Established by Edward L. Youmans
APPLETONS'
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY
EDITED BY
WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS
VOL. LV
MAY TO OCTOBER, 1899
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899
Copyright, 1899,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
WILLIAM PENGELLY.
APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.
FEBRUARY, 1899.
ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE.
A JOURNEY TO THE NEW ELDORADO.
By ANGELO HEILPRIN,
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AT THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA,
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.
I.—IN BY THE WHITE PASS AND OUT BY THE CHILKOOT.
Hardly two years ago the names Dawson and Klondike were
entirely unknown to the outside world, and geographers were
as ignorant of their existence as was at that time the less learned laity.
To-day it may be questioned if any two localities of foreign and uncivilized
lands are as well known, by name at least, as these that mark
the approach to the arctic realm in the northwest of the American continent.
One of those periodic movements in the history of peoples
which mark epochs in the progress of the world, and have their source
in a sudden or unlooked-for discovery, directed attention to this new
quarter of the globe, and to it stream and will continue to stream thousands
of the world's inhabitants. Probably not less than from thirty-five
thousand to forty thousand people, possibly even considerably
more, have in the short period following the discovery of gold in
the Klondike region already passed to or beyond the portals of what
has not inaptly been designated the New Eldorado. To some of these
a fortune has been born; to many more a hope has been shattered in
disappointment; and to still more the arbiter of fate, whether for good
or for bad, has for a while withheld the issue.
In its simplest geographical setting Dawson, this Mecca of the
north, is a settlement of the Northwest Territory of Canada, situated
at a point thirteen hundred miles as the crow flies northwest of Seattle.
It is close to, if not quite on, the Arctic Circle, and it lies the better
part of three hundred miles nearer to the pole than does St. Petersburg
in Russia. By its side one of the mighty rivers of the globe
hurries its course to the ocean, but not too swiftly to permit of sixteen
hundred miles of its lower waters being navigated by craft of the size
of nearly the largest of the Mississippi steamers, and five hundred
miles above by craft of about half this size. In its own particular
world, the longest day of the year drawls itself out to twenty-two
hours of sunlight, while the shortest contracts to the same length of
sun absence.
During the warmer days of summer the heat feels almost tropical;
the winter cold is, on the other hand, of almost the extreme Siberian
rigor. Yet a beautiful vegetation smiles not only over the valleys,
but on the hilltops, the birds gambol in the thickets, and the tiny
mosquito, either here or near by, pipes out its daily sustenance to the
wrath of man. The hungry forest stretches out its gnarled and
ragged arms for still another hundred or even three hundred miles
farther to the north.
Up to within a few years the white man was a stranger in the
land, and the Indian roamed the woods and pastures as still do the
moose and caribou. To-day this has largely changed. The banks
of the once silent river now give out the hum of the sawmill, the click
of the hammer, and the blast of the time-whistle, commanding either
to rest or to work. A busy front of humanity has settled where
formerly the grizzly bear lapped the stranded salmon from the shore,
and where at a still earlier period—although perhaps not easily associated
with the history of man—the mammoth, the musk ox, and the
bison were masters of the land. The red man is still there in lingering
numbers, but his spirit is no longer that which dominates, and his
courage not that of the untutored savage.
The modern history of Dawson begins with about the middle of
1896, shortly after the "public" discovery of gold in the Klondike
tract. Three or four months previous there was hardly a habitation,
whether tent or of logs, to deface the landscape, and the voice of
animate Nature was hushed only in the sound of many waters. At
the close of the past year, as nearly as estimate can make it, there were
probably not less than from fourteen thousand to fifteen thousand
men, women, and children, settled on the strip of land that borders
the Yukon, both as lowland and highland, for about two miles of its
course near the confluence of the Klondike. Many of these have located
for a permanence, others only to give way to successors more
fortunate than themselves. Some of the richest claims of the Bonanza,
now a famed gold creek of the world, are located hardly twelve
miles distant, and the wealth of the Eldorado is discharged within a
radius of less than twenty miles. Over the mountains that closely
limit the head springs of Bonanza and Eldorado, Hunker, Dominion,
and Sulphur Creeks thread their own valleys of gold in deep hollows
of beautiful woodland—fascinating even to-day, but already badly
scarred by the work that man has so assiduously pressed in the region.
This is the Klondike, a land full of promise and of equal disappointment,
brought to public notice in the early part of 1897, when
intelligence was received by the outside world regarding the first
important gold location on Bonanza Creek in August of the year
previous.
Looking down the Lynn Canal—Skaguay River, with Skaguay on the Left.
On the 24th of July of the past year I found myself on the principal
thoroughfare of Skaguay, the ubiquitous Broadway, contemplating
a journey to the new north. The route of travel had been
determined for me in part by the non-arrival at Seattle of the expected
steamers from the mouth of the Yukon River, and by that
woeful lack of knowledge regarding "conditions" which so frequently
distinguishes steamship companies. It was to be, therefore,
the overland route, and from Skaguay it was merely the alternative
between the White Pass and the Chilkoot Pass or Dyea trails. The
two start from points barely four miles apart, cross their summits at
very nearly the same distance from one another, and virtually terminate
at the same body of inland water, Lake Lindeman, the navigable
head of the great Yukon River. A more than generous supply
of summer heat gave little warning of that bleak and severe interior
with which the world had been made so well familiar during the
last twelvemonth, and from which we were barely six hundred miles
distant; nor did the character of the surroundings betray much of an
approach to the Arctic Circle. Mountains of aspiring elevations, six
thousand to seven thousand feet, most symmetrically separated off into
pinnacles and knobs, and supporting here and there enough of snow
to form goodly glaciers, look down upon the narrow trough which to-day
is the valley of the Skaguay River. At the foot of this ancient
fiord lies the boom town of Skaguay. Charming forests, except
where the hand of man has leveled the work of Nature to suit the requirements
of a constructing railway, yet clothe the mountain slopes
and fill in the gap that lies between them, shadowing the dense herbage
and moss which almost everywhere form an exquisite carpeting
to the underlying rock. The ear may catch the strains of a few mosquitoes,
or the mellow notes of the robin or thrush, but rising far
above these in the majesty of tone and accent is the swish of the
tumbling cataracts which bring the landscape of Norway to America.
Man, it is claimed, is much the same the world over; but there is a
limitation. The second habitation of white man in Skaguay was
established less than a year before my visit; yet at that time, presumably
to meet the demands of a resident population of nearly five
thousand, and of the wandering hordes pressing to the interior, the
destructive hand of the advertiser had already inscribed on the walls
of rock, in characters twenty feet or more in height, and sufficiently
elevated to make them nearly the most conspicuous elements of the
landscape, the glories of cigars, the value of mental and physical
specifics, and of other abominations which were contrived to fatten
the Yankee pocket.
A Summer Day on the Skaguay.
Had it not been for the kindly advice of one who had just returned
from the Klondike, and who claimed to have crossed both
passes fifty times, I should almost unhesitatingly have taken the
White Pass trail; but the representation that beyond the summit the
mud would be neck-deep and virtually impenetrable for a distance of
twenty miles or more, cast the decision in favor of the Chilkoot. The
fortunate or unfortunate circumstance that a billowy sea made a landing
of passengers at Dyea impossible on that day threw me back upon
my first resource, and about two hours before midday of the 30th
I was mounted on a horse following out the Skaguay trail. By
seven o'clock in the evening of the following day I had reached Lake
Lindeman, and about a half hour later Lake Bennett, the starting
point of the lines of Upper Yukon steamers which had just recently
been established. We had made the forty miles of the dreaded White
Pass trail without serious hindrance or delay, up over the summit
of 2,860 feet elevation, and down over a course which was depicted
in colors of hardship that would have done more truthful service in
describing a pass in the Himalayas. There was no mud, not a trace
of snow or ice except on the mountain declivities, and had it not been
for a horse that was both stiff and lame, and required my attention as
pedestrian to an extent that had not been bargained for, the journey
would have been an exceptionally delightful one.
Coming down the White Pass—Winter.
It is true that an unfortunate fall at one time almost deprived
me of my animal, but the service of tackle soon put him to rights
and to his feet, and but few blood marks were left on the rocks to tell
of the struggle. The most disagreeable incident of the journey was a
dense and shifting fog, which so blocked out the landscape of early
evening as to necessitate "feeling" the brokenness of a glaciated
country in order to ascertain wherein lay the trail. But beyond this
there was a perpetual delight in the landscape—in the narrow rocky
defile, the bursting torrent, the open meadows, with their carpet of
green and variegated with fireweed, gentian, rose, and forget-me-not,
which more than compensated for the little vexations that allied themselves
with the journey.
It is not often that the selection of a route of travel is determined
by the odorous or malodorous qualities which appertain thereto.
Such a case was, however, presented here. It was not the depth of
mud alone which was to deter one from essaying the White Pass
route; sturdy pioneers who had toiled long and hard in opening up
one or more new regions, laid emphasis upon the stench of decaying
horse-flesh as a factor of first consideration in the choice of route. So
far as stench and decaying horse-flesh were concerned, they were in
strong evidence. The Desert of Sahara, with its lines of skeletons, can
boast of no such exhibition of carcasses. Long before Bennett was
reached I had taken count of more than a thousand unfortunates
whose bodies now made part of the trail; frequently we were obliged
to pass directly over these ghastly figures of hide, and sometimes,
indeed, broke into them. Men whose veracity need not be questioned
assured me that what I saw was in no way the full picture of the
"life" of the trail; the carcasses of that time were less than one third
of the full number which in April and May gave grim character to
the route to the new Eldorado. Equally spread out, this number
would mean one dead animal for every sixty feet of distance! The
poor beasts succumbed not so much to the hardships of the trail as
to the inhuman treatment, or lack of care and assistance, which they
received on the part of their owners. Once out of the line of the
mad rush, perhaps unable to extricate themselves from the holding
meshes of soft snow and of quagmires, they were allowed to remain
where they were, a food offering to the army of carrion eaters which
were hovering about, only too certain of the meal which was being
prepared for them. Oftentimes pack saddles, and sometimes even the
packs, were allowed to remain with the struggling or sunken animal—such
was the mad race which the greed of gold inspired.
Cutting Grade for the Pacific and Arctic Railway—Tunnel Mountain, White Pass
Route.
On October 9th I was again at Bennett, this time returning from
my journey into the interior, and full of experience of what steam
navigation on the upper six hundred miles of Yukon waters might
mean. There was now a change in the sentiment regarding the quality
of the two passes. The Pacific and Arctic Railway, the pioneer
of Alaska steam railways, was operating twelve miles of track, and
had thus materially reduced the "hardships" of the Skaguay trail;
the Chilkoot, on the other hand, was represented to be in the worst
of mood, and prepared to put the passing traveler into the same condition.
It was more than late in the season, but the winter's blasts
had been stayed off by a full month, and there were still no signs of
their coming. A little ice had begun to form along the river's margin
and over sheltered pools, and an occasional cool night made demands
for moderately warm clothing proper; but, on the whole, the
temperature was mild and balmy, and to its influence responded a
vegetation which in its full glory might easily have called to mind the
region of the Juniata.
Although strongly warned against taking the Chilkoot Pass so
late in the season, many of the outgoers, whose recollections of events
in the early part of the year were still vividly fresh, and who could
not be persuaded that the period of a few months had so effaced the
conditions of the past as to permit a steam railway to enter for twelve
miles into the region, chose it in preference to the White Pass. My
own mind had been cast in the same direction; not, however, from
a point of judicious preference, but merely because I was anxious to
see for myself that which had become historic in the movement of
1898, and of instituting a direct comparison of the physical features
and general characteristics of the two routes. With no serious hindrance,
the journey from Bennett out was that of a full day only,
and there was no particular reason to suspect that there would be
delay. Snow had fallen on the summit and whitened all the higher
points, but seemingly it hung in only a measurably thin crust, and
with not enough to necessitate breaking a trail.
A crude steam ferry across Lake Lindeman cuts off about six
miles from the first part of the trail, after which a rapidly rising path,
sufficiently distinct to permit it to be easily followed, winds over the
rocks and among rock débris to Long Lake, situated at an elevation of
some twenty-six hundred feet, where night shelter is found in a fairly
comfortable tent. Up to this point we had encountered but little snow,
and the condition of the trail was such as to allow of rapid travel. A
wise caution detained us here for the night, and the incoming of a
solitary traveler warned us that a blizzard had struck the summit of the
pass, and buried it beneath a heavy mantle of snow. Had we been a
day earlier we might have crossed dry shod, a very exceptional condition
at this time of the year, but now the possibilities of a struggle
gravely presented themselves. A light frost of the night had fairly
congealed the soil, but the lake did not carry enough surface ice to interfere
with the progress of a scow, and we reached the farther end
without difficulty. The two-mile portage to Crater Lake was largely
a snow traverse, but an easy one; at this time, however, it began to
snow heavily, and the immediate prospect was anything but cheerful.
A low fog hung over the waters, but not so low or so dense as to
prevent us from occasionally catching glimpses of the rocks which
projected with disagreeable frequency from an assumed bottomless
pit or "crater." The ascent from Crater Lake to the summit, somewhat
less than three hundred and fifty feet, was made in about half
an hour, and then began the steep and sudden plunge which marks the
southern declivity of this famous mountain pass. Some little caution
was here required to keep a foothold, and a too sudden break might
have led to an exhilarating, even if not anxiously sought after, glissade;
but in truth, to any one only moderately practiced in mountaineering,
even this steep face, which descends for a thousand feet or
more from a summit elevation of thirty-four hundred feet, presents
little difficulty and hardly more danger. What there is of a trail
zigzags in wild and rapid courses over an almost illimitable mass of
rock débris, at times within sheltered or confined hollows, but more
generally on the open face of the declivity. This it is more particularly
that carries to many a certain amount of fear in the making of
the passage, but, with proper caution and the right kind of boots, nothing
of danger need be apprehended.
Unfortunately for the enjoyment of the scenery of the pass, I
could see but a modest part of it. Although snow was no longer falling,
and the atmosphere had settled down to a condition of almost
passive inactivity—much to the surprise, if not disappointment, of
a few who had prophesied a stiff and biting wind the moment we
passed the divide—heavy cloud banks hovered about the summits, and
only at intervals did they afford glimpses of the majestic mountain
peaks by which we were surrounded. Enough, however, could be seen
to justify for the pass the claims of most imposing scenery, and its
superiority in this respect over the White Pass. The temperature
at the time of our crossing was a few degrees below freezing, perhaps
25° or 27° F., but our rapid walk brought on profuse perspiration,
and it would have been a pleasure, if a sense of proper caution had
permitted, to divest ourselves of mackinaws and travel in summer
fashion. We made Sheep Camp, with its surroundings of beautiful
woodland, shortly after noon, and Cañon City, which, as the terminus
of a good coach road to Dyea, virtually marks the end or beginning
of the Chilkoot trail, at two o'clock.
