

Wiiiam B, Ciark. 
JoHNS Hopkins UNIVERSITY. 


660 


Fossil Mammals of the Puerco Beds. By HENRY 
FAIRFIELD OsBorN and CHARLES EARLE. 
Bull. American Museum of Natural 
History. Vol. viil., Art. I. Pp. 1-70. 
The Puerco Eocene (or Post-Cretaceous) 

was discovered and named by Cope in 1880, 

and up to the present time our knowledge of 

its very remarkable and interesting fauna 
has been due almost entirely to his labors. 

It is a fauna which in many ways is very 

‘puzzling and raises many exceedingly diffi- 

cult problems. To the solution of these 

problems the admirable work of Osborn and 

Earle is an important contribution. While 

adding but few new names to the long list 

of genera and species already established 
by Cope, the authors have accomplished 
what is of far greater value, namely, materi- 
ally increased our knowledge concerning 
the structure and systematic relationships 
of many mammals which had previously 
been known only from fragmentary remains. 

In this way the character of the fauna as a 

whole is set in much clearer light than ever 

before. 

Of the more significant results of this in- 
vestigation, the following deserve particu- 
lar mention: (1) The determination of the 
complete dentition of Polymastodon, a repre- 
sentative of the Multituberculata, which 
was one of the dominant types of Mesozoic 
mammals. (2) The description of parts of 
the skeleton of Indrodon, showing that it 
was a true lemuroid, as had been doubtfully 
surmised before, and the reference of the 
Chriacide to the same group. Cope had re- 
ferred the genera of this family to the creo- 
donts, an example which I had followed, 
though expressing the opinion that Chria- 
eus and its allies might eventually prove 
to be lemuroids. (3) A very welcome con- 
tribution to our knowledge of the Puerco 
creodonts is the description of an excellent 
skeleton of Dissacus, the ancestral form of the 
Mesonychide. What renders this particular- 
ly valuable is the fact that the Bridger genus 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I.. No. 24. 


Mesonyx is already very completely known, 
and the comparison of the two forms is very 
instructive for discerning some of the modes- 
of mammalian development. (4) A nearly 
complete skull of the primitive tillodont 
Onychodectes is described and has an im- 
portant bearing upon the early morphology 
of the mammalian skull. (5) The skull of 
Pantolambda, the forerunner of the corypho- 
donts, which became so abundant and varied 
in the succeeding Wasatch time, is for the 
first time made known. This is one of the 
most valuable results of the whole investiga- 
tion. (6) The suggestion originally made 
by Schlosser, that Mioclenus and its allies 
are ungulates rather than creodonts, is con- 
firmed, and a new family of Condylarthra is 
established for their reception. (7) The 
upper teeth of Protogonodon are determined 
and the likeness of its dentition to that of 
the primitive artiodactyls poimted out. 

Of the greatest general interest to both 
geologists and biologists are the conclusions 
reached regarding the character of the 
Puerco fauna as a whole, which is shown 
to be of a prevailingly Mesozoic type. Only 
a small fraction of this fauna is ancestral 
to Wasatch and Bridger types, and of these 
most do not persist beyond the Eocene, 
while by far the greater number of Puerco 
genera die out without leaving any succes- 
sors behind them. This generalization is 
of much importance in clearing away cer- 
tain stratigraphical difficulties. Itis hardly 
an exaggeration to say that the Puerco 
mammalian fauna differs more from that 
of the Wasatch than does the latter from 
therecentfauna. Ifthe Wasatch mammals, 
as a whole, were derived from those of the 
Puerco, then we must assume the existence 
of a long, unrecorded gap between the two 
formations, an assumption which geological 
data do not support. When, however, we 
examine the Wasatch genera which clearly 
were derived from Puerco ancestors, such 
as Coryphodon, Pachyena, Didymictis, Ana- 


JUNE 14, 1895.] 


codon, ete., we find that the degree of advance 
displayed by these forms is not so very great 
and that it does not involve any very long 
lapse of time. The radical difference be- 
tween the two faunas consists in the ordinal 
groups which are present in one and not in 
the other. Thus the Puerco has neither 
artiodactyls, perissodactyls nor rodents, 
while the Wasatch has no Multituberculata 
and relatively few Condylarthra, and the 
creodonts of the two formations belong, for 
the most part, to quite different types. The 
obvious significance of these facts is that at 
some time between the Puerco and the 
Wasatch a great migration of mammals 
from some other region took place and 
revolutionized the character of the North 
American fauna. 

A distinction that is likely to be fruitful 
of important results is Osborn’s division of 
the placental mammals into the Mesopla- 
eentalia, of early and more or less Mesozoic 
type, and the Cenoplacentalia, characteristic 
of later Tertiary and recent time. ‘The 
difference between these two groups consists 
mainly in the lower state of evolution and 
apparent incapacity for higher development 
exhibited by the Mesoplacentals, in contrast 
with the capacity for rapid development 
shown by the Cenoplacentals.” It can 
hardly be right, however, to include the 
creodonts in the lower group, since they 
not only underwent a great expansion in 
the Puerco, but in later times they also 
gave rise, by independent development 
along at least three lines, to the true Car- 
nivora. Such a group cannot be fairly 
charged with ‘incapacity for higher de- 
velopment.’ 

This necessarily brief review cannot do 
more than indicate the many points of un- 
usual interest in this paper, and must refer 
to the original those who would learn more 
of it. 

W. B. Scorr. 

PRINCETON COLLEGE. 


SCIENCE. 


661 


The Ornithology of Illinois; Descriptive Cata- 
logue. By Roperr Ripeway. Published 
by authority of the State Legislature. 
Vol. II. May,1895. Large 8°, pp. 282, 
pls. 33. 

Ridgway’s Ornithology of Illinois has a 
eurious history. It was conceived by the 
able Director of the Illinois State Labora- 
tory of Natural History, Prof. S. A. Forbes, 
who twelve years ago asked the leading 
American ornithologist to undertake its 
preparation. Mr. Ridgway finished the 
manuscript early in July, 1885. The first 
volume was finally printed, but the entire 
edition, together with the plates and cuts, 
was destroyed by fire. This was in Febru- 
ary, 1887. It was reprinted from proof 
sheets, and proof of the reprint was not 
submitted to the author. It was issued in 
November, 1889. 

By a singular fatality, the manuscript of 
the second volume was consumed in the 
same fire; and, excepting proof of the first 
90 pages, which was preserved, the entire 
book had to be rewritten. This formidable 
and disheartening task was accomplished 
in 1891, and the printed book has just been 
received (May 7, 1895). 

The original plan contemplated two dis- 
tinct parts: Part I., Descriptive Catalogue, 
by Robert Ridgway; Part II., Economic 
Ornithology, by 8. A. Forbes. The present 
volume completes the Descriptive Catalogue, 
and it is earnestly hoped that the volume 
on Economic Ornithology will follow ; 
though the labor of preparing such a work 
is too great to be accomplished in a single 
lifetime or by a single man. 

The first volume is prefaced by an intro- 
duction of 35 pages, treating of the physical 
features of the State, the climate, and charac- 
teristic features of the avifauna, and end- 
ing with a bibliography. The systematic 
part begins with a key to the higher groups, 
which are arranged in the old style, the 
Thrushes coming first. The orders, fami- 


662 


lies and genera are defined, as well as the 
species. Some of the descriptions are orig- 
inal, but most of them are quoted from 
‘Baird, Brewer and Ridgway’s History of 
North American Birds’, and its continu- 
ation, the ‘Water Birds of North Ame- 
rica,’ for which work, as everyone knows, 
they were originally written by Mr. Ridg- 
way. The general matter is not very full 
and is frequently quoted from the same 
work. Unfortunately about two-thirds of 
the biographical part was omitted because 
of the necessity of limiting the number of 
pages. There are numerous quotations 
from Mr. EK. W. Nelson’s papers on the birds 
of Illinois, and a few personal observations 
by the author, chiefly relating to the Aus- 
troriparian fauna of the extreme southern 
part of the State, where he has done much 
field work, extending over a long period of 
years. A novel feature is a synonomy of 
popular names, given under each species. 

The first volume covers 520 pages and is 
illustrated by 32 plates; the second volume 
covers 282 pages and has 33 plates. Nearly 
all the plates in both volumes are from 
Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, and Ridgway’s 
Manual. Most of those in the second 
volume were made originally for this work, 
but owing to delay in publication were first 
used in the ‘Manual.’ The great majority 
are outline figures of heads, wings and feet; 
but some are shaded cuts of birds. Owing 
to the destruction of the electros, part of 
these are process reproductions made from 
proofs and are poorly printed. The frontis- 
piece is a beautiful colored picture of a 
Meadowlark in full song, drawn by the 
author, and of unusual excellence. 

In faunal works relating to particular 
areas it is customary to record somewhat 
in detail the manner of occurrence of each 
species, to indicate breeding ranges, time 
of nesting, dates of migration and so on. 
Very little information of this kind is to be 
found in the Ornithology of Illinois. The 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 24. 


work consists mainly of technical .descrip- 
tions and synonymy, to which is added, 


under each species, a paragraph or two of — 


general matter which as a rule, excepting 
the quotations from Nelson, is hardly more 
pertinent to the State of Illinois than to 
any other part of America where the bird 
occurs. 

Of 49 species classed by Mr. Ridgway as 
rare, detailed records of occurrence within 
the State are given for 36. 

Mr. Ridgway states that the intent of the 
book was ‘“‘ to supply the people of Illinois 
with an inexpensive work which would 
enable them to identify the birds they de- 
sired to learn the names of, and to acquaint 
them with their leading characteristics.” 
These primary aims the work certainly has 
fulfilled. C. H. M. 


Tests of Glow-Lamps: W. E. Ayrron and E. 
A. Mrepitey. The Philosophical Maga- 
zine, May, 1895. 

Readers of ScteNcE who are interested in 
the matter of electric lighting from a prac- 
tical standpoint will find much that is in- 
structive in this paper recently printed in 
the Philosophical Magazine and published 
as a separate. For several years Professor 
Ayrton has been investigating the question 
of the economy of incandescent lighting and 
and especially the behaviour of the glow- 
lamp under continuous use. Some of the 
earlier results of this investigation have 
been announced from time to time in the 
English journals, having been communi- 
cated by Professor Ayrton to the Physical 
Society of London. The present pamphlet 
contains some additions made in January, 
1895, and from these additions it appears 
that the results previously obtained have 
not been entirely supported by subsequent 
tests. The principal result reached in these 
tests was the rather unexpected fact that 
the glow-lamps examined appeared to in- 
crease in effectiveness during the first 80 or 


JUNE 14, 1895.] 


100 hours of their use. It had been very 
generally assumed that a glow-lamp was at 
its best, under fixed conditions of pressure, 
at the very beginning of its life and that it 
would deteriorate from that time on. The 
authors of this paper appear to have 
found, however, that this is not the case 
and that, on the contrary, the light is 
increased from the beginning through a 
certain considerable part of the life of 
the lamp, after which it slowly fails. One 
form in which this conclusion is put is 
that if a group of glow-lamps, such as were 
examined in this case, being the Edison- 
Swan Lamps, marked 100-8 and run at a 
pressure of 100 volts, be kept continuously 
in operation by putting in a new lamp of 
the same character whenever a filament 
breaks, and never replacing the lamps by 
new except for a broken filament, the light 
given out by the group will never be as 
small as at the beginning. Some reference 
*is made to the probable cause of the rise in 
candle power by use, and the explanation 
given a year or two ago by Mr. Howell, at 
a meeting of the American Institute of Elec- 
trical Engineers, 7. e., that such a rise in 
candle power is due to an improvement of 
the vacuum of the lamp during the early 
part of its life, is commented upon. Some 
of the earlier examinations of the increase 
in candle power and improvement in vacuum 
by the authors of this paper seem decidedly 
to confirm this explanation by Mr. Howell; 
but subsequent tests, referred to in the addi- 
tion to the paper made in January, 1895, 
are not so favorable to that hypothesis. 
The authors suggest that the rise in candle 
power may possibly have been due to a 
change in the surface of the filament caus- 
ing the emissivity for heat to decrease, since 
that would raise the light emitted, as well 
as the number of candles per watt; but they 
declare that they have not yet discovered 
whether such change in heat-emissivity 
takes place. The methods of carrying on 


SCIENCE. 


663 


the investigation, both electric and photo- 
metric, are explained in sufficient detail, and 
the whole is a valuable contribution to the 
subject. Or 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
ENTOMOLOGY. 

Dr. T. A. Cuapman has been publishing 
in the Entomologists’ Record of London, 
and has now completed, a paper of no great 
length but of much importance, on the clas- 
sification of butterflies, based on the struc- 
ture of the pup, and a comparison of the 
same with the pupze of the lower lepidop- 
terous families. He places special empha- 
sis on two points hitherto entirely neg- 
lected: The relative freedom of motion of 
the middle joints of the abdomen, and the 
relation of the parts on the head on dehis- 
cence. His conclusions are that the Pa- 
pilionidee (excluding the Pierinz) are the 
nearest relatives of the Hesperidie (which 
agrees with all latest researches), but fur- 
ther that the Lycznids “should no longer 
be regarded as in any way intermediate be- 
tween the Papilionids and Nymphalids; 
rather should the Lemoniide and Lyczenidie 
be regarded asa branch which developed 
from the primeval butterfly (above the 
Hesperids) in one direction, whilst the Pa- 
pilionids arose and branched to the Pierids 
and Nymphalids quite independently. An- 
other point is that the Pierid separated 
from the Papilionid at a very early stage of 
the evolution of the latter, and that the 
Nymphalid almost immediately thereafter 
separated from the Pierid.” These conclu- 
sions are borne out by many facts in the 
structure of the other stages and especially 
render the position of the Libytheinz less 
anomalous. 

BRUNNER VON WATTENWYL has just pub- 
lished his Monographie der Pseudophylli- 
den, the last large group of Orthoptera that 
has specially needed monographic treat- 


664 


ment. The group is essentially a tropical 
one, unknown in Europe and with only one 
species (as recognized by Brunner) in the 
United States—our true Katydid. Others 
will doubtless be found upon our southern 
borders, for in Mexico, Central America 
and the Antilles Brunner recognizes 34 gen- 
era and 73 species, the larger part of them 
new. The work, which is published in Vi- 
enna in 8°, contains descriptions of 434 spe- 
cies, divided among 122 genera, and is ac- 
companied by a quarto atlas of ten plates. 


A NEW QUADRUPLE EXPANSION ENGINE. 


Messrs. HALL AND TREAT announce, in the 
Sibley Journal of Engineering for April, ‘A 
New Quadruple Expansion Engine.’ This 
machine, built for regular working at 500 
pounds pressure, and with its boiler, tested 
to 1300 pounds, has now been in operation 
in Sibley College, at Cornell University, for 
many months. It was designed by the au- 
thors of the paper, built by them in the 
shops of the College, and has since been 
tested under a great variety of conditions. 
The design was entirely original, although, 
of course, embodying the principles taught 
them in their college course, the one being 
a graduate of ’93 and the other of 794, and 
both now candidates for advanced degrees, 
the one for a doctor’s, the other for the 
master’s, degree in engineering. The valve- 
gear is new and the invention of the build- 
ers of the engine. The proportions of the 
multiple-cylinder system are those derived 
by application of their text-book and lec- 
ture-room work ; and the engine as a whole 
is a success. The boiler has worked well 
and economically up to above 600 pounds 
per square-inch, and its waste heat is util- 
ized in the re-heating apparatus of the 
engine and so thoroughly as to make the 
temperature of the chimney very low. The 
steel for ‘running parts’ was obtained from 
the Bethlehem Iron Company and proves 
to be of very fine quality. Special devices 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 24. 


have been required, in every direction, to 
make the operation of the machine with such 
high-pressure steam satisfactory and safe. _ 
Even the injector was necessarily recon- 
structed, as no ordinary instrument would 
force water into the boiler against 600 
pounds pressure. The figures reported for 
economy are something under ten pownils of 
steam per h. p. per hour, and the best condi- 
tions of operation are not yet fully identi- 
fied, though unquestionably corresponding 
closely with the preliminary computations 
of the designers. This figure is the lowest 
yet reported, even for engines of many 
times the size of that here described. It 
will require authoritative revision and cor- 
roboration ; but there seems no reason to 
doubt its substantial accuracy, as the result 
of many engine-trials under a great variety 
of conditions. If thus corroborated, it will 
stand as the ‘record of the world’ for the 
nineteenth century. The thermodynamic 
consumption of this engine should be about 
7 pounds of steam per h. p. per hour, exclu- 
sive of all thermal wastes, and this should 
be approximated much more closely in en- 
gines of similar type built on a large scale. 
The figure attained is extraordinary, and 
almost incredible, for a model engine such 
as is described ; yet it indicates a waste, by 
conduction and radiation, after all, of no 
less than twenty-five per cent. of all heat 
sent to the machine from its boiler. 


PAPERS FOR THE MATHEMATICAL CONGRESS 
AT KAZAN. 


Own the occasion of the dedication of the 
Lobachévski monument at Kazén will be 
held a mathematical congress of a week’s 
duration. 

It is very much desired by the manage- 
ment that some papers may be contributed 
by Americans. As a complete program of 
the scientific communications to be made in 
the session will be issued this coming Feb- 
ruary, it is not too early to solicit Ameri- 


‘ 


JUNE 14, 1895.] 


can scientists to think of preparing some- 
thing for this memorable occasion. Dr. G. 
B. Halsted has been asked by President 
Vasiliev to act for him in this matter, 
to correspond on questions of detail with 
any who hope to attend the Congress in 
person, to take charge of the communica- 
tions of those who do not anticipate being 
present and to guarantee their proper pre- 
sentation. 


THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. 
THE annual award of the honours of the 
Royal Geographical Society was made on 
May 14th, as follows: The Founders’ medal 
to Dr. John Murray for his services to 
physical geography, and especially to 
oceanography during the last 23 years, and 
for his work on board the Challenger and 
as director of the Challenger Commission 
and editor of the Challenger publications 
since the death of Sir Wyville Thomson in 
1882; the Patrons’ medal to the Hon. 
George Curzon, M. P., (1) for his work on 
the history, geography, archeology, and 
politics of Persia, (2) for his subsequent 
journeys in French Indo-China, which have 
resulted in further publications of geo- 
graphical as well as political and general 
value, and (3) for his journeys in 1894 to 
the Hindu Kush, the Pamirs and the Oxus, 
together with his visit to the Ameer of 
Afghanistan in Kabul; the Murchison 
grant was awarded to Mr. Eivind Astrup 
for his remarkable journey with Lieuten- 
ant Peary across the interior glacier to the 
northern shores of Greenland, and for his 
independent journey along the shores of 
Melville Bay, during which he laid down 
a portion of the northern part only pre- 
viously seen at a great distance ; the Back 
grant was awarded to Captain C. A. Larsen 
for the geographical and meteorological 
observations made by him during his Ant- 
arctic voyage in 1894; the Gill memorial 
was awarded to Captain J. W. Pringle, R. 


SCIENCE. 


665 


E., for his share in the railway survey 
operations carried on under the direction. 
of Captain Macdonald, R. E., in the country 
between the coast from Mombasa to the 
Victoria Lake; the Cuthbert Peek grant 
was awarded to Mr. G. F. Scott-Elliot for his 
explorations of Mount Ruwenzori and the 
region to the west of the Victoria Nyanza.— 
London Times. 


THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. 


Tue National Geographic Society. of 
Washington held its annual business meet- 
ing on May 31. Reports from the various 
officers bore witness to the increasing use- 
fulness of the Society. When it was first 
organized, in 1888, there were but 205 
members. Since then there has been a 
steady increase, the membership now num- 
bering 1,193. A similar increase may be 
noticed in the number of public lectures 
delivered; sixty-two lectures having been 
given during the past winter, while in the 
winter of 1890 there were but eighteen. 

Mr. Gardner G. Hubbard was reélected 
President and Lieut. Everett Hayden Re- 
cording Secretary, and the following were 
elected Vice-Presidents: C. W. Dabney, 
Jr., Assistant Secretary of Agriculture; H. 
G. Ogden, Coast and Geodetic Survey; Gen. 
A. W. Greely, Chief Signal Service; C. Hart 
Merriam, Agricultural Department; W. 
W. Rockhill, Assistant Secretary of State, 
and Henry Gannet, Chief Topographer 
United States Geological Survey; Board of 
Managers, Marcus Baker, United States 
Geological Survey; G. K. Gilbert, Chief 
Geographer, United States Geological Sur- 
vey; John Hyde, Statistical Expert, Agri- 
cultural Department; Prof. W J McGee, 
Bureau of Ethnology; F. H. Newell, Chief 
Hydrographer, United States Geological 
Survey; Prof. W. B. Powell and John R. 
Proctor; Treasurer, C. J. Bell; Recording 
Secretary, Everett Hayden; Corresponding 
Secretary, Miss E. R. Scidmore. 


666 


BOTANICAL BOOKS AT AUCTION. 

Amone the botanical books in the library 
of William B. Rudkin sold at auction in 
New York by Bangs & Co. were the fol- 
lowing: H. Baillon’s ‘ Natural History of 
Plants,’ 7 vols., Svo, brought $15.87; Ben- 
tham and Hooker, ‘Genera Plantarum,’ 
London, 1862-83, $17.25; Bentley and Tri- 
men, ‘ Medicinal Plants,’ 306 colored plates, 
London, 1880, $34; Botanical Gazette, 13 
vols., Madison, Wis., v. b., $19.50; Charles 
Darwin’s Works, a rare ‘set’ of 15 vols., 
8vo, uniform green morocco, full gilt, $41.25; 
D. C. Eaton, ‘Ferns of North America,’ 
colored plates by Emerton and Faxon, 
Salem, 1879, $27; Elwes, J. H., ‘Genus 
Lilium,’ grand 4to, London, 1880, $12.50; 
Emerson, ‘Trees of Massachusetts,’ 1878, 
$8.50; John Gerarde, ‘The Herball,’ en- 
larged by Thomas Johnson, London, 1636, 
$14.75; Goodale, ‘ Wild-flowers of America,’ 
Boston, 1882, $8.25; Lesquereux, ‘ Coal- 
Flora of Pennsylvania,’ Harrisburg, 1880, 
$10; J. C. Loudon, ‘Arboretum Britan- 
nicum,’ London, 1854, $17; M.'T. Masters, 
‘Vegetable Teratology,’ London, 1869, 
$8.25; Michaux and Nuttall, ‘ N. A. Sylva,’ 
277 colored engravings, 5 v., 8vo, embossed 
morocco, Philada., 1871, $51.25; Parkinson, 
‘Theatrum Botanicum,’ 4to, panelled calf, 
London, 1640, $16.40; Ch. Pickering, ‘Chro- 
nological History of Plants,’ Boston, 1879, 
$6; Powell, ‘A Compleat History of Druggs,’ 
London, 1725, $5.50; Seeman, Berthold, 
‘Plants of the Fiji Islands,’ 100 fine colored 
plates, London, 1865-73, $20.50; Sowerby, 
‘English Botany, colored figures by 
Sowerby, Fitch and others, 12 vols., 8vo, 
$63; Torrey Botanical Club, various Bul- 
letins, etc., 17 vols., $26.35. 


GENERAL. 

Ar the monthly meeting of the trustees 
of the University of Pennsylvania the acting 
provost, Charles C. Harrison, made a dona- 
tion of $500,000 to the University, in honor 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 24. 


of his father, the late George L. Harrison, 
LL.D. Mr. Harrison stipulates that the 
fund shall be known as ‘The George L. 
Harrison Foundation for the Encourage- | 
ment of Liberal Studies and the Advance- 
ment of Knowledge.’ The principal of 
this fund must be retained intact, the in- 
come alone to be used for the purposes of 
foundation. The following suggestions as 
to the use of the fund were made by the 
donor: 1 The establishment of scholar- 
ships and fellowships intended solely for 
men of exceptional ability. 2 The increas- 
ing the library of the University, particularly 
by the acquisition of works of permanent 
use and of lasting reference, to and by the 
scholar. 3 The temporary relief from 
routine work of professors of ability, in 
order that they may devote themselves to 
special work. 4 The securing men of dis- 
tinction to lecture and, for a term, to reside 
at the University. 

AccorDING to an announcement from 
Maemillan & Co., the University Press of 
Columbia College will issue an Atlas of Fer- 
tilization and Karyokinesis, by Professor Ed- 
mund B. Wilson, with the codperation of 
Dr. Edward Leaming. The work will con- 
tain forty figures, photographed from nature 
by Dr. Leaming from the preparations of 
Professor Wilson at an enlargement of one 
thousand diameters, and reproduced, with- 
out retouching or other alterations, by the 
gelatine process by Bierstadt, of New York. 
The photographs are very perfect and con- 
vey a good idea of the actual object. They 
illustrate nearly every important step in 
fertilization, from the first entrance of the 
spermatozodn onwards to the cleavage- 
stages, and not only present a very clear 
picture of the more familiar outlines of the 
subject, but embody many original discoy- 
eries as well. They are accompanied by an 
explanatory text, comprising a general ele- 
mentary introduction, a critical description 
of the plates and a large number of text-cuts. 


: 


: 
: 
i 


\ 


} 


: 
1 


_ June 14, 1895.] 


Tue death is announced of Theodor Bror- 
sen, at the age of seventy-six. He dis- 
covered at Kiel, on February 26, 1846, the 
- small comet called by his name, which was 
found to have a period of about 54 years, 


1873 and 1879, but has not since been seen, 
though a conjecture has been thrown out 
that it had some connexion with one dis- 
covered by Mr. Denning last year. Brorsen 
discovered another comet in 1846, a third 
in 1847, and two more in 1851. 


Dr. HucH Francis CLarKE CLEGHORN 
died at Strabithie, in Fife, Scotland, on May 
19th. He was appointed Professor of Botany 
in Madras University in 1852, and was an 
authority on Indian botany and arboricul- 
ture. While in Madras he organized a 
forest department, having for its object the 
preservation of tree life, and established an 
admirable system of management. Dr. 
Cleghorn returned to Scotland in 1869, fill- 
ing temporarily the chair of Botany in 
Glasgow University. He wasalso president 
of the Royal Arboricultural Society and an 
active member of the Edinburgh Botanical 
Society. 

Ar the commencement exercises of Stan- 
ford University, President Jordan stated 
that Mrs. Stanford had been spending $1,000 
a day of her private fortune to maintain 
the University. In case Mrs. Stanford’s 
fortune should be exhausted before the de- 
cision of the Courts in regard to the Stan- 
ford estate had been reached, it would be 
necessary to close the University. 

Joun Pact Pavuwison died at Tenafly, 
New Jersey, on May 30th. Mr. Paulison 
was interested in astronomy and owned a 
private observatory. 

Proressor J. J. Srevenson, of the Uni- 
versity of the City of New York, will spend 
the summer in the coal fields of Arkansas, 
Indian Territory and Texas, with incidental 
studies in New Mexico and Colorado. 


SCIENCE. 


and was observed at returns in 1857, 1868, - 


667 


Dr. Avotr Etsass, Professor of Physics 
in the University of Marburg, died on May 
12th, at the age of forty years. 

Tue June issue of the Amherst Literary 
Monthly will be a special memorial number 
devoted to President Seelye. 

Tue Royal Natural History, edited by 
Richard Lydekker (reviewed in Scrence, 
April 5, p. 387) is being published in 
America by Frederick. Warne & Co. It 
will be issued in thirty-six fortnightly num- 
bers and will be completed at the same time 
as the English edition. 

Dr. D. K. Pearson has offered $50,000 
to Mount Holyoke College if an additional 
$150,000 can be raised. It is said that Dr. 
Pearson has already given $2,000,000 to 
various colleges. 

Haroitp Wuitrine, Professor of Physics 
in the University of California, was among 
those lost in the submergence of the steam- 
ship Colima. 

Ar the May meeting of the Victoria In- 
stitute, London, the subject of ‘ Early Man’ 
was considered. In dealing with it the evi- 
dence for the existence of a ‘missing link’ 
was first examined, the subject being intro- 
duced in a paper by Professor E. Hull, late 
Director-General of the Geological Survey 
of Ireland. In dealing with it he reviewed 
all the known instances of so-called ‘ miss- 
ing links,’ including that discovered by Dr. 
Dubois in Java, and concluded that none 
could be regarded as in fact ‘a missing 
link.’ After this the question of the earli- 
est man was discussed in a paper by Sir 
William Dawson, in which he described the 
physical character and affinities of the 
Gaunches, an extinct race in the Canary 
Islands. 

Mr. W. W. Rocxuitt, Assistant Secre- 
tary of State, who has been appointed by 
the State Department a delegate to the In- 
ternational Geographical Congress, meeting 
in London this summer, will join with a 


668 


delegation from the National Geographic 
Society in an effort to persuade the Con- 
gress to hold its next meeting in Wash- 
ington. 

THE death is announced of Dr. Franz 
Neumann, the oldest active teacher 
Germany. In 1826 he was called to the 
Professorship of Physics and Mineralogy in 
the University of Konigsberg, and for 
sixty-nine years has been teaching and 
working in the same institution. Dr. Neu- 
mann was the first man in Germany to 
teach Mathematical Physics. 


Iv is stated that Professor E. H. Barnard 
and Professor Burnham have accepted posi- 
tions in the Yerkes Observatory, Chicago. 


PRincIpAL PETERSON, who has accepted 
the Principalship of McGill University, in 
succession to Sir William Dawson, eradu- 
ated at Edinburgh University in 1875, and 
afterwards gained an open scholarship at 
Corpus Christi College, Oxford. For two 
and a half years he acted as assistant to the 
Professor of Humanity in Edinburgh Uni- 
versity. On the inauguration of University 
College, Dundee, in 1882, Mr. Peterson was 
unanimously appointed Principal and Pro- 
fessor of Classics and Ancient History. 


Masor Wiiu1am A. SHEPARD, for twenty- 
five years Professor of Chemistry in Ran- 
dolph Macon College, died in Ashland, Va., 
on June 3d. 