To a mountaineer or traveler of ordinary resource neither the
White Pass nor the Chilkoot Pass will appear other than it actually is—i.
e., a mountain pass, sufficiently rough and precipitous in places,
and presenting no serious obstacle to the passage of man, woman, or
child. True, I did not see them at their worst, but they were both
represented to be frightfully bad even at the time of my crossing.
The seasonal effects, doubtless, do much to modify the character of the
trails, and even local conditions must mold them to a very considerable
extent. It is not difficult to conceive of miry spots along the
White Pass trail, or of snow-swept areas on the Chilkoot, and there
certainly must be times when both trails are in a measure or way impassable.
All trails are, however, subject to modifications in character,
and even the best is at times sufficiently bad. Trains of pack
animals cross the White Pass both winter and summer, and, even
with the great loss to their "forefathers," their testimony of steady
work is a recommendation of the class of service in which they are engaged.
A limited number of cattle and horses have also found their
way over the summit of the Chilkoot Pass—some crossing immediately
after us—but the trail is too steep on the ocean side to fit it for animal
service, although I strongly suspect that were the location in
Mexico instead of in Alaska, there would be a goodly number of
caballeros and arrieros to smile at the proposition of presented difficulties.
Indian women seem to consider it no hardship to pack a
fifty-pound sack of flour and more over the summit, and there are
many men who do not hesitate to take double this load, and make
several journeys during the same day. It is the load that kills, and
it was, doubtless, this influence, united to a cruel method, which so
strongly impressed the pioneers with the notion of extreme hardship.
The most level and perfect road, to one carrying for miles a pack of
from sixty to eighty pounds, soon begins to loom up a steep incline.
The Final Ascent to Chilkoot Summit—Winter.
Both the northern and southern slopes of the Chilkoot Pass are
largely surfaced with shattered rocks, over which, with occasional deflections
across more pleasant snow banks, a fairly well-defined trail
mounts on either side to the summit. In its grim landscape effects,
more particularly on the inner face, where a number of rock-bound
tarns—Crater Lake, Long Lake, Deep Lake—afford a certain relief
to the degree of desolation which the scene carries, it reminded me
much of the famous Grimsel Pass, and here as well as there the
modeling of the surface through glacial action was strongly in evidence.
The vastly towering Alpine peaks were, however, wanting,
and the glaciers that still appeared showed that they had long since
passed their better days. The actual summit is trenched by a narrow
rocky gap, roughly worn through walls of granite, and by it have
passed the thousands who have pressed to the interior. There is no
timber growth at or near this summit, nor is there soil sufficient to
give support to an arboreal vegetation. Nearest to the top line a
prostrate form of scrubby hemlock (Tsuga Pattoniana) alone makes
pretense to being a tree, but below it of itself grows to majestic proportions,
and about "Sheep Camp," with Menzie's spruce, a birch,
and cottonwood (Populus balsamifera), forms part of the beautiful
woodland, which with ever-increasing freshness descends to the lower
levels.
Lest I be accused of too freely seeing the beauties of the northern
landscape, I venture in my defense the following graphic description
of the Dyea Valley from the pen of another traveler and geologist,
Prof. Israel Russell: "In the valley of the Taiya the timber line is
sharply drawn along the bordering cliffs at an elevation of about
twenty-five hundred feet. Above that height the mountain sides are
stern and rugged; below is a dense forest of gigantic hemlocks, festooned
with long streamers of moss, which grows even more luxuriantly
than on the oaks of Florida. The ground beneath the trees and
the fallen monarchs of the forest are densely covered with a soft,
feathery carpet of mosses, lichens, and ferns of all possible tints of
brown and green. The day I traversed this enchanted valley was
bright and sunny in the upper regions, but the valley was filled with
drifting vapors. At one minute nothing would be visible but the
somber forest through which the white mist was hurrying; and the
next the veil would be swept aside, revealing with startling distinctness
the towering mountain spires, snowy pinnacles, and turquoise
cliffs of ice towering heavenward. These views through the cloud
rifts seemed glimpses of another world. Below was a sea of surging
branches that filled all the valley bottom and dashed high on the
bordering cliffs. Much space could be occupied with descriptions of
the magnificent scenery about Lynn Canal, and of the wonderful atmospheric
effects to be seen there, but the poetry of travel is foreign
to these pages, and must be left for more facile pens."
The Chilkoot Trail—Power House of the Aërial Tramway.
In its present condition the Chilkoot trail has the advantage over
the Skaguay in its shorter length, the distance from Dyea to the
head of Lake Lindeman, the virtual head of river navigation, being
about twenty-four miles; from Skaguay to Bennett, along the usual
White Pass trail, the distance is fully ten or twelve miles longer,
although a cut-off by way of the summit lakes reduces the traverse
considerably. At intervals along both routes fairly good accommodation
can now be had. One condition of the Chilkoot Pass, and
that a not altogether light one, places it during certain months at a
disadvantage as compared with the White Pass. I refer to the dangers
from avalanches. These are of the true Alpine type, having
their source in the heavy beds of snow which cling with bare support
to the steeply pitching mountain walls, in places along some of the narrowest
parts of the pass. The appalling catastrophe of April, 1898,
which caused the loss of sixty-three lives, and followed closely upon
an earlier event of like nature, had its seat in the steep, rocky ledges
of the east wall between Sheep Camp and the Scales. It is claimed
that the Indians along the trail clearly foresaw the impending event,
and announced it in unmistakable language, but their warnings were
allowed to go unheeded. They themselves did not make the traverse
on that day. The minor disaster of the following December (9th),
when but six lives were sacrificed, took place on the steep declivity
which faces Crater Lake, not far from the service house of the Chilkoot
Pass Aërial Tramway Company. Here the mountain face is
very precipitous and gives but insecure lodgment to the snow. The
Indians carefully watch all natural signals and urge a rapid journey.
However useful these trails may have been in the past, how well or
how indifferently they may have met the wants of the pioneers of
1897 and 1898, they are destined before long to be thrown into that
same obscurity which they held when the Indians and a few adventurous
trappers and traders alone made use of them as avenues of communication
between the inner and outer worlds. The advance of the
iron horse is now an assured fact, and the Pacific and Arctic Railway,
whose construction is engineered by some of the most experienced
mechanical talent of Great Britain and America, will minister before
many months not alone to the professional interlopers in the new land,
but to hosts of tourists as well. The road, which in reaching White
Pass summit will have a maximum gradient of a little more than
five per cent, is of narrow-gauge construction, solidly supported on
dressed ties brought from the forests of Oregon. No terminal appears
to have been as yet definitely determined upon, although the
charter act recites Fort Selkirk on the Yukon, about one hundred and
sixty miles above Dawson, as such. Operating as it now does sixteen
miles or more of road, it is already an extensive freight carrier; but
until its completion to Bennett or to some point close to a navigable
part of the Yukon River, the Chilkoot Pass tramway, a remarkable
construction which crosses over the summit and deposits at Crater
Lake, must continue to handle a large part of the business intended
for the interior.
Summit of the Chilkoot Pass, with Impedimenta of Prospectors, April, 1898.
It is safe to say that the stirring scenes which were enacted on the
passes during the winter of 1897-'98, when the impedimenta of travel
and occupation were packed together in the manner of an army camp,
will not be repeated again. The past history was a short one, and it
gives way to one of greater promise.
Note.—For most of the photographic illustrations the author is indebted to the work of
Curtis, Barley, and E. A. Hegg; especially to the last-named gentleman, of Skaguay and
Dawson, is he under obligations for permission to use several of the copyrighted views.
THE ORIGIN OF EUROPEAN CULTURE.
By WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, Ph. D.,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, BOSTON,
LECTURER IN ANTHROPOLOGY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK.
Prehistoric archæology is possessed of a distinct advantage
over linguistics in the investigation of racial problems; for human
remains are often discovered in connection with the implements, utensils,
or trinkets by which the civilization of an extinct people is archæologically
determined. To attempt even an outline of the cultural
history of Europe would be obviously impossible in this place. It
would fill a complete volume by itself alone. Furthermore, the
short span of forty years since the inception of archæological science
has not sufficed to produce complete unanimity of opinion among
the leading authorities. Many important questions, especially concerning
eastern Europe, are still awaiting settlement. All that we
can hope to do is to describe what may be termed a few fixed points
in European cultural history. This, as in our discussion of physical
origins, we shall attempt to do by means of definite propositions, concerning
which there is now substantial agreement.
I. In western and southern Europe an entirely indigenous culture
gradually evolved during the later stone age. This was characterized
by great technical advance in fashioning implements, carvings,
and designs in stone, bone, ivory, and copper; by the construction
of dolmens and habitations of stone; by pottery-making; and
possibly even by a primitive system of writing.
A marked reaction has taken place during the last ten years among
archæologists respecting the course of cultural development in
France. It was long believed that after the first crude attempts of
the palæolithic epoch an extended hiatus ensued, followed by the
sudden appearance of a more highly developed civilization, brought
by an immigrant broad-headed race from the East. Two waves of
invasion were described: the first bringing polished stone, a later one
introducing bronze, cereals, agriculture, and the domestication of
animals. Not even credit for the construction of the great stone dolmen
tombs was granted to the natives in Gaul, for these were all
ascribed to an invasion from the North. The undoubted submergence
of the primitive long-headed population of France by a brachycephalic
type from the East, to which we have already adverted, was
held accountable for a radical advance in civilization. Even the existence
of a bronze age was denied to this country, it being maintained
that the introduction of bronze was retarded until both metals came
in together from the Orient in the hands of the cultural deliverers of
the land. The absence of a distinct bronze age was speedily disproved;
but the view that France and western Europe were saved
from barbarism only by a new race from the East still held sway.
It is represented by the classical school of G. de Mortillet, Bertrand,
Topinard, and a host of minor disciples. The new school, holding that
a steady and uninterrupted development of culture in situ was taking
place, is represented notably by Reinach in France and by Sergi
in Italy. Their proof of this seems to be unanswerable. Granting
that it is easier to borrow culture than to evolve it, a proposition underlying
the older view, it seems nevertheless that the West has too long
been denied its rightful share in the history of European civilization.
Neolithic Ivory Carving. Mas d'Azil.
(By special permission. Further reproduction prohibited.)
A notable advance in the line of culture entirely indigenous to
southwestern Europe has been lately revealed through the interesting
discoveries by
Piette at the station
of Brassempuoy
and in the
grotto of Mas
d'Azil. Carvings
in ivory, designs
upon bone, evidence
of a numerical
system, of settled
habitations,
and, most important
of all, of a domestication of the reindeer, of the horse, and
the ox in the pure stone age have been found; and that, too, in
the uttermost southwestern corner of Europe. In the lake dwellings
of Switzerland, as also in Scandinavia, a knowledge of agriculture,
pottery, and the domestication of animals is evinced, likewise
as a native discovery.
From other
quarters of the continent
in the stone
age comes similar
testimony to a
marked advance of
man culturally.
The justly celebrated
carving of
a reindeer from
Thayngen, almost
worthy of a modern
craftsman, betrays
no mean artistic
ability. The man
who drew it was far
from being a savage, even if he knew no metals, and buried his dead
instead of cremating them. The evidence as to early domestication
of animals is perhaps the most startling. Carved horses' heads, with
halters and rude bridles, have been surely identified by Piette and
others.
Bone Carving. Thayngen. (After Bertrand, 1891.)
A system of writing seems also to have been invented in western
Europe as far back as the stone age. Letourneau and Bordier have
advanced good evidence to this effect, although it is not yet incontestably
proved. The Phœnicians were perhaps antedated in their noted
invention by the dolmen builders, by the lake dwellers of the earliest
times, and, according to Sergi, also by the people of the Villanova pre-Etruscan
culture in Italy. In an earlier time still in the Po Valley,
as far back as the stone-age Terramare period, pottery was made, and
that, too, of a very decent sort. And all this time there is not the
slightest evidence of contact with or knowledge of the East. As
Reinach says, in no dolmen, no lake station, no excavation of the
stone age is there any trace of an Assyrian or Babylonian cylinder,
or even an Egyptian amulet. Even the jade and nephrite found in
western Europe from Switzerland to Norway, which has so long been
regarded as evidence of early commerce with the East, he denies as
proof of such contact. The case thus put may perhaps be over-strenuously
stated, yet one can not but realize from it that western Europe
has too long been libeled in respect of its native aptitude for civilization.
This is not constituted of bronze alone, nor is its trade-mark
cremation. Thus, while an intensive outbreak of culture of a high
order may not have arisen west of the Alps, it can no longer be denied
that the general standard of intelligence was surely rising of its own
native volition.
II. Throughout the eastern Alpine highlands, a culture far more
highly evolved than the neolithic one in the West, and betraying certain
Oriental affinities, appears at a very early time, a thousand years or
more before the Christian era. This prehistoric civilization represents
a transitional stage between bronze and iron.
In a secluded valley in upper Austria, close to the border line of
Salzburg, by the little Alpine hamlet of Hallstatt, a remarkable necropolis
was discovered more than a half century ago, which marked
an epoch in archæological research. Excavations at this place alone,
far from any present considerable seat of population, have already
revealed more than three thousand graves. The primitive culture
here unearthed, represented by all kinds of weapons, implements, and
ornaments, bore no resemblance to any of the then known classical
ones of the Mediterranean basin. Its graves contained no Roman
coins or relics. There was nothing Greek about it. It contained no
trace either of writing or chronology. It was obviously prehistoric;
there was no suggestion of a likeness to the early civilizations in
Scandinavia. It was even more primitive than the Etruscan, and
entirely different from it, especially in its lack of the beautiful pottery
known to these predecessors of the Romans. Little wonder that
von Sacken, who first adequately described it in 1868, and Hochstetter,
who worthily carried on his researches, believed that Hallstatt
represented an entirely indigenous and extinct Alpine civilization.
On the other hand, so exceedingly rich and varied were the finds in
this out-of-the-way corner of Europe, that another and quite different
view seemed justifiable. Might this not be an entirely exotic culture?
products gained by trade from all parts of the world, being here deposited
with their dead by a people who controlled the great and
very ancient salt mines hereabouts? Neither of these interpretations
of this find at Hallstatt have been exactly verified by later researches,
and yet its importance has not lessened in the least. By later discoveries
all over eastern Europe south of the Danube, from the Tyrol
over to the Balkan peninsula, as well as throughout northern Italy,
Würtemberg, and even over into northeastern France, the wide extension
of this civilization proves that it must in a large measure
have developed upon the spot, and not come as an importation from
abroad. On the other hand, its affinity
in many details with the cultures both
of Italy and Greece proved that it
had made heavy drafts upon
each of these, profiting
greatly thereby. The
best opinion to-day is,
that it constitutes
a link in the chain
of culture between
eastern and western
Europe. As such it is
of primary importance
in any study of European
origins.
Bronze Situla.
Watsch, Austrian Tyrol.
[]
The primitive
stage of European
civilization, to
which the term Hallstatt
is specifically applied
by archæologists, is characterized
by a knowledge both of
bronze and iron, although the latter
is relatively insignificant. Its rarity indicates
that we have to do with the very
beginnings of its use. In this early combination of bronze and iron
the Hallstatt culture is in strong contrast with the rest of Europe.
Almost everywhere else, as in Hungary for example, a pure bronze
age—sometimes one even of copper also—intervenes between the
use of stone and iron. Here, however, the two metals, bronze and
iron, appear simultaneously. There is no evidence of a use of bronze
alone. Bearing in mind, what we shall subsequently emphasize in
the case of Scandinavia, that in that remote part of Europe man had
to put up with the inferior metal for close upon a thousand years before
the acquisition of a better substitute, it will be seen that at Hallstatt
a remarkable foreshortening of cultural evolution had ensued.
Iron, as we have said, was still comparatively rare. Only in the
case of small objects, less often in the blades of bronze-handled
swords, does this more precious metal appear. But it is far more common
than in the earliest Greek civilizations made known to us by
Schliemann and others.
Pages of description would not give so clear an idea of this early
civilization as the pictures of their lives, which the Hallstatt people
have fortunately left to us. These are found in repoussé upon their
bronzes, and particularly upon their little situlæ, or metallic pails.
These situlæ are, in fact, the most distinctive feature among all the
objects which they have left to us. By means of them their civilization
has been most accurately traced and identified geographically.
On the opposite page we have reproduced the design upon the most
celebrated of these situlæ, discovered by Deschmann in 1882, at
Watsch in the Tyrol. Another from Bologna, typical of the pre-Etruscan
Italian time, will be found upon a later page. Upon each
of these, the skill manifested in the representation of men and animals
is no less remarkable than the civilization which it depicts. The
upper zone of this situla from Watsch apparently shows a festal procession,
possibly a wedding, for a lady rides in the second chariot.
The grooms and outriders betoken a party of distinction. As for the
second zone, doubt as to its exact interpretation prevails. Hochstetter
declares it to be a banquet, food and entertainment being offered to the
personages seated upon chairs at the left. Bertrand is disposed to give
it more of a religious interpretation. As for the contest between
gladiators armed with the cestus, all is plain. The spectators, judges,
even the ram and the helmet for reward of the victor, are all shown in
detail. It is not necessary for us to cite more evidence. A civilization
already far from primitive is surely depicted. As for its date, all are
agreed that it is at least as early as ten centuries before Christ; not
far, that is to say, from the supposed Homeric epoch in Greece.
The Hallstatt civilizations betray unmistakable affinities with
three other prehistoric European cultures, widely separated from one
another. It contains many early Greek elements; it is very similar
to a notable prehistoric culture in the Caucasus Mountains; and it
resembles most nearly of all perhaps the pre-Etruscan civilization in
Italy. With the third of these—the Italian—it seems to have been
most nearly upon terms of equality, each borrowing from the other,
after a fashion of which we shall have occasion to speak shortly. On
the other hand, the relation of the Hallstatt culture to that of Greece
and Caucasia seems to be somewhat more filial rather than fraternal.
In describing the area of this civilization, we have seen how firmly it
is intrenched all through the southern part of Austria-Hungary and
well over into the north of the Balkan peninsula. A comparison of
Furtwaengler's magnificent collection of objects from Olympia with
those of Hallstatt instantly reveals their similarities. To make this
clear, we have reproduced one of the Olympian breastplates, ornamented
with figures, which at once suggest those upon the situla from
Watsch above described. This design is doubly interesting. It
shows us a slightly higher stage of the art of figural representation,
as well as of conventional design. Not only the men and horses, but
the borders, are far better drawn. More than this, we begin to detect
a distinctly Oriental motive in other details. The bulls and the lions—lions
are not indigenous to Europe nowadays—at once remind us
of their Babylonian and Assyrian prototypes. We have entered the
sphere of Asiatic artistic influence, albeit very indistinctly. This
design here represented, it should be said, is rather above the average
of the Olympian finds of the earlier epoch. Many of the other objects,
especially the little votive figures of beasts and men, are much
more crude, although always characteristic and rudely artistic in
many ways. Through this Olympian stage of culture we pass transitionally
on to the Mycenæan, which brings us into the full bloom
of the classic Greek.
Bronze Breastplate from Olympia.
(After Furtwaengler's Olympia, 1892.)
[]
The Oriental affinities of the Hallstatt culture have been especially
emphasized by recent archæological discoveries at Koban, in
the Caucasus Mountains. A stage of culture transitional between
bronze and iron, almost exactly equivalent to that of the eastern
Alps, is revealed. Similarities in little objects, like fibulæ, might
easily be accounted for as having passed in trade, but the relationship
is too intimate to be thus explained. Hungary forms the connecting
link between the two. In many respects its bronze age is different
from that of Hallstatt, notably in that the latter seems to have acquired
the knowledge of iron and
of bronze at about the same
time. In Hungary the pure
bronze age lasted a long
time, and attained a full
maturity. A characteristic
piece is represented herewith.
In respect of the representation
of figures of animals
such as these, Hallstatt,
Hungary, and Koban
are quite alike.
Hungarian Bronze Vessel. (After Hampel, 1876.)
Have we proved that
bronze culture came from
Asia by reason of these recent finds in the Caucasus? Great stress has
been laid upon them in the discussion of European origins. Are we
justified in agreeing with Chantre that two currents of culture have
swept from Asia into Europe—one by the Caucasus north of the Black
Sea and up the Danube; the other across Asia Minor and into the
Balkan peninsula, thence joining the first in the main center of Hallstatt
civilization, east of the Alps? The point seems by no means
established. Relationship does not prove parentage. Far more likely
does it appear that the Koban culture is a relic or an offshoot rather
than a cradle of bronze civilization. And even Chantre, ardent advocate
as he is of Oriental derivations, seems to feel the force of this
in his later writings, for he confesses that Koban is rather from Mediterranean
European sources than that Europe is from Koban. Most
probable of all is it, that both Hallstatt and Koban are alike derived
from a common root in the neighborhood of Chaldea.
III. The Hallstatt (or Celtic?) civilization of bronze and iron
roughly overlies the present area occupied by the broad-headed Alpine
race; yet this type is not always identified with the Oriental culture.
It seems to have appeared in Europe in a far lower stage of civilization,
and to have subsequently made progress culturally upon the spot.
To trace any definite connection between race and civilization in
Europe is rendered extremely hazardous scientifically by reason of
the appearance along with bronze of the custom of burning instead of
burying the dead, their ashes being disposed in cinerary urns, jars, or
other receptacles. By this procedure all possible clew to the physical
type of the people is, of course, annihilated at once. It has become
almost an axiom among archæologists that bronze culture and incineration
are constant companions. Wherever one appears, the other
may confidently be looked for. Together they have long been supposed
to be the special and peculiar attributes of a new broad-headed
immigrant race from the East. To prove this conclusively is, of
course, absolutely impossible for the above-mentioned reason. Of
the two, it seems as if incineration would be a more reliable test of race
than a knowledge of bronze; for burial customs, involving as they do
the most sacred instincts and traditions of a people, would be most
persistently maintained, even throughout long-continued migrations.
The use of bronze, on the other hand, being a matter of obvious
utility, and capable of widespread dissemination commercially, is
seemingly of far less ethnic significance.
To indicate the uncertainty of proof in these matters, let us suppose
that the Hallstatt civilization, for example, is the result of an
immigration of a brachycephalic Oriental civilized race overlying a
primitive native long-headed one. That seems best to conform to
the data, which northern Italy at least affords. Suppose the new
people—call them Celts with the best authorities, if you please—brought
not only bronze and iron, but the custom of incineration.
Prior to their appearance inhumation was the rule. What would be
the result if one attempted to determine the physical character of that
people from a study of the remains in their necropoli? All the
crania to be found in the graves with the precious objects of bronze
would in no wise represent the people who brought that bronze.
They burned their bridges behind them at death, and disappeared
for good and all. And the remains left to the archæologist would
represent precisely that class in the population which had nothing
to do with the main characteristics of its civilization. And then,
again, we must bear in mind that the interments in these necropoli
as a whole, both with burned or buried dead, constitute a selected
type. Neither Hallstatt, Watsch, nor any of the burial places of
their type were open to the great mass of the common people. They
were sacred spots, far removed among the mountains from any centers
of population. Only the rich or powerful presumably had access
to them. They are no more typical of the Hallstatt people, therefore,
than interments in Westminster Abbey are representative of the English
masses. All our data are necessarily drawn from a class within
a class. Inductions from them must be very gingerly handled.
The situation above described seems to prevail almost everywhere
in the Hallstatt cultural area. Two distinct burial customs denote
possibly two separate peoples, the inhumers being certainly the older.
In the Hallstatt necropolis, for example, about one third of the graves
once contained human remains, all the others containing mere ashes.
So ancient are these graves that only eight crania from the hundreds
of interments of the first class are available for study. These are of
a pronounced long-headed type. The modern populations of this
part of Europe are, as we have seen, among the broadest-headed
people in the world, as are also all the modern Illyrians. Yet from
the great necropolis at Glasinac in Bosnia, with its twenty thousand
tumuli, the meager Hallstatt returns are amply corroborated. The
ancient inhabitants were as long-headed as they are pronouncedly of
the opposite type to-day. Up in Bohemia and Moravia also, according
to Niederle, the first bronze-age people, such as we know them, were
still dolichocephalic quite like their predecessors in the pure stone
age. And here also is incineration just about frequent enough to
make it uncertain whether the human remains are typical or not.
Under these circumstances, three suppositions are open to us. We
may hold that these long-headed crania of the Hallstatt people are
worthless for any anthropological purposes whatever. This one
would certainly be tempted to do were the testimony, such as it is,
not so unanimous. Or, secondly, we may assume that these long-headed
Hallstatt people belonged to a period subsequent to the appearance
of the brachycephalic type in western Europe. If we do so, we
place them in the same class with the Teutonic race which so certainly
appears to overlie this one in the later iron age in Switzerland
and throughout southern Germany; for the Helvetians and the
Reihengräber conquerors from the north surely imposed a novel culture,
albeit a militant one, upon the long-settled Alpine people,
racially speaking. The Hallstatt civilization is immeasurably too
early to permit of this hypothesis. At this time the long-headed
Teutonic peoples about Scandinavia were certainly vastly inferior in
culture, as we shall attempt to prove shortly. Thus we are forced to
the third conclusion if we admit the competency of our cranial
evidence—namely, that the Hallstatt people in this early bloom of civilization
in Europe were allied to the Mediterranean type of the south.
No other source for such a dolichocephalic population is possible.
Our stock of types of this kind is exhausted.
It does not require a great credulity to admit of this hypothesis,
that the Hallstatt people were of Mediterranean type. Were not the
Greeks, the Phœnicians, and the Egyptians all members of this same
race? One single difficulty presents itself. Over in Italy, throughout
the valley of the Po, an entirely analogous civilization to that
of the eastern Alps occurs. Hallstatt and Villanova, Watsch and
Bologna, are almost identical culturally. And yet over here in Italy
the new culture of bronze and of incineration seems to be borne by
a broad-headed people of the same type as the modern one. Thus,
for example, at Novilara so long as the bodies were all inhumed, the
people were of the long-headed Mediterranean type once indigenous
to the whole of Italy, now surviving, as we have seen, only in the
southern half. On the other hand, when incineration begins to appear
in this place, the human remains still left to us are of a mixed
and far more broad-headed type. It would seem admissible to assume
that when the modern brachycephalic Alpine race submerged the
native one it brought new elements of civilization with it. Many
Italian authorities, at all events, agree in ascribing the new culture—call
it Umbrian with Sergi, or proto-Etruscan with Helbig—to a
new race of Veneto-Illyrian or Alpine physical proclivities. What
they have not definitely proved, however, is that any necessary connection
between race and culture exists. There is much to show that
the broad-headed race came in some time before the introduction of
the new arts. Even in the later Terramare period, preceding the
Italian Hallstatt culture, when stone and copper only are in evidence,
a change of physical type in the people apparently begins, just as also
in France in the neolithic period.
The most indubitable testimony that the Alpine race did not
appear in western Europe, armed cap-à-pie with bronze and other
attributes of culture, is afforded by the lake dwellings of Switzerland.
Here in the pile-built villages of the Swiss lakes we can trace an uninterrupted
development of civilization from the pure stone age
through bronze and into iron. Beginning at a stage of civilization
about equal to that of the ancient Aryan-speaking peoples, judged
by the root words known to us; not only knowledge of the metals, but
of agriculture, of the domestication of animals, and of the finer arts
of domestic life, have little by little been acquired. Equally certain
is it that no change of physical type has occurred among these primitive
Swiss, at least until the irruptions of the Teutonic Helvetians and
others at the opening of the historic period. From the very earliest
times in the stone age a broad-headedness no less pronounced than
that of the modern Swiss prevailed among these people. Here would
seem to be pretty conclusive proof that the Alpine race entered
Europe long before the culture with which its name has been all too
intimately associated.
In the outlying parts of Europe, perhaps even in Gaul, it is extremely
doubtful whether any closer connection between race and
culture exists than in the Alps. It has long been maintained that
the brachycephalic people of the Round Barrows introduced bronze
into Britain. Surely, as we have already shown, things point to that
conclusion. Beddoe, Dawkins, and other authorities maintain it at
all events. Yet Canon Taylor makes it pretty evident that the new
race arrived in Britain, as it certainly did in Gaul, considerably in
advance of any knowledge of the metals. As for Scandinavia, much
the same relation holds true. Both race and culture, as we shall see,
came from the south, but it is by no means clear that they arrived at
the same time or that one brought the other. In Spain, Siret has
asserted that bronze came in the hands of a new immigrant broad-headed
race, but the authoritative opinion of Cartailhac discovers no
direct evidence to this effect.
The final conclusions which would seem to follow from our
tedious summary is this: That the nearly contemporaneous appearance
of a brachycephalic race and the first knowledge of metals indicative
of Oriental cultural influences in western Europe, is more or less a
coincidence. The first civilized peoples of the Hallstatt period seem
to have been closely allied, both in physical type and culture, with
the Greeks and other peoples of the classic East. Among them, perhaps
over them, swept the representatives of our broad-headed Alpine
type who came from the direction of Asia. These invaders may have
been the Scythians, although the matter is incapable of proof. Pressure
from this direction set both culture and population in motion
toward the west, in much the same way that the fall of Constantinople
in the fifteenth century induced the Renaissance in Italy.