A statue of the late Professor Billroth 
was unveiled in the Hospital Rudolfinerhaus 
on April 25th. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
TuE following are abstracts of the com- 
munications presented at the thirty-fourth 
meeting, May 8, 1895 : 

G. F. Broker. ‘Gold Fields of ‘the 
Southern Appalachians.’ This communica- 
tion presented a summary of a report upon 


SCIENCE. 


in - 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 24. 


these gold fields, based upon field work of 
the last season, which will appear in the 
Sixteenth Annual Report of the Director of 
the U.S. Geological Survey, and will be is- 
sued in separate form very soon. 

The geographical position, history and 
statistics of the known deposits were first 
given, followed by a discussion of the rock 
formations and the structural features of 
the regions in which the deposits occur. 
The gold-bearing veins and impregnations 
were then described, and a long list of the 
observed gangue minerals was given, with 
comments upon their significance. The 
secondary, or placer deposits, were also con- 
sidered. 

C. Wiitarp Hayers. ‘Notes on the 
Geology of the Cartersville Sheet, Georgia.’ 
The region covered by the Cartersyille 
sheet is in northwest Georgia, its northern 
and western borders being about thirty 
miles respectively from the Tennessee and 
Alabama lines. Its topography is domi- 
nated by two peneplains, the older pre- 
served by the harder metamorphic and 
crystalline rocks on the eastern side of the 
sheet, and the younger developed on com- 
paratively soft limestones and shales. The 
older peneplain shows a decided southward 
inclination from an altitude of 1,400 feet at 
the north edge of the sheet to 1,000 at the 
south edge. Above the peneplain rise a 
few monadnocks from 800 to 1,000 feet, 
while the larger streams have cut their 
channels several hundred feet deep within 
it. The lower peneplain has an altitude of 
between 800 and 900 feet, and a slight in- 
clination toward the west. The two plains 
probably coincide a short distance east of 
this region, in the vicinity of Atlanta. 

Two distinct groups of rocks are found 
in this sheet, separated by a profound fault. 
The rocks west of the fault are unaltered 
Cambrian and Silurian, while those to the 
east are crystalline and metamorphic, prob- 
ably Archean and Algonkian. The most 


. 
| 
| 


JUNE 14, 1895.] 


striking structural feature on the sheet is 
the Cartersville fault by which the meta- 
morphic rocks are superposed upon the 
unaltered Paleozoics. In the northern 
portion of the sheet the fault plane dips 
eastward at a low angle, in general less 
than 15°, the Cambrian limestone and shale 
passing under the black Algonkian slate 
and conglomerate which lie in open folds 
to the eastward. 

In the vicinity of Cartersville the fault 
plane dips eastward much more steeply, 
probably not less than 75°. A short dis- 
tance east of this portion of the fault is a 
large mass of granite, probably Archean, 
to which the change in the character of 
the fault is doubtless due. While to the 
north and south of this granite mass the 
sedimentary rocks were readily moved upon 
their bedding planes, so that they trans- 
gressed a long distance upon the Paleozoics, 
- the absence of planes in the granite retarded 
movement at this point, causing a deep re- 
entrant angle in the course of the fault. A 
further effect of the anchoring of the strata 
by this granite mass is seen in the abnormal 
strikes at its northern end. The sedimen- 
tary rocks have been carried past it toward 
the west, so that for a distance of fifteen 
miles they strike northwest, at right angles 
to the normal axes of this region. 

Atrrep H. Brooxs. ‘ Notes on the Crys- 
talline Rocks of the Cartersville Sheet, 
Georgia.’ In this paper Mr. Brooks gave 
petrographical descriptions of the granites, 
diorite, gabbro and hornblende schist of the 
Cartersville district. 

Lester F. Warp. ‘The Red Hills and 
Sand Hills of South Carolina.’ The speaker 
considered these well known topographic 
features of a broad band crossing South 
Carolina, concerning which various opinions 
have been held, to be remnants of the Lafay- 
ette formation. He described localities 
where the red and white sands were ob- 
served to grade into, or alternate with, each 


SCIENCE. 


669 


other as parts of one formation. As this 
formation overlaps various older beds to the 
granite, the discovery of Eocene fossils by 
Tuomey at the base of certain hills may be 
understood. 

The red and white sands are associated 
with shales and clays, and Professor Ward 
believed that they were to be considered as 
a northeastern extension of the ‘ Red loam’ 
(Lafayette) formation of the Gulf States. 

Wuitman Cross, 
Secretary. 


NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 

THE section of geology met on May 20, 
and listened to the following papers : 

J. F. Kemp, ‘The Iron-ore Bodies at 
Mineville, Essex County, N. Y.’ The 
history of iron mining in this district was 
briefly outlined by the speaker, and the 
early development of the enormous ore- 
bodies at Mineville was sketched. Their 
geological relations were then shown by 
means of a series of sections, about twenty- 
five in number, which had been prepared 
by the engineer of the companies operating 
the mines, Mr. S. B. McKee, assisted by the 
speaker. These sections had been drawn 
under the guidance of Prof. Kemp on panes 
of thin crystal plate glass about one-eighth 
inch in thickness and 21x33 inches. The 
glass is of such transparency that the 
entire series of sections came out very 
clearly and showed the relations of the 
ore-bodies with great vividness. The scale 
was one inch to the hundred feet, making 
thus twenty-five vertical sections, one hun- 
dred feet apart and extending nearly half a 
mile. It was at once apparent that Miller 
Pit, Old Bed, ‘21,’ the Bonanza and the 
Joker ore-bodies were all really parts of 
one enormous mass which lies on a pitching 
anticline. Miller Pit and Old Bed are 
faulted from each other and from ‘21.’ A 
trap dike intersects Miller Pit. In the field 
the relations are very confusing, and it can 


670 


not be stated that the model clears them 
all up, but it shows the broader features 
admirably and will be later described in 
greater fullness. 

The speaker gave some further details of 
the geological relations of the ore and the 
character of the rocks as shown by drill 
cores. The presence of intruded sheets of 
gabbro in the gneisses was especially em- 
phasized, and in particular their existence 
as proved by the cores, immediately be- 
neath some thin beds or veins of ore. The 
paper was further illustrated by a large 
series of lantern slides of the mines. 

The second paper, by G. van Ingen, on 
‘The significance of the recent studies of 
Mr. G. F. Matthew on Cambrian Faunas as 
published by the Academy,’ covered prac- 
tically the same ground as did Mr. Mat- 
thew’s abstract printed in Scrence April 26, 
p. 452. Mr. van Ingen added many ad- 
ditional particulars based on his field ex- 
perience in collecting the fossils, and also 
exhibited comparative sections of the Cam- 
brian in both Europe and America. 

The third paper, by W. D. Matthew, 
‘The Effusive and Dike Rocks, near St. 
John, N. B.,’ was postponed on account of 
the lateness of the hour. It appears, how- 
ever, in full in the Transactions of the 
Academy, and adds much to our knowledge 
of the Pre-Cambrian volcanic rocks of New 
Brunswick. J. F. Kemp, 

Recording Secretary. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
THE PHYSICAL REVIEW. 
Vol. IL, No. 6. May-June, 1895. 

The Capacity of Electrolytic Condensers: By 
SAMUEL SHELDON, H. W. Lerrom and A. 
N. Saw. 

This paper contains a description of 
experiments performed upon two types 
of Platinum—H,SO, cells, which, when 
charged to potentials less than the E. M. F. 
of polarization, are found to act as con- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. I. No. 24. 


densers. The capacity of such condensers 
is dependent upon the impressed E. M. F. as 
well as upon the surface and character of 
the electrodes. By a method quite anal- 
ogous to the ‘ballistic method’ of testing 
iron the authors have shown the presence 
of a very considerable hysteresis in the re- 
lation between potential and charge. The 
curves showing this relation present in fact 
a striking resemblance to the ordinary hys- 
teresis loop. Considerable difficulty was 
met with in reducing the electrodes to an 
unpolarized condition, even with new speci- 
mens of platinum. Here also an applica- 
tion of magnetic methods was found useful, 
the cells being conveniently depolarized by 
reversals. The paper contains also an in- 
vestigation of the effect of temperature and 
concentration upon the capacity. In spite 
of the large capacity of electrolytic con- 
densers, the authors are of the opinion that 


the high temperature coefficient and low ~ 


efficiency of such cells are prohibitive to: 
practical usage. 


Thermal Conductivity of Copper, I. By R- 
W. Quick, C. D. Curzp and B. S. Lan- 
PHEAR. 

In this article is begun the description of 
observations made to determine the thermal 
conductivity of a bar of copper intended for 
use as a standard of length. The method 
used was that of Forbes. The measure- 
ment of the temperature at different points 
of the bar was made by a method different 
from that usually employed, and depended 
upon the variation in the resistance of a. 
coil of fine copper wire, which could be 
shifted from point to point throughout the 
length of the bar. Results were obtained 
for the conductivity through a range of 
temperatures extending from 74° to 167°, 
the extreme values being 0.914 at the lower 
of these two temperatures and 1.024 at the 
higher. Observations at temperatures. 
below 0° will appear in a subsequent article. 


- 
¥ 
é 
j 
4 


: JUNE 14, 1895.] 


On the Absorption of Certain Crystals in the 
Infra-red as Dependent Upon the Direction of 
the Plane of Polarization. By Ernest Mer- 
RITT. 
By means of a spectro-bolometer the 
writer has determined the transmission 
eurves for Quartz, Iceland Spar, and Tur- 
malin out to a wave length of 5.5 4. In 
order to detect the differences between the 
absorption of the ordinary and extraordinary 
rays the radiation used (that of a Zirconium 

lamp) was polarized by reflection before 
passing through the crystal specimen. On 

account of diffuse rays from the surface of 
the fiuorite prism considerable difficulty 
was met with in obtaining a pure spectrum; 
a difficulty which was finally met by using 
two spectrometers ‘in series;’ i. e., the 
spectrum formed by one spectrometer was 
thrown upon the slit of another. The re- 
sults show that the transmission curves of 
the ordinary and extraordinary rays are 
entirely independent in all three cases. In 
the case of Iceland Spar the differences be- 
tween the two curves is especially marked, 
sharp absorption bands being present in the 
one curve which are entirely absent in the 
other. At = 3.3 » Iceland Spar is found 
to behave as turmalin, 7. ¢., the ordinary ray 
is suppressed, while the extraordinary ray 
is transmitted in considerable amount. The 
difference between the two curves is less 
marked in the case of Quartz, but is very 
considerable with Turmalin. In the latter 
case the two curves are found to intersect, 
and in the region lying between the points 
of intersection the dechroism of turmalin is 
reversed. 


Resonance in Transformer Circuits. 

Bepext and A. C. CREHORE. 

In this article the writers discuss the 
action of a condenser in either circuit of a 
transformer, and develop by purely graphical 
methods the conditions necessary for primary 
resonance due to a secondary condenser, a 


By F. 


SCIENCE. 


671 


phenomenon to which Dr. Pupin has given 
the name electrical consonance. A primary 
circuit alone, and with no condenser, would 
have no natural period of oscillation; but 
it may have such a period when a neighbor- 
ing secondary circuit contains a condenser. 
The elastic influence of the condenser is 
transferred from one circuit to the other, 
on account of their mutual relationship; 
and the natural period of the primary cir- 
cuit depends not only upon the value of its 
own constants, but those of the secondary 
as well. There is a surging of energy back 
and forth between the primary circuit and 
the secondary condenser by intervention 
of their common magnetic field; the 
period of these surgings determines the 
period of the system. In addition to the 
graphical analysis, Drs. Bedell and Cre- 
hore subject the problem toa brief analyt- 
ical treatment leading to identical results. 
It is shown that there are two values of 
the capacity of the secondary condenser 
which will give rise to consonance. It is 
pointed out that a condenser in the second- 
ary of the transformer may compensate 
for the drop due to magnetic leakage; 
in fact, this drop may be over-compen- 
sated for, so that the secondary poten- 
tial will actually rise as the transformer 
is loaded down. 

Aside from the particular conclusions 
reached, the paper is of interest for the 
methods employed, the problem in hand 
illustrating well the writer’s method of re- 
ciprocal points in constructing admittance 
and current diagrams from diagrams of 
impedance and electromotive forces. 


On the Secular Motion of a Free Magnetic 

Needle, I. By L. A. Bauer. 

This article forms the introduction to an 
important paper on the secular variation 
of terrestrial magnetism which will be con- 
cluded in the next number. The present 
article is devoted to a description of the 


672 


methods of accumulating and discussing the 
available data. An abstract is postponed 
until the appearance of the remainder of 
the paper. 


New method of Testing the Magnetic Properties 


of Iron. By W.S. FRANKLIN. 

In determining the curve of magnetiza- 
tion, the sample, in the form of a long nar- 
row f], is suspended from the arm of a bal- 
ance, the legs of the q being surrounded by 
fixed magnetizing coils. The induction 
may then be calculated from the weight 
necessary to hold the specimen in equi- 
librium. A novel method of determining 
hysteresis loss is also described. In this 
ease the sample was in the form of a long 
rod, and was magnetized by a rather short 
coil. The rod was suspended from one 
part of a balance, and was weighed first 
while the coil was moved slowly upward and 
afterwards during a slow downward motion 
of the coil. A method is developed by 
which the hysteresis loss may be computed 
from the difference of these weights. Ex- 
perimental data accompany the paper. 

New Books. The following books are re- 
viewed: RayiercH. Theory of Sound, Vol. 
I. Porncare. Les Oscillations Electriques. 
Carwarr. University Physics. 


THE JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY. 


THE Journal of Comparative Neurology 
for March contains three original papers. 
The first, ‘Modern Algedonic Theories,’ by 
C. L. Herrick, is a critique based primarily 
upon Marshall’s Pain, Pleasure and Ais- 
thetics, though most of the other recent 
literature is reviewed in the same connec- 
tion. The physiological theory of emotion 
finally adopted by the writer is in the main 
a composite drawn chiefly from the nutrition 
theory of Meynert, the discharge theory of 
Lange and James, and the theory of habit 
of Gilman. In brief, it is a resistance 
theory. When we have agreed upon the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. I. No. 24. 


nature of the simplest sense, pain and grati- 
fication, the foundation will have been laid 
for the more complex esthetic phenomena. 
This foundation is believed to consist in the 


recognition of a special kind of neurosis for 


the feelings due to two classes of stimuli of 
avery similar but notidentical kind. Given 


an excessive stimulus which for whatever — 


reason freely irradiates, and pleasure is felt; 


OO EEE —_— <<< ——  . 


M 
4 


given another stimulus, or the same exces- — 


sive stimulus with other neural conditions 


which prevent irradiation and produce a 


summation and overflow, and pain is felt. 


Emotion consists (1) of general sensations — 


of total, organic or irradiating varieties 


which have in common a lack of localization — 
and, as a result of associational laws, are © 


amalgamated more or less closely with the 
empirical ego; (2) of more or less explicate 
or implicate cognitions (perceptions, intu- 
itions) of the relation between the cause of 
the sensation and our well-being; (3) the 
emotion is more or less closely attached to 
various impulsive expressions which tend in 
various ways to intensify the two preceding. 
The psychical element of emotion is essen- 
tially intellectual, and the attempt to secure 
a serial relation of the ‘ faculties’ must be 
abandoned. 

The second paper by M. A. Raffalovich 
deals with ‘Uranism, or Congenital Sexual 
Inversion.’ It is a plea for the early recog- 
nition of congenital inversion in children 
and the proper education of such children. 
Inversion is no excuse for debauchery and 
Krafit-Ebbing’s pity for the race of inverted 
persons is largely misplaced. The psycho- 
logical history of a superior uranist is traced 
and commented upon at length. 

In a brief paper entitled ‘The Histogen- 
esis of the Cerebellum,’ C. L. Herrick 
notices the recent work of Dr. Shaper upon 
the cerebellum of teleosts and calls atten- 
tion to the gratifying harmony between 
these results and his own studies published 
in 1891. 


le Dy TOE os 


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FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1895. 


CONTENTS: 

On the Distribution and the Secular Variation of 
Terrestrial Magnetism: L. A. BAUER.......--- 673 

On a Devonian Limestone-Breccia in Southwestern 
Missowri : OSCAR HERSHEY .........--00005- 676 

Current Notes on Physiography (X.): W. M. 
HER eee yore oye ln) a)n cn 9) wlnielooua,xiain Inietoln wid msl e.° 678 

Notes on Agriculture (III. ) : BYRON D. HALSTED. .680 

PRWRESVONTIATICE ®— - ote cee ce waeaecesisnias cat 682 
The Illustrattons in the Standard Natural History : 
ELuiotrr Cours ; C. HART MERRIAM. 

Scientific Literature :— ......02 0-2 eee eee eee eee 684 
Vermeule’s Report on Water Supply ; Geological 


Survey of New Jersey: ROLLIN D. SALISBURY. 
Roscoe’s John Dalton and the Rise of Modern 
Chemistry: EpDWARD H. Ketser. Bach’s Elas- 
ticitat und Festigkeit: MANSFIELD MERRIMAN. 
The Pocket gl of the United States: J. A. 
ALLEN. Collett’s Norway Lemming: C. H. M. 


BV OLER INA News — . wove scccccevcceves or oe 692 
Astronomy ; General. 
Societies and Academies :— .......00e0eceeeeeee 698 


Biological Society of Washington ; The New Jer- 
sey State Microscopical Society. 


Scientific Journals: —......-..+++- PAD AG ene Beer 700 
The American Journal of Science. 


MSS. intended for publication and books, ete., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

gsubseriptionsand advertisements should be sent to SCIENCE, 

N. Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or 41 East 49th St., New York. 


ON THE DISTRIBUTION AND THE SECULAR 
VARIATION OF TERRESTRIAL MAGNETISM. 


In two papers* read before the Philo- 
sophical Society of Washington, May 25th, 
the following main results were obtained : 


**On the Secular Variation of Terrestrial Mag- 
netism’ and ‘ A Preliminary Analysis of the Problem 
of Terrestrial Magnetism and its Variations.’ 


The minimum change in declination along a 
parallel of latitude at any particular time, and 
the minimum average secular change along a 
parallel of latitude during a given interval of time 
occur near the equator; both quantities generally 
inerease on leaving the equator. 

Exactly the reverse is the case with re- 
gard to the inclination, viz. :— 

The maximum change in inclination along a 
parallel of latitude at any particular time, and 
the maximum average secular change along a 
parallel of latitude during a given interval of 
time occur near the equator; both quantities 
generally diminish on leaving the equator. 

These laws were established with the aid 
of data scaled from magnetic charts from 
1780 to 1885 at points 20° distant in longi- 
tude and in latitudes 60°N, 40°N, 20°N, 
equator, 20°S, 40°S and 60°S. They 
again point to the same conclusion reached 
previously by the writer in a somewhat 
different way, namely, that the distribution 
and the secular variation of terrestrial magne- 
tism appear to be closely related; they are sub- 
ject to similar laws. It is henee probable that 
they are both to be referred primarily to the same 
cause. This common cause seems to be connected 
in some way with the earth’s rotation. 

If we regard the earth as uniformly mag- 
netized, having its magnetic poles coinci- 
dent with the geographical poles, and take 
the X axis of a system of coordinates whose 
origin is in the center of the earth, parallel 
to the magnetic axis, we shall get the fol- 


674 


lowing expression for the potential function 
at any external point, viz.: 


x 
ee 
Ppa eh 


a is the mean radius of the earth, r the dis- 
tance of the point from the origin, and pz 
the intensity of magnetization per unit of 
volume. 
For points on the earth’s surface, this re- 
duces to: 
= Wa = 7 p. sind =e. sin ¢ 
9 is the geographical latitude and c= $zy. 
This formula is doubly interesting just 
now, as it has been recently deduced em- 
pirically by Professor W. von Bezold.* This 
eminent investigator, when considering the 
mean values of the geomagnetic potential 
along parallels of latitude, found them sub- 
ject to the simple law ¢, = c. sin ¢ = 0.330 


(1) 


sing. Sincec=447z p, and the magnetic 
moment, M, of the earth is equal to 
4x .a%, we find that von Bezold’s empiri- 
eal coefficient implies a value of the mag- 
netic moment equal to 8.52 x 107° against 
8.55 x 102° as determined by Gauss. We 
thus see the theoretical significance of von 
Bezold’s factor. 

Since for the case supposed the horizon- 
tal component of the intensity, H, is di- 
rected meridionally, it follows from (1) that: 

r) 


H = — ce. cos¢ 
aod i 


(2) 

Furthermore, with the aid of simple 
transformations : 

V=2e. sin ¢ (3) 

F=c /3 sin? ¢+1 (4) 

tan I = 2 tan @ (5) 


V being the vertical force, F, the total and 
I, the inclination. Formule (2), (3), (4) 
and (5) are familiar to every nautical geo- 
magnetician. 

*See his admirable paper ‘Uber Isanomalen des 
erdmagnetischen Potentials,’ Sitz. berichte d. Kel. 


Preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin. Phys.-math. 
Classe, April 4, 1895. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 25. 


Now the writer finds that these formule — 
give the mean values of the magnetic ele- — 
ments along parallels of latitude with a high — 
degree of precision. 
printed in full in the American Journal of 
Science beginning with the August number, 
I will select but one typical example. 


1885. 

| Latitude | Tobs’d* |I Comp’d, 0O.-C. 

| 60° N | 74°.9N| 73°.9N | + 19.0 
40° 59 .7N| 59.2N|+0.5 
20° 34 3 N SAN 18 | 
Equator| 3.28 | 0.0 |—3.2 | 
20° 36 88 | 36.18 |—0.7 | 
40° 57.28 | 59.28 |+2.0 | 
eos | 70.28 | 73.98 | +3.7 | 


Since, according to equation (2). 
M 

ee Bs ary eile GL) (6). 
we can get a fair value of the magnetic 
moment of the earth without the aid of the 
laborious Gaussian computation by simply 
scaling the value of H for equidistant 
points along a parallel of latitude from iso- 
dynamic charts and substituting the mean of 
the values thus found in (6). 

Thus I get for 1885 as the mean result of 
the scalings along 40° N, 20° N, Equator, 
20° S and 40° S, the value of 0.325 a® for 
M, against 0.322 a° resulting from the 1885 
Neumayer-Petersen re-computation of the 
Gaussian co-efficients. 

But why should the values obtained on the 
assumption that the earth is uniformly magnet- 
ized, and its magnetic axis coincident with the 
geographical axis, so nearly agree with those 
based wpon observed quantities? It seems to 
me that this opens the question whether 
the asymmetrical distribution of land and 
water is the primary cause of the asymmet- 
rical distribution of telluric magnetism, as 
generally supposed. Why do the ‘anoma- 
lies’ in the distribution so nearly cancel 
each other in going along a parallel of lati- 

* These quantities are the results of the scalings of 
Neumayer’s charts for the points mentioned. 


As this paper willbe | 


_ JUNE 21, 1895.] 


tude? Does this again imply that the ro- 
tation of the magnetic earth is an important 
factor ? 

If we connect by lines all the places on 
the earth’s surface having the same de- 
parture (with due regard to sign) from the 
values as computed from above formulie 
we get a series of curves that converge 
around two foci of maximum and minimum 
departures. I have carried out this idea 
with the aid of my collected data in the 
case of the inclination for three epochs, 1780, 
1880 and 1885. I call the curves thus ob- 
tained lines of equal departing inclination, 
or, briefly, ‘isapoclinics.’ It is especially 
remarkable that these lines close around 
two points not on opposite sides of the 
equator, but on the same side.* Their pre- 

liminary positions are: 


Latitude. Longitude. 
For 1885. 
North end attracting focus, 20°S. 40°W of Gr. 
South end attracting focus, 5°S. 40°E of Gr. 
For 1780. 
N. F. 0° 50°W. 
Ss. EF. 0° 60°F. 


These positions are subject to a slight re- 
vision. The main part, however, is brought 
out very clearly in both cases, viz. : that the 
chief cause of distortion of the primary sym- 
metrical field can be represented as due to a 
secondary polarization approximately equatorial 
in direction. 

I then showed that the isapoclinies obey 
in a remarkable degree the laws governing 
a magnetic system. They do not run at 
random. Thus, for example, the foci or 
poles of this secondary system fall nearly 
on the agonic lines of the actually observed 
field, and the secondary magnetic equator 
running roughly north and south marks 
out approximately the places where occurs 


* Similar results have been obtained by von Bezold 
in the paper cited, and by A. von Tillo as seen in his 
preliminary paper in Comptes Rendus, Oct. 8, ’94, 
pp. 597-599. It is very much to be hoped that von 
Tillo’s charts will soon be published. 


SCIENCE. 


675 


the maximum declination. Jn a word, the 
magnetic field which we actually observe can be 
nearly obtained by super-imposing a secondary 
equatorial field upon a primary polar one. 

By comparing the maximum horizontal 
intensities of the the two systems, as found 
in the respective magnetic equators, I find 
that the polar field is about five to six times 
stronger than the secondary, and that the axis of 
the resultant system would make an angle of 
about 10° with the rotation axis. 

Furthermore, the secular variation phe- 
nomena can be qualitatively explained by 
the shifting of just two such poles as be- 
long to the secondary system. It cannot 
be explained by the disturbance of poles on 
opposite sides of the equator. 

Weshould thus have to refer both the distribution 
and the secular variation to apparently the same 
kind of a polarization. 

This harmonizes with the empirical con- 
clusions at the beginning of this paper. 

Since the intersection of the agonic lines 
with the equator fall so nearly together 
with the positions of the isapoclinic foci, a 
fair idea, perhaps, can be obtained of the 
shifting of these foci from the motion of the 
agonic lines along the equator. I find that 
both agonie lines have been moving west- 
wardly along the equator for the last 300 
years at the average rate of about 0.°2 per an- 
num. If the motion continues around the 
equator at this rate the resulting period 
would be about 2000 years, but I do not 
wish to be understood as asserting that this 
is the secular variation period. 

A possible third field, which has been 
made probable by Dr. A. Schmidt’s beau- 
tiful researches, was also pointed out. 
Schmidt found, namely, that not the en- 
tire observed magnetic effect on the earth 
can be referred to a potential; currents 
that pierce the earth’s surface seem to make 
themselves felt. Perhaps his currents can 
be explained thus: If an arbitrarily mag- 
netized sphere rotates in a conducting fluid, 


676 


the surface of contact of sphere and fluid 
being conducting, currents will be incited 
in the fluid that will pass into the sphere 
and out again. 

In the case of the earth there is no fluid 
with reference to which the solid earth per- 
forms a total differential rotation; still 
there are partial differential rotations due 
to moving streams, ocean currents, tidal 
waves and air currents. Such a field, if it 
exist, can be differentiated with the aid of 
the potential theory. if 

Purely local disturbances would consti- 
tute a fourth—the ‘ anomalous field.’ 

We as yet have no satisfactory answer as 
to the origin of the earth’s primary mag 
netic field, neither has the astronomer an 
answer to the query ‘ Whence the moon.’ 
He, however, accepts the moon’s existence 
and computes its disturbing effects upon 
the earth’s motions. Just so it is with the 
earth’s magnetism. We do not know 
whence it has come, but we know it is 
there. We know that to-day the mag- 
netic earth is rotating about an eccentric 
axis, and so let us ask ourselves What 
is the effect of the self-inductive action of the 
rotating magnetic earth? How is the prin- 
ciple of the conservation of energy when applied 
to the motions of the magnetic earth to be ful- 
filled ? L. A. BAUER. 


ON A DEVONIAN LIMESTONE-BRECCIA IN 
SOUTHWESTERN MISSOURI. 

Tue brecciated limestone which it is pro- 
posed to describe in this paper outcrops 
near the base of Hagle Ridge, on the west 
side of the valley of Dry Creek, five miles 
west of the town of Galena, county seat of 
‘Stone County, Missouri. The several mem- 
bers of the Devonian strata in this portion 
of the State are, in their normal condition, 
very regular and evenly bedded, and are 
perfectly conformable, from their base, to 
and with the overlying Kinderhook Group. 
They rest, with slight local unconformity, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 25. 


on the magnesian limestones of the Ozark 
Series, and then out toward the east, at the 
expense of the lower members, each stratum 
overlapping that which is under it. 
vicinity of the limestone breccia they pre- 
sent the following sections: 1. Green Shale, 
7 feet. 2. Shaley Limestone, 10 feet. 3. 
Speckled Crinoidal Limestone, 3 feet. 4. 
Basal Conglomeratic Sandstone, 4 inches. 

Proceeding south along the west side of 
the valley we find the first indication of 
a disturbance in the form of a gentle undu- 
lation of the upper portion of the shaley 
limestone, No. 2 of the section. A few 
hundred yards further we encounter the 
first of a series of huge masses of breccia, 
consisting of the light gray, amorphous 
limestone and thin shale of No. 2, broken 
into angular fragments of various sizes, and 
recemented, partly by a similar substance, 
and partly by the subsequent infiltration of 
calcareous matter occurring now in the form 
of calcite. The original bedding planes 
have been mostly obliterated, and the bree- 
cia weathers out along the hillside in boul- 
der-like masses, 10 to 20 feet thick, and 50 
to 100 feet in width. A stratum of shaley 
limestone at the base of these masses parti- 
ally retains its original appearance, and 
from its relation to the more massive brec- 
cia overlying it the whole is seen to haye 
been subjected to violent contortion and 
fracture, such that boulders of hard lime- 
stone have been forced into the midst of 
ealeareous shale. There are about half a 
dozen of these masses exposed along the val- 
ley side, in a distance of about 1000 feet; 
then the undulations decrease, and at one- 
half mile from where the first disturbance 
in the strata was noticed they entirely 
cease, and from thence down the valley the 
strata are in their normal condition. 