IV. The remarkable prehistoric civilization of Italy is due to
the union of two cultures: one from the Hallstatt region having
entered Europe by way of the Danube, the other coming from the
southeast by sea being distinctly Mediterranean. From these evolved
the Umbrian and the Etruscan civilizations, followed in the historic
period by the early Latin.
The earliest culture in Italy worthy the name is found in the
palafitte or pile dwellings, in the northern lakes, and in the so-called
terramare settlements in the valley of the Po. The former are not
distinguishable from similar structures in the Swiss lake dwellings,
but the terramare are entirely peculiar to Italy. Their like is not
found anywhere else in Europe. Briefly described, they are villages
built upon raised platforms of earth, encircled by a moat, and generally
having a ditch or small pond in the middle, in which an altar
is erected. These complicated structures are built upon the low,
marshy, alluvial plains along the Po, but show many points of similarity
with the true pile dwellings. The people of this early period
were in the pure stone age, with few arts save that of making the
coarser kinds of pottery. From their osseous remains, they seem to
have been of a long-headed type, quite like their predecessors, who
were cave dwellers. After a time, without any modification of the
modes of construction of their settlements, new elements appear
among these terramare people, bringing bronze and introducing cremation.
At about the same period, as we have said, the Alpine broad-headed
race began its submergence of the primitive Ligurian type,
leading to the formation of the north Italian population as we see it
to-day. This type surely invaded Italy from the north and northeast.
From the foregoing considerations it will appear that there were
two constituent streams of culture and also of men here uniting in
the valley of the Po and on the northern slopes of the Apennines.
Possibly, as Chantre affirms, these two streams were from a common
Oriental source, here being reunited after long and independent migrations.
At all events, a remarkable advance in culture speedily ensued,
superior to either of those from which its elements were derived.
For the civilization unearthed at Villanova, in the Certosa at Bologna,
at Este, and elsewhere, while in much of its bronze work
similar to the Hallstatt types, contained a number of added features,
obviously either indigenous or brought directly from the south. The
Hallstatt affinities are especially revealed in the situlæ to which we
have already called attention. That of Arnoaldi, discovered at Bologna,
betrays much the same grade of skill in manufacture as the one
from Watsch. Its flat development is shown by the accompanying
cut. The scenes represented are not dissimilar. The boxers armed
with the cestus, the chariots, and horses closely resemble
one another. No doubt of a close intercourse between
the two regions of Bologna and Austria
can possibly exist.
Arnoaldi Situla, Bologna.
(From Revue Archéologique, 1885, vol. ii, Plate XXV.)
[]
The influence of the second or native
element in prehistoric
Italian civilization appears
most clearly in the
Etruscan period. Etruria,
lying south of the Apennines,
was more essentially
Italian, as we might expect,
than the region about
Bologna, where the Umbro-Hallstatt
or continental
culture flourished.
It is easy to note the superiority
in the former
case. It is most clearly
indicated in the pottery.
Here we find an art which
is truly indigenous to the
climate and soil of the
Mediterranean.
Popularly, the word
"Etruscan" at once suggests
the ceramic art; the
progress effected in a short
time was certainly startling.
To give an idea of
the sudden change, we have
reproduced upon page 30 illustrations
of typical bits of Italian pottery.
The first vase, prior to the full
Etruscan culture, shows its crudity at once,
both in its defects of form and the plainness and
simplicity of its ornamentation. Such a vessel might
have been made in Mexico or even by our own Pueblo Indians. In
a century or two some teacher made it possible to produce the sample
depicted in the next cut. Perfect in form, superb in grace of outline,
its decoration is most effective; yet it betrays greater skill in
geometrical design than in the representation of animate life. The
dog drawn on the girdle is still far from lifelike. Then come—probably
after inspiration from Greek art—the
possibilities in complex ornamentation represented
by our third specimen. Not more pleasing
in form, perhaps less truly artistic because of its ornateness, it
manifests much skill in the delineation of human and animal forms.
The culture culminates at this point. From profusion of ornament
and overloaded decoration, degeneracy begins. It is the old story
of the life and decay of schools of art, time in and time out, the world
over.
Early Etruscan.
Later Etruscan.
Greek Etruscan.
[]
The advance in culture typified by our vases was equaled in all
the details of life. The people built strongly walled cities; they
constructed roads and bridges; their architecture, true predecessor
of the Roman, was unique and highly evolved. All the plain
and good things of life were known to these people, and their civilization
was rich in its luxury, its culture and art as well. In costumes,
jewelry, the paraphernalia of war, in painting and statuary they were
alike distinguished. Their mythology was very complex, much of
the Roman being derived from it. Most of our knowledge of them
is derived from the rich discoveries in their chambered tombs, scattered
all over Italy from Rome to Bologna. There can be no doubt
of a very high type of civilization attained long before the Christian
era. Roman history is merged in the obscurity of time, five or six
hundred years later than this. The high antiquity of the Etruscan
is therefore beyond question. But its highly evolved art and culture
show that we have no longer to do with European origins; to discuss
it further would lead us to trench upon the field of classical rather
than prehistoric archæology.
V. The northwestern corner of Europe, including Scandinavia,
Denmark, and the Baltic plain of Germany, throughout the prehistoric
period has been characterized by backwardness of culture as
compared with the rest of Europe. It was populated from the south,
deriving a large part of such primitive civilization as it possessed
from the south and the southeast as well.
That this region was necessarily uninhabited during the Glacial
epoch, long after the advent of man in southern Europe, is indubitable.
It is proved by the extent of the glaciated area, which extends
on the mainland as far south as Hamburg, Berlin, and Posen,
and over the entire British Isles at the same time. It was by the
melting of this vast sheet of ice that those high level river terraces
in France and Belgium were formed, in which the most ancient and
primitive implements of human manufacture occur. In the area beneath
this ice sheet no trace of human occupation until long after this
time occurs. This fact of itself, is not absolutely conclusive, for
glaciation would have obliterated all traces of anterior habitation or
activity. As to the possibility of a tertiary population before the
Glacial epoch, it presents too remote a contingency for us to consider,
although we do not deny its possibility. It too far antedates
prehistory, so to speak.
At the notable International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric
Archæology at Stockholm in 1874 a landmark in these sciences
was established by substantial agreement among the leading
authorities from all over Europe upon the proposition now before us.
First of all, every one subscribed to the view that the palæolithic or
oldest stone age was entirely unrepresented in Sweden. The earliest
and simplest stone implements discovered in the southern part of that
country betray a degree of skill and culture far above that so long
prevalent in France and Germany. Stone is not only rubbed and
polished into shape, but the complicated art of boring holes in it has
been learned. Norway also seems to be lacking in similar evidence
of a human population in the very lowest stage of civilization. Stone
implements anterior to the discovery of the art of rubbing or polishing
are almost unknown. Only about Christiania have any finds at
all been made. In Denmark some few very rude implements have
been found. They are so scarce as to suggest that they are mere
rejects or half-finished ones of a later type. The kitchen middens,
or shell heaps, of Jutland, for which the region is most notable, as
described by Steenstrup, abound in stone implements. They all
represent man in the neolithic age. Polished stones are as abundant
as the rudely hammered ones are rare. From the absence of all the
very early stone implements, and from the sudden appearance of
others of a far more finished type, the possibility of a gradual evolution
of culture about Scandinavia in situ is denied on all hands. The
art of working stone has surely been introduced from some more
favored region. The only place to look for the source of this culture
is to the south.
Flint Dagger.(From Montelius, 1895 b.)
Stone Axe.(From Montelius, 1895 b.)
Bronze Axe.(From Montelius, 1895 b.)
Tardy in its human occupation and its stone culture, Scandinavia
was still more backward, as compared with the rest of Europe, in its
transition to the age of bronze. This is all the more remarkable in
view of the rich store of raw materials on every hand. Nowhere else
in Europe does the pure stone age seem to have been so unduly protracted.
A necessary consequence of this was
that stone-working reached a higher stage of evolution
here than anywhere else in the world save in America. In
other parts of Europe the discovery of metal-working, of course, immediately
put an end to all progress in this direction. The ultimate
degree of skill to which they attained is represented in the accompanying
cuts. The first, a flint poniard, shows the possibilities, both in the
line of form and finish, of manufacture by the chipping process. To
equal this example one must look to the most skillful of the American
Indians, as in Tennessee, where they were too remote from mines of
native copper to make use of a ready substitute for stone. Our second
implement is an axe hammer, made of diorite. To shape, sharpen,
bore, and polish a piece of stone like this certainly required a long
apprenticeship in the art.
Bronze culture, when it did at last appear in this remote part
of Europe, came upon the scene suddenly and in full maturity.
Whether this was as early as the eighth to the tenth century, as Montelius
avers, is disputed
by many. All
are nevertheless
agreed that evidence
is absolutely lacking
that the art was of
indigenous origin.
From what part of
the world this knowledge of bronze ultimately came we leave an
open question, as also whether it came with Phœnician traders or
direct from Greece, as Worsaae affirms. It was certainly introduced
into Sweden, making its way into Norway about the same
time directly from the peninsula of Jutland. Its first appearance
is in a highly evolved state. Such crude attempts at manufacture
as Chantre finds so long prevalent along the Rhone Valley, for
example, are entirely absent. Both in form and ornamentation
the hand of the master is apparent. This bronze age, like that of
stone, lasted a very long time—far longer than anywhere else on the
continent. Central Europe passed through three stages of metallic
progress while Scandinavia was evolving two. Not until the second
or third century of our era—not until the time of the Romans, it
would appear—did iron begin to supplant bronze. History repeats
itself. The excessive duration of the bronze age, as in the case of
stone antecedently, led to the attainment of a remarkable skill. The
two accompanying cuts are typical of the best work of this time. In
the one case, merely superficial ornament, especially the skillful use
of the spiral; in the other, real beauty of form in the bracelet, are
clearly apparent. Possessed of such skill in the working of bronze,
it is small wonder that the need of a better metal was not felt. Only
when fashioned into weapons of war does iron reveal its supremacy
over bronze. This, of course, with the campaigns of historical times,
brings us to the end of our chronicle.
Bronze Bracelet: 650-500 B. C. (From Montelius, 1895 b.)
The prehistoric experience of metal-working in Scandinavia is
typical of the other details of its cultural evolution. In its earliest
epoch no trace of domestic animals is present. It is rather
a remarkable fact that even the reindeer seems to have been
unknown. What can Penka say to this in his positive affirmation
that the original Aryans got up into Scandinavia, having
followed the reindeer from central Europe north after the retreat
of the ice sheet? The fact is, archæologically speaking,
from the evidence furnished by the kitchen middens, that if
they ever did this "they left a fine country, where deer were
plenty, to subsist upon shellfish on the foggy coasts of Denmark."
The entire absence of economic motive for such a migration is
at once apparent. Men seldom travel far under such conditions.
Quite early, however, even in the stone age, do evidences of
domestic animals occur, to the dog being added the ox, horse,
swine, and sheep. Pottery in a rude form also follows. Finally, and
in apparent coincidence with the bronze culture, comes a new custom
of incineration. The dead are no longer buried, but burned. A
profound modification of religious ideas is hereby implied. It seems
to have been at about this time also that our Alpine racial type entered
Scandinavia from Denmark, although, as we have already observed, it
is yet far from certain that the new race was the active agent in introducing
the new elements of culture. All that we know is that they
both came from the south, and reached this remote region at about the
same time.
That the origins of culture in Europe are certainly mixed would
seem to be about the main conclusion to be drawn from our extended
discussion. It has an iconoclastic tone. Yet we would not leave the
matter entirely in the air, nor would we agree with Mantegazza (1884)
in his conclusion that "Ignoramus" sums up our entire knowledge of
the subject. There is some comfort to be drawn even from this mass
of conflicting opinions. Our final destructive aim has been achieved
if we have emphasized the danger of correlating data drawn from
several distinct sciences, whose only bond of unity is that they are all
concerned with the same object—man. The positive contribution
which we would seek to make is that the whole matter of European
origins is by no means so simple as it has too often been made to
appear. It is not imperative that conclusions from all the contributory
sciences of physical anthropology, philology, and cultural history
should be susceptible of interweaving into a simple scheme of common
origins for all. The order of races, for example, need mean nothing
as respects priority of culture. Nor do the two sciences, philology
and archæology, involve one another's conclusions so far as civilization
is concerned. Language and industrial culture may have had
very different sources; their migrations need stand in no relation to
one another in the least. Each science is fully justified in its own
deductions, but must be content to leave the results of others in peace.
Such is the ultimate conclusion to which all the latest authority is
tending. Only by a careful comparison of data from each sphere of
investigation may we finally hope to combine them all in a composite
whole, as many-sided and complex as the life and nature of man itself.
LIQUID AIR.
By IRA REMSEN,
PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.
Water, the substance most familiar to us, is known in the
liquid, in the solid, and in the gaseous state. Everybody
knows that by heating the solid it passes into the liquid state, and
that by heating the liquid it passes into the form of gas or vapor.
So also everybody knows that when the vapor of water is cooled it
is liquefied, and that by cooling liquid water sufficiently it becomes
solid or turns to ice. In the same way many of the substances that are
known to us as liquids, such as alcohol and ether, can be converted
into the form of gas or vapor by heat. In fact, this is true of most
liquids. The temperature at which a solid passes into the liquid
state is called its melting point, and the temperature at which a liquid
passes into the gaseous state is called its boiling point. The boiling
point of water, for example, is 100° C. (212° F.) in the open air. But
the boiling point varies with the pressure exerted upon the surface.
The pressure that we ordinarily have to deal with is that of the
atmosphere. If the pressure is increased the boiling point is raised,
and if the pressure is decreased the boiling point is lowered. In
dealing, then, with the conversion of a gas into a liquid, or that
of a liquid into a gas, both the temperature and the pressure have
to be considered.
Just as water is most familiar to us in the liquid form, so there
are substances that are most familiar to us in the gaseous form.
In fact, the only gaseous substances that can be said to be familiar
to everybody are the gases contained in the air. The principal constituents
of the air are nitrogen and oxygen, which form respectively
about four fifths and one fifth of its bulk. Besides these gases,
however, the air contains water vapor, carbonic-acid gas, ammonia,
argon in small quantities, and many other substances in still smaller
quantities. For the purposes of this article it is only necessary to
have in mind the nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, and carbonic acid.
Of these, the water vapor is easily converted into liquid, as, for example,
in the formation of rain, while the other constituents are
liquefied with difficulty. The name "liquid air" is applied to the
substance that is obtained by converting the air as a whole into a
liquid; but in this process the water and the carbonic acid become
solid and can be filtered from the liquid so that the latter consists
almost wholly of oxygen and nitrogen. A few years ago this liquid
was obtainable in only very small quantities. To-day, thanks especially
to the efforts of Mr. Charles E. Tripler, of New York, it can
be produced in any desired quantity, and at moderate cost. In consequence
of this, it has come to be talked about in a familiar way,
and many persons have had the privilege of seeing and feeling it,
and of learning something about its wonderful properties. The
object of this article is to explain the method employed in the production
of liquid air, to give an account of some of its properties,
and to indicate some of the uses to which it may possibly be put.
In the older text-books of physics and of chemistry certain gases
were classed as "permanent," under the impression that these could
not be liquefied, and this impression was based upon the fact that
all efforts to liquefy them had failed. A brief account of these efforts
will be helpful.
Among the so-called permanent gases was chlorine. An English
chemist, Northmore, first succeeded, early in this century, in
liquefying chlorine. His work was, however, lost sight of, and in
1823 Faraday at the Royal Institution showed independently that
this transformation of gaseous chlorine into the liquid can be effected
comparatively easily. The method used by him is this: When
chlorine gas is passed into cold water it forms with the water a solid
product known as chlorine hydrate. If kept well cooled this hydrate
can be dried. If then its temperature is raised even to the ordinary
temperature of the room, the solid hydrate is decomposed into liquid
water and gaseous chlorine. Faraday put some of the solid hydrate
into a stout glass tube sealed at one end and bent at the middle. The
other end of the tube was then closed. The tube was then suspended
so that the two ends were turned downward. On gently warming the
end in which was the solid hydrate, this was decomposed into chlorine
and water. But the gas given off would under ordinary conditions
have occupied a much larger space than the solid hydrate. Being
prevented from expanding by the tube in which it was inclosed, it
was under very considerable pressure. The end of the tube that was
not warmed was cooled, and in this end, in consequence of the pressure
and the comparatively low temperature, chlorine, which is gaseous
under the ordinary pressure of the air, appeared as a liquid. The
general method made use of by Faraday in this classical experiment
is that which is always made use of for the purpose of liquefying
gases, but for some gases pressures very much higher and temperatures
very much lower are required. Faraday himself succeeded
in liquefying all the gases then known except oxygen, hydrogen,
nitrogen, nitric oxide, and marsh gas. He subjected oxygen to a
pressure of about one thousand pounds to the square inch, or nearly
seventy atmospheres, but it showed no signs of liquefaction. Later
experimenters increased the pressure to four thousand pounds to the
square inch, with no better results, so that it is not surprising that
it came to be held that some gases are permanent.
Within comparatively recent years several gases have been liquefied
on the large scale by means of pressure. These are ammonia,
carbonic acid, nitrous oxide, and chlorine. Ammonia is used for
producing low temperatures, as in breweries and in cold-storage
plants and in the manufacture of ice; carbonic acid, for fire extinguishers
and for charging beer with the gas; nitrous oxide, for producing
anæsthesia; and chlorine in connection with several branches
of chemical manufacture. The production of low temperatures by
means of liquid ammonia and of liquid carbonic acid will be more
fully dealt with further on, when the principles involved will be
briefly presented. It is to be borne in mind that these substances
are liquefied by means of pressure alone, at temperatures that are
easily reached, so that it appears that by mechanical pressure it is
possible to produce low temperatures. In 1869 an important fact
was discovered by Andrews. It was that for every gas there is a
temperature above which it is impossible to liquefy it by pressure.
Thus, if chlorine is at any temperature above 146° C. (294° F.)
it can not be liquefied. This temperature is called the "critical temperature"
of chlorine. The pressure to which the gas must be subjected
at the "critical temperature" in order that the gas may be
liquefied is called the "critical pressure." In the case of chlorine
this is 93.5 atmospheres. Now, the critical temperature of the gases
that were called permanent gases are very low—lower than could be
reached by the means at the command of earlier experimenters. The
critical temperature of oxygen, for example, is -118.8° C. (-182°
F.), while that of nitrogen is -146° C. (-230° F.). The critical
pressures are 50.8 and 35 atmospheres respectively. As there is no
difficulty in obtaining these pressures, the problem of liquefying
oxygen and nitrogen and air resolves itself into finding a method of
producing temperatures below the critical temperatures of these gases.
It is well known that a temperature somewhat below the freezing
point of water can be produced artificially by mixing ice and salt.
The ordinary ice-cream freezer is a familiar application of this
method of producing cold. Other freezing mixtures that are sometimes
used consist of calcium chloride and snow, that gives the temperature
-48° C. (-54.4° F.), and solid carbonic acid and ether, that
is capable of lowering the temperature to -100° C. (-148° F.).
But even with the latter mixture it is not possible to reach the critical
temperature of oxygen or that of nitrogen. How, then, is it possible
to reach these extremely low temperatures?
In order to answer this question it will be necessary to take into
consideration certain temperature changes that are observed when
solids are melted and liquids are boiled, as well as when gases are
liquefied and liquids are frozen. When heat is applied to a mass of
ice at its melting point it melts and forms a mass of water having
the same temperature. Heat disappears in the operation. It is
stored up in the water. This disappearance of heat that accompanies
the melting of ice can be shown in a very striking way by
mixing a certain weight of ice with the same weight of water that
has been heated to 80° C. (176° F.). The ice will melt and all the
water obtained will be found to have the temperature of the melting
ice—that is, 0° C. (32° F.). The water of 80° C. is thus cooled
down to 0° by the melting of the ice. Again, when heat is applied
to water its temperature rises until the boiling point is reached.
Then it is converted into vapor, but this vapor has the temperature
of the boiling water. During the process of boiling there is no rise
in the temperature of the water or of the vapor. Heat disappears,
therefore, or is used up in the process of vaporization. Similar phenomena
are observed whenever a solid is melted or a liquid is boiled.
When, however, a gas is liquefied it gives up again the heat that is
absorbed by it when it is formed from a liquid; and so also when
a liquid solidifies it gives up the heat it absorbs when it is formed
from a solid.
But it is not necessary that a gas should be converted into a
liquid in order that it should give up heat. Whenever it is compressed
it becomes warmer. Some of the heat stored up in it is,
as it were, squeezed out of it. Conversely, whenever a gas expands,
it takes up heat and, of course, surrounding objects from which
the heat is taken become colder. Now, it is a comparatively simple
matter to compress air. Every wheelman knows that, and he also
knows that the process causes a rise in temperature; at least he knows it
if he uses a small hand pump. With large pumps run by steam any
desired pressure can be reached. This is simply a question of securing
the proper engines, and vessels sufficiently strong to stand the
pressure. It has already been pointed out that several gases are
now liquefied on the large scale by means of pressure. It is to be
noted that low temperatures can be produced by converting certain
gases, such as ammonia and carbonic acid, into liquids, and by compressing
certain gases, as, for example, air. When liquefied gases
are used it is only necessary to allow them to pass rapidly into the
gaseous state, when more or less heat is absorbed. This is the basis
for the use of liquid ammonia in the manufacture of ice. A vessel
containing the liquid ammonia is placed in another containing water.
The inner vessel being opened, the liquid ammonia is rapidly converted
into the gas; heat is absorbed from the water; it freezes.
When a vessel containing liquid carbonic acid is opened so that the
gas that is formed escapes through a small valve, so much heat is
absorbed that a part of the liquid carbonic acid is itself frozen.
In this case the substance is present in all three states of aggregation—the
solid, the liquid, and the gaseous. The use of a mixture of
ether and solid carbonic acid as a freezing mixture has already been
referred to. Its value depends, of course, principally upon the fact
that solid carbonic acid is liquefied, and the liquid then converted into
gas, both of which operations involve absorption of heat.
We are now prepared to understand the important experiments
of Cailletet and of Pictet, the results of which were published in
1877. It should be said that they worked independently of each
other—Cailletet in Paris and Pictet in Geneva. Pictet liquefied
carbonic acid and sulphur dioxide by pressure. The liquid carbonic
acid was passed through a tube that was surrounded by liquid sulphur
dioxide boiling in a partial vacuum. The liquid carbonic acid thus
cooled was then boiled under diminished pressure in a jacket surrounding
a tube in which the gas to be liquefied was contained under
high pressure. When this gas was allowed to escape from a small
opening its temperature was so reduced by the expansion that a part
of it was liquefied in the tube and passed off as a liquid. Cailletet
worked in essentially the same way, but on a smaller scale. Neither
of these experimenters liquefied oxygen or nitrogen on the large
scale, but they pointed out the way that must be followed in order
that success may be attained. They destroyed the belief in "permanent"
gases.
Fig. 1.—Laboratory Liquefaction
Apparatus of Dewar for the
Production of Liquid Oxygen,
etc.
A, air or oxygen inlet; B, carbon-dioxide
inlet; C, carbon-dioxide
valve; D, regenerator coils; F,
air or oxygen expansion valve;
G, vacuum vessel with liquid oxygen;
H, carbon-dioxide and air
outlet; ○, air coil; ●, carbon-dioxide
coil.
Later experimenters in this field are Wroblewski, Olszewski, and
Dewar, who have been interested mainly in the purely scientific side
of the problem, while Linde in Germany, Hampson in England, and
Tripler in the United States have their minds on the practical side.
Notwithstanding the low temperatures involved in the experiments,
a number of heated discussions have been carried on in the scientific
journals touching the question of priority. To the unprejudiced
observer it appears that all of those named above are entitled to
credit. They have all helped the cause along, but just how to apportion
the credit no one knows. In a general way, however, some
of the results obtained by each in turn should be given. Wroblewski
and Olszewski have carried on the work begun by Cailletet and Pictet,
and have produced lower temperatures. In the latest form of apparatus
used by Olszewski, liquid ethylene is used as the cooling
agent. Its boiling point is -102° C.
(-151.6° F.). By causing it to boil
rapidly under diminished pressure a
temperature below the critical temperature
of oxygen can be reached. As
early as 1891 Olszewski obtained as
much as two hundred cubic centimetres
of liquid air by this method. Dewar
has also made use of liquid ethylene.
This was passed through a spiral copper
tube surrounded by solid carbonic acid
and ether. It was then passed into a
cylinder surrounded by another cylinder
containing solid carbonic acid and
ether. A spiral copper tube, which
runs through the outer cylinder and
also through the inner cylinder in
which the ethylene was boiling under
diminished pressure, carried the air.
This was liquefied and then collected in
a vacuum vessel below. Later he found
that air can be liquefied by using liquid
carbonic acid alone as the cooling agent.
A sectional drawing of his apparatus
described in 1896 is given herewith.
As he remarks: "With this simple
machine, one hundred cubic centimetres
of liquid oxygen can readily be
obtained, the cooling agent being carbon
dioxide, at the temperature of
-79°. If liquid air has to be made
by this apparatus, then the carbonic acid must be kept under exhaustion
of about one inch of mercury pressure, so as to begin with a
temperature of -115°."
The introduction of the vacuum vessel by Dewar has been of
great service in all the work on liquefied gases. A vacuum vessel
is a double-walled glass vessel, as shown in Fig. 1, G. The space between
the inner and outer walls of the vessel is exhausted by means
of an air pump before it is closed. The vessel is therefore surrounded
by a vacuum. As heat is not conducted by a vacuum, it
is possible to keep specimens of liquefied gases in such vessels for
a surprisingly long time. Heat enough can not pass through the
vacuum to vaporize the liquid rapidly. The most common form of
these vessels is that of a globe. Such a vessel is known as a Dewar
globe or bulb.
It has been found that liquid air can be kept very well by putting
it in a tin or galvanized iron vessel, which in turn is placed in a
larger one, and then filling the space between the two with felt.
Under these conditions vaporization takes place quite slowly, and
it is possible to transport the liquid comparatively long distances. It
has, for example, been transported from New York to Baltimore and
Washington. In one case with which the writer is familiar two
cans were taken from Mr. Tripler's laboratory in the morning, delivered
at the Johns Hopkins University in the afternoon, and used
to illustrate a lecture in the evening. After the lecture there was
enough left for certain experiments that were carried on during the
rest of the night.
Tripler, Linde, and Hampson have all succeeded in devising forms
of apparatus by means of which air can be liquefied without the aid
of other cooling agents than the expanding air. In principle
the methods employed by these three workers are essentially
the same. It appears from the published statements
that at the present time Tripler's plant is the most efficient.
While a few years ago a half pint or so of liquid air is said
to have cost five hundred dollars, now five gallons can be
made for about twenty dollars, and probably much less. The
general working of Tripler's apparatus can be made clear by
the aid of the accompanying drawing, Fig. 2. A1, A2, A3
represent steam compression pumps. Air is taken through I
from above the roof of the laboratory. In the first pump it
is compressed to sixty-five pounds to the square inch. It, of
course, becomes heated as it is compressed. In order to cool it down
again it is passed through a coil, B1, which is surrounded by water of
the ordinary temperature. This compressed and cooled air is then further
compressed in the second pump, A2, to four hundred pounds to the
square inch. Again it is cooled in the same way as before by means
of water which circulates around the coil B2. Once more the air
is compressed, this time in the cylinder A3, in which it is subjected
to a pressure of two thousand to twenty-five hundred pounds to the
square inch; and then this compressed air is brought down to the
ordinary temperature in the cooler B3. The air under this great
pressure is now passed through the purifier C, where it is freed
from particles of dust and to a great extent from moisture. From
C the air passes into the inner bent tube, about thirty feet in length,
until it reaches D. This may be called the critical point of the
apparatus. Here is situated a needle valve from which the air is
allowed to escape. It, of course, expands enormously, and is correspondingly
cooled. This very cold air passes into the space between
the inner and outer tubes, and finally escapes at F. The result of
this is that the compressed air in the inner tube is soon cooled down
so far that a considerable part of the air that escapes at D appears
in the liquid form. This collects in the lower part of the jacket,
and on opening the stopcock at E the liquid escapes in a stream
the size of one's finger.
Fig. 2.—Diagram showing Working of Compression Apparatus for making Liquid Air.
In Mr. Tripler's laboratory the liquid is collected in the cans
already referred to. Although for the reasons mentioned the evaporation
of the liquid is comparatively slow, it is constantly going on,
and as the gas formed occupies a very much larger volume under
the pressure of the atmosphere than the liquid from which it is
formed, it is necessary to leave the cans loosely covered. Otherwise
the pressure would increase to such an extent as to burst any but
the strongest vessels. One cubic foot of liquid air gives at atmospheric
pressure eight hundred cubic feet of gaseous air.