There is no indication of the action of 
water in the formation of the breccia. All 
the fragments are sharply angular, and fre- 
quently a fossil has been broken through 


| 


{ 


In the 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


and the positions of the pieces slightly 
changed, but not widely separated as they 
would inevitably have been had the brec- 
ciated masses been accumulated by wave 
action on a seashore. The hypothesis that 
the brecciation and contortion were pro- 
duced by undermining of the strata and by 
subsequent crushing from the weight of the 
superincumbent rock is inconsistent with 
the facts. The lower members of the De- 
vonian strata are undisturbed, and in the 
central portion even the whole of No. 2 
seems to be present and perfectly horizon- 
tal and the breccia rests on it increasing 
the thickness of the Devonian strata from 
its normal 20 feet to 40 feet in the central 
portion of the disturbance. 

In short, the only theory which will ex- 
plain all the phenomena is that which has 
been applied, in explanation of the manner 
of formation of similar but vastly more 
extended Devonian limestone breccias in 
Iowa, viz., by lateral pressure produced by 
the ‘ creep’ or sliding on a sloping sea bot- 
tom of the displaced strata immediately 
after their deposition. 

From a study of the strike of the undu- 
lations, displacements and other attendant 
phenomena, it becomes evident that the 
pressure was applied from the northeast. 
The Devonian strata at present rise in that 
direction at a rate not exceeding 8 or 10 
feet per mile, and during the Devonian age 
were doubtless still more nearly horizon- 
tal. It is remarkable that so slight a slope 
could have given rise to a sliding of a por- 
tion of the sea bottom, but it is undoubtedly 
the fact that, while the deposition of the De- 
yvonian strata had proceeded without in- 
terruption to the top of the shaley limestone 
No. 2, the upper 2 or 3 feet began to slide on 
the underlying stratum. About the western 
line of Stone county the resistance over- 
eame the weight of the ‘creeping’ strata, 
and the tension becoming too strong, at one 
‘place certainly and perhaps at others not yet 


SCIENCE. 


677 


discovered, that they suddenly gave way, 
were contorted, brecciated, forced forward 
and hurled in boulder-like masses on to other 
undisturbed strata. 

Considering the intensity of the force and 
the conditions under which it was applied, 
it is surprising that the area of the disturb- 
ance should be so small; on the opposite 
side of the valley, one-eighth of a mile dis- 
tant, there is not the slightest sign of it, and 
in the next valley, one-fourth ofa mile south- 
west from it, the Devonian strata are undis- 
turbed. Its areal extent cannot be greater 
than one-fourth square mile. 

The lithification of the shaley limestone 
was practically complete at the time of the 
displacement, for the fragments are all 
sharply angular and must then have been 
very hard. And as the relation of the over- 
lying strata shows that the period of the 
disturbance immediately succeeded that of 
deposition of No. 2, deposition and lithifica- 
tion must have proceeded contemporane- 
ously. 

The green shale, which is the upper mem- 
ber of the Devonian in this region, thins 
out in the hollows between the dome-shaped 
prominences of the surface of the breccia, 
and totally disappears over the higher por- 
tions of the disturbed area. The points 
where it is absent are not now and never 
were more than twenty feet higher than the 
surrounding sea bottom, where the green 
shale was deposited in very regular lami- 
ne, without wave action. The areal dis- 
tribution of the green shale is such as to 
show that it was deposited in a compara- 
tively small and shallow esturine basin, 
connecting with the sea toward the south, 
and supplied with fine sediment from the 
land on the east and north. The limited 
extent of this body of water accounts for 
the feebleness of its waves, which did not 
affect the green shale at the depth of only 
twenty feet around the elevated area formed 
by the breccia. The higher prominences 


678 


of the breccia were slightly eroded by wave 
action during the deposition of the green 
shale in the surrounding water, but the 
leveling had not proceeded far when the 
Devonian age came to a close; the entire 
region was depressed, and the Louisiana 
limestone (formerly known as the Litho- 
graphic limestone), or basal member of the 
Kinderhook Group, was laid down over the 
breccia. It is usually a regularly bedded, 
dark gray limestone, everywhere perfectly 
conformable to the green shale, but over 
the distributed area it is irregularly bedded 
and slightly arched, but soon succeeded, by 
thickening in the hollows and thinning over 
the prominenees, in leveling off the ancient 
sea bottom. The Lower Carboniferous 
strata are here locally unconformable with 
the Devonian. We have thus seen that the 
thinning of the green shale over the area of 
disturbance fixes the time of said disturb- 
ance at the period between the deposition 
of Nos. 1 and 2 or the shaley limestone and 
the green shale. From a general resem- 
blance between the shaley limestone of this 
region and portions of the Cedar valley 
limestone of Iowa, and from the fact that 
this peculiar mode of brecciation obtained 
in both regions, I wish to suggest that the 
light brown or gray, amorphous, shaley 
limestone of southwestern Missouri may be 
the equivalent of the Cedar valley lime- 
stone of central Iowa. 
Oscar H. HursHey. 
GALENA, Mo. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY (X.) 
LEY’S CLOUDLAND. 

Tus long expected work (Stanford, Lon- 
don, 1894. 208 p.) is an effort to establish 
a classification and terminology of clouds 
on a genetic basis. While such a plan has 
much to commend it, and must eventually 
be adopted in fully developed form, its 
presentation now is perhaps premature; for 
there is yet much to learn regarding the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 25. 


origin of certain cloud forms, and much 
difference of opinion still prevails on the 
subject. Four chief classes are recognized 
in Ley’s scheme: clouds of radiation, such 
as ground fogs; of inversion, such as cum- 
ulus, dependent on overturnings in an un- 
stable atmosphere; of interfret, such as 
waving stratiform clouds formed at the con- 
tact of layers of different temperature ; and 
of inclination, such as pendent cirrus wisps, 
caused by the settlement of particles from 
one atmospheric stratum into another. The 
illustrations, reproduced from photographs 
by Clayden, are for the most part excellent. 
The chief deficiency of the work is the ab- 
sence of comparative tables, by which the 
terms proposed by Ley may be translated 
into those adopted by the International 
Meteorological Congress. In a number of 
passages exceptions must be taken to the 
manner of physical explanation of cloud 
formation, especially to statements concern- 
ing the relation of water and ice particles 
in cumulus and cirrus clouds, and to the re- 
peated implication that the liberation of la- 
tent heat in the condensation of vapor ac- 
tually warms the air. The chapters on the 
theory of atmospheric currents and on the 
prevailing winds of the globe are hardly 
relevant to the rest of the book and add 
little value to it. Remembering that the 
author has devoted years of observation to 
cloud study, and that latterly his work has 
been much interrupted by ill health, it is 
doubly a regret that his book cannot be 
more highly commended. 


BUREAU CENTRAL METEOROLOGIQUE. 

TuHE latest series of Annales of this im- 
portant Bureau contain as usual a volume 
of memoirs in which, besides the statistical 
studies of thunder storms in France by Fron 
and several reports of magnetism, there are 
essays by Angot on the advance of vegeta- 
tion and the migration of birds in France 
for ten years, 1881-1890, and on the meteor- 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


ological observations on the Hiffel tower 
during 1892; and by Durand-Gréville on 
squalls and thunderstorms. Nearly all the 
features of the advance of vegetation exhibit 
the accelerating influence of the Mediter- 
ranean and the retarding influence of the 
Bay of Biscay. The records of the Eiffel 
tower are chiefly interesting in showing in- 
versions of nocturnal temperature in the 
means of all the months, and consequently 
in proving a distinct variation in the diurnal 
values of the vertical temperature gradient 
in the lower atmosphere; as well as a change 
of the time of maximum wind velocity from 
afternoon at surface stations to night at the 
top of the tower. Durand-Gréville’s essay 
is illustrated by an excellent chart of the 
distribution of pressure during an extended 
squall that occurred on August 27, 1890; 
the isobars being drawn for every milli- 
meter, and showing a sharp N-like double 
bend at the place of the squall. 


WINTER STORMS IN THE NORTH SEA. 

Tue famous Christmas storm of 1821, 
which led Brandes and Dove to their 
early statements concerning the system of 
storm winds, finds a modern parallel in a 
storm of December 22-23, 1894, described 
by K6ppen in the Annalen der Hydrographie, 
edited by the Naval Observatory at Ham- 
burg, and published in Berlin. On the morn- 
ing of December 22 the storm center, with a 
pressure of 715 mm., lay just east of Scot- 
land; on the evening, with a pressure of 
725, the center lay just west of Denmark. 
The whirling courses of the winds are well 
illustrated ; a southerly gale crossed the 
Baltic, while a northerly gale raged on the 
North sea; violent east winds blew off the 
coast of Norway, and westerly gales were 
recorded in northern Germany. Disastrous 
storm floods were felt at many points on 
the coast, and salty rain fell at many points 
in England. Other storms were felt a week 
earlier and later ; but, apropos of this ap- 


SCIENCE. 


67S 


parent periodicity, Képpen remarks that 
thus far all efforts to establish weekly, 
monthly or longer weather cycles have, 
without exception, failed, and that, while 
the faint and easily obliterated traces of 
such periods have a certain scientific in- 
terest, they have not yet a practical value. 
The Annalen der Hydrographie is a character- 
istic German journal, in which a serious 
and scientifie style of work is carried into 
the accounts of foreign coasts and harbors, 
as reported by officers of the marine. It 
frequently contains articles and reviews of 
interest on winds, tides and currents. 


ELEVATION AS A CAUSE OF GLACIATION, 


Ir is probable that no one questions the 
sufficiency of elevation to account for gla- 
ciation, if other things, such as external 
controls of climate, remain unchanged; but 
there are serious difficulties in the way of 
aecepting the thesis maintained by Upham 
(latest expressed in Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., 
vi., 1895, 343-352) to the effect that 
the glacial sheets of northeastern America 
and northwestern Europe were caused by 
and hence were coincident in time with the 
elevation that permitted the erosion of the 
deep marginal valleys of the continents. 
Upham cites the case of the Sogne fiord, on 
the west coast of Norway with a maximum 
sounding of 4,080 feet, as a measure of the 
epirogenic uplift which at its culmination 
caused the glaciation of northern Europe. 
The difficulty here is that while a compara- 
tively long period of elevation must be pos- 
tulated for the excavation of the valley of 
Sogne fiord, and while climatic change 
would respond immediately to elevation, 
yet glacial conditions are not known to 
have occured until the erosive effects of 
elevation were practically completed. The 
steepness of the fiord walls indicates that 
the elevation was not slowly progressive, 
but was rather promptly completed and 
steadily maintained; being in this unlike 


680 


the elevation by which the erosion of the 
flaring and benched valleys of the northern 
Alps has been allowed. The problem in- 
volved in the relation of elevation and gla- 
ciation would therefore seem to be not the 
simple one of immediate cause and effect, 
but on the other hand the difficult one of 
why the apparently competent cause should 
not have at once had its expected effect; 
why glaciation should have waited so long 
after elevation, not attaining its maximum 
until a time of depression. 


FORESTS AND TORRENTS. 


THE much-debated problem of the influ- 
ence of forests on rainfall remains unproved, 
after all that has been said and done; but 
the influence of forests on torrents admits 
of no question. The soil is washed from 
the deforested slopes and the torrents spread 
it over the valleys, greatly to the injury of 
both high and low land. The Shenandoah 
Valley, for example, one of the most beauti- 
ful and productive farming districts in our 
country, is suffering along its margin from 
the encroachments of gravels and sands 
washed from the enclosing deforested ridges. 
Those who wish to present this matter to 
forestry meetings in popular and impres- 
sive form will find an abundance of illus- 
trative material with references to European 
literature on the subject in an essay by 
Toula: Ueber Wildbach-Verheerungen and die 
Mittel thnen vorzubeugen (Schr. Vereins zur 
Verbreitung naturw. Kenntnisse in Wien, 
Xxxii., 1892, 499-622, with forty-one views 
from photographs). W. M. Davis. 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


NOTES ON AGRICULTURE (IIL) 
THE EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 
Tur Experiment Station Record, a 
monthly (practically) published from the 
office of Experiment Stations of the U.S§. 
Department of Agriculture gives under 
the heads of Chemistry, Botany, Zoél- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 25. 


ogy, Meteorology, Soils, Fertilizers, Field 
crops, Horticulture, Forestry, Seeds, Weeds, 
Diseases of Plants, Entomology, Foods, _ 
Veterinary Science, Dairying, Technol- 
ogy, Statistics and Miscellaneous, the prog- 
ress made in these various branches in the 
Experiment Stations of our country. The 
recent work in Agricultural Science in for- 
eign countries is also briefly summarized. 

From the last issue of the Record, just 
received, the reader is first of all informed 
as to the amounts of the appropriations 
made by Congress for the U.S. Department 
of Agriculture for the year ending June 30, 
1896. The total amount is $2,578,750, 
which includes $720,000 for the Experi- 
ment Stations established under the act of 
Congress of March 2, 1887. There will be 
two new divisions in the U. S. Division 
of Agriculture, namely, that of Agrostology, 
which contemplates ‘field and laboratory 
investigation relating to the natural history, 
geographical distribution and use of the 
various grasses and forage plants,’ and that 
of Soils. 

Among reports of agricultural science in 
foreign lands is a paper upon ‘ Agricultural 
Investigations in Switzerland,’ by Dr. 
Grete, director of the Swiss Station at Zu- 
rich. In 1878 a Station for control of fer- 
tilizers and feeding stuffs was established, 
and recently its work has been extended to. 
include culture tests of soils. There is a 
Seed Control Station which at the present 
time has eight workers besides the director, 
and tests by germination thousands of sam- 
ples of seeds. 

Under the head of chemistry the Record 
gives the new methods of obtaining solutions 
in soil analyses and the determination of 
phosphoric acid. The department of Botany 
contains a review of Professor Scribner’s. 
‘Grasses’ of Tennessee, which is a valuable. 
contribution to the Agrostology of the whole 
country. ‘Notes on Maize,’ by Dr. Sturte- 
vant, contains generalizations upon the 


4 


| 


| 


a: 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


effect of climate upon corn, the view being 
maintained that northern grown varieties 
are not necessarily earlier than southern 
sorts. The popping of corn is due to the 
starch lying within a tough layer which 
bursts upon the application of heat. 

Under meteorology winds injurious to 
crops are considered at length in a digest 
of Mr. Curtis’ bulletin. Three classes of 
destructive winds are considered, namely, 
violent, cold and drying winds. Of the 
cold winds there are two classes, the moun- 
tain and valley, and those associated with 
cyclones, the so-called blizzards and ‘ north- 
ers,’ chiefly destructive to orchard crops. 
The extent of the latter has increased with 
the progress of deforestation, and the Michi- 
gan peach belt, with its failures in late years, 
isgiven asanexample. Under‘ Variations 
in the Character of the Seasons,’ Mr. Gaw- 
throp shows cause and makes an appeal for 
the exploration of the upper atmosphere. 
Mr. Clayton, under‘Rhythm in the Weather,’ 
claims that ‘ there is good reason to believe 
that through all this seeming irregularity 
there runs a web of harmony and rhythm,’ 
and expects that meteorology will in time be- 
come an exact science. It is certainly 
gratifying to note how much attention is 
being given to the weather and the progress 
that is made from year to year in its study. 

While the air is being investigated the 
soils are not neglected. In addition to an- 
alyses in relation to fertilizers the action of 
organic acids is reported upon by H. Sny- 
der, of the Minnesota Station. Soil tempera- 
tures are taken at many Stations and facts 
are rapidly accumulated upon soil meteor- 
ology as well as the movements of liquids 
and gases in the soil. 

Naturally, a large part of the chemical 
work of the Experiment Stations is with fer- 
tilizers and the record before us gives a full 
share of its space to this branch of the Sta- 
tion service. The New Jersey Station is- 
sues a large bulletin giving the results of 


SCLENCE. 


681 


analyses, while the Maine Station reports 
upon the foraging powers of some agricul- 
tural plants for phosphoric acid, as tested by 
box experiments. The Louisiana Station 
issues a large bulletin upon the ‘ Results of 
five years’ experiments with fertilizers.’ 
This is not the place to give conclusions, the 
point here being for the readers of Screncr to 
realize that experiment work in this country 
is widespread in the broad sense, and that 
we are entering an age that has for its 
watchword, ‘Prove all things,’ while we may 
hope that we hold fast to that which is good. 

Mr. Crazier, of Michigan, takes up a single 
somewhat obscure crop, the millet, and with 
sixty-four pages of text and six figures gives 
results obtained from seventy-three samples 
grown under varying conditions. In like 
manner Mr. Hilgard, of California, brings 
out the facts concerning the new tannin- 
producing plant carnaigre. From the same 
Station is a bulletin upon the Australian salt 
bush, which grown upon ‘some of the most 
alkali spots yielded at the rate of five tons 
of dry matter per acre,’ and is eaten with 
relish by live stock. Experiments upon 
wheat, tobacco, potatoes and several other 
standard crops receive notice in the Record. 

Under Horticulture Mr. Heideman, of 
the Minnesota Station, gives a ‘ classifica- 
tion of the sexual affinities of Prunus Ameri- 
cana vars. Numerous crosses were made 
between the various forms of flowers, most 
of which were not hermaphroditic, and out 
of forty-nine possible combinations of pol- 
lination only 13 were legitimate. Mr. 
Lodeman, of Cornell, has issued a bulletin 
upon ‘ grafting of grapes,’ illustrating direc- 
tions for the various methods and remarking 
upon the physiology of the process. In his 
annual report, Mr. Munson, of Maine, gives 
notes upon various crops. Thus in a cross 
between ignotum and peach tomatoes there 
was ‘a marked falling off in the second gen- 
eration over the advantage indicated by the 
first.’ ? 


682 


Mr. Buckhout after ‘ five years’ experience 
in planting forest trees’ concludes in the 
Pennsylvania Station Report “ that consider- 
ing the time, expense and work involved, 
artificial forest planting cannot be recom- 
mended, at least in the way pursued in the 
experiment and that natural methods of re- 
foresting supplemented by some seed sow- 
ing, thinning and planting will suffice for 
the present.” Mr. McCarthy, of the North 
Carolina Station, has prepared a bulletin 
upon seed testing and fully describes its 
uses and methods. Weeds receive atten- 
tion from Mr. Wooton, of the New Mexico 
Station, who figures several of the worst in 
his Territory. 

Under diseases of plants some grape 
troubles in New York are reported upon by 
Mr. Lodeman of Cornell. Thus the so-called 
‘shelling’ is ascribed to one or more of four 
causes, namely, parasites, conditions of 
vine, of soil, or of atmosphere. An English 
experimenter shows that finely ground lime 
700 pounds per acre will check the club 
root in turnips. Resin is found by Mr. 
Webber to be effective in preventing the 
sooty mould of the orange. 

Heonomic entomology receives considera- 
tion under many heads as the damage 
caused by American locusts, chinch bugs, 
codling moth, ete. A new saw-fly and pear 
insect are mentioned and many species are 
named under beneficial insects. Gas treat- 
ment for destroying scale insects is reported 
upon from California and ‘ Entomology and 
Quarantine’ is considered. 

Much space is given to the consideration 
of foodstuffs, their analyses, digestibility, 
etc., the Maine Station perhaps taking the 
lead in these matters in the copy of the 
Record in hand, while Utah and Minnesota 
come in for a share in ‘ dairy herd records’ 
and ‘relative value of corn and oats for 
horses.’ Several papers are mentioned by 
title or at length under dairying. 

Surely enough has been here given to 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. I. No. 25. 


show that the Experiment Stations of the 
United States are pushing on along many 
lines, and that through the facts accumu- _ 
lated principles cannot but be laid bare. 


THE HORTICULTURALISTS’ RULE-BOOK. 

Tue first edition of this ‘compendium of 
useful information for fruit-growers, truck- 
growers, florists and others’ by Professor 
L. H. Bailey, of Cornell University, was 
published in 1889 and a second in 1892. 
The great advances made in methods of 
combating insect and fungous enemies dur- 
ing the past few years led the author to re- 
vise and extend his work. A chapter upon 
greenhouse heating has been added and 
another upon the current literature of hor- 
ticulture. 

The following are some of the leading 
subjects considered: insecticides and in- 
jurious insects, plant diseases with preven- 
tives and remedies; injuries from mice, 
rabbits and other animals; weeds, seed- 
tables, ete. There is a chapter upon Rules 
in which are given rules for naming fruit, 
codes of various societies, ete. Within the 
flexible covers of this little book the pub- 
lishers (Macmillan & Co.) have neatly 
packed together a surprising amount of 
valuable information. Here the horticul- 
turist may learn how much seed to sow per 
acre, how many plants to set in his orchard, 
how to keep off the enemies to his crop, 
and when to harvest and market it. Not 
the least is a list of the leading books that 
have been published upon horticultural sub- 
jects and within easy reach of crop grow- 
ers. Byron D. Hatstep. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE STANDARD NAT- 
URAL HISTORY. 


To THE Epiror or Scrence—Si7: Refer- 
ring to the statement in Scrmncor of April 
5, 1895, page 387, top of second column, that 
certain illustrations of Brehm’s Thierleben 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


‘were pirated by the Standard Natural. His- 
tory,’ I beg to say that it is incorrect and 
libelous. The matter concerns me, as one 
of the authors of the Standard Natural History, 
and also as the author of the Key to North 
American Birds, in several later editions of 
which many of the same illustrations were 
used by my publishers, Messrs. Estes & 
Lauriat, of Boston. As ‘piracy,’ like pla- 
giarism, implies dishonesty, the allegation 
thus made by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, who 
signs the article, is too serious to be over- 
looked. 

Nevertheless, being ready to believe that 
Dr. Merriam erred through inadvertence, 
Iam prepared to accept an apology, in so 
far as I am personally concerned; but I am 
not authorized to state that this will be con- 
sidered satisfactory by the other parties 
who have been thus libeled. 

Very truly yours, 
Exxiorr Coves. 
WASHINGTON, D. C., June 5, 1895. 


[The word piracy may be used in two 
senses—moral and commercial. When I 
wrote the article in which it was stated in- 
cidentally that the Brehm plates in the 
Standard Natural History were pirated, I be- 
lieved that they were in both senses. Among 
the reasons for this belief may be mentioned 
the following : 

1. The book itself contains no statement 
of the fact that the illustrations are taken 
from Brehm. 

2. The anatomist Fiirbringer states that 
he searched in vain for a copy of the Stand- 
ard Natural History in Germany (Journal 
fiir Ornithologie, Apr., 1892, 138). 

3. It is stated in the Nature Novitates, 
Berlin (Vol XV., No. 1, Jan., 1893, p. 18, 
nr. 326), that the work ‘may not be im- 
ported into Europe on account of the re- 
production of the Brehm woodcuts.’ [* Darf 
in Europa wegen Nachdruck der Brehmschen 
Holzschnitte nicht eingefiihrt werden.’] 

4. The name of the artist, Miitzel, was 


SCIENCE. 


683 


erased from many of the copied plates. 
When the attention of the editor was called 
to this injustice, he replied: “The cutting 
out of Mitzel’s name was a business ne- 
cessity.’’! 

If, in spite of the above facts, the cuts in 
question were sold to the publishers of the 
Standard Natural History by the publishers 
of Brehm’s Thierleben, I withdraw so much 
of my original charge as may be inferred to 
imply commercial piracy; but I by no 
meams retract the charge of moral piracy— 
the greater offense of the two, because it 
has no legal redress. 

Is the deliberate reproduction of another’s 
pictures without credit less censurable than 
the reproduction of another's words or ideas? 
And what shall one say when the sin of 
plagiarism is darkened by the erasure of 
the artist’s name, so that neither artist nor 
author may be known? 

Just why Dr. Coues mentioned his Key 
to North American Birds, and his publishers, 
Estes & Lauriat, who by the way were not 
the publishers of the Standard Natural His- 
tory, is hard to understand, inasmuch as 
neither were mentioned in the review to 
which he takes exception. 

Since the above note was sent to ScreNcE 
I have received a letter from the publishers 
of Brehm’s Thierleben in Leipsic. They 
state that they sold to Estes & Lauriat cer- 
tain electrotypes from Brehm, to be used by 
Estes & Lauriat only, ‘ under an agreement 
according to which it was forbidden to 
Messrs. Estes & Lauriat to resell these elec- 
trotypes.’ They state further: “ As we had 
been informed that notwithstanding this 
settlement our electrotypes had been resold, 
we called Messrs. Estes & Lauriat to ac- 
count, and they were forced to confess that 
they had resold the electrotypes”’ to three 
different firms! 

In reply to my question: ‘‘ Were the 
electrotypes sold by you to S. E. Cassino & 
Co., and published in the Standard Natural 


684 


History with your knowledge and consent,’ 
they state: “We answer No! These electro- 
types had not been sold by us to Messrs. S. E. 
Cassino & Co., and were used without our 
permission in the said works. Besides, we 
are still at issue with Messrs. Estes & Laur- 
iat, Boston, on account of this affair.”’ 
C. Harr Merriam. | 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

Report on Water Supply; Geological Survey of 
New Jersey. By Cornenivus CLarKson 
VERMEULE, Consulting Engineer. Vol. 
III. of the Final Report of the State 
Geologist. 1894. 

The Geological Survey of New Jersey has 
just issued a report bearing the above title, 
the interest and value of which are not lim- 
ited by State lines. Its author, under whose 
direction the topographic map of the State 
was made, has had the best of opportuni- 
ties for studying the questions involved, and 
has not failed to avail himself of them. The 
results of his study have been put in as 
simple and available form as possible, con- 
sidering the complex nature of the problems. 

The range of interests touched by the re- 
port is great. It will be of imestimable 
value to cities and communities which draw 
or may draw their supply of water from the 
streams of the State, and to manufacturers 
who use or may use the power afforded by 
them. Less directly, but not less certainly, 
the report will be of great value in the same 
lines outside the State, since many of the 
principles developed are of general and some 
of them of universal application. The report 
also contains discussions and suggestions 
which have a bearing on agriculture and for- 
estry, the latter of which is just now attract- 
ing wide attention in this and other States. 
The educational value of the report is great, 
not only to those whose financial and sani- 
tary interest are touched by it, but also to 
students of hydrography and geology, and 
to intelligent citizens in general. From this 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 25. 


standpoint, its value lies not only in what 
it proves and affirms, but also in what it 
disproves and denies. It is scarcely too 
much to say that there is not a community 
or a class in the State which may not be 
benefited by the intelligent study of the 
volume before us. 

The study of the water resources of the 
State was begun by Professor Cook long 
ago. As early as 1868 the subject was dis- 
cussed by him, and the annual reports of 
the State Geologist have since made fre- 
quent reference to the subject, and have 
reported the progress of the work, the re- 
sults of which are now embodied in this 
volume. Interest in the questions of which 
it treats has been stimulated by the rapid 
growth in population, especially in the 
vicinity of New York and Philadelphia. 
In 1882, 587,760 people in New Jersey were 
dependent for water upon systems of public 
supply. In 1894 this number had nearly 
doubled, while the amount of daily con- 
sumption had increased from about 49,000,- 
000 gallons to about 108,000,000. Of this 
amount, 100,000,000 gallons were drawn 
from streams. If the population of the 
State continues to increase at the present 
rate for another half century, and if the 
demand for water keeps pace with the in- 
crease in population, as is sure to be the 
case, it is evident that another half century 
will make heavy demands upon the available 
supply of water which the State affords. 
On the basis of the recent rate of increase 
in population, it is estimated that by 1950 
that part of New Jersey adjacent to New 
York City will need 547,000,000 gallons of 
water daily; and the author remarks that 
“since fifty years cannot be considered a 
long time in the future for which to’ make 
provision, it is evident that the time has 
come for us to know what our resources are 


and to provide for their preservation and 


wise development”’ (p. 6). 
The investigation of the water resources 


ee 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


of the State has involved a careful study of 
the relation between precipitation and 
stream flow. This study has led to some 
very important conclusions, the data for 
which are drawn not merely from within the 
State of New Jersey, but from all available 
sources. The analysis of the facts has led 
Mr. Vermeule to the conclusion that a for- 
mula may be adopted which shall express 
with approximate accuracy the relation be- 
tween rainfall and evaporation, within the 
basins of the streams studied. This formula 
is E=15.50+.16 R, in which E= total an- 
nual evaporation, R= annual precipitation, 
and 15.50 stand for inches of water. R 
minus E will equal the annual flow of the 
river in question. A modification of the 
formula for mean annual temperature is 
suggested, and in this modified form it 
becomes universal. In this connection it 
is stated that a careful study of the annual 
precipitation and flow of variously widely 
separated streams “has practically demon- 
strated that the difference in amount dis- 
charged (by streams) for given rainfalls is 
due almost entirely to increase or decrease 


of evaporation owing to increased or de- _ 


creased annual temperature” (p. 75); and 
that temperature is ‘a much more potent 
factor than forests, topography, or the other 
causes usually assigned’ (p. 77) to account 
for the variations in the discharges of 
streams. So thoroughly is evaporation be- 
lieved to be dependent on temperature that 
“the (river) gaugings (representing the 
rainfall which does not evaporate) actually 
indicate the mean temperature of the water 
sheds more closely than we can obtain it 
from available temperature observations ”’ 
(p. 334). It will be readily seen that the 
formule noted above, and the principles 
which go along with them, greatly simplify 
the whole question of the relation of rain- 
fall and stream flow, and are of the 
greatest importance to all interests depend- 
ent on streams, or effected by them. For- 


SCIENCE. 


685 


mul are deduced for calculating the propor- 
tion of rainfall which disappears by eva- 
poration for each month, and for determin- 
ing the flow of a stream for any given 
month, the rainfall and temperature of its 
basin being known. 

Of immediate practical value to the citi- 
zens of the State are the detailed data con- 
cerning the streams of New Jersey. These 


data include the total, the average and the 


minimum flow of each stream of the state, 
the available and the utilized power, ete., 
ete. The data are combined in various 
ways with a view to making them useful 
in various directions. 

Popular ideas to the contrary notwith- 
standing, statistics show that there has 
been a slow but steady increase in the use 
of water power within the State. While 
many small powers have been abandoned, 
this loss has been made more than good by 
the establishment of larger ones. The total 
amount now in use is about 31,000 horse 
power. Pertinent suggestions are offered 
as to the further utilization of the power 
afforded by the streams. 

Forests are thought not to influence the 
annual evaporation or stream flow to any 
marked extent, nor to influence particu- 
larly extreme floods. With deforesting, how- 
ever, comes increased irregularity of stream 
flow, including more frequent moderate 
floods, lower flow of streams during periods 
of drought, and more protracted periods of 
low flow (page 344). Care is taken to em- 
phasize the beneficial effects of forests in 
preserving soil on slopes, in creating absorb- 
ent matter (humus, ete.), which holds the 
water and helps to equalize its flow. 

Cultivation is thonght not to greatly af- 
fect the total stream flow, though it affects 
its regularity. It increases the absorbent 
capacity of the soil, and so the total flow 
from underground water, while under drain- 
age tends to produce irregularity of flow. 
“As between cultivated and barren water- 


686 


sheds, * * the cultivated will show the 
steadiest conditions and the best-sustained 
dry-season flows, but as between cultivated 
and forested water sheds the forested will 
produce the best results. * * It follows 
also that floods will be most severe upon 
barren areas.’ Hence there exists * * 
‘the urgent necessity of preserving forests 
upon slopes, and all areas which are not 
adapted to agriculture’ (p. 348). 

Enough has been said to indicate the 
scope of the volume; which can hardly fail 
to become a hand-book on the question of 
water supply. It is probably not too much 
to say that this report alone is worth more 
to the State of New Jersey than its geolog- 
ical survey has ever cost. Other States of 
dense population would do well to follow 
the example of New Jersey, not only in 
studying their water resources, but in put- 
ting the work under the direction of their 
geological surveys; for the relation between 
the geology of a region and the availability 
of its water supply is so intimate that no 
other organization is better qualified to di- 
rect the work. The U.S. Geological Sur- 
vey has work of this sort in progress in some 
parts of the semi-arid regions of the West, 
from which good results are sure to come. 

Roi D. SaLispury. 

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 


John Dalton and the Rise of Modern Chemistry. 
By Sir Henry HE. Roscozr. New York 
and London, Macmillan & Co. §8vo. 
Pp. 216. Price, $1.25. 

It is one of the greatest achievements of 
modern chemistry to have shown that for 
each chemical element there is a measurable 
quantity which, throughout all the trans- 
formations that the element undergoes, re- 
mains unchanged, and is, therefore, to be 
regarded as a constant. The laws of defi- 
nite, multiple and reciprocal proportions 
of gas volumes and of specific heats, of mass 
action and of the periodicity of properties, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 25. 


all give converging evidence that for each 
element there is a definite constant quantity 


which, in all the changes that the element _ 


undergoes, acts like a unit. This constant 
is the one unchanging, and, therefore, the 
most characteristic property of the element. 
The chemical and physical properties of an 
element, its behavior under different con- 
ditions, its possibility of undergoing change 
under given circumstances, in short its 
whole character, is dependent upon the 
magnitude of this constant. A large part 
of theoretical chemistry is taken up with 
a consideration of the general methods that 
are available for the determination of this 
important quantity, and it is customary to 
express it by means of a number which in- 
dicates its magnitude in terms of the 
characteristic quantity of some one element, 
usually hydrogen, taken as a unit. To 
this number the name Atomic Weight has 
been given, and to John Dalton, indispu- 
tably, belongs the great credit of having 
first introduced into chemistry the idea of 
atomic weights. He transformed the New- 
tonian corpuscular theory of the constitu- 
tion of bodies into a workable chemical 
hypothesis, and the subsequent develop- 
ment of his idea, that the atoms of different 
elements have different constant masses, 
has given us our present system of atomic 
weights. But, whether we associate with 
this term the conception of an atomic con- 
stitution of matter or not, the fact remains 
that these constants stand to-day independ- 
ent of any hypothesis, and are to be regard- 
ed as mathematical quantities that can be 
deduced from the general laws and princi- 
ples of the science. 

In this book Sir Henry Roscoe has given 
us a most interesting account of the life and 
work of the great Manchester chemist. 
Dalton’s life, like that of many scientific 
workers, was not an eventful one, but he 
was a man of marked personality, of posi- 
tive traits of character, and our author has 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


interwoven a description of the personal 
characteristics of the man with an account 
of his scientific work and the incidents of 
his life in such a way as to make a most 
attractive and entertaining biography. 
From his early years Dalton was accus- 
tomed to looking at things from the stand- 
point of the atomic theory, and throughout 
his life he remained a firm supporter of this 
doctrine. Like Newton, he conceived of 
atoms as ‘hard impenetrable, movable par- 
ticles,’ ‘incomparably harder than any po- 
rous bodies compounded of them, even so 
very hard as never to wear or break in 
pieces.’ These atoms were supposed to be 
surrounded with an atmosphere of heat. 
He has left some drawings which show 
how he pictured to his mind the structure 
of the smallest particles of compounds, and 
in these he foreshadowed the modern con- 
stitutional and stereo-chemical formulas. 
In gases and elastic fluids he considered 
matter to be in an extreme state of division, 
and nearly all of his important discoveries 
resulted from experiments upon gases. It 
was by considering the constitution of gases 
that he came to the idea of atomic weights. 
Dalton was not as skillful an experi- 
menter as some of his contemporaries; most 
of his apparatus was made by himself and 
was often of a very primitive kind. It is 
remarkable that he should have been able 
to get the results with it that he did; re- 
sults that were in most cases confirmed by 
other workers who used more accurate in- 
struments and more exact methods. Some 
of the important facts that he discovered 
were the equal expansibility of different 
gases under the influence of heat; the prac- 
tical constancy of the composition of the 
air, a fact which he established by means of 
a large number of analyses of air collected 
at different places and at different alti- 
tudes; the law of partial pressures, or that 
the total pressure of a gas mixture is equal 
to the sum of the partial pressures of the 


SCIENCE. 


687 


components, and that in a mixture of gases 
each component acts like a vacuum to the 
other components and behaves as though it 
alone were present. He also investigated 
the solubility of gases in liquids; but his 
greatest discovery was the law of multiple 
proportions. Upon this discovery and upon 
the fact that he introduced the atomic theory 
with the idea of atoms of different weights 
his great fame as a scientific man rests. 

Of especial interest in this book is the 
account here published for the first time of 
how Dalton arrived at his important con- 
clusion. Among the Dalton papers belong- 
ing to the Manchester Literary and Philo- 
sophicial Society, Sir Henry Roscoe has 
found some manuscript notes prepared by 
Dalton for a course of lectures that he de- 
livered at the Royal Institution in the win- 
ter of 1809-10. These notes are printed 
in full and give an account by Dalton him- 
self how his ideas regarding the atomic 
theory came to him. 

Mentally he was vigorous, independent 
and self-reliant; he gave little attention to 
the results obtained by others. Like New- 
ton he reached his conclusions by quiet, 
steady, continuous thinking. His long life 
was spent in experimenting and reflecting. 
It is pleasant to know that in his later years 
many honors and tokens of esteem came to 
him from his countrymen and from abroad. 

After Dalton the atomic theory was de- 
veloped and put upon a much broader 
foundation by Berzelius, and through his 
work and that of a long line of illustrious 
successors it has become the central domi- 
nant feature of theoretical chemistry. 

It is noteworthy that Joule, who did so 
much to establish the law of the conserva- 
tion of energy, was a pupil of Dalton, and 
that the names of both master and pupil 
are so intimately associated with our two 
great intellectual instruments of investi- 
gating nature, the atomie hypothesis and 
the theory of energy. The deductions of the 


688 


former have the advantage of being readily 
apprehended, those of the latter of being 
mathematically exact. 

Sir Henry Roscoe deserves the thanks of 
all workers in chemistry for having provided 
them with an unusually interesting biogra- 
phy of one of the founders of the science. 

Epwarp H. K&IsEr. 

BRYN MAWR COLLEGE. 


Elasticitat und Festigheit. By C. Bacu, Pro- 
fessor in the Technical High School at 
Stuttgart. Second Edition. Berlin, Ju- 
lius Springer. 1894. Octavo, 432 pages 
and xiv plates. 

In this work the author lays down the 
guiding principle that the student of me- 
chanics of materials should first of all be- 
come acquainted with the actual phenom- 
ena of stress. To this end photographic 
illustrations are given exhibiting the de- 
formations of bars under tension, of blocks 
under compression, of beams and plates 
under flexure and of shafts under torsion. 
These illustrations are most useful and 
show the typical changes of form in a beau- 
tiful manner. Nevertheless their value is 
probably not so great as the author as- 
sumes, for nearly all the theories and com- 
putations of the mechanics of materials are 
confined to the case where the elastic 
strength is not exceeded and where changes 
of form are not perceptible to the eye. 

The modulus or coefficient of elasticity, 
usually represented by the letter H, is not 
employed in this book. Instead its recip- 
rocal is used and called the extension co- 
efficent, which may be defined as the 
‘stretch of a bar per unit of length due to a 
stress of unity on each square unit of cross 
section. There can be no doubt but that 
the term coefficient of elasticity is a most 
unfortunate one, as it has no relation to 
elasticity in the ordinary sense of the word, 
but is a measure of stiffness or rigidity. 
The improvement desired would be a 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. I. No. 25. 


change of name rather than the intro- 
duction of a new term and symbol. Even 
the author, who uses the new constant con 
sistently in all his formulas, rarely gives 
numerical values for it, but expresses these 
in terms of its reciprocal, which is, of 
course, the coefficient of elasticity as uni- 
versally employed. 

The scope of the work is that of a text- 
book on the mechanics of materials and of 
beams, columns and shafts, suitable for 
technical schools which desire to avoid ex- 
tended mathematical discussions. The 
usual theoretic formulas are demonstrated 
in a neat manner, and many results of 
tests are presented; those on circular, el- 
liptical and rectangular plates may in par- 
ticular be noted as novel and valuable. 
The subject of internal work or resilience is 
discussed more fully than in British or 
American books. True internal stresses 
resulting from the change of shape are 
properly used in the treatment of cylinders, 
spheres and plates; owing to the neglect of 
this precaution, formulas based upon ap- 
parent stresses, like those of Rankine, are 
liable to give values often deviating twenty- 
five per cent. from the truth. 

The formula for the design of columns, 
long used in the United States under the 
name of Gordon’s formula or Rankine’s 
formula, has not been employed in Germany 
to the extent that its value demands. The 
author, however, emphasizes it as an im- 
portant rule, and gives empirical constants 
for itsuse. He also states that the formula 
was first deduced by Navier; on referring 
to Navier’s works this statement is not 
found to be justified, it being only men- 
tioned that the stress on the concave side 
of the column is the sum of the stresses due 
to direct compression and to lateral flexure, 
while no formula similar to Gordon’s is 
established. 

On the whole, the perusal of the book 
leaves the impression that the author has 


{ 
4 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


done his work with much painstaking care, 
and that both the theoretical and the prac- 
tical part are set forth in a manner which 
cannot fail to give students an excellent 
foundation in the science of the elasticity 
and strength of materials. 
MANSFIELD MERRIMAN. 
LEHIGH UNIVERSITY. 


The Pocket Gophers of the United States. Bul- 
letin No. 5, U. 8. Department of Agricul- 
ture, Division of Ornithology and Mam- 
malogy. Prepared under the direction of 
Dr. C. Harr Merriam, Chief of division, 
by Vernon Batzey, Chief Field Agent, 
Central Park, New York. Published by 
authority of the Secretary of Agriculture. 
Washington, Government Printing Office. 
1895. 8vo., pp. 47. Frontispiece, 6 cuts 
in the text, and colored map. 

In a former number of Scrence (N. §S. 
Vol. I., No. 9, March 1, 1895) attention 
was called to a monograph by Dr. Merriam 
on the Pocket Gophers (family Geomyidz), 
in which was presented the scientific re- 
sults of his extended aud detailed studies 
of the group. The present ‘ Bulletin’ is a 
fitting sequel to the technical monograph 
already noticed, dealing, as it does, with the 
economic relations to agriculture of these 
destructive rodents. This paper was pre- 
pared by Mr. Vernon Bailey, under the 
direction of Dr. Merriam, Chief of the Di- 
vision of Ornithology and Mammalogy of 
the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Mr. 
Bailey is one of the most experienced and 
expert of the many expert field naturalists 
now connected with this branch of govern- 
ment service, and is therefore eminently fit- 
ted by personal experience in the field for 
the preparation of a report like the one 
under notice. 

The first ten pages relate to the general 
habits of these animals, which live almost 
wholly under ground, and make known their 
presence chiefly by the mounds of earth 


SCIENCE. 


689 


thrown out from their burrows, or by their 
troublesome depredations upon farm and 
garden products. Even where so numerous 
as to be exceedingly troublesome they are 
rarely seen, and little is known of their life 
habits by even the people who suffer from 
their depredations. Hence the detailed 
aceount of their habits and methods of 
working here given is a welcome contribu- 
tion toward a fuller knowledge of their life 
histories. Although deficient in vision, 
their senses of taste, touch and smell seem 
to be compensatingly acute, and their ample 
external cheek-pouches serve an important 
function in the transportation of food, for 
which they seem exclusively used. The 
Gophers, says Mr. Bailey, ‘‘ are industrious 
workers, and whatever food is found and 
not needed at once is carried to chambers 
in some part of the tunnel and stored. * * * 
Sometimes a peck of small potatoes, roots 
of coco grass, wild parsnip, wild sunflower 
and other fleshy or bulbous roots are found 
in a single chamber.’’ They are especially 
fond of potatoes, turnips, carrots, beets, 
onions, parsnips, corn, barley, rye and 
alfalfa, and even squashes and melons do not 
escape their ravages. They are also very 
destructive to fruit and ornamental trees by 
eating off their roots, which are sometimes 
so thoroughly cut away that the trees fall 
from lack of support. Their burrows are 
also often a source of injury over compara- 
tively large areas, through the large amount 
of earth thrown up as mounds, thus burying 
crops, and sometimes they cause breaks in 
irrigating ditches and induce serious wash- 
ing of hillside lands. 

The Gophers have few natural enemies, 
and seem to flourish and increase through 
the fruits of man’s industry. Hence the 
question of artificial means of destruction 
becomes a matter for careful consideration. 
They can be trapped readily by those who 
know how to do it, but generally the art is 
unknown, and it is a widespread belief 


690 


among farmers subject to their inroads that 
they cannot be caught in traps. Mr. Bailey 
especially commends the use of bisulphide 
of carbon for their destruction, which is 
readily accomplished by placing an ounce 
or two of this volatile fluid on cotton or 
rags in their burrows. Instructions are 
also given for the use of poison and traps. In 
consequence of the harm done by Gophers, 
bounties have been offered in many parts of 
the West, but the system is condemned as 
a means of depleting the county treasuries 
without effecting the extirpation of the 
Gophers. Thus it is stated that Benton 
county, Iowa, paid out $18,000 in three 
years in Gopher bounties, ‘‘ but the Gophers, 
though greatly reduced in numbers, were not 
exterminated.” 

Gophers of one species or another occupy 
practically the whole of the United States 
west of the Mississippi River, and also the 
greater parts of the States of Illinois, Geor- 
gia, Alabama and Florida. Detailed ac- 
counts are given of the habits of the various 
species found east of the Rocky Mountains. 
Aside from its important economic bearings, 
the Gopher Bulletin is a most interesting 
contribution to the life history of a group 
of animals hitherto little known. Four of 
the six illustrations in the text are from Dr. 
Merriam’s monograph, as are the frontis- 
piece (Georgia Gopher), and the colored 
map of the distribution of the species of the 
genera Geomys and Craterogeomys. The two 
colored plates (of the Prairie Gopher and 
Gray Gopher), called for in the list of illus- 
trations, and prepared especially for this 
Bulletin, are lacking, in consequence, as we 
are privately informed, of their having been 
‘mislaid’ at the Government Printing Office 
after their production and delivery by the 
Department of Agriculture. 

J. A. ALLEN. 
[The Norway Lemming] Myodes lemmus, its 
Habits and Migrations in Norway, by R. 
Collett. Christiania. 1895. 8°. pp. 62. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 25, 


The distinguished naturalist of Christi- 
ania, Dr. R. Collett, has just published a 
treatise on the Norwegian Lemming that at 
once becomes a classic on the subject. He 
tells us that, in a manuscript believed to 
have been written in the latter half of the 
13th century, the Lemmings are supposed 
to have been the same as the ‘ locusts’ men- 
tioned in the Bible in connection with the 
plagues in Egypt. In a book published by 
Jacob Ziegler in 1532 the theory of their 
descent from the clouds is proposed, based 
on statements of two bishops from Trond- 
hjem. In 1555 Olaus Magnus, Archbishop 
of Upsala, published a figure showing the 
Lemmings (with tails like house mice) fall- 
ing from the clouds and being preyed upon 
by Ermines. 

Dr. Collet states that normally the Lem- 
ming inhabits all of the mountain plateaus 
of Norway above the zone of coniferous 
trees, descending in Finmark to sea level, 
thus occupying about one-third of the total 
land area. Besides the mainland they in- 
habit the large rocky islands off the coast, 
especially to the northward. 

In normal years they are rarely seen, 
even by explorers. In prolific years they 
suddenly increase and overflow vast areas. 
In such years according to Dr. Collet, ‘‘ The 
litters produced during the course of the 
summer follow so closely one upon the other 
that the one set is barely allowed time to 
leave the nest ere the next lot arrives. 
Futhermore, the litters are unusually large, 
as they constantly contain up to 10 young- 
lings in each set (although possibly 6 or 7 
on the whole is the rule); and all these 
young ones appear to be possessed of greater 
powers of attaining maturity than those 
produced during a normal year.” 

This excessive reproduction results in 
overcrowding the breeding grounds, from 
which vast numbers move away in different 
directions. Descending the mountains and 
following the valleys they continue blindly 


_ JUNE 21, 1895.] 


on, proceeding hopelessly to certain death. 
The direction of the march is dependent 
on the valleys, and the exodus may “ radiate 
in quite opposite directions from one and 
the same mountain plateau, * * * * Thus 
during migratory years the southern rami- 
fications of the Lang Fjeld will emit 
swarms which may advance eastward as 
far as the Christiania Fjord; southward, 
down to the coastal regions of Christiania 
Stiff; and westward, to the fjords in the 
counties of Stavanger and Sondre Bergen- 
hus. * * * During the entire course of the 
summer and autumn, they continue to pour 
forth from the mountains. * * * * In the 
valleys they invariably meet with lakes or 
rivers, and large numbers constantly en- 
deavor to cross them. If the mountains 
are high on both sides, the valley will, as a 
rule, receive contributions from each slope, 
and individuals may be observed crossing 
the river in both directions.” 

“ During the migrations they do not allow 
themselves to be stopped by rivers, or even 
by the arms of a fjord, but trust themselves, 
without hesitation, to the mercy of the 
waves, in order to reach the opposite shore. 
It would almost seem as if no stretch of 
water were too wide for them to cross if 
they but see land on the other side. During 
the great migration in the district of 
Trondhjem in 1868, which has previously 
been mentioned, a steamer on the Trondhjem 
Fjord steamed into a crowd of swimming 
Lemmings of such vast extent that she took 
over a quarter of an hour to pass through 
it, and as far as one could see from the 
vessel down the fjord its waters were covered 
everywhere with these animals. During the 
great migratory years similar accounts are 
received from all the great lakes (Mjosen, 
Randsrjord, Kroderen, etc., ete.).” 

Great havoe is wrought in meadows and 
grain fields by the hungry hordes, particu- 
larly in mountain pastures and farms situ- 
ated on the higher slopes. 


SCIENCE. 


G91 


It is stated that no rule can be laid down 
concerning the frequency of the migratory 
years. The greatest migrations, which ex- 
tend down to the most distant lowlands, 
take place but seldom and rarely occur in 
the southern districts oftener than once in 
ten years. The number Dr. Collett has col- 
lected data for is surprising. He gives the 
dates and areas invaded for seven great 
migrations from 1739 to 1790, and for no 
less than 24 in the present century. 

As to the extent of the areas invaded, Dr. 
Collett says: ‘On the whole it may be as- 
sumed that scarcely any accessible point of 
Norway (except the outermost islets) has 
not been invaded by their hordes during 
one or other prolific year.”’ 

“Tt has hardly ever happened that a pro- 
lifie year (and the consequent migration) 
has simultaneously embraced the entire 
land. The rule is that the increase takes 
place in great or small districts independent 
of each other, but the area which may be 
involved thereby may be of very consider- 
able extent. Occasionally the increase will 
take place simultaneously in two separate 
districts, divided from each other by an 
area of greater or lesser extent, in which 
the production isnormal. In Norway there 
may be recognized, on the whole, at least five 
great groups of mountains within which 
most of the migrations have their radiating 
centre. One migration may embrace either 
the entire group or small portions of it.” 

The regular enemies of the Lemming are 
numerous and many of them increase with 
the Lemmings; as the birds of prey, the 
large gulls and skuas, and weasels and 
foxes. In prolific years certain birds which 
follow the Lemmings change their breeding 
grounds and nest in localities where they 
are never seen at other times. To these 
may be added certain irregular enemies ; 
for Dr. Collett tells us that reindeer (both 
wild and domesticated), cows, goats and 
pigs kill and eat them in great numbers. 


692 


But the destruction of the Lemmings 
after reaching the lowlands is only in small 
part due to these enemies. “The most 
active factor in their extermination,” says 
Dr. Collett, “appears to be infectious dis- 
eases, which invariably occur whenever a 
species of animal has multiplied in excess 
of its natural numbers.” 

Not only do the Lemmings themselves 
die of disease; but they are believed to 
cause serious disease among the human 
population. This belief has been current 
in Norway from time immemorial and was 
published by Ziegler more than 350 years 
ago. Dr. Collett states that during Lem- 
ming years all running water is contam- 
inated by the decaying excrement. “To 
this may be added the dead animals, which 
will be found lying scattered about in great 
numbers, and which, during hot summers, 
become quickly decomposed. The rain 
carries the putrid matter on to the nearest 
watercourse, whence it makes its way to 
wells, and becomes mixed with the drinking 
water of the inhabitants. 

“ During some great prolific years, definite 
forms of sickness have appeared in certain 
of the overrun districts, and the people have 
given these the name of ‘ Lemming Fever,’ 
as they presumed that they were connected 
with the appearance of these animals.” 

After citing medical testimony and de- 
seribing the disease, Dr. Collett concludes: 
“Lemming fever is thus a disease which, 
in its phenomena, is related to scarlet fever. 
Tts origin is regarded, both by medical men 
and the populace, as haying a certain con- 
nection with the appearance of the swarms 
of Lemmings and the pollution of water by 
their putrifying carcasses and dung during 
dry summers.” 

Dr. Collett’s treatise on the Habits and 
Migrations of the Lemming in Norway is re- 
plete with interest from beginning to end 
and must long remain the standard authority 
on the subject. C. H. M. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. I. No. 25. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
ASTRONOMY. 


THE London Times gives the following 
accounts of recent lectures before the Royal 
Institution and of the last meeting of the 
British Astronomical Association : 

Dr. W. Huggins, F. R. S., gave the sec- 
ond of his course of lectures on the instru- 
ments and methods of spectroscopic astron- 
omy, at the Royal Institution, on May 30th. 
He dealt with the more complex instrument 
which is placed at the eye-end of the tele- 
scope so that the images of the stars fall 
upon its slit. The important question of 
its efficiency was connected, the lecturer 
said, with its power to break up the spec- 
trum into as many parts as possible. This 
power of separation was fixed by certain 
conditions—the linear length of the spec- 
trum, its dispersion, and the resolving 
power of the prism. The latter, which was 
independent of dispensive power, was goy- 
erned by the size of the prism, hence larger 
prisms have greater resolving power. But 
the use of larger prisms in astronomical 
work entailed certain disadvantages, such 
as increased weight and cost, and difficulty 
of obtaining glass of uniform quality. It 
was therefore fortunately possible to get the 
results of large prisms by passing the beam 
through several smaller ones, though the 
loss of light by absorption and reflection 
from the faces of the prisms was very serious. 
An alternative way of obtaining a spectrum 
was to use a diffraction grating, which we 
owed to the experiments Fraunhofer made 
to discover whether the lines of the spec- 
trum were due to interference of light. 
His original gratings were made by winding 
wire in a screw-thread round a piece of 
glass; ultimately he adopted the plan of 
ruling the lines on glass with a diamond 
point. Great advances were made by 
Rutherfurd, whose machine cut lines to the 
number of 17,000 to an inch, and by Row- 
land. There is, however, but little to choose 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


between a prism and a grating with 14,000 
lines to the inch. 


Tue Friday evening discourse at the 
Royal Institution on May 31st was given 
by the Earl of Rosse, who took as his sub- 
ject the ‘Radiant Heat from the Moon dur- 
ing the progress of an Eclipse.’ Sir Fred- 
erick Abel was in the chair, and among 
those present were Lord Kelvin, Sir James 
Crichton-Browne, Sir Frederick Bramwell, 
Professor Dewar, Mr. C. V. Boys, Dr. Frank- 
land, Mr. Ludwig Mond and Mr. Crookes. 
Lord Rosse began by showing the results of 
his observations on the variations in the 
amount of heat radiation from the moon 
during the lunar month. Speaking of the 
heat given off during an eclipse, he said 
that in the total eclipse of January, 1888, 
he had found there was a great decrease in 
its amount some time before the first con- 
tact. During the total phase the heat ra- 
diated was a mere trifle, and it had not re- 
gained more than 80 per cent. at full moon 
—an hour and a half after the last contact. 
Lord Rosse then described the apparatus 
he had used, and also the apparatus and 
some of the results of other investigators. 


THE usual monthly meeting of the British 
Astronomical Association was held at Uni- 
versity College on May 28th, Mr. E. W. 
Maunder, the president, being in the chair. 
A paper was read from Professor H. H. 
Turner, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at 
Oxford, on ‘Simple Apparatus for Measur- 
ing Stellar Photographs.’ Mr. Holmes 
read a paper on on ‘ The Reproductions of 
Astronomical Drawings,’ ete., in which the 
value of photographic processes was com- 
mented on as being more accurate. He 
also read a paper on the apparent roundness 
of small spot markings on planets. A paper 
from Mr. Monck on the ‘Spectra and Colours 
of Stars’ was read. The report of the 
Lunar Section, by Mr. T. Gwyn Elger, F. 
R. A. S., the director, was read, and at- 


SCIENCE. 


693. 


tention was called to the progress made 
recently in lunar photography. 
vENERAL. 

Proressor C, Liuoyp MorGan, author of 
Animal Life and Intelligence and other works 
upon comparative psychology, is coming to 
this country next winter to deliver one of 
the Lowell Institute courses in Boston. 
He will also deliver four lectures upon In- 
stinct in the Columbia Biological Course. 

Fre_p exploration in vertebrate palzeon- 
tology is increasing very rapidly, and this 
summer a large number of parties will be 
in the field. The American Museum ex- 
pedition to the Uinta Basin entered the 
field in March, accompanied by Mr. J. B. 
Hatcher, representing the Princeton Mus- 
eum. OnJune Ist Dr. J. L. Wortman takes 
charge of the American Museum party, 
which will include four collectors. The Uni- 
versity of Kansas will send three parties 
into the fossil beds of Kansas, Dakota and 
Wyoming. The University of Nebraska 
will also send a party under the direction of 
Prof. Barbour. Prof. Baur, of the Univer- 
sity of Chicago, announces a field expedition 
as a regular part of the University curric- 
ulum. 

Tue Royal Academy of Sciences of the 
Institute of Bologna offers a gold medal of 
the value of 1,000 franes for a memoir which 
either from the chemical, physical or me- 
chanical point of view will indicate a prac- 
tical system or new apparatus for the pre- 
vention or extinction of fire. The essays 
may be written in Italian, French or Latin. 
Those in other languages must be accom- 
panied by an Italian translation. The 
essays are to be signed with a nom de plume 
and to be accompanied by an envelope con- 
taining the author’s real name. All essays 
must be in before May 29, 1896, and should 
be addressed: ‘Al Segretario della R. 
delle del’ Instituto di 


Academia Scienze 


Bologna.” 


694 


Tue Trustees of the British Museum have 
issued a Catalogue of Additions to the 
Manuscripts in the years 1888-1893. The 
eatalogue is provided with a serviceable 
index. They have also published a transla- 
tion of the Papyrus of Ani which contains 
the most complete text of the famous Egyp- 
tian Book of the Dead. The translation, 
which is accompanied by a valuable intro- 
duction, is from the pen of Mr. EK. A. Wallis 
Budge. 

ANnoTHER Hgyptian publication of im- 
portance is from the press of Brill, at 
Leiden, and contains fac similes and de- 
scriptions of a papyrus (F. T. 71 So-am-tra) 
devoted to mortuary customs. 

Mr. M. A. Mackernzrm, of Trinity Uni- 
versity, Toronto, has been appointed pro- 
fessor of mathematics in place of the Rey. 
Dr. Jones, who has accepted the position of 
bursar in the same institution. 

PROFESSOR FRANKLAND has been elected 
a foreign associate of the Académie des Sci- 
ences. The vacancy was caused by the death 
of M. van Beneden. 

Apprications for the position of lecturer 
in Chemistry in the university of Toronto 
should be sent to the Canadian Minister of 
Education before August 15th. The initial 
salary will be $1,000, increasing by annual 
increments of $100 until it reaches $1,800. 
The duties of the lecturer will be to assist 
the demonstrator in the superintendence of 
the laboratories under the direction of the 
professor of chemistry, and also to deliver 
such lectures on physiological, organic and 
inorganic chemistry as may be assigned to 
him by the professor. 


The Lancet announces the following for- 
eign medical appointments : At Erlangen— 
Dr. G. Hauser has been promoted to the 
chair of general and anatomical pathol- 
ogy, vacant by the retirement of Dr. von 
Zenker. At Gratz—Drs. Drasch and Ja- 
risch have been promoted to professorships 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 25. 


of histology and dermatology, respectively. 