Liquid air obtained as described is a turbid, colorless liquid. The
turbidity is due to the presence of solid water and solid carbonic
acid. By passing the liquid through a paper filter the solids are
removed, and a transparent liquid is thus obtained. This, as already
stated, consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen in the proportion of
about four fifths of the former to one fifth of the latter. Though
it should not be forgotten that this liquid contains argon in small
quantity, besides three or four other substances in still smaller quantities,
as has recently been shown by Professor Ramsay, we may
disregard everything except the nitrogen and oxygen. Liquid air
is a mixture of these two substances. They are not chemically combined
as hydrogen and oxygen are, for example, in water. This
mixture boils at -191° C. (-312° F.), which is the temperature of
the liquid as it is in the cans. As the nitrogen boils at a lower
temperature (-194° C. or 318° F.) than oxygen (-183° C. or
297° F.), more nitrogen is converted into gas in a given time than
oxygen, and after a time the liquid that is left is much richer in
oxygen than ordinary air. When liquid air is poured upon water
it, being a little lighter than the water, floats, not quietly, to be sure,
but in a very troubled way. Soon, however, the liquid sinks to the
bottom because the nitrogen, which is the lighter constituent, passes
into the gaseous state, and the liquid oxygen which is left is a little
heavier than water. The experiment is a very beautiful one. A
scientific poet could alone do justice to it. The beauty is enhanced
by the fact that while liquid air is colorless, or practically so, liquid
oxygen is distinctly blue.
Although liquid air has the temperature -191° C. (-312° F.),
one can without danger pass the hand through it rapidly. The sensation
is a new one, but it is evanescent. Very serious results would
follow if the hand were allowed to remain in the liquid even for a
short time. The tissues would be killed. So also, it is possible to
pass the hand rapidly through molten lead without injury. In the
latter case the moisture on the hand is converted into vapor which
forms a protecting cushion between the hand and the hot liquid;
while, in the former case, the heat of the hand converts the liquid air
immediately surrounding it into gas which prevents the liquid from
coming in contact with the hand.
When the liquid is poured out of a vessel in the air it is rapidly
converted into gas. The great lowering in the temperature causes
a condensation of the moisture of the air in the form of a cloud.
The same thing is seen when the cover is removed from a can
containing the liquid. Of course, this liquid does not wet things
as water does. When, however, as happened in New York, the lecturer
deliberately pours a dipperful of the liquid upon a priceless
Worth gown, he may expect to hear expressions of horror from the
owner. This experiment passed off most successfully. Every trace
of the liquid air was converted into invisible gases before the fleeting
agony of the sympathetic audience had passed away.
The effects of very low temperature upon a number of substances
have been studied, and some of them can easily be shown. Paraffin,
resin, and rubber immersed in liquid air soon become very brittle,
and the color of the resin is completely changed. A beefsteak
or an onion also becomes brittle, and can be broken into small fragments
by the blow of a hammer. A similar effect is produced in
the case of some metals. Tin and iron, for example, become brittle,
and the tenacity of the iron is greatly increased. A copper wire,
however, retains its flexibility. At low temperatures the electric
conductivity of all metals is increased. In general, the lower the
temperature the greater the conductivity. If a copper wire could
by any means be kept cold enough, electrical energy could be transmitted
by it with but little loss—perhaps none. Mercury is easily
frozen by surrounding it with liquid air, and the solid thus formed
is very hard, though if it is cooled down sufficiently it becomes
brittle.
Alcohol can be frozen without difficulty by means of liquid air.
By the aid of the lowest temperatures hitherto attainable it has
only been possible to convert alcohol into a pasty mass. The frozen
alcohol is as hard as ice. When alcohol is dropped into liquid air
the drops retain the globular form. When taken out on a platinum
loop the flame of a Bunsen burner does not set fire to it.
Phosphorescence is greatly increased by cooling substances down
to the temperature of liquid air. This has been shown by means
of water, milk, paper, eggs, and feathers. An egg and a feather
could be distinctly seen in a dark room.
Scarlet iodide of mercury is converted into the yellow variety
when it is subjected to the temperature of liquid air. Some other
colors are changed under the same circumstances, but not enough is
known of this subject to warrant a general statement.
Attention has already been called to the fact that liquid air loses
its nitrogen more rapidly than it does its oxygen, and that, after
a time, the residue contains a large proportion of oxygen. As combustion
is combination with oxygen, combustion or burning takes
place more readily in contact with this liquid oxygen than it does
in the air. If a lighted match is attached to the end of a steel
watch spring, and this then plunged beneath the surface of liquid
air, the spring will soon take fire and burn brilliantly, the sparks
flying off for some distance in beautiful coruscations. Hair felt,
which does not burn in the air, burns in a flash when soaked with
liquid air. Finally, when liquid air is confined in any vessel not
capable of sustaining an enormous pressure, say about ten thousand
pounds to the square inch, the vaporization goes on until the vessel
bursts or the stopper is forced out. It might therefore be used as
an explosive without any addition, but its manipulation is not altogether
simple.
Now for the inevitable question: Of what use is liquid air likely
to be? This is a perfectly proper question, and yet, if scientific
workers always stopped to ask it, and would not work unless they
could find a favorable answer, progress would, to say the least, be
much slower than it is. Most great practical discoveries have necessarily
passed through the plaything stage. Some of the most important
discoveries have not even furnished playthings, and have
found no practical applications as this expression is commonly understood.
But the production of liquid air, while furnishing mankind
with a beautiful and instructive plaything, seems likely to find practical
applications. We may look for these in four directions, to
each of which a short paragraph may be devoted:
First, as a cooling agent. Low temperature is marketable. To
be sure, the demand for the extremely low temperature that can be
produced by liquid air does not exist to-day, but this concentrated
low temperature can be diluted to suit conditions. The only question
to be answered in this connection is, then, What is the cost of cold
produced by liquid air? It is impossible for any one to answer this
question at all satisfactorily at present. It can only be said that
this is what experimenters are trying to find out. It appears, however,
that they are on the way to cheap liquid air, and that as the
processes are improved the price will become lower and lower.
Second, for the construction of motors. There is no doubt that
liquid air with its enormous power of expansion can be used as
a source of motive power just as compressed air is. In the case of
steam it is necessary to heat the water in order to convert it into
steam, and to heat the steam to give it the power of expansion. The
cost is, in the first instance, that of the fuel. Given a certain amount
of heat, and a certain amount of work is obtained. If liquid air is
used, the problem is much the same. Engines must be run in order
to compress the air which is to be liquefied. Every gallon of liquid
air has been produced at the expense of work of some kind. Now,
the question arises at once, What proportion of the work that was
put in that gallon of liquid air in the course of its production can
be got out of it again? It is certain that all of it can not be got out
unless all that we have ever learned about such matters goes for
nothing. In dealing with the problem of the application of liquid
air as a source of motive power we are therefore doubly handicapped.
In the first place, we do not know the cost of the liquid when produced
on the large scale; and, in the second place, we do not know
the probable efficiency of a liquid-air motor. I say "we do not know."
Perhaps Mr. Tripler and the others engaged in the experiments on this
subject do know approximately. We certainly can not blame them for
not telling us all they know at this stage of the work. It is unfortunate,
however, that such a statement as was recently published in a
popular magazine should be allowed to gain currency—apparently
with the sanction of Mr. Tripler. The statement referred to is to the
effect that ten gallons of liquid air have been made by the use of three
gallons of liquid air in the engine. If that means that the ten
gallons of liquid air are made from air at the ordinary pressure, the
statement is in direct conflict with well-established principles. If
it means that the ten gallons of liquid air are made from air that has
already been partly compressed, we must know how much work has
been done before the liquid-air engine began. Leaving out of consideration
the question of cost, it may be pointed out that liquid-air
engines would have the advantage of compactness, though they would
necessarily be heavy, as they would have to be strong enough to stand
the great pressure to which they would be subjected.
The third application of liquid air that has been suggested is
in the preparation of an explosive. In fact, an explosive has been
made and used for some time in which liquid air is one of the constituents.
When the liquid from which a part of the nitrogen has
boiled off is mixed with powdered charcoal, the mixture burns with
great rapidity and great explosive force. "To make this explosive, Dr.
Linde pours the liquid containing about forty or fifty per cent of
oxygen on fragments of wood charcoal, two or four cubic millimetres
in size. These are kept from scattering under the ebullition
of the liquid by mixing them into a sort of sponge with about one
third of their weight of cotton wool." Of course, this explosive
must be made at or near the place where it is used. It has been in
use in the way of a practical test in a coal mine at Pensberg, near
Munich. It is claimed that the results were satisfactory. The
chief advantage of the explosive is its cheapness, and the fact that
it soon loses its power of exploding.
Finally, the fourth application of liquid air is for the purpose
of getting oxygen from the air. This can be accomplished by chemical
means, but the chemical method is somewhat expensive. Oxygen
has commercial value, and cheap oxygen would be a decided advantage
in a number of branches of industry. It will be observed that
it is the liquid oxygen that makes possible the preparation of the
explosive described in the last paragraph. Oxygen as such in the
form of gas is of value in Deacon's process for the manufacture of
chlorine. In this process air and hydrochloric acid are caused to
act upon each other so as to form water and chlorine. The nitrogen
takes no part in the act, and it would be an advantage if it could
be left out. It is only the oxygen that is wanted. There are many
other possible uses for oxygen either in the liquid or in the gaseous
form, but these need no mention here.
In conclusion it may safely be said that it is highly probable
that liquid air will be found to be a useful substance, but it is impossible
at present to speak with any confidence of the particular
uses that will be made of it. As work with it is being carried on
energetically in at least three countries, we may confidently expect
important developments in the near future.
THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE WEST INDIES.
By F. L. OSWALD.
II.—BIRDS.
The abundance of birds on the four largest islands of the West
Indian archipelago, where indigenous mammals are almost
limited to rodents and bats, has often suggested the conjecture that
the ancestors of those islanders must have been immigrants from the
east coasts of the American mainland; and that theory seems to be
confirmed by two facts: the identity, or similarity, of numerous
Mexican and West Indian species, and the circumstance that those
analogies include so many swift-winged birds.
There are no woodpeckers in the forests of the Antilles, and only
two species of large gallinaceous birds, but a prodigious variety of
pigeons, swallows, finches, and
crows. The alcedos (kingfishers)
are scarce, but the
blackbirds so numerous that
some of the countless species
seem to claim a South American
and even transatlantic ancestry.
The restless estornino
of the Cuban highland forests,
for instance, might be mistaken
for a varnished starling, resembling
the Sturnus vulgaris of
western Europe in everything
but the more brilliant luster
of its plumage. The curious
codornilla, or dove quail, too, has its nearest relatives on the other
side of the Atlantic, in Syria, Arabia, and the foothills of the Atlas.
It builds its nest on the ground and, judging from its appearance,
would seem to form a connecting link between the doves and small
gallinæ; but its wings are those of a pigeon, and with the assistance
of a northeast gale may possibly have carried it across the ocean.
Crown Pigeon.
In studying the geographical distribution of animals, we may estimate
the prevalence of special genera by the number of their varieties,
or by the aggregate sum of individuals, and in the latter sense the
migratory pigeons of our forest States once nearly outnumbered all
the other birds of North America, though the family is limited to
five or six species. But in the West Indies the Columbidæ predominate
in both respects. Cuba is a country of wild pigeons as pre-eminently
as South Africa is a land of pachyderms and Madagascar
of night monkeys. The Columba leucocephala (a congener of our
ringdove) inhabits the mountain forests in countless swarms, and at
the end of the rainy season visits grainfields in such numbers that
hundreds are sometimes captured in nets, by means of corn scattered
along the furrows.
A closely allied variety is found in San Domingo, where in many
upland regions a darkey, equipped with a shotgun and a supply of
gunpowder, can dispense with agriculture and raise a family of
anthropoids on pigeon pies and tortillas, compounded from the grain
found in the crops of his victims.
But the tittyblang (tête-blanc) has scores of smaller and larger
cousins, culminating in the Cuban primate of the family, the splendid
paloma real, with its coronet of pearl-gray plumes and dark-blue
wings.
Ducks, too, must number some twenty West Indian species, and
one kind of wild geese often obliged the rice planters to employ
mounted sharpshooters, who galloped up and down the long dikes,
yelling blasphemies, and every now and
then enforcing their quotations with a
handful of buckshot. But, for all that,
the planter could think himself lucky
to gather a sixty-per-cent harvest of the total produce, for experience
soon enabled the long-necked depredators to estimate the target range
of the cazador within a dozen yards and take wing in the nick of
time, only to resume their feast at the other end of the plantation.
Porto Rico Parrakeet.
A long-continued process of natural selection has also modified
the habits of numerous species of West Indian parrots. Four hundred
years ago, when Fernan Oviedo superintended the placer mines
of Hayti, loris were so abundant and tame that his assistants often
amused themselves prowling about a thicket of berry bushes and
capturing the chattering visitors by means of a common ring net.
Nestlings could be taken from every hollow tree, and often from the
thatchwork of deserted Indian cabins; but the overconfident specimens
came to grief, and the survivors have learned to give the Caucasian
varieties of the Simia destructor a wide berth. They raise
their young in the cavities of the tallest forest trees, and approach
human habitations only at dawn of day and sometimes during the
noonday heat, when creoles can be relied upon to indulge in a siesta
nap. In reliance on their protective colors, gray parrakeets frequent
the dead timber of the coffee plantations, while the leaf-green Amazon
parrot sticks to leaf trees.
"When they alight on a dry branch," says Captain Gosse, in his
Jamaica chronicle, "their emerald hue is conspicuous and affords a
fair mark for the gunner, but in a tree of full foliage their color
proves an excellent concealment. They seem aware of this, and their
sagacity prompts them to rely on it for protection. Often we hear
their voices proceeding from a certain tree, or have marked the descent
of a flock, but on proceeding to the spot, though the eye has not
wandered from it, we can not discover an individual; we go close to
the tree, but all is silent; we institute a careful survey of every part
with the eye, to detect the slightest motion, or the form of a bird
among the leaves, but in vain, and we begin to think that they have
stolen off unperceived, but on throwing a stone into the tree a dozen
voices burst forth into cry, and as many green birds dart forth upon
the wing."
The gorgeous macaws, on the other hand, seem to owe their color
contrasts to sexual selection. "Ya son vencidos los pavos de India"—"That
does beat a Hindostan peacock"—exclaimed King Ferdinand,
when Columbus introduced those most splendid products of the
American tropics.