At Oporto—Dr. I. do Valle, Professor of 

General Pathology, has been appointed to_ 
succeed Dr. Carlos Lopez in the chair of 

materia medica, Dr. Maximiano de Lemos 

taking the chair of general pathology. 

Av Berlin, Dr. Ferdinand Karsch and Dr. 
Anton Reichenow have been made profes- 
sors in the Zodlogical Museum, Dr. Victor 
Kremser in the Meteorological Institute, 
and Dr. A. Borsch in the Geodetic Insti- 
tute. 

Ar the anniversary meeting of the Royal 
Geographical Society of London, Mr. Clem- 
ents R. Markham was elected President for 
1895-6. Mr. W. T. Blanford, the Hon. G. 
C. Brodrick, the Hon. George Curzon, Sir 
George Taubman Goldie, General R. Stra- 
chy and Rear-Admiral W. J. L. Wharton 
were elected Vice-Presidents. 

DaniEL Kirxwoop, professor of mathe- 
matics in Indiana State University, died at 
Riverside, Cal., on June 11th, at the age of 
eighty-one. He retired from the active 
duties of the professorship in 1856. 

Tue chair of physics in the University of 
California, recently filled by the late Pro- 
fessor Harold Whiting, has been offered to 
Mr. Exum Percival Lewis, Ph. D., of Johns 
Hopkins University. 

At a meeting of the Royal Botanical 
Society on May 31st Professor George 
Henslow delivered a lecture on ‘ A Century 
of Progress in Floriculture.’ He exibited 
specimens of the original wild plants from 
which some of our most admired garden 
flowers have been developed, illustrating 
with numerous diagrams the various stages 
in the way of cultivation and hybridization 
through which they passed before reaching 
the perfection of to-day. 

Froop & Vincent (Chautauqua Press) , 
of Meadville, Penna., announce the appear- 
ance of ‘ Thinking, Feeling, Doing,’ a popu- 
lar exposition of experimental psychology 


ae 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


by E. W. Scripture, of Yale University. 
The book contains one colored plate and 
over 200 illustrations; it has a voluminous 
index. 

AccorDING to the Evening Post Professor 
Fabian Franklin has resigned his Professor- 
ship of Mathematics in Johns Hopkins 
University in order to become editor of the 
Baltimore Evening News. 

Tue American Medical College Associa- 
tion in Baltimore has decided by a vote of 
of 29 to 5 that a four years’ course of study 
shall be demanded of all students henceforth 
matriculating in institutions belonging to 
this organization. 

Ar the graduating exercises of Johns 
Hopkins University on June 13th the degree 
of Ph. D. was conferred on 46 candidates, 
distributed among the different depart- 
ments as follows: History and economics 
12, chemistry 12, geology 3, German 2, 
English 3, physics 4, Romance 3, Latin and 
Greek 5, biology, mathematics and as- 
tronomy, each 1. 

Barnarp CoLLteGE has purchased for 
$160,000 a site on Cathedral Heights, ad- 
jacent to that of Columbia College. The 
sum of $200,000 has been subscribed to- 
wards the new buildings. 


On January 18th the great seismometro- 
graph at the Osservatorio del Collegio 
Romano at Rome registered five complete 
pulsations of slow period characteristic of 
earthquakes originating at a great distance. 
They commenced at 4h. 37m. 30s. p. m. 
(Greenwich mean time), and lasted In. 
22s., giving an average duration of 16.4 
seconds for each pulsation. On the same 
day a severe earthquake was felt along the 
east coast of Japan, and was recorded at 
Tokio at 3h. 48m. 24s. The distance be- 
tween this place and Rome being about 
9,500 km., the pulsations must have traveled 
with an average velocity of 3.2 km. per 
second (see Nature, vol. 1, pp. 450-51; vol. 


SCIENCE. 


695 


li., p. 462). At Nicolaiew and Charkow, 
in the south of Russia, the horizontal pendu- 
lums were disturbed for nearly an hour, 
the epoch of maximum amplitude occurring 
a few minutes earlier than at Rome.— 
Nature. 

Messrs. Macur~ran & Co. will shortly 
publish an Introduction to the Study of Sea- 
weeds, with illustrations, by Mr. George 
Murray, the newly appointed Keeper of 
Botany in the Natural History Department 
of the British Museum. 

Ir is announced that Professor Albert 8. 
Bickmore, of the Museum of Natural His- 
tory, New York, will deliver the address at 
the laying of the corner-stone of Butterfield 
Museum, Dartmouth College. It is hoped 
that the museum, which will cost about 
$60,000, will be ready for occupancy in the 
latter part of 1896. 

ARRANGEMENTs for an accurate map of 
Africa will be made at the International 
Geographical Congress which is about to 
meet in London. It is expected that Great 
Britian, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy 
and Portugal, being the powers chiefly inter- 
ested, will divide the expenses of the map. 

Tue Naturalists’ Directory published by 
S. E. Cassino, Boston, for 1895, contains 
the names of 5,747 naturalists of the United 
States and Canada arranged in alphabet- 
ical order, giving under each name the speci- 
alty studied and the address. The names 
are also arranged by subjects and geograph- 
ically by States. The directory contains 
382 pages, and is neatly boundin cloth. The 
price is $2.50. 

Tue following appointments have been 
made in Cornell University: Virgil Snyder 
Ph. D. (Géttingen) has been appointed in- 
structer in mathematics ; Darwin A. Mort- 
ant, assistant in chemistry; W. K. Hatt 
(assistant professor at Purdue University) 
and John Hayfold, instructors in civil 
engineering ; Elias J. Durand, assistant in 


696 


eryptogamic botany, and H. H. Denham, 
instructor in chemistry. 

Tue Cambridge Scientific Instrument 
Company (Limited) has been formed with 
a capital of £10,000, in £5 shares. Its ob- 
jects are to acquire the business carried on 
at Cambridge by Mr. Horace Darwin as 
“The Cambridge Scientific Instrument Com- 
pany,’ and to adopt an agreement for the 
purpose, and to carry on the business of 
mechanical and electrical engineers, and 
scientific instrument and apparatus manu- 
facturers. The first directors are Mr. Horace 
Darwin (chairman and managing director), 
Major Leonard Darwin, Mr. Hugh F. Newall 
and Mr. William N.Shaw. The remunera- 
tion of the directors will be fixed by the 
company. 

Dr. AtBert Mann has been appointed 
professor of biology in Ohio Wesleyan Uni- 
versity. 

In Syracuse University Dr. HE. C. Quereau 
has been appointed professor of geology 
and mineralogy, and Dr. W. H. Metzler 
associate professor of mathematics. 

Dr. W. L. Aszorr has sent to the U.S. 
National Museum the collections made 
during his travels in Pamir, Central Asia. 
Among these are the skins of 228 birds and 
more than 100 mammals, many of which 
are said to be new to science. 


Aw editorial article in Garden and Forest 
for May 29th contains on appeal for a fit- 
ting memorial to Andrew Jackson Downing. 
From it we may quote the following facts : 

“Mr. Downing was an authoritative writer 
on the art of landscape-gardening. His 
treatise on the Theory and Practice of Land- 
scape-Gardewing, published in 1841, became 
at once the accepted text-book of the sub- 
ject. In 1849 he wrote a series of articles 
in The Horticulturalist on public parks which 
had a marked influence in creating and 
molding public sentiment in this direction. 
The actual work of constructing Central 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 25. 


Park was not begun until six years after 
Downing’s untimely death, but it was his 
stirring appeals that aroused the city to feel 
its need, and provision to meet it quickly 
followed. It is not too much .to say that 
Downing takes rank among the greatest 
benefactors to his country which this cen- 
tury has produced. It is now more than 
forty years since his death, and it is surely 
time that some memorial of him should be 
erected in the park which his genius secured 
for the city of New York.” 

THE last number Vol. VII., No. 4, of the 
Journal of the College of Science of the Im- 
perial University of Japan bears witness, as 
the preceding numbers have done, to the 
aptitudes of the Japanese for exact research. 
The number contains eight short contribu- 
tions to chemistry and an account of the 
earthquake of June 20th, 1894. This was 
the most violent earthquake that has oe- 
curred in Tokyo since 1855. 

A work on electricity and magnetism by 
Professor Francis E. Nipher, Washington 
University, St. Louis, will be published dur- 
ing the summer. 

Tue State Agricultural College at Cor- 
vallis, Ore., has begun the publication of a 
series of laboratory studies in zoology 
edited by Prof. F. L. Washburn. 

THE paper on the Proto-historie Ethnog- 
raphy of Western Asia, read by Dr. D. G. 
Brinton before the American Philosophical 
Society on April 19th, has been reprinted 
from the Proceedings of the American Phil- 
osophical Society and is published by Mac- 
Calla & Co., Philadelphia. 

Dr. J. Dorrier, I. Burgring 7, Vienna, 
is compiling a Directory of Living Botanists, 
together with botanical gardens, societies, 
journals, etc. The codperation of botanists 
throughout the world is requested. 

Av the annual meeting of the Linnaean 
Society, held on May 24th, the gold medal 
founded in 1888 on the occasion of the cen- 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


tenary of the Society, and awarded alter- 
- nately to a biologist and zodlogist, was pre- 
sented to Dr. Ferdinand Cohn, professor of 
botany in Breslau. Last year the medal 
was awarded to Professor Haeckel, of Jena, 
in recognition of his researches in the science 
of marine invertebrate zodlogy. 
Tue third International Congress of 
Physiology will meet in Berne from Sept. 
9th to Sept. 13th, 1895. 
AccorDING to the Revue Scientifique M. 
Tocchini, the director of the Central Bureau 
of Meteorology in Rome, has founded a 
Seismological Society, having for its object 
the study of earthquakes and volcanic phe- 
nomena, and the publication of short ac- 
counts of the results obtained and of the 
apparatus used. 
The Revue Scientifique also reports the 
formation of an Astronomical Society in 
Bruxelles, with the object of bringing into 
closer communication all those interested in 
astronomy and related sciences. 
Two hundred unprinted letters of Pes- 
talozzi have been found in Switzerland. 
‘They will be published by Seyffarth, whose 
biography of Pestalozzi has already reached 
its sixth edition. —V. Y. Evening Post. 
Henry Puittes, Jr., died in Philadelphia 
on June 6th, at the age of 57. Mr. Philips 
was well known as an archeologist, numis- 
matist and philologist. 
TuE University of Glasgow has received 
an anonymous gift of £10,000 for the pur- 
pose of founding a chair of political economy 
to be named after Adam Smith, who was 
once professor in the University. 
Tur honorary degree of Doctor of Science 
has been conferred by the University of 
Cambridge on Dr. John Murray, editor of 
the ‘ Challenger’ publications. 
Tue following recent appointments to as- 
sistant professorships are announced from 
Johns Hopkins University: Dr. Charles 
Lane Poor, astromony; Dr. Sidney Sher- 


SCIENCE. 


697 


wood, political economy; Dr. Alexander S. 
Chessin, mathematics and mechanics; Dr. 
John M. Vincent, history; Dr. Simon Flex- 
ner, Pathology. Dr. Edward B. Matthews 
and Herbert G. Geer have been appointed 
associates in mineralogy and mechanical 
engineering respectively. 

Aw International Horticultural Congress 
was opened at Paris on May 24th. 

Tue Institut of France has opened an 
international subscription for a moument to 
Lavoisier, to be erected in Paris. 


Mr. RALPH SwiNBurne, said to have been 
the oldest engineer in the country, died re- 
cently, aged ninety years. 


Mr. L. L. Price’s paper on ‘ The Col- 
leges of Oxford and Agricultural Depres- 
sion’ contains, according to the Academy, ‘a 
detailed analysis of the expenditure of the 
colleges in 1883 and 1893. During this 
period the amount received by the heads 
(excluding Christ Church) has fallen from 
£22,811 to £20,905, or by more than 8 per 
cent.; in some cases, of course, the decrease 
is much more, while in a few there is an in- 
crease. The amount received by fellows 
(apparently including professor-fellows ) has 
fallen from £70,980 to £59,715, or by more 
than 15 per cent. Here, again, there are 
wide variations, though only two examples 
of actual increase. In the case of one col- 
lege, which shall be nameless, eight fellows 
in 1893 had only £400 to divide among 
them. On the other hand, the amount ap- 
propriated to scholarships and exhibitions 
has risen during the same period from £44- 
776 to £48,378, or by nearly 10 percent. In 
hardly any case is there a decline; while 
at the unnamed college referred to above 
the scholars now receive nearly four times 
as much as the fellows. The number of 
scholars and exhibitors has risen from 570 
to 658, while the number of fellows seems 
to have remained stationary. In addition, 
the colleges in 1893 paid over an assess- 


698 


ment of £4,334 to the common university 
fund, a heading which practically did not 
exist in 1883 ; while during these ten years 
contributions to the salaries of the profes- 
soriate have increased from £12,840 to 
£15,034. It seems pretty clear that the re- 
sults of agricultural depression have fallen 
almost solely upon the fellows, and upon 
some of them hardly.” 

PROFESSOR BuNSEN celebrated his eighty- 
fifth birthday on March 31st. 

Ar the last meeting of the Geological 
Society, Prof. Judd drew attention to an 
interesting series of photographs sent for 
_ exhibition by Prof. Liversidge, of Sydney, 
who has found that sections of gold nug- 
gets, when etched with chlorine-water, ex- 
hibit lines like the Widman-Stetten figures 
of meteorites, showing that the gold has a 
crystalline structure, octahedral and cubic 
forms being displayed.—The Acadeny. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 


BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
Art the meeting held May 18th Dr. Mer- 
riam spoke of the Mammals of the Pribilof 
Islands in Bering Sea. Excluding Ceta- 
ceans, eight mammals are known from the 
Islands. Four of these are land mammals 
and four amphibious or marine, as follows: 
One, Arctic fox; two, brown lemming; three, 
shrew; four, house mouse; five, harbor seal; 
six, fur seal; seven, sea-lion; eight, walrus. 
To these the sea-otter might be added, 
though it is not a resident and visits the 
islands very rarely. The house mouse was 
introduced by the Russians and has run 
wild. The fox also is said to have been in- 
troduced. The shrew has been found on 
St. Paul only; the lemming on St. George 
only. 

A paper entitled ‘The Hares (genus 
Lepus) of the Mexican Border’ was read by 
Dr. Edgar A. Mearns, who stated that it 
was written in the course of preparation of 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 25. 


a report on the collections made by the 
biological section of the recent re-survey of 
the Mexican boundary line, of which expe- 
dition Dr. Mearns was the surgeon and 
naturalist from January, 1892, to Septem- 
ber, 1894, with one intermission of a few 
months. The doctor’s field experience in 
that general region covers in all a period 
of seven years. The specimens of Lepus ac- 
cumulated during that time amount to 288, 
representing 15 species and subspecies, to 
which material were added the collections 
of the United States National Museum and 
a portion of those of the American Museum 
of Natural History in New York, making a 
total of about 400 specimens examined. 
The species of the Mexican border were 
shown to represent three sections of the 
genus Lepus, which might with advantage 
be recognized as subgenera. These were 
Hyprotaeus Gray (Water Hares, repre- 
sented by a single species, Lepus aquaticus 
Bachman); Syzyitacus Gray (comprising 
(1) the Cottontails, 3 species and 3 addi- 
tional subspecies, and (2) the Cactus Hare, 
Lepus cinerascens Allen); and MacroroLaGus 
(a new subgenus created for the Mexican 
group of Jackrabbits, of which 6 species and 
3 additional subspecies were found on the 
Mexican border). In all, 17 forms were 
recognized as occurring on the strip of the 
United States which borders on Mexico, of 
which number seven were treated as sub- 
species and the remainder as species, of 
which latter there are eleven, Lepus sylvat- 
icus being represented by (3) subspecies. 
Two species and four subspecies were de- 
seribed as new. Of these, Holzner’s Cot- 
tontail inhabits wooded mountains from 
New Mexico and Arizona southward, and 
the Lesser Desert Cottontail the region from 
the upper Rio Grande of Texas westward 
to the continental divide. The black-naped 
Jackrabbit of the Lower Rio Grande was 
named in honor of Dr. C. Hart Merriam ; 
and another species of Jackrabbit from the 


—S 


JUNE 21, 1895.] 


plains east of the continental divide was 
dedicated to Lieutenant D. D. Gaillard, U. 
§. A.,a member of the International Boun- 
dary Commission. The Gray Jackrabbit of 
the Upper Rio Grande region, and the 
Desert Jackrabbit of the Colorado Desert, 
were described as superficially distinct from 
the Lepus texianus Waterhouse. The Mexi- 
ean Jackrabbit (Lepus callotis Wagler), with 
which several species inhabiting the United 
States have hitherto been confounded, was 
shown, principally on the authority of Dr. 
C. Hart Merriam, as the result of explora- 
tions lately conducted in Mexico by his 
Division of the U.S. Department of Agri- 
eulture, to be wholly extralimital to the 
United States, and not to occur near our 
southern border. 

Diagnoses of the new Hares discovered 
by Dr. Mearns will soon appear in the pro- 
ceedings of the U.S. National Museum, the 
complete article to form a part of the bio- 
logical report of the International Bound- 
ary Commission. 

Dr. Erwin F. Smith read a paper on The 
Biology of Bacillus tracheiphilus n. sp., the 
cause of wilt in various Cucurbits. The or- 
ganism has been isolated and numerous in- 
fections secured from pure cultures—more 
than fifty—in the greenhouse under strict 
control. The disease has also been induced 
by spraying the bacillus on insects (Dia- 
brotica vittata and Coreus tristis) and turn- 
ing these loose on the plants, thus confirm- 
ing a belief expressed in 1893, and due to 
field observations, that the disease is ordi- 
narily transmitted by leaf eating beetles 
and squash bugs. During the nine months 
in which experiments have been conducted 
under glass, the only cases have been those 
due to artificial infections, none of the nu- 
merous control plants having developed the 
disease. The paper described the mor- 
phology of the organism, its behavior in 
various media—agar, gelatine, potato and 
sweet potato, beef broth, vegetable infu- 


SCIENCE. 


699 


sions, milk and various saccharine fluids in 
fermentation tubes; resistance to heat and 
dry air; behavior with stains; growth in acid 
and alkaline media, in hydrogen; parts of 
plants attacked, lesions, symptoms, time of 
appearance after inoculation, etc. Numer- 
ous repeated inoculations into potato and 
tomato vines failed to induce any disease, 
and the positive and negative evidence are 
both conclusive that this disease is en- 
tirely different from the southern potato 
and tomato blight. Inoculations into pears 
and hyacinths also gave negative results. 
The organism used for infections was iso- 
lated from the cucumber, and most of the 
inoculations were performed on the cucum- 
ber and muskmelon by pricking the germs 
into the blade of a leaf. Experiments on 
pumpkins and squashes are still in progress. 
The prompt destruction of leaf-eating and 
leaf-puncturing insects appears to be the 
only satisfactory way of combating this 
disease. How this shall be done to best 
advantage is a problem belonging to the 
province of economic entomology. 

An interesting paper on the Means of In- 
tercommunication among Wolves, by Mr. Er- 
nest Thompson, was read. Mr. Thompson 
gave first place to the sense of smell as a 
means of obtaining information. 

M. B. WarreE, 
Recording Secretary. 


THE NEW JERSEY STATE MICROSCOPICAL 
SOCIETY. 

Tue Society held its 26th annual meet- 
ing on Monday, May 27th, and elected the 
following officers for 1895-96: 

President, Byron D. Halsted, Se. D. 

Vice-President, Julius Nelson, Ph. D. 

Recording Secretary, Frederick H. Blodgett. 

Corresponding Secretary, John Helm, M. D. 

Treasurer, A. C. Hutton, M. D. 

Curator, A. H. Chester, Ph. D. 

Librarian, Frederick H. Blodgett. 

Trustee (two years), Fred. B. Kilmer. 


700 


The Secretary’s report showed an increase 
in general interest on the part of the mem- 
bers and an increase also in the attendance 
of visitors at the regular meetings. 

The quarter-centennial was celebrated 
by a well attended public meeting. The 
program of this meeting included the pro- 
jection of micro-slides of rock sections, 
marine alge, living animaleulse and wood 
sections, and table exhibits from the three 
natural kingdoms under thirty-five instru- 
ments. 

About a year ago the Society was sec- 
tionalized, and the following sections cre- 
ated : 

(1) Agriculture, (2) Bacteriology, (3) 
Biology (Zodlogy), (4) Botany, (5) Chem- 
istry, (6) Entomology, (7) Geology, (8) 
Histology, (9) Mineralogy, (10) Pathology, 
(11) Physies, (12) Technique, (13) Litera- 
ture. 

Of these the sections on Bacteriology, 


Botany and Mineralogy have had charge of 


one meeting each, and reports of less length 
have been made by the sections on Tech- 
nique and Literature. 

The membership includes 40 active, 19 
corresponding and 1 honorary member. 

After the business session A. H. Chester, 
Ph. D., read a paper on ‘ Crystals,’ describ- 
ing the means used in the preparation of 
erystals for micro-mounts; slow crystalliza- 
tion from fusion, or solution, sublimation, 
precipitation and electrolysis. The paper 
described the systems of crystals to some 
extent, mentioning more especially those of 
gold, silver and copper. With the aid of 
ten microscopes the minute beauties of the 
erystals were shown with appreciation to a 
goodly number of members and friends. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, JUNE, 1895. 
THE June number of the American Jour- 
nal of Science opens with an article by Prof. 
Frank Waldo discussing the daily march 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 25. 


of the wind velocities in the United States. 
This is based upon the published data fur- 
nished by the Chief Signal Officer’s Report _ 
for 1890, giving the average wind movement 
for each hour of each day in this year, and 
also the daily averages for the seven years 
1883-89. These are discussed for the dif- 
ferent portions of the country and the results 
presented in a series of curves; they show 
distinct maxima for many stations in Jan- 
uary, which are still more developed in July. 
D. A. Kreider describes the preparation of 
perchloric acid and its application to the 
determination of potassium; aiso W. H. 
Hobbs, the crystal form of borneol and iso- 
borneol. R. Ruedemann gives an abstract 
of a paper (to appear in full in the Report 
of the New York State Geologist) on the 
mode of growth and development of the 
graptolitic genus Diplograptus; a series of 
figures illustrates the subject. N. H. Darton 
gives an account of the recent discovery of 
a dike penetrating the Salina formation at 
DeWitt near Syracuse, N. Y.; this occur- 
ence is of especial interest because doubt- 
less connected with the Syracuse dike de- 
scribed by Dr. G. H. Williams in 1887. 
The petrography of the DeWitt dike is 
fully given by J. F. Kemp. Another article 
is by G. M. Dawson, giving a general 
discussion of the amount of elevation that 
has taken place along the Rocky Mountain 
Range in British America since the close of 
the Cretaceous ; the minimum estimate ob- 
tained of greatest uplift for the region 
(about latitude 50°) is 32,000 to 35,000 feet. 
Three analyses of sodalite are given by L. 
McI. Luquer and G. J. Volekening. The 
number closes with a series of abstracts and 
reviews, and finally the volume index. 
Under the Geological Notes, R. T. Hill men- 
tions the discovery of a dicotyledonous 
flora in the Cheyenne sandstone at the base 
of the beds belonging to the Comanche 
series in Comanche and Barber counties, of 
southern Kansas. 


oJ ere ee 


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Fripay, JUNE 28, 1895. 


CONTENTS : 
POO ORD) TRAY LRIGH «pic's ese dates ccquceces 701 
Lloyd Morgan Upon Instinct: H. F. O. ......---- 712 
Some Meandering Rivers of Wisconsin: HENRY B. 
RS PMIECE Ske ole ci alti) oyeicls rnin po erete Bro acre rae J CLS 
CARR ESNONGENLG 3 — 5 cacehe seismic hs decteases wes 716 
Missouri Botanical Garden: WM. TRELEASE. 


PRNORIAC PALETOEE S— Slice cs ccesctsececdacss 717 
The Geology of the Sierra Nevada: ANDREW C. 
LAWSON. Allen on the Genus Reithrodontomys : 

Os aa 


IENISORTE TVENOH o— go. c' caw nc cicsiowae ae asisucinees 721 
The Remedy for Pear Blight: M. B. WAITE. New 
York Botanic Garden; The Helmholtz Memorial ; 
General. 


Societies and Academies :-— .....ccececsccersees 725 
Biological Society of Washington ; Entomological 
Society of Washington; The New York Academy 
of Science; The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, 
Arts and Letters ; The Texas Academy of Science. 


MIBEIIMNE ade o.sasie ss .0xv,csisintsm eeedae oo. 728 


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for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Prof. J. 
McKeen Cattell, Garrison on Hudson, N. Y. 

Subscriptionsand advertisements should be sent to SCIENCE, 
41 N. Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or 41 East 49th St., New York. 


: ARGON.* 


Ir is some three or four years since I had 
the honour of lecturing here one Friday 
evening upon the densities of oxygen and 
hydrogen gases, and upon the conclusions 
that might be drawn from the results. It 
is not necessary, therefore, that I should 


*A Lecture given by Lord Rayleigh before the 
Royal Institution of Great Britain, on Friday, April 
5, 1895. Reprinted from the official report. 


trouble you to-night with any detail as to 
the method by which gases can be accur- 
ately weighed. I must take that as known, 
merely mentioning that it is substantially 
the same as is used by all investigators 
nowadays, and introduced more than fifty 
years ago by Regnault. It was not until 
after that lecture that I turned my atten- 
tion to nitrogen ; and in the first instance 
I employed a method of preparing the gas 
which originated with Mr. Vernon Har- 
court, of Oxford. In this method the oxy- 
gen of ordinary atmospheric air is got rid 
of with the aidof ammonia. Air is bubbled 
through liquid ammonia, and then passed 
through a red-hot tube. In its passage the 
oxygen of the air combines with the hydro- 
gen of the ammonia, all the oxygen being 
in that way burnt up and converted into 
water. The excess of ammonia is subse- 
quently absorbed with acid, and the water 
by ordinary desiccating agents. That method 
is very convenient; and, when I had ob- 
tained a few concordant results by means 
of it, I thought that the work was complete, 
and that the weight of nitrogen was satis- 
factorily determined. But then I reflected 
that it is always advisable to employ more 
than one method, and that the method that 
I had used—Mr. Vernon Harcourt’s method 
—was not that which had been used by any 
of those who had preceded me in weighing 
nitrogen. The usual method consists in 
absorbing the oxygen of air by means of 


702 


red-hot copper; and I thought that I ought 
at least to give that method a trial, fully 
expecting to obtain forthwith a value in 
harmony with that already afforded by the 
ammonia method. The result, however, 
proved otherwise. The gas obtained by 
the copper method, as I may call it, proved 
to be one-thousandth part heavier than that 
obtained by the ammonia method ; and, on 
repetition, that difference was only brought 
out more clearly. This was about three 
years ago. Then, in order, if possible, to 
get further light upon a discrepancy which 
puzzled me very much, and which, at that 
time, I regarded only with disgust and im- 
patience, I published a letter in Natwre in- 
viting criticisms from chemists who might 
be interested in such questions. I obtained 
various useful suggestions, but none going 
to the root of the matter. Several persons 
who wrote to me privately were inclined to 
think that the explanation was to be sought 
in a partial dissociation of the nitrogen 
derived from ammonia. For, before going 
further, I ought to explain that, in the nit- 
rogen obtained by the ammonia method, 
some—about a seventh part—is derived 
from the ammonia, the larger part, however, 
being derived as usual from the atmos- 
phere. If the chemically derived nitrogen 
were partly dissociated into its component 
atoms, then the lightness of the gas so pre- 
pared would be explained. 

The next step in the enquiry was, if pos- 
sible, to exaggerate the discrepancy. One’s 
instinct at first is to try to get rid of a dis- 
crepancy, but I believe that experience 
shows such an endeavor to be a mistake. 
What one ought to do is to magnify a small 
discrepancy with a view to finding out the 
explanation; and, as it appeared in the 
present case that the root of the discrepancy 
lay in the fact that part of the nitrogen pre- 
pared by the ammonia method was nitrogen 
out of ammonia, although the greater part 
remained of common origin in both cases, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


the application of the principal suggested a 
trial of the weight of nitrogen obtained 
wholly from ammonia. 
be done by substituting pure oxygen for at- 
mospherie air in the ammonia method, so 
that the whole, instead of only a part, of 
the nitrogen collected should be derived 
from the ammonia itself. The discrepancy 
was at once magnified some five times. The 
nitrogen so obtained from ammonia proved 
to be about one-half per cent. lighter than 
nitrogen obtained in the ordinary way from 
the atmosphere, and which I may call for 
brevity ‘atmospheric’ nitrogen. 

That result stood out pretty sharply from 
the first; but it was necessary to confirm 
it by comparison with nitrogen chemically 
derived in other ways. The table before 
you gives a summary of such results, the 
numbers being the weights in grams actually 
contained under standard conditions in the 
globe employed. 


ATMOSPHERIC NITROGEN. 


By, hot copper (1892). 5 5 22. 2 5. oe 2.3103 
Tbh MOH tem (ISEB) ag 5 5 5 oo ho 2.3100 
By ferrous hydrate (1894) ......... 2.3102 

Mean 2.3102 


CHEMICAL NITROGEN. 


WGA WINTOORC 294 655 5 8 oo oO 2.3001 
IMGT CM 5 5 5 5 69 oo bo 2.2990 
From ammonium nitrite purified at a red heat . 2.2987 
Igooi CONE Ay GhigwelG eGo a6 bp 20 2.2985 
From ammonium nitrite purified in the cold . 2.2987 


Mean 2.2990 


The difference is about 11 milligrams, or 
about one-half per cent.; and it was suffi- 
cient to prove conclusively that the two 
kinds of nitrogen—the chemically derived 
nitrogen and the atmospheric nitrogen— 
differed in weight, and therefore, of course, 
in quality, for some reason hitherto un- 
known. 

I need not spend time in explaining the 
various precautions that were necessary in 
order to establish surely that conclusion. 
One had to be on one’s guard against im- 


This could easily _ 


JUNE 28, 1895.] 


purities, especially against the presence of 
hydrogen, which might seriously lighten any 
gas in which it was contained. I believe, 
however, that the precautions taken were 
sufficient to exclude all questions of that 
sort, and the result, which I published 
about this time last year, stood sharply out, 
that the nitrogen obtained from chemical 
sources was different from the nitrogen ob- 
tained from the air. 

Well, that difference, admitting it to be 
established, was sufficient to show that 
some hitherto unknown gas is involved in 
the matter. It might be that the new gas 
was dissociated nitrogen, contained in that 
which was too light, the chemical nitrogen 
—and at first that was the explanation to 
which I leaned; but certain experiments 
went a long way to discourage such a sup- 
position. In the first place, chemical evi- 
dence—and in this matter I am greatly de- 
pendent upon the kindness of chemical 
friends—tends to show that, even if ordi- 
nary nitrogen could be dissociated at all 
into its component atoms, such atoms would 
not be likely to enjoy any very long contin- 
ued existence. Even ozone goes slowly 
back to the more normal state of oxygen; 
and it was thought that dissociated nitrogen 
would have even a greater tendency to re- 
vert to the normal condition. The experi- 
ment suggested by that remark was as fol- 
lows—to keep chemical nitrogen—the too 
light nitrogen which might be supposed to 
contain dissociated molecules—for a good 
while, and to examine whether it changed 
in density. Of course it would be useless 
to shut up gas in a globe and weigh it, and 
then, after an interval, to weigh it again, 
for there would be no opportunity for any 
change of weight to occur, even although 
the gas within the globe had undergone 
some chemical alteration. It is necessary 
to re-establish the standard conditions of 
temperature and pressure which are always 
understood when we speak of filling a globe 


SCIENCE. 


703 


with gas, for I need hardly say that fill- 
ing a globe with gas is but a figure of 
speech. Everything depends upon the 
temperature and pressure at which you 
work. However, that obvious point being 
borne in mind, it was proved by experiment 
that the gas did not change in weight 
by standing for eight months—a result 
tending to show that the abnormal light- 
ness was not the consequence of dissocia- 
tion. 

Further experiments were tried upon the 
action of the silent electric discharge—both 
upon the atmospheric nitrogen and upon 
the chemically derived nitrogen—but neither 
of them seemed to be sensibly affected by 
such treatment; so that, altogether, the 
balance of evidence seemed to incline 
against the hypothesis of abnormal light- 
ness in the chemically derived nitrogen be- 
ing due to dissociation, and to suggest 
strongly, as almost the only possible alter- 
native, that there must be in atmospheric 
nitrogen some constituent heavier than true 
nitrogen. 

At that point the question arose, What 
was the evidence that all the so-called ni- 
trogen of the atmosphere was of one qual- 
ity? And I remember—I think it was 
about this time last year, or a little earlier 
—putting the question to my colleague, 
Professor Dewar. His answer was that he 
doubted whether anything material had 
been done upon the matter since the time 
of Cavendish, and that I had better refer 
to Cavendish’s original paper. The advice 
I quickly followed, and I was rather sur- 
prised to find that Cavendish had himself 
put this question quite as sharply as I could 
put it. Translated from the old-fashioned 
phraseology connected with the theory of 
phlogiston, his question was whether the 
inert ingredient of the air is really all 
of one kind, whether all the nitrogen of 
the air is really the same as the nitro- 
gen of nitre. Cavendish not only asked 


704 


himself this question, but he endeav- 
oured to answer it by an appeal to experi- 
ment. 

I should like to show you Cavendish’s ex- 
periment in something like its original form. 
He inverted a U tube filled with mercury, 
the legs standing in two separate mercury 
cups. 
above the mercury, a mixture of nitrogen, 
or of air, and oxygen; and he caused an 
electric current from a frictional electrical 
machine like the one I have before me to 
pass from the mercury in the one leg to the 
mercury in the other, giving sparks across 
the intervening column of air. I do not 
propose to use a frictional machine to-night, 
but I will substitute for it one giving elec- 
tricity of the same quality of the construc- 
tion introduced by Mr. Wimshurst, of which 
we have a fine specimen in the Institution. 
It stands just outside the door of the theatre, 
and will supply an electric current along in- 
sulated wires, leading to the mercury cups; 
and, if we are successful, we shall cause 
sparks to pass through the small length of 
air included above the columns of mercury. 
There they are; and after a little time you 
will notice that the mercury rises, indica- 
ting that the gas is sensibly absorbed under 
the influence of the sparks and of a piece of 
potash floating on the mercury. It was by 
that means that Cavendish established his 
great discovery of the nature of the inert 
ingredient in the atmosphere, which we now 
call nitrogen; and, as I have said, Caven- 
dish himself proposed the question, as dis- 
tinctly as we can do, Is this inert ingredient 
. all of one kind? and he proceeded to test 
that question. He found, after days and 
weeks of protracted experiment, that, for 
the most part, the nitrogen of the atmos- 
phere was absorbed in this manner, and con- 
verted into nitrous acid; but that there was 
a small residue remaining after prolonged 
treatment with sparks, and a final absorp- 
tion of the residual oxygen. That residue 


SCIENCE. 


He then passed up, so as to stand — 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


amounted to about 73,5 part of the nitrogen 
taken ; and Cavendish draws the conclusion 
that, if there be more than one inert ingre- 
dient in the atmosphere, at any rate the sec- 
ond ingredient is not contained to a greater 
extent than ;4, part. 

I must not wait too long over the experi- 
ment. Mr. Gordon tells me that a certain 
amount of contraction has already occurred; 
and if we project the U upon the screen, we 
shall be able to verify the fact. It is only 
a question of time for the greater part of the 
gas to be taken up, as we have proved by 
preliminary experiments. 

In what I have to say from this point on- 
wards, I must be understood as speaking 
as much on behalf of Professor Ramsay as 
for myself. At the first, the work which 
we did was to a certain extent independent. 
Afterwards we worked in concert, and all 
that we have published in our joint names 
must be regarded as being equally the work 
of both of us. But, of course, Professor 
Ramsay must not be held responsible for 
any chemical blunder into which I may 
stumble to-night. 

By his work and by mine the heavier in- 


gredient in atmospheric nitrogen which was — 


the origin of the discrepancy in the densi- 
ties has been isolated, and we have given it 
the name of ‘argon.’ For this purpose we 
may use the original method of Cavendish, 
with the advantages of modern appliances. 
We can procure more powerful electric 
sparks than any which Cavendish could 
command by the use of the ordinary Ruhm- 
korff coil stimulated by a battery of Grove 
cells; and it is possible so to obtain evidence 
of the existence of argon. The oxidation of 
nitrogen by that method goes on pretty 
quickly. If you put some ordinary air, or, 
better still, a mixture of air and oxygen, in 
a tube in which electric sparks are made to 
pass for a certain time, then, in looking 
through the tube, you observe the well- 
known reddish-orange fumes of the oxides 


JUNE 28, 1895.] 


of nitrogen. I will not take up time in go- 
ing through the experiment, but will merely 
exhibit a tube already prepared (image on 
screen). 

One can work more efficiently by employ- 
ing the alternate currents from dynamo ma- 
chines which are now atourcommand. In 
this institution we have the advantage of a 
public supply: and if I pass alternate cur- 
rents originating in Deptford through this 
Ruhmnkorff coil, which acts as what is now 
called a ‘high potential transformer,’ and 
allow sparks from the secondary to pass in 
an inverted test tube between platinum 
points, we shall be able to show in a com- 
paratively short time a pretty rapid absorp- 
tion of the gases. The electric currentis led 
into the working chamber through bent glass 
tubes containing mercury, and provided 
at their inner extremities with platinum 
points. In this arrangement we avoid the 
risk, which would otherwise be serious, of 
a fracture just when we least desired it. I 
now start the sparks by switching on the 
Ruhmkorff to the alternate current supply; 
and, if you will take note of the level of the 
liquid representing the quantity of mixed 
gases included, I think you willsee after, per- 
haps, a quarter of an hour that the liquid 
has very appreciably risen, owing to the 
union of the nitrogen and the oxygen gases 
under the influence of the electrical dis- 
charge, and subsequent absorption of the re- 
sulting compound by the alkaline liquid 
with which the gas space is enclosed. 

_ By means of this little apparatus, which 

is very convenient for operations upon a 
moderate scale, such as for analysis of ‘ nit- 
rogen’ for the amount of argon that it may 
contain, we are able to get an absorption 
of about 80 eubie centimetres per hour, or 
about 4 inches along this test tube, when 
all is going well. In order, however, to ob- 
tain the isolation of argon on any consider- 
able scale by means of the oxygen method, 
we must employ an apparatus still more en- 


SCIENCE. 


705 


larged. ‘The isolation of argon requires the 
removal of nitrogen, and, indeed, of very 
large quantities of nitrogen, for, as it ap- 
pears, the proportion of argon contained in 
atmospheric nitrogen is only about 1 per 
cent., so that for every litre of argon that 
you wish to get you must eat up some hun- 
dred litres of nitrogen. That, however, can 
be done upon an adequate seale by calling 
to our aid the powerful electric discharge 
now obtainable by means of the alternate 
current supply and high potential trans- 
formers. 

In what I have done upon this subject I 
have had the advantage of the advice of Mr. 
Crookes, who some years ago drew special 
attention to the electric discharge or flame, 
and showed that many of its properties de- 
pended upon the fact that it had the power of 
causing, upon a considerable scale, a com- 
bination of the nitrogen and the oxygen of 
the air in which it was made. 

I had first thought of showing in the lee- 
ture room the actual apparatus which I 
have employed for the concentration of 
argon; but the difficulty is that, as the ap- 
paratus has to be used, the working parts 
are almost invisible, and I came to the con- 
clusion that it would really be more instrue- 
tive as well as more convenient to show the 
parts isolated, a very little effort of imagin- 
ation being then all that is required in order 
to reconstruct in the mind the actual ar- 
rangements employed. 

First, as to the electric are or flame it- 
self. We have here a transformer made by 
Pike and Harris. It is not the one that I 
have used in practice; but it is convenient 
for certain purposes, and it can be connected 
by means of a switch with the alternate 
currents of 100 volts furnished by the Sup- 
ply Company. The platinum terminals 
that you see here are modelled exactly upon 
the plan of those which have been employed 
in practice. I may say a word or two on 
the question of mounting. The terminals 


706 


require to be very massive on account of the 
the heat evolved. In this case they consist 
of platinum wire doubled upon itself six 
times. The platinums are continued by 
iron wires going through glass tubes, and 
attached at the ends to the copper leads. 
For better security, the tubes themselves 
are stopped at the lower ends with corks 
and charged with water, the advantage be- 
ing that, when the whole arrangement is 
fitted by means of an indiarubber stopper 
into a closed vessel, you have a witness that, 
as long as the water remains in position, no 
leak can have occurred through the insul- 
ating tubes conveying the electrodes. 

Now, if we switch on the current and ap- 
proximate the points sufficiently, we get 
the electric flame. There you have it. It 
is, at present, showing a certain amount of 
soda. That in time would burn off. After 
the are has once been struck, the platinums 
can be separated; and then you have two 
tongues of fire ascending almost independ- 
ently of one another, but meeting above. 
Under the influence of such a flame the oxy- 
‘gen and the nitrogen of the air combine at 
a reasonable rate, and in this way the ni- 
trogen is got rid of. _ It is now only a ques- 
tion of boxing up the gas in a closed space, 
where the argon concentrated by the com- 
bustion of the nitrogen can be collected. 
But there are difficulties to be encountered 
there. One cannot well use anything but a 
glass vessel. There is hardly any metal 
available that will withstand the action of 
strong caustic alkali and of the nitrous 
fumes resulting from the flame. One is 
practically limited to glass. The glass ves- 
sel employed is a large flask with a single 
neck, about half full of caustic alkali. The 
electrodes are carried through the neck by 
means of an indiarubber bung provided al- 
so with tubes for leading in the gas. The 
electric flame is situated at a distance of 
only about half an inch above the caustic 
alkali. In that way an efficient circulation 


SCIENCE. 


thick wires in parallel. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


is established; the hot gases as they rise 
from the flame strike the top, and then as 
they come around again in the course of 
the circulation they pass sufficiently close 
to the caustic alkali to imsure an adequate 
removal of the nitrous fumes. 

There is another point to be mentioned. 
It is necessary to keep the vessel cool; 
otherwise the heat would soon rise to such a 
point that there would be excessive genera- 
tion of steam, and then the operation would 
come to a standstill. In order to meet this 
difficulty the upper part of the vessel is 
provided with a water-jacket, in which a 
circulation can be established. No doubt 


the glass is severely treated, but it seems to 


stand it it in a fairly amiable manner. 

By means of an arrangement of this kind, 
taking nearly three-horse power from the 
electric supply, it is possible to consume 
nitrogen at a reasonable rate. The trans- 
formers actually used are the ‘ Hedgehog’ 
transformers of Mr. Swinburne, intended to 
transform from 100 to 2400 volts. By Mr. 
Swinburne’s advice I have used two such, 
the fine wires being in series so as to accu- 
mulate the electrical potential and the 
The rate at which 
the mixed gases are absorbed is about seven 
litres per hour; and the apparatus, when 
once fairly started, works very well as a 
rule, going for many hours without atten- 
tion. At times the arc has a trick of going 
out, and it then requires to be restarted by 
approximating the platinums. We have 
already worked 14 hours on end, and by — 
the aid of one or two automatic appliances 
it would, I think, be possible, to continue 
operations day and night. 

The gases, air and oxygen in about equal 
proportions, are mixed in a large gasholder, 
and are fed in automatically as required. 
The argon gradually accumulates; and 
when it is desired to stop operations the 
supply of nitrogen is cut off, and only pure 
oxygen allowed admittance. In this way 


JUNE 28, 1895.] 


the remaining nitrogen is consumed, so 
that, finally, the working vessel is charged 
with a mixture of argon and oxygen only, 
from which the oxygen is removed by ordi- 
nary well-known chemical methods. I 
may mention that at the close of the opera- 
tion, when the nitrogen is all gone, the are 
changes its appearance and becomes of a 
brilliant blue colour. 

Ihave said enough about this method, 
and I must now pass on to the alternative 
method which has been very successful in 
Professor Ramsay’s hands—that of absorb- 
ing nitrogen by means of red-hot magne- 
sium. By the kindness of Professor Ram- 
say and Mr. Matthews, his assistant, we 
have here the full scale apparatus before us 
almost exactly as they use it. On the left 
there is a reservoir of nitrogen derived 
from air by the simple removal of oxygen. 
The gas is then dried. Here it is bubbled 
through sulphuric acid. It then passes 
through a long tube made of hard glass and 
charged with magnesium in the form of 
thin turnings. During the passage of the 
gas over the magnesium at a bright red 
heat, the nitrogen is absorbed in a great 
degree, and the gas which finally passes 
through is immensely richer in argon than 
that which first enters the hot tube. At the 
present time you see a tolerably rapid bub- 
bling on the left, indicative of the flow of 
atmospheric nitrogen into the combustion 
furnace ; whereas, on the right, the outflow 
is very much slower. Care must be taken 
to prevent the heat rising to such a point 
as to soften the glass. The concentrated 
argon is collected in a second gasholder, 
and afterwards submitted to further treat- 
ment. The apparatus employed by Profes- 
sor Ramsay in the subsequent treatment is 
exhibited in the diagram, and is very effect- 
ive for its purpose; but I am afraid that 
the details of it would not readily be fol- 
lowed from any explanation that I could 
give in the time at my disposal. The prin- 


SCIENCE. 


707 


ciple consists in the circulation of the mix- 
ture of nitrogen and argon over hot mag- 
nesium, the gas being made to pass round 
and round until the nitrogen is effectively 
removed from it. At the end that opera- 
tion, as in the case of the oxygen method, 
proceeds somewhat slowly. When the 
greater part of the nitrogen is gone, the re- 
mainder seems to be unwilling to follow, 
and it requires somewhat protracted treat- 
ment in order to be sure that the nitogen 
has wholly disappeared. When I say 
‘wholly disappeared,’ that, perhaps, would 
be too much to say in any case. What we 
can say is that the spectrum test is ade- 
quate to show the presence, or at any rate 
to show the addition, of about one-and-a- 
half per cent. of nitrogen to argon as pure 
as we can get it; so that it is fair to argue 
that any nitrogen at that stage remaining 
in the argon is only a small fraction of one- 
and-a-half per cent. 

Ishould have liked at this point to be 
able to give advice as to which of the two 
methods—the oxygen method or the mag- 
nesium method—is the easier and the more 
to be recommended; but I confess that I 
am quite at a loss to doso. One difficulty 
in the comparison arises from the fact that 
they have been in different hands. As far 
as I can estimate, the quantities of nitrogen 
eaten up ina given time are not very dif- 
ferent. In that respect, perhaps, the mag- 
nesium method has some advantage; but, 
on the other hand, it may be said that the 
magnesium process requires a much closer 
supervision, so that, perhaps, fourteen hours 
of the oxygen method may not unfairly 
compare with eight hours or so of the mag- 
nesium method. In practice a great deal 
would depend upon whether in any partic- 
ular laboratory alternate currents are avail- 
able from a public supply. If the alternate 
currents are at hand, I think it may probably 
be the case that the oxygen method is the 
easier; but otherwise, the magnesium 


708 


method would, probably, be preferred, espe- 
cially by chemists who are familiar with 
operations conducted in red-hot tubes. 

I have here another experiment illustra- 
tive of the reaction between magnesium 
and nitrogen. Two rods of that metal are 
suitably mounted in an atmosphere of nitro- 
gen, so arranged that we can bring them 
into contact and cause an electric arc to 
form between them. Under the action of 
the heat of the electric are the nitrogen will 
combine with the magnesium; and if we 
had time to carry out the experiment we 
could demonstrate a rapid absorption of 
nitrogen by this method. When the ex- 
periment was first tried, I had hoped that 
it might be possible, by the aid of electricity, 
to start the action so effectively that the 
magnesium would continue to burn inde- 
pendently under its own developed heat in 
the atmosphere of nitrogen. Possibly, on 
a larger scale, something of this sort might 
succeed, but I bring it forward here only 
as an illustration. We turn on the electric 
current and bring the magnesiums together. 
You see a brilliant green light, indicating 
the vaporisation of the magnesium. Under 
the influence of the heat the magnesium 
burns, and there is collected in the glass 
vessel a certain amount of brownish-looking 
powder which consists mainly of the nitride 
of magnesium. Of course, if there is any 
oxygen present it has the preference, and 
the ordinary white oxide of magnesium is 
formed. 

The gas thus isolated is proved to be inert 
by the very fact of its isolation. It refuses 

to combine under circumstances in which 
nitrogen, itself always considered very inert, 
does combine—both in the case of the 
oxygen treatment and in the case of the 
magnesium treatment; and these facts are, 
perhaps, almost enough to justify the name 
which we have suggested for it. But, in 
addition to this, it has been proved to be 
inert under a considerable variety of other 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


conditions such as might have been expected. 
to tempt it into combination. I will not 
recapitulate all the experiments which have 
been tried, almost entirely by Professor 
Ramsay, to induce the gas to combine. 
Hitherto, in our hands, it has not done so; 
and I may mention that recently, since the 
publication of the abstract of our paper read. 
before the Royal Society, argon has been: 


submitted to the action of titanium ata red. 


heat, titanium being a metal having a great 
affinity for nitrogen, and that argon has re- 
sisted the temptation to which nitrogen 
succumbs. We never have asserted, and we 
do not now assert, that argon can under no 
circumstances be got to combine. That 
would, indeed, be a rash assertion for any 
one to venture upon; and only within the 
last few weeks there has been a most in- 
teresting announcement by M. Berthelot, 
of Paris, that, under the action of the silent 
electric discharge, argon can be absorbed 
when treated in contact with the vapor of 
benzine. Such a statement, coming from 
so great an authority, commands our atten- 
tion; and if we accept the conclusion, as I 
suppose we must do, it will follow that 
argon has, under those circumstances, com- 
bined. 

Argon is rather freely soluble in water. 
That is a thing that troubled us at first in 
trying to isolate the gas; because, when one 
was dealing with very small quantities, ib 
seemed to be always disappearing. In try- 
ing to accumulate it we made no progress. 
After a sufficient quantity had been pre- 
pared, special experiments were made on 
solubility of argon in water. It has been 
found that argon, prepared both by the 
magnesium method and by the oxygen 
method, has about the same solubility in 
water as oxygen—some two-and-a-half times 
the solubility of nitrogen. This suggests, 
what has been verified by experiment, that 
the dissolved gases of water should contain 
a larger proportion of argon than does at- 


———EoOOoO 


JUNE 28, 1895. ] 


mospherie nitrogen. I have here an appa- 
ratus of a somewhat rough description, 
which I have employed in experiments of 
this kind. The boiler employed consists 
of an old oil-can. The water is applied to 
it and drawn from it by coaxial tubes of 
metal. The incoming cold water flows 
through the outer annulus between the two 
tubes. The outgoing hot water passes 
through the inner tube, which ends in the 
interior of the vessel at a higher level. By 
means of this arrangement the heat of the 
water which has done its work is passed on 
to the incoming water not yet in operation, 
and in that way a limited amount of heat 
is made to bring up to the boil a very much 
larger quantity of water than would other- 
wise be possible, the greater part of the 
dissolved gases being liberated at the same 
time. These are collected in the ordinary 
way. What you see in this flask is dis- 
solved air collected out of water in the 
course of the last three or four hours. Such 
' gas, when treated as if it were atmospheric 
nitrogen, that is to say after removal of the 
oxygen and minor impurities, is found to 
be decidedly heavier than atmospheric nitro- 
gen to such an extent as to indicate that 
the proportion of argon contained is about 
double. It is obvious, therefore, that the 
dissolved gases of water form a convenient 
source of argon, by which some of the labor 
of separation from air is obviated. During 
the last few weeks I have been supplied 
from Manchester by Mr. Macdougall, who 
has interested himself in this matter, with 
a quantity of dissolved gases obtained from 
the condensing water of his steam engine. 
As to the spectrum, we have been in- 
debted from the first to Mr. Crookes, and 
he has been good enough to-night to bring 
some tubes which he will operate, and 
which will show you at all events the light 
of the electric discharge inargon. I cannot 
show you the spectrum of argon, for unfor- 
tunately the amount of light from a vacuum 


SCIENCE. 


709 


tube is not sufficient for the projection of its 
spectrum. Under some circumstances the 
light is red, and under other circumstances 
itis blue. Of course when these lights are 
examined with the spectroscope—and they 
have been examined by Mr. Crookes with 
great care—the differences in the color of 
the light translate themselves into different 
groups of spectrum lines. We have before 
us Mr. Crookes’ map, showing the two 
spectra upon a very large scale. The upper 
is the spectrum of the blue light; the lower 
is the spectrum of the red light ; and it will 
be seen that they differ very greatly. Some 
lines are common to both; but a great many 
lines are seen only in the red, and others 
are seen only in the blue. It is astonishing 
to notice what trifling changes in the con- 
ditions of the discharge bring about such 
extensive alterations in the spectrum. 

One question of great importance, upon 
which the spectrum throws light is: Is the 
argon derived by the oxygen method really 
the same as the argon derived by the mag- 
nesium method? By Mr. Crookes’ kind- 
ness I have had an opportunity of examin- 
ing the spectra of the two gases side by side, 
and such examination as I could make re- 
vealed no difference whatever in the two 
spectra, from which, I suppose, we may 
conclude either that the gases are absolutely 
the same, or, if they are not the same, that 
at any rate the ingredients by which they 
differ cannot be present in more than a 
small proportion in either of them. 

My own observations upon the spectrum 
have been made principally at atmospheric 
pressure. In the ordinary process of spark- 
ing, the pressure is atmospheric, and if we 
wish to look at the spectrum we have nothe 
ing more to do than to include a jar in the 
circuit and to put a direct vision prism to 
theeye. At my request, Professor Schuster 
examined some tubes containing argon at 
atmospheric pressure prepared by the oxy- 
gen method, and I have here a diagram of 


710 


a characteristic group. He also placed 
upon the sketch some of the lines of zinc, 
which were very convenient as directing 
one exactly where to look. (See Fig.) 

Within the last few days Mr. Crookes 
has charged a radiometer with argon. 
When held in the light from the electric 
lamp the vanes revolve rapidly. Argon is 
anomalous in many respects, but not, you 
see, in this. 

Next, as to the density of argon. Pro- 
fessor Ramsay has made numerous and care- 
ful observations upon the density of the gas 
prepared by the magnesium method, and he 
finds a density of about 19.9 as compared 


438 44 45 46 47 


HY 


with hydrogen. Equally satisfactory obser- 
vations upon the gas derived by the oxygen 
method have not yet been made, but there 
is no reason to suppose that the density is 
different, such numbers as 19.7 having been 
obtained. 

One of the most interesting matters in 
connection with argon, however, is what is 
known as the ratio of the specific heats. I 
smust not stay to elaborate the questions in- 
volved, but it will be known to many who 
hear me that the velocity of sound in a gas 
depends upon the ratio of two specific heats 
—the specific heat of the gas measured at 
constant pressure, and the specific heat 
measured at constant volume. If we know 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


the density of a gas, and also the velocity 
of sound in it, we are in a position to infer 
this ratio of specific heats; and by means 
of this method, Professor Ramsay has de- 
termined the ratio in the case of argon, 
arriving at the very remarkable result that 
the ratio of specific heats is represented by 
the number 1.65, approaching very closely 
to the theoretical limit, 1.67. The number 
1.67 would indicate that the gas has no 
energy except energy of translation of its 
molecules. If there is any other energy 
than that, it would show itself by this num- 
ber dropping below 1.67. Ordinary gases, 
oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, etce., do drop 


48 49 5000 


below, giving the number 1.4. Other gases 
drop lower still. If the ratio of specific 
heats is 1.65, practically 1.67, we may infer 
then that the whole energy of motion is 
translational ; and from that it would seem 
to follow by arguments which, however, I 
must not stop to elaborate, that the gas 
must be of the kind called by chemists 
monatomic. 

I had intended to say something of the 
operation of determining the ratio of specific 
heats, but time will not allow. The result 
is, no doubt, very awkward. Indeed, I 
have seen some indications that the anoma- 
lous properties of argon are brought as a 
kind of accusation against us. But we had 


———— 


ee eee lee 


~~ 


JUNE 28, 1895.] 


the very best intentions in the matter. The 
facts were too much for us; and all we can 
do now is to apologise for ourselves and for 
the gas. 

Several questions may be asked, upon 
which I should like to say a word or two, 
if you will allow me to detain you a little 
longer. The first question (I do not know 
whether I need ask it) is, have we got hold 
of a new gas at all? I had thought that 
that might be passed over, but only this 
morning I read in a technical journal the 
suggestion that argon was our old friend 
nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide has roughly 
the density of argon ; but that, as far as I 
can see, is the only point of resemblance be- 
tween them. 

Well, supposing that there is a new gas, 
which I will not stop to discuss, because I 
think the spectrum alone would be enough to 
prove it, the next question that may be asked 
is, is it in the atmosphere? This matter 
naturally engaged our earnest attention at 
an early stage of the enquiry. I will only 
indicate in a few words the arguments 
which seem to us to show that the answer 
must be in the affirmative. 

In the first place, if argon be not in the 
atmosphere, the original discrepancy of 
densities which formed the starting point 
of the investigation remains unexplained, 
and the discovery of the new gas has been 
made upon a false clue. Passing over that, 
we have the evidence from the blank exper- 
iments, in which nitrogen originally derived 
from chemical sources is treated either with 
oxygen or with magnesium, exactly as at- 
mospherie, nitrogen is treated. If we use 
atmospheric nitrogen we get a certain pro- 
portion of argon, about 1 per cent. If we 
treat chemical nitrogen in the same way 
we get, I will not say absolutely nothing, 
but a mere fraction of what we should get 
had atmospheric nitrogen been the subject. 
You may ask, why do we get any fraction 
at all from chemical nitrogen? It is not 


SCIENCE. 711 


difficult to explain the small residue, be- 
cause in the manipulation of the gases 
large quantities of water are used; and, as 
I have already explained, water dissolves 
argon somewhat freely. In the processes 
of manipulation some of the argon will 
come out of solution, and it remains after 
all the nitrogen has been consumed. 

Another wholly distinct argument is 
founded upon the method of diffusion in- 
troduced by Graham. Graham showed 
that if you pass gas along porous tubes you 
alter the composition, if the gas is a mix- 
ture. The lighter constituents go more 
readily through the pores than do the 
heavier ones. The experiment takes this 
form. A number of tobacco pipes—eight 
in the actual arrangement—are joined to- 
gether in series with india rubber junctions, 
and they are put in a space in which a 
vacuum can be made, so that the space out- 
side the porous pipes is vacuous or approxi- 
mately so. Through the pipes ordinary 
air is led. One end may be regarded as 
open to the atmosphere. The other end is 
connected with an aspirator so arranged 
that the gas collected is only some 2 per 
cent. of that which leaks through the poros- 
ities. The case is like that of an Australian 
river drying up almost to nothing in the 
course of its flow. Well, if we treat air in 
that way, collecting only the small residue 
which is less willing than the remainder to 
penetrate the porous walls, and then prepare 
‘nitrogen’ from it by removal of oxygen 
and moisture, we obtain a gas heavier than 
atmospheric nitrogen, a result which proves 
that the ordinary nitrogen of the atmosphere 
is not a simple body, but is capable of being 
divided into parts by so simple an agent as 
the tobacco pipe. 