Nor can the exigencies of protection have evolved the glaring
colors of the West Indian hornbill. The toco (toucan), as the Cubans
call the yellow-billed species, can be descried from a distance of two
hundred yards, and is, indeed, not anxious to be admired at close
range. Old specimens get as wary as mountain ravens, but, like
crows, become ridiculously tame in captivity, and will follow their
proprietors with loud croaks, every now and then opening their lunch-trap
to indicate their desire for refreshment. They are, on the whole,
the hardiest of all tropical birds, and can weather the winters of our
coast towns as far north as Wilmington, in open-air cages, owing
perhaps to their habit of extending their excursions to the high mountain
ranges of their native land.
Economical Nature rarely wastes the gift of song on a bird of
bright plumage, but it is less easy to understand why so many feathered
beauties should have been afflicted with harsh and positively
repulsive voices. The horrid screams of the peacocks, guinea hens,
and macaws can hardly be supposed to charm their mates, and are
too easily recognized to deter their natural enemies. But the roars
(there is no more adequate word) of some species of hornbills would
almost seem intended to serve the latter purpose.
"The voice of the Buceros bicornis," says Wallace, "can be plainly
heard at a distance of a mile, so that the amazement of travelers
visiting its haunts seems explicable enough. Its screams may be described
as something between the bray of a jackass and the shriek of
a locomotive, and are not surpassed in power by any sound that an
animal is capable of making. They re-echo through the hills to such
a degree that it is difficult to assign the noise to a bird, and are sometimes
kept up so continuously as to become absolutely unbearable."
The condor and the harpy eagle have not found their way across
the Caribbean Sea, but the West Indies boast three varieties of fish
eagles, several species of mountain falcons, and a curious singing
owl, the oriya, that chants its serenades in the plaintive strain of
the whip-poor-will, and is dreaded by the Porto Rico darkeys as a bird
of ill-omen:
"Grita l'oriya: Venga amigo,
Venga conmigo a mi patria,
Venga te-digo!"
Small hooting owls abound, and there are four species of sparrow
hawks, one of them not much larger than a finch.
Vervain Humming Bird and Nest.
It is probably the smallest bird of prey, and there is no doubt
that one species of West Indian humming bird is the smallest bird on
earth, the Vervain colibri, of Jamaica, that hides its nest under an
orange leaf, and, though an insect-eater, could be easily overpowered
by an able-bodied bumblebee. In beauty some of the south Cuban
species rival those of the Amazon Valley, and frequent every flowering
shrub from the jungles of the coast lands to the highland meadows
of the Sierra Maestra. In Hayti there are parklike plateaus where
they often appear in swarms at a time of the year when the forests of
the foothills are drenched by the afternoon cloudbursts of the rainy
season, and on some of the smaller Antilles they are seen only during
the flowering period of special plants.
The Smallest Bird.
In the solitudes of the Morne Range (San Domingo) mountain
ravens rear their brood in the crevices of steep rocks, and fiercely
attack birds of prey, not excepting the black-crested eagle, that now
and then visits the sierras in quest of conies. But the winged constables
of the highlands rarely leave their mountain reservation. Of
Abd-el-Wahab, the Arabian heretic, it used to be said that "Mohammedan
zealots shrank in affright from his superior fanaticism," and
on the midway terraces of the Dominican sierras the persecution
mania of the giant crow yields to that of the great shrike, the Lanius
rufus, that operates pairwise and assails all winged comers with absolutely
reckless courage.
Crested Curassow.
The raven of the Mornes seems to be identical with the cosmopolitan
forager that is found in the uplands of the eastern continent
from the bleak summit regions of the Hindu-Kush to the sierras of
Portugal, and from the Atlas to the Norwegian Alps; but there are
several exclusively West Indian species of the genus Corvus, including
a steel-blue rook that flits about the Cuban coffee plantations and
has a curious habit of perching on a stump and talking to itself in a
sort of croaking chuckle for half hours together.
The gallinæ, as might be expected from their limited wing-power,
are well represented in the number of individuals, rather than of
species. Turkeys, though abundant in the coast forests of Central
America, are not found wild in any part of the West Indies, where
the perennial presence of berries would be as inviting as the absence
of foxes.
In the mountains some species of curassow have, however, developed
into a stately game bird, the Oreophasis niger, or highland
"pheasant," that lays a dozen large eggs, and in its courtship season
becomes so infatuated that it can be approached and killed with a
common walking-stick. The consequent persecution has made it
rather scarce in famine-stricken Cuba, but in Hayti it can still be
seen in troops of a dozen or more, scratching up the dry leaves of the
sierra forests, or pecking at insect-haunted shrubs, exactly like a
flock of Tennessee turkeys.
There are also several varieties of true pheasants, and two species
of quail (besides the above-mentioned codornilla), and in eastern
Cuba numerous barnyard chickens have taken to the woods and become
so shy that it seems a puzzle how their ancestors in the coast
range of Burmah could ever be captured and domesticated. They
still practice polygamy, combined with a system of co-operative housekeeping,
to judge from the number of eggs that are often found in
one nest. At the approach of an unfeathered biped the hen bird
takes wing with a screech, and is apt to vanish for the rest of that
day. The roosters are rarely seen, their glaring colors having faded
into more protective shades of olive and brown, but at dawn of day
their shrill reveille can be heard from afar in the heart of the pathless
jungle woods.
The Caribbean Albatross.
[To be continued.]
INSANE CHARACTERS IN FICTION AND THE DRAMA.
By Prof. CESARE LOMBROSO.
One of the things that most strikes one who compares the ancient
theater, and even the theater of a few years ago, with
the modern theater, is the enormous difference in the character of
the personages, and particularly the curious frequency of insane as
principal personages in the modern theater. We have come to such
a point that one may be almost sure that in reading over a new play,
by Ibsen, for example, he will find three or four insane personages in
it, if, the characters are not all so. These madmen have characteristics
so particularized as to seem as if they might have been depicted
by an alienist. If the protagonists are not mad, they are agitated by
such violent and strange passions as the ordinary world never meets
in life; which it therefore refuses to accept when they are described
in a scientific book, but nevertheless receives them when it sees
them in the scenes or meets them in the romances of the great modern
novelists.
Ibsen, for example, has made a most exact picture of the progressive
general paralysis which arises, precisely as he depicts it, in
men of genius, of great mental activity, who have wasted their hereditary
power in pleasures or excessive work; and there is in them both
impulsiveness and want of will power, complete perversion of all the
instincts, and mental confusion, alternating here and there with genial
flashes; but he is wrong in accumulating in a single subject the
maladies of a large number of diseased, and therefore exaggerating
their eccentricities—as he exaggerates atavism and heredity of disease
when he makes the morbid son repeat the same incoherent phrases
as the father from whom he inherits his disorder used.
Just and true, however, is that other form of heredity under
which from a father corrupted by licentious indulgence and by alcohol,
and criminally vicious, is born, besides a paresic son, a lascivious
and criminal daughter, who throws herself into prostitution at the
first opportunity without any special cause.
So, too, that love of art existing now as only a dream, and that
egotistic good nature which enjoys the advantages of a mother's care
without gratitude, those short accesses of genial eloquence followed
by fury which burst out from the midst of apathy, and which are
drowned in the intoxication of alcohol with a complete, immediate
forgetfulness of everything, are specific traits of paralytic dementia.
Ibsen, in Hedda Gabler, describes to us a neurotic woman who,
being pregnant, and therefore suffering more acute attacks, avenges
herself, though married, upon her former lover, who had left her, by
burning the manuscripts which he expected to make him famous.
Virile, like all criminals, she nursed her resentment from youth.
In the Pillars of Society the great political characters are rogues
and neurotics.
In Berkmann the true criminal banker comes into play. He does
not kill or ravish, but appropriates the money belonging to his bank
under the illusion that he will be able to make great gains with it
through the accomplishment of wonderful things that will secure to
him his single joy—power; and that he can then restore the sum
with redoubled interest.
This case is of a kind of very frequent occurrence, and shows a
complete absence in the banker of affection and of moral sense. He
sacrifices the woman who loves him to further the desires of an accomplice.
He has a faithful friend who, robbed by him, continues to
visit him every day and give him the solace of admiration even when
all despise him; and he repels him when he fails to absolve him and
to believe in the possibility of his return to power. Later the defaulter
pretends that he has studied his own case, and has probed it in
every way, with the result of a complete acquittal of himself. And
why all this? Because he has used the money of others for great
purposes: to connect seas, to excavate the millions that are shut up in
the bosom of the earth and are crying out to be brought into the
light. Thus it is that with the combined genius and delirium of
megalomaniacs he hears the call of the minerals and the groaning
of the ships longing to be set free. Conscience, duty, and probity do
not exist for him. He believes that his quality as a man of genius
permits him everything; therefore he sacrifices to his chimeras the
beings who love him most. "I am," he says, "like a Napoleon disabled
by a shot in his first battle"; and he does not perceive that he
has grown old, that he has a mortal heart disease; and he dreams of
returning to power and of hearing men ask the benefit of his advice,
and no longer talks with anybody, because there is nobody but his
old lover who does not believe him guilty.
Finally, repulsed by all, he plunges into the whirl of life and the
torment of the mountain, and dies at last of syncope; while his equally
egotistical son deserts the mother who adores him to go to the south
with the wealthy Amasia, daughter of his father's enemy.
In Dostoievski, madmen, especially epileptics, constitute the absolute
majority of the characters; or else they are born criminals, such
as my school has attempted to identify by the figures on the hand.
"This strange family," he writes in The House of the Dead, "had
an air which attracted notice at the first glance." All the prisoners
were melancholy, envious, terribly vain, presumptuous, susceptible,
and formal in the highest degree. Vanity ruled always, without the
least sign of shame or repentance or the least sorrow over the commission
of an offense. Nearly all the convicts dreamed aloud or
raved during sleep. Most usually they spoke words of abuse and
slang, talked of knife and axe. "We are a ruined people," they said;
"we have no bowels; therefore we cry out in the night."
This impossibility of feeling remorse or penitence, along with
vanity and exaggerated love of pomp, are characteristics well known
to all observers. But other traits were manifested perhaps more
conspicuous, and such as are common to children. On feast days the
more elegant ones dressed gorgeously, and could be seen parading
themselves through the barracks. Pleasure in being well dressed
amounted to childishness in them.
Reasoning has no power upon men like Petroff, because they have
not any decisive will. If they have, there are no longer obstacles
to it. Such persons are born with an idea that moves them unconsciously
all their lives hither and thither. They are quiet till they
have found some object that strongly arouses their desire; then they
no longer spare even their heads. "More than once have I wondered
to see how Petroff robbed me in spite of the affection he had
for me. This happened to him at intervals, when he had a strong
desire to drink. A person like him is capable of assassinating a man
for twenty-five soldi, only to drink a litre; on other occasions he
would scorn thousands of rubles. He often confessed his thefts to
me, lamenting that I no longer had the objects, but showed no penitence
for having stolen them; bore reproofs because he thought
they were inevitable, or because he deserved to receive them; because
I ought to punish him to compensate myself for the things I had
lost, but thought within himself that they were trifles that one ought
to be above speaking of."
Further on the novelist speaks of the smuggler by profession, a
pleasant fellow, condemned for life for his offenses, who could not
lose the instinct for smuggling brandy into the prison. He received
only a ridiculous profit, was greatly afraid of the rod, although he
had rarely passed under it, wept, swore that he would not offend any
more, and then fell down.
Zola also reproduces my epileptic moral madman in La Bête
Humaine, in the alcoholic in L'Assommoir, the paranoiac in Work,
and himself confesses to having taken the brief of his immortal chain
of romances, Rougon, from a study made by Aubry in a provincial
family celebrated for its richness in degenerates, criminals, and insane,
all derived from a dull, neurotic Keratry.
Daudet depicts in Jack a series of mattoidi, that particular species
of insane which I first discovered, that occupies a position between
paranoiacs, geniuses, and imbeciles.
Ancient Romance and Theater.—We turn now to the ancient
theater and romance. All the Roman novels of Petronius and
Apuleius are rich in obscene, mythological, and magical adventures,
most improbable and satirical, without ever defining a character or
including a real madman.
In the ancient Greek theater, while the idea of heredity is discernible
under the form of fate, while violent passion is every now
and then depicted under marvelous forms, while anomalies strike us,
and furies of Ajax and Dejanira, of Orestes and Œdipus, and the
melancholy of Philoctetes, they all still have a common type, which
is not perceived in ordinary life. They are madmen who do not exist
in any asylum, who seem symbolical, and have little correspondence
with the men of the mythological and heroic epoch to which they
all belonged; they never, except in Euripides, present a specific personage,
nor ever, unless with rare exceptions—as in the Persians of
Æschylus and a few other lost works, like the Siege of Miletus—deal
with contemporary historical facts.
These poets were concerned with the symbol, the moral, the tradition,
and, if I may be permitted the term, the blasphemy, the declamation,
rather than with depicting the person. This is further seen in
the comedy of the Greek decadence, and still further in that of the
Romans, in which, except in the political squibs, the same personages
nearly always appear, as well as showing out of the masks intended
for the common people—and these figures have come down to us.
There are nearly always the old miser or rake, the go-between slave,
the braggart soldier. The plots were likewise the same: changed
children, reconciled lovers, except in the Greek political satires, in
which the demerits of the adversary were exaggerated into the most
atrocious caricature, and which became like real humorous journals
of the political trifles of the day.
Yet these highly cultivated peoples, agitated by grand public passions,
had absorbing, moving controversies—the struggles of the
Gracchi, the banishment of Themistocles and Aristides, and the varying
fortunes of Marius, of which no trace is found. Nor, for the rest,
did the Latins, who were our masters, and were, as we are after them,
copyists, followers in the footsteps of their Greek predecessors, readapt
contemporary events to their dramatic lines. We in our turn, down to
Goldoni and Molière, and even to this very century, have copied those
ancient comic and tragic writers, warming them up afresh from
Orestes and Clytemnestra, and from events which had not the least
echo among us. Trissin, Maffei, and Alfieri delineated more or less, on
one side tyrants, on the other tyrannicides, which have little to distinguish
them from one another. So in Schiller and Goethe, all the passions
are of the scene rather than of personages. Thus Faust, for
example, and Margaret, are not persons who have a special character.
They are, in fact, personages who cover a symbol, who would tell the
story of literature, the story of the beautiful, the skepticism of knowledge,
but they tell it with a number of interesting, moving facts, without
delineating an individuality. Faust is neither very good nor
very bad, since he with his easy way of speaking commits rogueries
of every kind till finally he is redeemed. He is a scientific student
with a passion for investigation, but in his enthusiasm, instigated by
the devil or by doubt, he too often deserts the search for the truth
for that of pleasure, too often forsakes the studies that had ennobled
his life from youth, and as a man to enjoy the nights of the Brocken,
and worse, the favors of Margaret, of Helen, till the moment when
he redeems himself by saving a people; but he does this at the last
instant, when he is about to die, and has nothing more to enjoy.