If it be admitted that the gas is in the 
atmosphere, the further question arises as 
to its nature. : 

At this point I would wish to say a word 
of explanation. Neither in our original 


712 


announcement at Oxford, nor at any time 
since, until the 31st of January, did we 
utter a word suggesting that argon was 
an element; and it was only after the ex- 
periments upon the specific heats that we 
thought that we had sufficient to go upon 
in order to make any such suggestion in 
public. I will not insist that that observa- 
tion is absolutely conclusive. It is cer- 
tainly strong evidence. But the subject is 
difficult, and one that has given rise to some 
difference of opinion among physicists. 
At any rate, this property distinguishes 
argon very sharply from all the ordinary 
gases. 

One question which occurred to us at the 
earliest stage of the enquiry, as soon as we 
knew that the density was not very differ- 
ent from 21, was the question of whether, 
possibly, argon could be a more condensed 
form of nitrogen, denoted chemically by the 
symbol N,. ‘There seem to be several diffi- 
culties in the way of this supposition. 
Would such a constitution be consistent 
with the ratio of specific heats (1.65) ? 
That seems extremely doubtful. Another 
question is, Can the density be really as 
high as 21, the number required on the sup- 
position of N,? As to this matter, Professor 
Ramsay has repeated his measurements of 
density, and he finds that he cannot get 
even so high as 20. To suppose that the 
density of argon is really 21, and that it 
appears to be 20 in consequence of nitrogen 
still mixed with it, would be to suppose a 
contamination with nitrogen out of all 
proportion to what is probable. It would 
mean some 14 per cent. of nitrogen, whereas 
it seems that from one-and-a-half to two 
per cent. is easily enough detected by the 
spectroscope. Another question that may be 
asked is, Would N, require so much cool- 
ing to condense it as argon requires ? 

There is one other matter on which I 
would like to say a word—the question as 
to what N, would be like if we had it. 


SCIENCE. 


Opinions. 


-as not to prejudge this question. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


There seems to be a great discrepancy of 
Some high authorities, among 
whom must be included, I see, the cele- 
brated Mendeleef, consider that N, would 
be an exceptionally stable body; but most 
of the chemists with whom I have consulted 
are of opinion that N, would be explosive, 
or, at any rate, absolutely unstable. That 
is a question which may be left for the 
future to decide. We must not attempt to 
put these matters too positively. The 
balance of evidence still seems to be against 
the supposition that argon is N,, but for 
my part I do not wish to dogmatise. 

A few weeks ago we had an eloquent 
lecture from Professor Rucker on the life 
and work of the illustrious Helmholtz. It 
will be known to many that during the last 
few months of his life Helmholtz lay pros- 
trate in a semi-paralyzed condition, forget- 
ful of many things, but still retaining a 
keen interest in science. Some little while 
after his death we had a letter from his 
widow, in which she described how inter- 
ested he had been in our preliminary an- 
nouncement at Oxford upon this subject, 
and how he desired the account of it to be 
read to him over again. He added the 
remark: ‘JI always thought that there 
must be something more in the atmosphere.” 


LLOYD MORGAN UPON INSTINCT. 

In the last number of Natural Science 
Professor C. Lloyd Morgan gives a valuable 
synopsis of the various definitions of in- 
stinet which have been proposed by Dar- 
win, Wallace, Romanes, James, Spencer 
and other writers upon this subject. He 
shows that surprisingly wide differences of 
opinion prevail and concludes that, ‘Since 
the question of origin is still sub judice, the 
definition should be purely descriptive, so 
And 
since the phenomena of instinct can only 
be rightly understood in their relation to 
automatism connate and acquired, to im- 


JUNE 28, 1895. ] 


pulse, to imitation and to intelligence, our 
definition of instinctive activities should 
find a place in a scheme of terminology.” 
He sets forth such a scheme sending us in 
MSS. a number of additions and modifi- 
cations which are embodied in the follow- 
ing table and abstract : 

“Tt may be premised : 

1. That the terms congenital and acquired 
are to be regarded as mutually exclusive. 
What is congenital is, as prior to individ- 
ual experience, not acquired. What is ac- 
quired is, as the result of individual experi- 
ence, not congenital. 

2. That these terms apply to the indi- 
vidual, whether what is acquired by one 
individual may become congenital through 
inheritance in another individual, is a ques- 
tion of fact which is not to be settled by 
implications of terminology. 

8. That the term acquired does not ex- 
elude an inherited potentiality of acquisi- 
tion under the appropriate conditions, 
such inherited potentiality may be termed 
innate. What is acquired is a specialization 
of a vague and general innate potentiality. 

4. That what is congenital and innate is 
inherent in the germ plasm of the fertilized 
ovum. 

Congenital Movements and Activities : Those 
the performance of which is antecedent to 
individual experience; they may be per- 
formed either (a) at or very shortly after 
birth (connate) or (b) when the organism 
has undergone further development (de- 
ferred). 

Congenital Automatism: The congenital 
physiological basis of those movements or 
activities which are antecedent to individ- 
ual experience. 

Physiological Rhythms : Congenital (or con- 
nate) rhythmic movements essential to the 
continuance of organic life. 

Reflex Movements: Congenital, adaptive 
and codrdinated responses of limbs or parts 
of the body ; evoked by stimuli. 


SCIENCE. 


713 


Random Movements: Congenital, more or 
less definite, but not specially adaptive 
movements of limbs or parts of the body ; 
either centrally initiated or evoked by 
stimuli. 

Instinctive Activities: Congenital, adaptive 
and coérdinated activities of the organism 
as a whole; specific in character, but sub- 
ject to variation analogous to that found in 
organic structures ; similarly performed by 
all the members of the same more or less re- 
stricted group, in adaptation to special cir- 
cumstances frequently recurring or essen- 
tial to the continuance of the race; often 
periodic in development and serial in char- 
acter. 

Mimetic Movements and Activities: Due to 
individual imitation or similar movements 
or activities performed by others. 

Impulse (Trieb): The affective or emotional 
condition, connate or acquired, under the 
influence of which a conscious organism is 
prompted to movement or activity, without 
reference to a conceived end or ideal. 

Instinct : The congenital psychological im- 
pulse concerned in instinctive activities. 

Control: The conscious inhibition or aug- 
mentation of movement or activity. 

Intelligent Activities: Those due to indivi- 
dual control or guidance in the light of ex- 
perience through association. 

Motive: The affective or emotional condi- 
tion under the influence of which a rational 
being is guided in the performance of de- 
liberate acts. 

Deliberate Acts: Those performed in dis- 
tinct reference to a conceived end or ideal. 

Habits: Organized groups of activities, 
stereotyped by repetition, and characteristic 
of a conscious organism at any particular 
stage of its existence. 

Acquired Movements, Activities or Acts: Those 
the performance of which is the result of 
individual experience. Any modifications 
of congenital activities which result from 
experience are so far acquired. 


714 


Acquired Automatism: The individually 
modified physiological basis of the perfor- 
mance of acquired movements or activities 
which have been stereotyped by repetition.” 

Professor Morgan points out that there is 
some overlap in these definitions, but it is 
difficult to see how such overlaps are to be 
avoided. H. F. O. 


SOME MEANDERING RIVERS OF WISCONSIN. 

Two years ago Professor Davis* called 
attention to the wide meanders of the Osage 
river of Missouri. He said: ‘‘The me- 
anders of the river are peculiar in not being 
like those of the Mississippi, spread upon a 
flat flood-plain. High spurs of the upland 
occupy the neck of land between every turn 
of the stream. Evidently the meanders are 
not of the ordinary kind.” He explained 
the peculiar tortuous course of the river as 


an inheritance from an earlier cycle, during- 


which the river had worn the land down to 
a surface of faint relief. The stream at 
that time swung to and fro in broad me- 
anders developed on a wide flood-plain. 
The whole region was then somewhat ele- 
vated, and the stream again set to work to 
cut down its channel to the new baselevel. 
But the meandering course which it had 
acquired late in the preceding cycle was 
carried over into the new cycle of its life. 
A recent visit to a part of the driftless 
area of Wisconsin, Lafayette and Grant 
counties, gave me an opportunity of ob- 
serving a similar habit of some of the 
rivers of that region. The general surface 
of the country is that of a gently rolling 
plain, at an elevation of from 850 to 1000 
feet, A. T. The interstream surfaces are 
broad and slightly undulating, but well 
drained. The surface rock, except in the 
immediate vicinity of the streams, is the 
Galena limestone. Occasionally the gen- 
eral level of the top of the country is 
*SCIENCE, April 28, 1893, vol. xxi., p. 225 et seq. 
SCIENCE, November 17, 1893, vol. xxii., p. 276 et seq. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


broken by hills, which rise 200 to 300 feet 
above the general level. The highest of 
these are capped by the hard Niagara lime- 
stone; the lower by beds of the Cincin- 
nati group. These hills form the so-called 
‘mounds,’ of which, in the area visited, the 
Platte Mounds—1250-1300 feet, A. T.—are 
the highest. The hard Niagara limestone 
caps of these mounds are the remnants of 
beds which formerly stretched over all this 
region, and which has since been removed 
by denudation. To hills of this type Prof. 
Davis has given the name, Monadnocks. 
The rocks of this region are nearly hori- 
zontal, and in general there is not a sharp 
contrast between the slant of the beds and 
the general slope of the upland surface. It 
seems, therefore, as if the upland might be 
a structural plain due to a resistant stratum, 
the Galena limestone, at the level of the 
upland—a stratum which had been revealed 
by denudation of the overlying beds. If 
this were the case, the upland level would 
be independent of any former baseleyel. 
But such a conclusion does not seem to be 
admissible; although nearly horizontal, the 
limestone has been bent into gentle flex- 
ures, some of which are sufficient to bring 
the underlying Trenton limestone and St. 
Peter’s sandstone up to the level of the 
upland surface. The plain is continuous 
across these low arches and bevels the 
edges of the gently inclined beds. More- 
over, to the north of the outcrop of the 
Galena limestone, the upland plain bevels 
the gently inclined edges of the underlying 
formation, which there come to the surface. 
In that region, however, the plain is now 
more completely dissected than further 
south. Whatever correspondence exists 
between the inclination of the beds and the 
slope of the plain is fortuitous and not due 
to structure primarily. It is believed that 
this plain is a surface of denudation, the 
result of long continued erosion on 4a 
greater land mass when the land stood lower 


| 


Vol. I., p- 176) graded rivers. 


JUNE 28, 1895. ] 


than at present. The upland surface is be- 
lieved to be an elevated peneplain. 

It is now moderately dissected by valleys 
which along the larger rivers are from 100 
to 200 feet deep. In comparison with the 
width of the gently undulating interstream 
surfaces these valleys are not very wide. 
The slopes are quite steep and locally form 
bluffs, but towards the top they pass by a 
graceful curve into the almost level upland. 
The present flood-plains along the bottoms 
of the valleys are generally from an eighth 
to a quarter of a mile in width. In terms 
of development the present valleys are well 
on towards maturity. The sharp narrow. 
valleys of extreme youth are entirely ab- 
sent. The rivers have made considerable 
progress in the present cycle in reducing the 
land mass to the level dependent on the 
grade of their channels, but the amount of 
work still to be done is vastly in excess of 
what has already been accomplished. 

The three topographic features mentioned, 
namely, the broad undulating upland, with 
an elevation of from 850 to 1,000 feet; 
the few monadnocks rising above it, and 
the valleys cut into it, give a clne to the 
stages of geographic development of this 
region. The upland peneplain is a surface of 
denudation produced by long continued 
erosion, when the land mass stood lower 
than at present. This cycle of erosion 
lasted a long time and the baseleveling was 
almost completed. Very few monadnocks 
rose above the general plain. The cycle 
was ended by an uplift, which quickened 
the streams, restored to them their cutting 
powers, and compelled them to erode new 
valleys in the old peneplain. They have 
now cut down their channels until their 
ability to transport material is just about 
equal to the material which they have to 
carry. Rivers, the profiles of whose stream- 
channels are in this condition of equilibrium, 
have been called by Davis (Scrence, N.S., 
The differ- 


SCIENCE. 


715 


ence in the slope of the valley sides and the 
upland plain indieates a change of level 
before the excavation of the valleys and 
after the formation of the upland plain. 
The process by which the valleys are being 
formed is not a direct continuation of the 
process by which the gentle upland slopes 
were fashioned. The valleys were cut in 
the upland surface after it was elevated 
from the low position which it had during 
its formation. 

Confirmatory evidence for this hypoth- 
esis is found in the winding courses of 
the valleys which now dissect this upland. 
Fever river was studied in the field, and 
the topographical atlas of the Wisconsin 
Geological Survey shows that the Platte, 
Little Platte, Grant and Pecatonica rivers 
have this same habit. If the geographical 
development of this region was as outlined 
above, the streams at the close of the 
earlier cycle must have possessed wide, flat 
valleys, with broad flood-plains, in which 
they meandered freely. The elevation of 
the land would have caused the streams to 
degrade their channels rapidly. In many 
cases the meanders on the flood-plain 
would have been superimposed upon the 
rock below, as the river bed was lowered. 
The valleys cut in the elevated peneplain 
would thus come to preserve, and, as 
pointed out by Winslow, also increase the 
meanders of the earlier cycle. 

Such seems to have been the case with 
the Fever river. Its meanders have an 
average radius of a little less than half a 
mile, but they are by no means constant. 
Rock spurs of the upland project into each 
curve. The slopes on these spurs are gen- 
erally gentler than on the outside of the 
curves, where the stream is often undercut- 
ting the base of the slope and increasing 
the meanders. Both open and close ox- 
bows occur. The most marked of the close 
type of meanders was noted near Benton, 
where the river makes an almost closed sig- 


716 


moid curve, the halves of which are from 
one-half to three-fourths of a mile in diam- 
eter. The rock neck of land between the 
two ends of the closer curve is less than a 
hundred yards in width and rises about 
seventy feet above the stream. 

Along Platte, Little Platte, Grant and 
Pecatonica rivers, larger streams than Fever 
river, the meanders are slightly larger on 
the average than along the smaller streams. 
Both open and close curves occur. Rock 
salients between 100 and 200 feet high pro- 
ject into the bow of each meander. Almost 
as complete a series of meander types can 
be found among the curves of the rock val- 
leys of these rivers as along the broad 
flood-plains of other streams. Indeed, the 
small meanders of these rivers in their pres- 
ent flood-plains can readily be duplicated 
by the wider curves of the rock valley. 
There can be no reasonable doubt but that 
the meanders of these valleys are an in- 
heritance from meanders developed on broad 
flood-plains in a previous cycle of erosion. 
So far as could be made out, these mean- 
ders are not due to difference in hardness 
or structure of the rocks of the region. 
The limestone does not present sufficiently 
marked differences of structure to account 
for these curves upon a theory of readjust- 
ment of courses due to the contrasts be- 
tween hard and soft beds. Whatever dif- 
ferences exist are not distinctly such as to 
modify the courses of rivers, particularly 
in a manner such as to resemble so closely 
flood-plain meanders. Nor does it seem to 
be admissible to suppose that these curves 
are the perpetuation of meandering courses 
taken when the land first emerged from the 
sea bottom. Such a supposition presup- 
poses too constant and stable a relationship, 
through an enormous lapse of time be- 
tween all the forces which control erosion 
and determine the position of streams. 

The sinuosities of these meanders may 
have been somewhat changed since the ele- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. I. No. 26. 


vation of the peneplain. In places the in- 
creased velocity may have straightened the 
curves to some extent. In other instances _ 
the meanders have been somewhat in- 
creased. Such seems to have been the case 
near Benton, where the stream is now under- 
cutting the narrow strip of land separating 
two parts of the curve. If this process con- 
tinues, a cut-off will result. 

In comparison with the Osage river, these 
streams are small and their meanders in- 
significant. But apart from size, the analogy 
between them is complete. They must be 
added to the growing list of streams known 
to be persisting in habits acquired under 
conditions which have long since disap- 
peared. Henry B. KumMet. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 
MISSOURI ROTANICAL GARDEN. 

THE attention of botanists is called to the 
facilities afforded for research at the Mis- 
souri Botanical Garden. In establishing 
and endowing the Garden, its founder, 
Henry Shaw, desired not only to afford the 
general public pleasure, and information 
concerning decorative plants and their best 
use, and to provide for beginners the means ~ 
of obtaining good training in botany and 
horticulture, but also to provide facilities 
for advanced research in botany and cog- 
nate sciences. For this purpose, additions 
are being made constantly to the number 
of species cultivated in the grounds and 
plant houses, and to the library and her- 
barium, and, as rapidly as it can be utilized, 
it is proposed to secure apparatus for work 
in vegetable physiology, ete., the policy 
being to secure a good general equipment in 
all lines of pure and applied botany, and to 
make this equipment as complete as pos- 
sible for any special subject on which ori- 
ginal work is undertaken by competent 
students. : 

A very large number of species, both 


JUNE 28, 1895.] 


native and exotic, and of horticulturists’ 
varieties, are cultivated in the Garden and 
Arboretum and the adjoining park, and the 
native flora easily accessible from St. Louis 
is large and varied. The herbarium, which 
includes nearly 250,000 specimens, is fairly 
representative of the vegetable life of 
Europe and the United States, and also 
contains a great many specimens from less 
accessible regions. It is especially rich in 
_ material illustrative of Cuscuta, Quercus, 
Coniferae, Vitis, Juncus, Agave, Yucca, 
Sagittaria, Epilobium, Rumex, Rhamnacee 
and other groups monographed by the late 
Dr. Engelmann or by attachés of the 
“Garden. The herbarium is supplemented 
by a large collection of woods, including 
veneer transparencies and slides for the 
microscope. The library, containing about 
8,000 velumes and 10,000 pamphlets, in- 
eludes most of the standard periodicals and 
proceedings of learned bodies, a good col- 
lection of morphological and physiological 
works, nearly 500 carefully selected botan- 
ical volumes published before the period 
of Linnzeus, an unusually large number of 
monographs of groups of cryptogams and 
flowering plants, and the entire manuscript 
notes and sketches representing the pains- 
taking work of Engelmann. 

The great variety of living plants repre- 
sented in the Garden, and the large her- 
barium, including the collections of Bern- 
hardi and Engelmann, render the Garden 
facilities exceptionally good for research in 
systematic botany, in which direction the 
library also is especially strong. The living 
collections and library likewise afford un- 
usual opportunity for morphological, ana- 
tomical and physiological studies, while the 
plant house facilities for experimental work 
are steadily increasing. The E. Lewis 
Sturtevant Prelinnean library, in connection 
with the opportunity afforded for the culti- 
vation of vegetables and other useful plants, 
is favorable also for the study of cultivated 


SCIENCE. 


717 


plants and the modifications they have 
undergone. 

These facilities are freely placed at the 
disposal of professors of botany and other 
persons competent to carry on research 
work of value in botany or horticulture, 
subject only to such simple restrictions as 
are necessary to protect the property of the 
Garden from injury or loss. Persons who 
wish to make use of them are invited to 
correspond with the undersigned, outlining 
with as much detail as possible the work 
they desire to do at the Garden, and giving 
timely notice so that provision may be 
made for the study of special subjects. 
Those who have not published the results 
of original work are requested to state their 
preparation for the investigation they pro- 
pose to undertake. 

Under the rules of Washington Univer- 
sity, persons entitled to candidacy in that 
institution for the Master’s or Doctor’s de- 
gree may elect botanical research work as 
a principal study for such degrees, if they 
can devote the requisite time to resident 
study. WILiiAM TRELEASE, 

Sr. Louis, Mo. Director. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 
THE GEOLOGY OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 


Geologic Atlas of the United States. U. S. 
Geological Survey; J. W. Power, Di- 
rector. Sacramento Folio, Geology by W. 
LiyperEN. Placerville Folio, Geology by 
W. Liypcren and H. W. Turner. Jackson 
Folio, Geology by H. W. Turner. Wash- 
ington, D.C. 1894. 

These three sheets are the first installment 
of aseries covering the gold belt of Cali- 
fornia which has been in course of prepara- 
tion for several years by the officers of the 
Geological Survey. It is needless to say 
that they form a very important and wel- 
come contribution to our knowledge of the 
geology of California. Since the collapse 
of the old State Survey under Whitney, 


718 


but little effort has been made by California 
to elucidate her economic geology, notwith- 
standing the liberal appropriations which 
the State Legislature makes regularly for 
the maintenance of a so-called ‘ Mining 
Bureau.’ In the knowledge of her geologic 
resources, California is far behind many 
minor States of the Union. It is therefore 
fortunate that the Federal authorities have 
so steadily prosecuted the inquiry into the 
geology of the gold belt of the Sierra 
Nevada and of other portions of northern 
California. The sheets under review are 
the results of this work. They form part 
of the geologic atlas of the United States 
and they are among the first dozen of the 
entire series. ‘The mechanical execution of 
the folios challenges the admiration of all 
familiar with such work. In the opinion 
of the writer they compare very advantage- 
ously with the best European efforts of a 
similar kind. Itis gratifying to American 
pride to see the beginnings of so vast a 
scientific project as a geologic atlas of the 
United States realized in a manner so emi- 
nently satisfactory. If there exists a doubt 
in the minds of the geologists of the country, 
and in this case the geologists speak for the 
people, as to the ultimate success of the 
project, it is based on the fear that there 
may not be in the future, as there certainly 
has not been in the past, a proper coordina- 
tion of the topographic and the geologic 
branches of the survey. A correct topo- 
graphic base is the sine qua non of a good 
geologic map; and unfortunately the topo- 
grapher’s conception of a correct map, in 
the present state of his professional educa- 
tion, is not what it ought to be. Thorough 
and conscientiously executed topographic 
surveys are expected of the geological sur- 
vey. The ambitious extension of the topo- 
graphic surveys far in advance of geologic 
investigation, ata rate which not only abso- 
lutely precludes the possibility of thorough 
work but demoralizes the topographer, can 


f 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


only bring serious discomfiture to the Geo- 
logical Survey as a government institution. 
The Sacramento, Placerville and Jackson ~ 
folios bring out clearly the salient features 
of a section which may be taken as typical 
for the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. 
The Sierra slope rises from the eastern edge 
of the Great Valley of California to the 
crest of the range, some 60 miles distant at 
an inclination of less than 2°. It presents the 
characters of a gently tilted plain which 
has been incisively dissected by the streams 
which traverse it. This slope is underlain 
by two very different assemblages of rocks. 
The first of these is composed of sediment- 
ary and eruptive formations which have 
been intensely disturbed, metamorphosed 
and invaded by vast intrusions of granitic 
magma, forming a complex whose eroded 
surface serves as the basement upon which 
the second assemblage reposes in little dis- 
turbed attitudes. The older assemblage is 
designated in the folios the ‘ Bed-rock’ se- 
ries, and the newer, the ‘Superjacent’ se- 
ries. Neither of these terms is felicitous, 
although the first is based on popular usage 
and will appeal to the mining community. 
The Bed-rock series comprises the rocks 
which are known popularly as the awrifer- 
ous slates, together with their associated 
eruptives and irruptives, and also the gran- 
itic rocks which invaded the series as a 
whole at the close of the Jurassic. It would 
be better if these granitic intrusions were 
not classed in the same category with the 
auriferous slates as part of a ‘series.’ The 
auriferous slates comprise the Calaveras for- 
mation (Carboniferous, with possibly some 
older Paleozoic) and the Mariposa forma- 
tion. In the earlier Sacramento and Pla- 
cerville folios, which are chiefly Lindgren’s. 
work, the Mariposa formation is colored as 
Cretaceous, while in the later Jackson folio- 
by Turner the same formation is colored as. 
Jurassic. The reference of this formation 
to two different horizons can scarcely be 


a Sa 


JUNE 28, 1895.] 


taken as indicative of decided difference of 
opinion between these two geologists, but 
rather of a rapid change of opinion on the 
part of the officers of the survey in conse- 
quence of the recent paleontological deter- 
minations of Hyatt, whose results were 
probably not available at the time the earlier 
folios went to press. The Mariposa formation 
is of economic importance as that in which 
occurs the zone of auriferous veining which 
constitutes the famous ‘ Mother Lode.’ 

In a field so overburdened with igneous 
rocks, contemporaneous and _ intrusive, 
geologists will readily understand that 
many problems arise which are not easily 
answered by the most earnest efforts of the 
field geologist. The lack of definite state- 
ments as to the structural relations of the 
various sedimentary and igneous forma- 
tions indicates that these relations are ob- 
secure and difficult to determine. Still, a 
brief statement from Messrs. Turner and 
Lindgren as to the interpretation of their 
structural sections would have been a de- 
sirable addition to the letter press, which is 
limited strictly to historical, petrographic 
and economic geology. For example: Are 
the two belts of the Mariposa slates on the 
Jackson sheet essentially synclinal troughs 
with an anticline bringing up a belt of the 
lower Calaveras between them? If so, the 
structure is comparatively simple, and the 
great body of amphibolite schist, diabase 
and porphyrite probably represents vol- 
canic accumulations chiefly intermediate in 
age between the Calaveras and the Mari- 
posa, but perhaps passing up into the lat- 
ter. Or is the region traversed by a great 
system of longitudinal faults? A discus- 
sion of these and other tectonic questions 
we may doubtless expect in more detailed 
reports upon the geology of the region. 
But something of the tectonic should find a 
place in the folios to help out the sections. 
While alluding to the igneous rocks it may 
be well to mention that the user of the geo- 


SCIENCE. 719 


logical map is handicapped by not having 
the effusive rocks discriminated from the 
intrusive on the color scale. From the text 
it is apparent that many of the igneous 
rocks are clearly intrusive, while others are 
effusive. This discrimination should be 
expressed graphically, as it is impossible to 
understand the structure without keeping 
itin mind. The doubtful rocks should be 
grouped apart from those which are clearly 
effusive or intrusive. An extra convention 
or two to express doubt or ignorance on 
particular points would greatly enhance the 
scientific value of our geological maps. 

One of the most important features of the 
Sierra Nevada slope is the invasion of the 
Calaveras and Mariposa formations by the 
Sierra Nevada batholite. The relations of 
the older rocks to this invading magma are 
beautifully brought out by the careful map- 
ping of Messrs. Turner and Lindgren. 
Petrographically, the rocks of this batholite 
are chiefly of a type intermediate between 
granite and diorite, and are therefore desig- 
nated as granodiorite. Other important 
facies of the same magma are granite, gab- 
bro and gabbro-diorite. These rocks ap- 
pear as great intrusive areas in the midst of 
the auriferous slates and establish pro- 
nounced zones of contact metamorphism in 
thelatter. Putting the three geologic sheets 
together, and bearing in mind the distribu- 
tion of these same granitic rocks to the 
eastward and southeastward of the area 
mapped, it is difficult to resist the sugges- 
tion that these rocks underlie practically 
the whole of the Sierra slope beneath the 
rocks through which they project as isolated 
masses. In other words, the mapping sug- 
gests strongly that if the plane of truncation 
effected by erosion had been lower a much 
larger proportion of granite would have 
been exposed, and if higher less. If this 
suggestion be accepted it follows that the 
Calaveras and Mariposa formations must 
have reposed upon the granodiorite magma 


720 


as a crust, up into which the magma 
advanced, not only by displacement, but 
absorption. For we have no trace appar- 
ently of the original basement upon which 
the Calaveras formation was deposited. In 
these relations of batholite to disturbed and 
metamorphic crustal rocks we have a strik- 
ing analogy with the relations which obtain 
between the Laurentian granites and the 
metamorphic rocks of the Ontarian system 
in the Lake Superior region. The amphi- 
bolites and other schists of ‘auriferous 
slates’ are petrographically the same as 
many of the schists of the Ontarian system. 

The invasion of the Jurassic and earlier 
rocks by the Sierra Nevada batholite seems 
to have been accompanied, or perhaps pre- 
ceded, by uplift and the development of 
mountain structure. During early Cre- 
taceous time these mountains were pro- 
foundly eroded, for on the edge of the valley 
of California we find the Chico Cretaceous, 
the earliest of the ‘Superjacent’ series, re- 
posing upon the worn surface of the grano- 
diorite. The Chico is followed by the Ione 
and later Tertiary formations. In part con- 
temporaneously with the Ione, but chiefly 
at a later period, there were spread over 
portions of the region important sheets of 
gravel. Associated with these are flows 
of rhyolite and andesite. The rhyolite 
flows serve as a means of separating the 
‘older’ from the ‘later’ gravels. The an- 
desitic flows were contemporaneous chiefly 
with the first of the later gravels. These 
gravels constitute the once famous placers 
of California. Since they were spread over 
the Sierra slope, the latter has been tilted so 
as to accentuate the grade and intensify the 
downward corrasion of the streams. Asa 
consequence of this corrasion, we now find 
only remnants of the gravels and volcanic 
flows reposing on the tops of nearly flat 
ridges between the river gorges. 

Anprew C. Lawson. 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. I. No. 26. 


On the [Harvest Mice] Species of the Genus 
Reithrodontomys. By J. A. Attun. 8° 
May 21, 1895. 
Museum of Natural History, New York 
(pp. 107-143). 

Dr. Allen has just published a much 
needed revision of the Harvest Mice—a 
group of small mammals differing from other 
murine rodents in having the upper incisors 
deeply grooved. Since Dr. Allen’s study is 
based on upwards of 900 specimens (two- 
thirds of which belong to the rich collection 
of the U.S. Department of Agriculture) it 
is probable that future researches will add 
little to the results here published, so far 
as the United States forms are concerned. 
The name of the common species of the 
Carolinas is changed from humilis to lecontet. 
Fifteen species and subspecies are recog- 
nized, 12 of which inhabit the southern and 
western parts of the United States. Seven 
of the United States forms are accorded full 
specific rank. One of these, R. montanus of 
Baird, is known from the type specimen 
only, which was collected in Colorado more 
than 40 years ago and is in very poor condi- 
tion. When additional specimens are ob- 
tained from the type locality it will probably 
displace one of the other species. Another, 
f. arizonensis from the Chiricahua Moun- 
tains, is separated from R. longicauda of 
California, chiefly on geographic grounds. 
In the case of one of the subspecies ad- 
mitted—R. longicaudus pallidus—it is not 
likely that Dr. Allen will be followed by 
other mammalogists. Respecting this form 
hesays: ‘I find myself greatly embarrassed 
as to which of three courses to pursue in 
the matter, namely: (1) To refer R. pallidus 
to R. longicauda as a pure synonym of the 
latter; (2) to treat R. pallidus as one of sev- 
eral local phases of R. longicauda; (3) to 
let the name stand in a subspecific sense 
for a generally dispersed paler southern 
form of R. longicauda, as opposed to true 
longicauda of the region from about Monterey 


From Bull. American _ 


JUNE 28, 1895.] 


and Merced counties northward. Through 
lack of material for properly working out 
the problem I have provisionally adopted 
the latter course.”’ 

Since he has 175 specimens that he re- 
garded as typical longicauda, and 157 that 
he referred to subspecies pallidus, or 332 in 
all, and since these 332 specimens came 
from no less than 70 localities scattered 
over the single State of California, it is a 
little difficult to understand what he meant 
by ‘lack of material for properly working 
out the problem.’ Furthermore, an exam- 
ination of the localities assigned to the two 
alleged forms shows them to be hopelessly 
mixed—both being recorded from the San 
Joaquin Valley, and both from the coast 
region north of Monterey ! 

One of the largest and most highly colored 
members of the group is a new form from 
Louisiana, collected by the field naturalists 
of the Department of Agriculture. Itisa 
northern representative of R. mexicanus and 
is named, from its color, R. mexicanus wuran- 
tius. 

The paper as a whole is a critical and 
painstaking study of an obseure group. It 
is based in the main on ample material and 
is particularly welcome as adding another 
genus to those recently revised by American 
mammalogists. Co ELM, 


NOTES AND NEWS. 
THE REMEDY FOR PEAR BLIGHT. 


Tue writer desires to announce that a 
satisfactory method of preventing pear blight 
has been discovered. After prolonged in- 
vestigation the complete life history of the 
microbe (Bacillus Amylovorous) has been 
worked out. Most of the cases of blight 
either come to a definite termination in 
summer or else kill the tree. When this is 
the case the blight dies out completely, there 
being no source of supply for the germs the 
following spring. In certain cases where it 
is a sort of even battle between the host and 


SCIENCE. 


721 


parasite, or where late infections in the fall 
have not run their course before cold weather 
comes on, the blight keeps alive in the tree. 
When root pressure inereases in the spring, 
such cases start into activity and serve as 
sources of infection for the new growth. 
The removal of these sources of infection is 
the preventive remedy for pear blight. The 
work is best performed in autumn after all 
late growth has ceased, but while the foliage 
is still on the trees. At this season the dead 
leaves which persist on the blighted branches 
serve admirably to attract attention to the 
points of danger. The work can be done at 
any time during the winter up to the time 
of the beginning of growth in spring. Cut- 
ting out the blight in summer is unsatis- 
factory on account of the continued appear- 
ance of new infections. The matter will be 
published in full in a bulletin from the 
Division of Vegetable Pathology. 
M. B. WaAITE, 


DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 


THE NEW YORK BOTANIC GARDEN. 
THE sum of $250,000 for the New York 
Botanic Garden has now been subscribed 
as follows : 


BP. Morgan: ::.:hsiiut ies $25,000 
Columbia College ...:..:..........- 25,000 
Andrew Carnegie .............0.¢+ 25,000 
er Vanderbilt -st2tee:2.26...0- nore 25,000 
J. D. Rockefeller <2. 225 .2.53.2.2. 25,000 
IPO): Miillg= 5700 fete senses ceceene ce 25,000 
mudge: A. Brow. .i2-<ce-c-cerconsne 25,000 
ym. Hs Dodpertisss:sccaceroeess 10,000 
Wad: A:. ‘SCryMser sy si02.c.oce oe 10,000 
Wm. C. Schermerhorn ........... 10,000 
Ex-Judge C. P. Daly.............. 5,000 
Or Ottendorfer.. .+.s..5scse-oncs oeeee 5,000 


Bamuel Sloan..........ccccssesees 5,000 


Geéoree: J. Goulds .c....-c... eas 5,000 
Mass EC. Mi. Gowlds 22. .<-s.scnsense 5,000 
John S. Kennedy ...............00¢ 5,000 
Wm. Rockefeller ...:.............- 5,000 
Baa. M. Constgbie. :: sis -.<.tsss< 08 5,000 


(22 
Morris Kes Jesup ieee cse-oeseeeece= $2,500 
Mirss Mise Dodges .cssstsene see 1,000 
aiftamiy ancl COsnee eee teres . 1,000 
Te horsey INS OPW Te pocontasacesoccces 500 


The act of incorporation required that 
this amount be collected for an endowment. 
The city must now raise $500,000 by bonds 
for building purposes, and provide 250 
acres of land in Bronx Park. 


THE HELMHOLTZ MEMORIAL. 


In addition to the subscriptions to the 
Helmholtz Memorial acknowledged in the 
issue of ScreNcE of May 31, the sum of $97 
has been collected by Prof. Rood from 
officers of Columbia College and forwarded 
to the committee. 


poker IS); IR@OGh. on pocasacnocanoascaenan $10 
William Hlallock,....................0-: 5 
MEE Cushman ace eeee nee se eae 5 
TR 8 GeO Te Onn pe ir Nees Nate ae a2 3 
EM CABamker asco: casseeteee ace sels es 5 
EL SY Curtis. caaceeace es meee rere oes 2 
Asa S. Iglehart, .....2...5.2.c25.00000 3 
CAC Drowi brid esse eeeopee reece <6 1 
1s Ean A WG 1 Lea de ana ae eae 1 
J. H. Van Amringe,.................. 10 
1D) iiy JULES codoabovans Gnooonecu sedan 5 
WB ACrocken,:a vane erent 5 
Ji STIRAUIRECS Sea cette tiny opt nnemn ed 2 
CoH Chandlery ween meee eeenc css 10 
EC Bowen 2s Vasco ioe de 3 
SIN) Bure ess, sh 0s eee maaan 5 
R. Mayo-Smith,........5........0.-060 10 
Wan GR iWiares Mae eae uae 5 
Eh omasi Pricey eee aeee meee: fe 2 
ie Bd DOH ete1) Se Ra BeU RAB AEG Rar so son take 2 
Livingston Farrand,.................. 1 
INF EMES Butler...) ths aie meas 2. 1 
James Jae Tey slopyessa essences 1 

$97 


GENERAL. 

Tue thirty-fourth annual meeting of the 
National Educational Association of the 
United States will be held at Denver, Col- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


orado, July 9th to 12th, 1895. The meet- 
ing promises to be the most important in 
the history of the Association. Among the 
large number of attractive addresses an- 
nounced on the program are the address of 
the president, Professor Nicholas Murray 
Butler, on ‘What Knowledge is of Most 
Worth,’ and an address by Professor Joseph 
Le Conte on ‘Effect of the Doctrine of 
Evolution upon Educational Theory and 
Practice.’ 


Mr. ARCHIBALD, president of the trustees 
of Syracuse University, has offered to be 
one of six men to build a hall of science 
costing about $150,000. The University 
has also been offered $10,000 and $100,000 
towards a new medical college. 


Tue University of Chicago announces 
that an American Journal of Sociology will be 
be issued bi-monthly from its press. 


THERE are eleven candidates for the de- 
gree of Ph. D. at the University of Chicago 
—in Sociology and Geology each two, and 
in Philosophy, Greek, Latin, English His- 
tory, Semetic and Chemistry each one. 


Mrs. L. P. Bassort, of Brooklyn, has en- 
dowed a fellowship for post-graduate study 
at Vassar College. 


Durine the coming year lectures on ex- 
perimental psychology will be given by Dr. 
Scripture to the entire Junior Class, 300 
members, of Yale College. Fifty under- 
graduates have elected special courses in 
the laboratory. 

CoLorRADO CoLLEGE will hold the fourth 
annual session of its summer school of 
science, philosophy and languages from 
July 15thto August 16th. Among the lec- 
turers from other universities are Prof. 
Bessey, of Kansas; Prof. Lounsbury, of 
Yale, and Prof. James, of Harvard. 

Parr of the collection of birds given to the 
Museum of Comparative Zodlogy of Harvard 
University by Mr. W. E. D. Scott was ex- 


: 
4 


' 


¥ 
} 


- JUNE 28, 1895.] 


hibited on June 18th. About 350 of the 
3,200 birds have been mounted in 56 cases. 
Each case contains two or more birds of the 
same species, mounted in such a way that 
the character and ordinary habits and sur- 
roundings of the species are suggested with- 
out making the accessories of more apparent 
importance than the birds themselves. 

Tue death is announced of Dr. Eliseyeff, 
known for his explorations in Asia and 
Africa. 

A prize of $100 has been offered by a 
_ friend of Johns Hopkins University for the 
best essay by a student of the University 
upon the application of chemistry to the 
useful arts. 

Tue Ethical Seminary for graduates in 
Harvard University will be conducted by 
Professor G. T. Ladd, of Yale University, in 
the absence of Professor Palmer during the 
coming year. 

AppITIONAL courses of lectures will be 
given at Johns Hopkins University during 
the next academic year by Mr. G. K. Gil- 
bert and Mr. Bailey Willis on geology, and 
by Dr. Frederick M. Warren, of Adelbert 
College on botany. The following appoint- 
ments have also been made: Abraham 
Cohen, instructor in mathematics ; Dr. Ja- 
cob H. Hollander, instructor in economics ; 
Dr. Harry C. Jones, instructor in physical 
chemistry ; Charles P. Singerfoos, an assist- 
ant in zodlogy and embryology. 

Dr. Joun P. Lorzy has presented his 
herbarium of five thousand sheets to the 
Women’s College of Baltimore. 

Tue death is announced of Heinrich Geis- 
burg, an authority on Westphalian history 
and archeology, in his seventy-seventh 
year. 

Dr. THeopoitus A. Wyte, Professor 
Emeritus in Indiana University, died re- 
cently at the age of eighty-five. He ac- 
cepted the chair of natural philosophy and 
chemistry in Indiana University in 1837, 


SCIENCE. 


723 


in 1852 became professor of mathematics in 
Miami University, but returned to his 
former position after three years. He was 
transferred to the chair of languages in 1864, 
and withdrew from active work in 1886. 

Tue presidency of the Columbian Univer- 
sity of Washington has been offered to the 
Rey. B. L. Whitman, President of Colby 
University in Maine. 

PROFESSOR ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL has 
presented the Volta Bureau Library of 
Georgetown with the Scientifie Library of 
the late Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian 
Institution, numbering 1,500 volumes. 

Av Harvard University Mr. G. A. Dorsey 
has been appointed instructor in anthro- 
pology, Mr. V. A. Wright instructor in 
descriptive geometry and stereotomy, and 
Dr. Alfred Schafer demonstrator of histology 
and embryology. 

Pror. VALENTINE BALL, Director of the 
Museum of Science and Art of Dublin, died 
on June 17th, at the age of 52 years. He 
was elected a fellow of the Geological So- 
ciety of London in 1874, fellow of the Royal 
Society in 1882, president of the Royal 
Geological Society of Ireland in 1882, and 
was professor of geology and mineralogy in 
the University of Dublin from 1881 to 1883. 
He was the author of works on the geology 
of India, and accounts of explorations in 
Afghanistan, Beloochistan, the Himalayas, 
ete. 

Jouns Hopkins University has received 
two gifts in memory of Prof. George H. 
Williams. His friends have given an oil 
portrait of Mr. Williams, and Mrs. Williams 
a sum of money sufficient to establish a 
lectureship in geology. Sir Archibald 
Geikie, Director of the Geological Survey 
of Ireland, has been invited to be first lee- 
turer. 


J. J. Hocay, mechanic and electrician in 
the Yale Psychological Laboratory, has in- 
vented a practicable device whereby the 


724 


high voltage city current is rendered readily 
available for low voltage instruments such 
as telegraph instruments, telephones, elec- 
tric forks, bells, induction coils, etc. The 
‘General Electric Company has acquired pat- 
ent rights. The details of the instrument 
will be made public as soon as the foreign 
patents are issued. 


Dr. H. W. Wittiams, a distinguished 
opthalmological surgeon of Boston and 
author of several works on diseases of the 
eye, died at Boston on June 13th at the age 
of seventy-three years. 

Pror. MicHart Fostrr has now prepared 
an abridgement of his classical text-book 
of physiology, which in the sixth edition of 
five volumes had reached a size too large 
for the needs of the medical student. The 
abridged edition is published by Macmillan 
& Co. in an octave volume of about 1000 
pages. 

Mr. Erwin F. Sure, of the Agricultural 
Department, has become one of the associate 
editors of The American Naturalist, taking 
charge of the department of vegetable phys- 
iology. 

Macmittan & Co. announce the third 
edition of Graduate Courses, edited by C. A. 
Duniway, Harvard Graduate Club, assisted 
by graduate students representing twenty 
leading American universities. The work 
gives the advanced courses of instruction to 
be offered for 1895-6 in Barnard, Brown, 
Bryn Mawr, California, Chicago, Clark, 
Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hop- 
kins, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, 
Princeton, Radcliffe, Stanford, Vander- 
bilt, Western Reserve, Wisconsin and Yale. 
Much valuable information is included re- 
garding the conditions ofadvaneed work at 
these universities. 

Ar the commencement of the University 
of Pennsylvania a bronze bust of the late 
Professor Joseph Leidy was presented by 
Dr. Harrison Allen. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


Str ARCHIBALD GEIKIE has been elected 
a corresponding member of the Vienna 
Academy of Sciences. 


~ 


Proressor Simon Newcoms was elected 
on June 16th an associate academician of 
the Académie des Sciences to fill the va- 
caney caused by the death of von Helm- 
holtz. 

Mrs. CorNELIA PHILLIPS SPENCER has re- 
ceived the degree of LL. D. from North 
Carolina State University. 


Av the summer meeting of the Univer- 


sity Extension Society of Philadelphia, July — 


1-26, Courses in literature and history, 
psychology, music, biology, mathematics, 
civies and politics will be offered. The 
courses in science are as follows: 
Psychology of the Normal Mind, by Wil- 
liam Romaine Newbold, Ph. D., Penna.; 
Physiological Psychology of Adult and 
Child, by Lightner Witmer, Ph. D., Penna.; 
Hypnotic and Kindred Abnormal States of 
Mind, by Willian Romaine Newbold, Ph. 
D.; Anatomy and Physiology of the Ner- 
vous System, by Lightner Witmer, Ph, D.; 
Experimental Methods of Child Study, by 
Lightner Witmer, Ph. D.; Botany, by W. 
P. Wilson, Se. D., Penna.; Systematic Bot- 
any, by J. M. Macfarlane, Sc. D., Penna.; 
Vertebrate Zoology, by Edward D. Cope, 
Ph. D., Penna.; Invertebrate Zodlogy, by 
J. S. Kingsley, S. D., Tufts; The Lower 
Plants, by Byron D. Halsted, Sc. D., Rut- 


gers; Biology in Elementary Schools, by L. ~ 


L. W. Wilson, Philadelphia Normal School; 
How Garden Varieties Originate, by L. H. 
Bailey, M.S., Cornell; Relation of Certain 
Plants to Political Economy, by George L. 
Goodale, LL. D., Harvard; The New Evo- 
lution, by Charles O. Whitman, Ph. D., 
Chicago; Higher Mathematics, Algebra, 
Modern Geometry, Ete., by Isaac J. 
Schwatt, Ph. D., Penna. 

Tue first number of a series of Princeton 
Contributions to Psychology has been issued 


Ve 


0 ee 


ee ee ae 


JUNE 28, 1895.] 


from the University press, edited by J. 
Mark Baldwin and containing two articles 
reprinted from the Psychological Review: 
I. General Introduction—Psychology, past 
and present, by the editor; and II. Freedom 
and Psycho-genesis, by A. T. Ormond. 

THE Programme of the Department of Geology 
of the University of Chicago for 1895-96 
bears witness to the great strength of the 
_ department. Thirty-one courses are offered 
by the following officers of the department : 
Thomas C. Chamberlin, Head Professor of 
Geology; Rollin D. Salisbury, Professor of 
Geographic Geology; Joseph P. Iddings, 
Professor of Petrology; Richard A. F. Pen- 
rose, Jr., Professor of Economic Geology; 
William H. Holmes, Professor of Archo- 
logic and Graphic Geology; Charles R. Van 
Hise, Non-resident Professor of Pre-Cam- 
brian Geology: Oliver Cummings Farring- 
ton, Instructor in Determinative Mineral- 
ogy; Edmund C. Quereau, Tutor in Palieon- 
tologie Geology. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 

At the meeting of June Ist Dr. C. Hart 
Merriam presented a paper on the Short- 
tailed Shrews of North America, stating 
that an examination of many specimens 
showed that the described species were only 
four, Blarina brevicauda, B. carolinensis, B. 
parva and B. Berlandieri. He discussed 
these and their distribution at some length, 
saying that each species was characteristic 
of one of the zodlogical divisions of North 
America. 

Dr. G. Brown Goode made some remarks 
on the Location and Record of Natural 
Phenomena by a Method of Reference to 
Geographical Codrdinates. 

Dr. Gill presented a communication on 
The Relations of the Ancient and Modern 
Ceratodontidw. 

He commented on the unusual degree of 
interest connected with the Ceratodontids. 


SCIENCE. 


725 


The statement has been frequently made 
that Ceratodus is the oldest living generic 
type of fishes, and the identity of the living 
fishes so-called with the mesozoic species 
has been especially insisted on. The speak- 
er, however, had denied such generic iden- 
tity as early as 1878 on account of the dif- 
ference in the form and plication of the 
dental plates, and had revived for the recent 
genus the name Neoceratodus given in mis- 
take by Castelnau to a specimen of the 
genus. A new name, Epiceratodus, has re- 
cently been given by Teller to the same 
genus and must be abandoned. But Teller 
has given us useful data respecting the 
cranial characters of the mesozoic species, 
and we now have information sufficient at 
least to offer hints as to the relations of the 
ancient and modern forms. We can affirm 
positively that the recent Ceratodontids are 
very different from the mesozoic species ; 
that consequently they should bear the 
name Neoceratodus, unless a still earlier one 
is applicable, and further that the differ- 
ences between the living and long extinct 
species are enough to ever differentiate the 
two as distinct sub-families, the Ceratodontine 
including only extinct species and the Neo- 
ceratodontine being a recent type. The dis- 
tinguishing characters of the two were given 
at length and derived from the dermal 
bones, the modification of the posterior re- 
gion of the head, and the protrusion of the 
jaws. The ancient forms themselves belong 
to at least two genera: Ceratodus, typified by 
C. Kaupii, and Anticeratodus, typified by C. 
Sturii, of Teller. The latter is distinguished 
by the contiguity of the two palatine plates 
and their extended inner walls. 

Professor Lester F. Ward exhibited spec- 
imens of the rhizomes of the Gama Grass, 
Tripsacum dactyloides, obtained at Great 
Falls, Md., on April 27th, which bore a 
striking resemblance to fossil forms de- 
scribed under the name of Caulinites, 
Brongn., and especially to C. parisiensis, 


726 


Brongn., from the Eocene of the Paris 
Basin. He exhibited figures of that species 
to show this resemblance. 

The genus Caulinites was first figured by 
Desmarest, who supposed it to be a polyp 
and named it Amphitoites parisiensis in Nov. 
Bull. deSci., Société Philomathique, tom. IT., 
pl. 2. This figure was reproduced by Cu- 
vier and Alex. Brongniart in Essai sur 
la Geographie Minéralogique des Environs 
de Paris, pl. II., figs. 10 A. and 10 B., 1811, 
and has been repeated in all later editions. 
A large number of very fine specimens were 
collected subsequently, and Adolphe Brong- 
niart had no doubt but that it represented 
the impression of a plant. In his ‘ Tableau,’ 
1849, p. 86, he placed it under a plant genus 
which he renamed Caulinites, from the genus 
Caulinia, of de Candolle, a name antedated 
by Posidonia, K6n., an aquatic plant related 
to the river-weeds, Potamogeton, and sea 
wracks, Zostera, in the Naiadacee. When 
Watelet, in 1866, undertook the elaboration 
of all the material in the Paris Museum 
from the Hocene of the Paris Basin he de- 
voted several plates to illustrating this and 
other species of the same genus. 


Prof. Ward stated that when he saw the - 


rhizomes he was forcibly struck with their 
resemblance to the figures of Desmarest and 
Watelet. A comparison of them showed 
that in many respects they were not only 
similar but practically identical, although 
among Watelet’s figures are some which 
deviate considerably from this type. A 
large number of similar forms have been 
found in various deposits, chiefly Tertiary, 
throughout the world, and more than 50 
species of Caulinites have been named, many 
of which will, of course, prove to be syno- 
nyms, while others depart so widely from 
the normal type that they will require to be 
excluded. 

Prof. Ward said further that in 1887, 
Prof. Lesquereux described a species col- 
lected by Mr. Geo. F. Becker at Clear Lake, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


Cal., under the name of C. Beckeri. Proc. 
U.S. Nat. Mus. Vol. X., p. 36, pl. I, fig. 3, 


pl. Il, figs. 1-4. Mr. Becker stated that he 


had supposed these rhizomes to belong to 
the common Tule, Phragmites phragmites, 
(L.) Karst., the deposit being a very recent 
one in the bed of a dried-up pond where 
the Tule was supposed to have grown as it 
now grows in those regions. 

Prof. Ward remarked in conclusion that 
he had found other, similar, rhizomes 
washed up along the Potomac, but was un- 
able to say to what plant they belonged, 
but enough is now known to make it certain 
that a considerable number of grasses, and 
perhaps rushes and other monocotyledonous 
plants, possess rhizomes with short joints re- 
sembling or practically identical with those 
of the genus Caulinites. 

The Society then adjourned until October. 

F. A. Lucas, Secretary: 


ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 

THE 109th meeting was held June 6. Mr. 
Wm. H. Ashmead read a paper on the dis- 
covery of Elasmosoma Ruthe in America. 
This remarkable monotypical Microgas- 
teriné genus, the type species of which 
(E. berolinense): was collected in Europe 
many years ago in company with an ant, 
is supposed to be parasitic upon ants. Mr. 
Ashmead has found three species in America, 
one collected at Washington in 1889 by EH. 
A. Schwarz; one at Fort Collins, Col., by 
C. F. Baker, and the third near Washing- 
ton by Th. Pergande. The last species was 
found flying about the nest of Camponotus 
melleus, and the genus may be parasitic 
either upon ants or upon myrmecophilous. 
beetles. 

A paper by F. M. Webster entitled ‘ Notes 
on the Distribution of some Injurious In- 
sects,’ was read by the corresponding secre- 
tary. In this paper Prof. Webster criticised 
some of the details brought out by Mr. 
Howard in his paper on the geographical 


: 


ae 


JUNE 28, 1895.] 


distribution within the United States of 
certain insects injuring cultivated crops 
(Proce. Entom. Soe. Wash. IIIL., No. 4), 
particularly in regard to the spread of in- 
jurious species into Ohio and their distribu- 
tion in that State. 

Mr. H. G. Hubbard exhibited specimens 
of the borings of Xyleborus and Platypus, 
Scolytid beetles, in orange wood. He de- 
seribed the habits of these beetles and 
showed that Platypus is capable of making 
extensive galleries of its own in hardwood 
trees. The nature of the food of these 
timber beetles was discussed. In addition 
to reviewing and confirming the obserya- 
tions of European writers, Mr. Hubbard 
described the so-called Ambrosia which 
nourishes the young, as welling up through 
the pores of the wood which are cut by the 
galleries, in the shape of minute white but- 
tons, giving a tesselated appearance to the 
walls of the passages. The substance 
sometimes accumulates in the galleries, 
and when puddled by the larve resembles 
half-melted snow or slush. A growth of 
fungus forms upon the Ambrosia, and clos- 
ing the mouth of the galleries causes them 
to fill up and suffocate the inmates. This 
method of treatment was found useful 
in Florida, to save from further injury 
the budded portion of trees killed back 
by the severe frost of February last. A 
piece of wire was pushed into the burrows 
as far as it would go and then cut off and 
left there. 

As to the nature of Ambrosia, Mr. Hub- 
bard made the conjecture that it is a 
ferment set up in the sap of the tree and 
augmented by the presence of the ani- 
mals. 

Mr. O. Heidemann exhibited specimens 
of Coriscus flavomarginatus, a brachypterus 
Nabid new to North America, which was 
collected at St. John’s, New Brunswick, by 
the late Dr. Marx. Mr. Howard exhibited 
a female Scolia sent from Texas by Mr. E. 


SCIENCE. 


127 


A. Sehwarz, and which had become, in 
some manner, impaled upon a sharp thorn, 
the thorn entering the middle of the face. 
It was a question whether the insect became 
so impaled by flying violently against the 
sharp point of the thorn, or whether it had 
been stuck there by a shrike. Mr. Frank 
Benton exhibited a comb of Apis florea 
which he had collected in Ceylon. This is 
the smallest species of Apis known. Curi- 
ously enough, the only two species of Apis 
which build in the open air, namely, Apis 
florea and A. dorsata, are the smallest and 
the largest species of the genus. 
L. O. Howarp, 
Recording Secretary. 


NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 

At the meeting on May 27th Prof. Cat- 
tell described Bodily and Mental Tests made 
on members of the Freshman Class of Columbia 
College by him in conjunction with Dr. Far- 
rand. About twenty-five observations and 
measurements were made on students en- 
tering college in 1894, and these will be re- 
peated at the middle and end of the course. 
In describing the experiments especial at- 
tention was given to those of a more purely 
psychological nature, such as memory, ac- 
curacy of perception, sensitiveness to pain, 
reaction-time, rate of perception, imagery, 
ete., and some of the experiments were made 
on those present. Such experiments are of 
value to the individual student, as they give 
him information concerning his bodily and 
mental condition, and the effect of his col- 
lege course upon these ; they are also of use 
in increasing our exact knowledge of mental 
processes and their relation to bodily con- 
ditions. 

Professor Rees exhibited a Geodetic Theod- 
olite made by Wanschaff, of Berlin, for use 
in the Summer Class of Practical Geodesy 
at Columbia College. The telescope was 
194 inches in foeal length with 24 inch ob- 
jective. The horizontal circle was 8 inches 


728 


in diameter and was read to single seconds 
ofare by two micrometer-microscopes. The 
graduations on the circle were microscopic 
and were seen easily in the reading micro- 
scopes. The telescope was provided with a 
small vertical circle 64 inches in diameter 
and reading by verniers to single minutes. 
The instrument was arranged for observa- 
tions on Polaris for azimuth work. 
J. F. Kemp, Secretary. 


THE WISCONSIN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, ARTS 
AND LETTERS. 

Tue Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, 
Arts and Letters held its Summer meeting, 
on June 6th to 8th, 1895, at Milwaukee, 
Wis., under the auspices of the Natural 
History Society of Wisconsin, and the 
Presidency of Professor Charles R. Van 
Hise. In addition an address by President 
C. K. Adams and a number of other histor- 
ical and sociological papers, the following 
were presented : 

Address of Welcome: GrorcE W. PECKHAM, 
President of the Natural History Society 
of Wisconsin. 

Opening address, ‘ Reforms in Germany after 
the Napoleonic Wars: 
dent of the University of Wisconsin. 

The relation of pooling to some phases of the 
transportation question: A. M. Simons. 

The legal aspects of trusts: Epgar EF. Srrone. 
Read by title. 
The forms spontaneously assumed by folk-songs: 

J. ComrortT FILLMORE. 

Negro suffrage in Wisconsin: J. G. GREGORY. 

Some Observations on the Lateral Moraines at 
Devil’s Lake: D. P. NicHorson. 

Geology of Mts. Adam and Eve, Orange Counts ty, 
NE Ye) Gada. Conmi: 

Certain Uses of Topographical Maps : 
CoLLiE. 

The Production of Electrical Energy Directly 
From Carbon: A. J. Rogers. 

A Contribution to the Mineralogy of Wisconsin : 
Witiiam H. Hopgss. 


G. L. 


SCIENCE. 


C. K. ApAms, Presi- 


[N. S. Vou. I. No. 26. 


Some New Occurrences of Minerals in Michigan 
and Montana; Wut~ram H. Hoss. 


On a Diamond from Kohlsville, Wisconsin :_ 


Witiram H. Hoss. 

From Pinene to Carvacrol: E>wARD KREMERS. 

A Dredge for Collecting Crustacea at Different 
Depths: C. DwigHT Marse. 

Method of Determining the Coefficient of a 
Plankton Net: E. A. Brrex. 

The Pelagic Crustacea of Lake Mendota During 
the Winter and Spring of 1894-1895: E. 
A. BIRGE. 

The Biological History of Daphnia Hyalina, 


Leydig: E. A. Brree. 

The Periodic System as a Didatic Basis: Ep- 
WARD Kremers. Read by title. 

Observed and Computed Precession: D. P. 


BiAckstone. Read by title. 


THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 


The Law of Hypnotism: Pror. R. 8S. Hyer. 

County Roads: CHARLES CoRNER, C. E. 

On the Glycerine Method of Preserving Speci- 
mens for the Anatomical Museum: Dr. Wu. 

KerLier, F. R.C.8. 

Texas Soils; a Preliminary Statement and Clas- 
sification: HK. T. DUMBLE. 

Simultaneous Quadratic Equations: I. H. Bry- 
ANT. 


NEW BOOKS. 


Geological Survey of Michigan. Lucius L. 
Hupsarp, State Geologist. Vol. vy. 181, 
18938. pp. x+179. xxiv+100. 

The Theory of Light. THomMas Preston. 2nd 
Edition. London and New York, Mac- 
millan &Co. 1895. Pp. xvii++-566. $5.00. 

A Monograph of the Order of Oligocheta. 
FraNK Evers Bepparp. Oxford. Clar- 
endon Press, New York, Macmillan & 
Co. 1895. Pp. xii+769. $12.50. 

Report of the International Meteorological Con- 
gress Held at Chicago, Ill. PartIl. Edit- 
ed by Oxtver L. Fassig. Washington, 
Weather Bureau. 1895. Pp. xvi+583. 


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