Margaret, too, is a child like other children, who, like so many others,
suffers herself to be beguiled by manly beauty, and has no good
qualities except that of being able to die with fortitude, hoping with
the penalty to expiate the sin, which is, in fact, more the devil's
than hers.
The elder Dumas invented an immense diverting confusion of
facts, but his personages are always the same, and are the occasion, the
instrument, the setting of the adventures.
The Reasons for this Absence.—The inquiry into the reasons
of this absence of insane persons in the older romances and dramas is
a curious one. The first cause lies evidently in the law of proceeding
in every organism as in every work from the simple to the complex.
As in penal law, not the criminal but the crime was studied at first,
while now both are studied together; as in primordial medicine only
the disease was studied, while now the patient is studied first of all;
so in the drama and in comedy, in the measure that the thought
has become discriminating, it has substituted or rather associated with
observation of the fact per se, that of the author of the fact. The
study, of course, exacts more acumen, but it also better satisfies our
reinvigorated culture and opens broader horizons to us.
We have thus done more than abandon the pedantesque scale of
the old time and the mere study of the fact; we have introduced characters
into the personages, which, while they correspond to living and
real characters that we have under our eyes, attempt to resolve a
problem and teach us a moral, and go so far as to represent to us a
symbolical idea which is a pure abstraction of the author's, reaching
thence the maximum of complication.
Naturally, such salient characters as madmen, eccentrics, and
criminals would not be likely to escape the notice of the dramatist,
who finds in them motives for great effects without departing from
truth and probability.
But there is another more material reason for the recent introduction
of insane characters into the theater, and for their greater frequency
and participation in real life. It has been remarked that insane
persons have multiplied a hundredfold with civilization, to such an extent
that where a few years ago one madhouse was enough, now five
hundred and six are needed. Taking, for example, the statistics of
the most progressive country in the world, those of the United
States, furnished by its invaluable census report, we see that the
number of insane persons, which was 15,610 in 1850, 24,042 in 1860,
and 37,432 in 1870, rose in 1880 to 91,994; while the population,
from 23,191,876 in 1850, increased to 38,558,371 in 1870, to
50,155,783 in 1880—that is, while the population doubled in a little
more than thirty years, the insane increased sixfold; so, in the last
decade the increase in population was thirty per cent, and that of insane
one hundred and fifty-five per cent.
In France there were 131.1 insane per 100,000 inhabitants in
1883, 133 in 1884, 136 in 1888. These figures indicate that the
number of insane is larger in the most civilized countries, and is
increasing every year. It may indeed be said that many of these
insane are not produced but are only revealed by civilization, and
that the opening of the large asylums has caused a considerable number
to be brought into the light who were not known of before. It
is true that the greater care we give now to the insane, as well as
to consumptives, makes them longer-lived. And it is true that as the
mind grows enlightened criminals come to be regarded as insane and
thus increase the apparent number of such. But all this is not sufficient
to explain a doubling in a decade, a tenfold increase in twenty
years.
We know, too, that civilization has brought on the development
of new forms of disease, which hardly existed before. For example,
general progressive paralysis was formerly so rare that no special
name was given to it till our time, while now it forms the larger quota
of the maladies of the wealthy, of thinkers, and of military men.
Epilepsy has greatly increased in its psychical form, so that what are
called psychical and obscure epilepsy are a revelation of our times,
and that its close association with crime (which I believe to be one
of the sure facts of modern psychiatry) is still accepted by only a very
few alienists, not to say that it is rejected with indignation, and, I
will remark, with profound ignorance, by most modern jurists.
Alcoholism, too, has taken on enormous proportions. Not that
the ancients did not drink, but rather that pure alcohol had not
yet been introduced; while in the middle ages it passed for one of the
most efficacious remedies—aqua vita, living water. Dr. Beard has
made a most judicious observation in America which I have been
able to verify in Sicily—that there must be a very advanced degree
of civilization, or rather of degeneracy produced by civilization, for
inebriety to be transformed into that aggregation of disasters, especially
of the nervous system, which is called alcoholism. Now we
have not alcoholism only, but morphinism, cocainism, all stimuli of
the nervous system, which are used by barbarians as potent excitants,
but not to the point of producing stable alterations except in rare
cases, like the amuck of the Malays.
And now, we all of us, at least in the capitals and the great centers,
find ourselves consumed by a feverish activity which makes the
mind labor much more than Nature intended it should, under which
is produced all this mass of neurasthenics, hystericals, besides the
multitudes of moral insane, profoundly egotistical persons, without
affection and wholly directed by a powerful passion for gold, for
which they sacrifice everything, even salvation!
And, finally, we have that group of semi-insane, which I call
mattoidi, and who are known as détraqués in France and cranks in
North America—that is, those who have the livery of genius with a
substratum of weakness and the practical cunning of the average man,
who betray their errors only when they write, who hardly exist save
among males (with a few exceptions, like Michel) and in the great
centers. I have never seen them in the country. Civilization is now
depopulating the country and building up the cities, as it is also augmenting
physical excitants with alcoholism, morphinism, etc. Civilization
emblazons the baton of the marshal, and not only of the marshal
but of the president of the republic, in the eyes of everybody who
can read and write. Why, then, should we not suppose that civilization
can further derange the equilibrium of mental labor and, indirectly,
therefore cause an increase of insanity?
Not only has the number of insane increased, but their importance
in society has multiplied fourfold; for which reason we can not
fail to give them attention. The morally insane in politics and the
megalomaniac insane in the bank who inspired Ibsen are to be found
walking around in every country. The blood-criminal, transmuted
into the forger and the bankrupt, penetrates into our houses, and we
suffer from him every day; while the insane man at first was not
regarded, or was adored under the form of a saint or hated as a wizard,
possessed of the devil always, or seemed a phenomenon strange to
society, a species of extraplanetary meteor. If we add that the degeneration
provoked by the abuses of civilization has begotten a multitude
of forms akin to madness which afford a field for combinations
now tragic, now strangely comic—like the phobia by which one is
afraid to cross a room, or avoids a certain group of words, or refuses to
know how many doors and windows there are on the street, or can
not be at ease without saying sexual pacifying formulas; a class who
with their perverted tastes form a real new world apart; and they all
may inspire new dramatic settings forth.
As a third cause we add that in our age psychology has penetrated
into all departments. There are psychologies of the senses, of the
sentiments, of the will, the psychology of the crowd, of the insane,
of criminals, and finally the psychology of the cell, or at least of
the infusoria (Binet). Therefore, as statistics is applied to history,
to politics, to religion, in the same way psychology has at last entered
into romance and the drama, and has taken the lion's share. And,
far from being repelled by the public, the authors who use it or
abuse it, like Euripides and to a certain point Shakespeare, win the
admiration of the public; and we are proud to see Zola taking from
L'Uomo delinquente the Jacques of his Bête humaine to make an immortal
figure of him, and Dostoiewski depicting innate criminals in
his House of the Dead, and the criminaloid in his Crime and Punishment;
and we do not despise Bourget when, making more a caricature
of psychology than a psychology, he assumes to apply it to the toilets
of women and the Parisian cocottes under the form of a psychology
of love.
It may at first sight seem a contradiction that we have shown that
there were also found in antiquity at great intervals dramatic poets
and romancers like Shakespeare, Dante, and Euripides who, led by
the observing and creative instinct, did not confine themselves to
events, but studied characters too, and, keenly perceiving the dramatic
potencies in the character of insanity, treasured it up in their works.
Thus Euripides depicts Helena, vain even into her old age, saving a
part of the hair she was offering at the tomb of her sister so as not
to lose what remained of her former beauty; and Orestes has not the
simple bestial fury depicted by Æschylus, but has choreic movements,
genial intervals, and a tendency to suicide, which show that the
author had attained a true conception of the maniac.
In the Mahabharata the maiden Damaianti is described as made
insane by love (Book II, st. iii) and Nalo, who, possessed by the demon
Kali, stakes his kingdom on the dice, and, denying his wife, abandons
her in the wood:
"And with soul slave to the thought, discolored face, and all
absorbed in sighs, now lifting up the head, now musing, bereft of
sense, you would say; a sudden pallor came on. With mind occupied
with one desire, nor sleep, nor the table, nor the sight of familiar
friends afforded pleasure, nor day nor night gave repose. Ah! poor
miserable one! thus exclaiming and bursting into tears, by that lament,
by those soul-sick acts, she was recognized by her friends."
Niceforus has shown how Dante in his Inferno has delineated in
the damned the characteristics which my school gives to the born
criminal. Shakespeare has done better, and has divined many criminal
characteristics through the greater intensity of the crime in the
criminal woman. Virile even when compared with the criminal man,
Lady Macbeth is crueler than her husband, and, more than that, has
many of the characteristics of men:
"Bring forth men-children only,
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males."
And Macbeth, as cool in the crime as the artful contriver of it,
is hysterical and hypnotic, and in the accesses reproduces the acts and
words of the tragedy, showing that the author knew that hysterics
and somnambulists often repeat the acts and the emotions which
mark the climax of their malady.
Hamlet has the folly of doubts and hallucinations, simulates the
ravings of a madman, but in his suspicious cunning discovers and
anticipates what is contemplated to his harm, is homicidal through
fear, and is yet often discreet, and a good lover, save that his love vanishes
before the fixed idea.
In Ophelia, disappointed love, the contact with a madman or a
pretended one, the death of her father almost under her very eyes,
provoke a species of madness which would now be called mental confusion,
with vague ideas of persecution, dim recollections of love
betrayed and of her father, incoherent and confused expressions ending
in automatic suicide. This confirms our conclusions.
Genius has also anticipated an epoch in the use and abuse of lunatics,
just because time is canceled for genius, because genius anticipates
the future work of centuries. But on this subject the inquiry is
pertinent why, while in the complaisant literary world such creations
as the Argenson of Daudet, the Jack of Zola, and the Eliza of
Goncourt find, if not an immediate, a kindly and ready acceptance—while
all the great artists, even the most ancient ones, have given the
type which I assign to the born delinquents to executioners and
criminals—the world has refused to accept the existence of the criminal
type of insanity in genius, and the relations in criminals between
epilepsy and crime which are nevertheless received in romance and
the drama. It is because when we are in the presence of true figures,
made to move before us under a strong light by the great artists, the
consciousness of the truth which lies dormant in all of us, smothered
and broken under distortion by the schools, reawakens, and rebels
against the conventional forms which they have imposed; all the more
so because the charm of art has vastly magnified the lines of the truth,
has rendered them more evident, and has thus much diminished the
effort required to master them. If, on the other hand, we base our
conclusion upon cold statistics and what I should call a skeleton study
of the facts, we find the old views rising in confusion with those of
sentiment and the artistic sense, and we arrive at nothing.
COLONIAL EXPANSION AND FOREIGN TRADE.
By JACOB SCHOENHOF.
Fifty years have elapsed since the adoption of free trade by
England. It was hoped that the free entrance of commodities
extended to all the world would pave the way to an era of mutual
peace and good will. But, judging by the political situation, and
taking the armaments as an outward sign of good intentions, the era
of peace and good will among nations is certainly far off. To get a
trading advantage here and a concession from a semibarbarous country
there is still the ambitious striving of the cabinets and the diplomacy
of Europe. To give the striving emphasis, industry is taxed
to the breaking point and labor to the starving point. Russia exhausts
her resources in a railroad through the Siberian waste in her
endeavor to obtain an outlet to the sea, which is jealously closed to
her at the southwestern end of her dominions by England. The
trader of Manchester, fearing for his markets, grows frantic at the
prospect of Russian cotton goods being brought to China or to India.
The mere acquisition of a port in Manchuria by Russia threatens to
seal his doom. But he might look on with complacency. Russia's
labor is very dear, capital is dear, wages are on the Asiatic level,
famine still stalks through the land, intercommunication is made
difficult by the lack of roads, and her wonderful natural resources
lie unimproved because the eyes of greed, like those of the dog
crossing the stream, are turned on the coveted piece of meat he sees
reflected in the water, and to grasp which he drops the one he holds
in his mouth. France bristles with bayonets, and is constantly at
pains to increase her naval armaments, about whose seaworthiness
her own minister of marine expresses suspicions, in obedience to
a nervous restlessness for foreign acquisition. England, after her
feat in civilizing savages and barbarians in the customary fashion,
shown again at Omdurman, is ready to turn her war dogs on France,
because the latter has the temerity to demand a slice of Soudanese territory.
Well might she have given as hush-money, or for the mere
grace of the action, a few thousand square miles of a country closed
to access except by the permission of Great Britain, which has successfully
pre-empted every desirable bit of land in sight.
Germany, instead of using her newly liberated energies at home
in an endeavor to elevate the miserable condition of her working
classes, taxes their bread and meat, never too freely supplied, to increase
the size of her armies and the number of her battle ships. The
defense and expansion of her colonial empire is her leading thought.
A strange paradox: The workingman and the peasant are overburdened
with taxes on the necessaries of life, so as to procure markets
for a limited quantity of factory products outside of the field secured
in open competition.
While professing friendship and brotherly love, they all have
their eyes on their neighbor's throat, fearful only lest the other might
clutch first.
As we are in danger of being drawn into this vortex, it is well to
examine the range of possibilities and see what the trade amounts
to, to obtain which the scientific intellect of Europe and America has
been strained to its limits to discover new means of destruction for
attack and defense unknown to the other brothers in the common
bond of civilization.
It is a matter of course that trade among European nations does
not come within this circle, nor of European nations with the United
States. It does not depend on battle ships. In the annexed tables
I have classified the countries in three classes: (1) Independent
states; (2) colonies of European countries, populated by people of
European stock; and (3) colonies and dependencies of European countries,
but of non-European stock.
I have reduced the values of imports and exports of the different
countries, published in their own currencies, to American dollars.
As the values are paper currencies, silver currencies, or conventional
values, and of fluctuating rates, I have in such instances taken a
yearly average, which will be found in the footnotes of the tables.
I. Trade of Independent Countries other than of Europe and North America.
Names of Countries.Number of inhabitants.Importations. Thousands of dollars.Exportations. Thousands of dollars.Imports per capita. Dollars.Exports per capita. Dollars.
Asia (1895)
China 383,253 128,772 107,499 .34 .28
Japan 42,270 90,681 62,443 2.14 1.47
All other states 27,000 30,000 82,000 1.10 1.18
America.
Argentina 4,000 103,058 108,671 26.50 27.17
Brazil 16,000 96,000 97,000 6.00 6.06
Chile 2,700 69,200 72,900 25.62 27.00
Peru 2,600 7,560 9,000 2.90 3.30
Mexico 12,600 42,000 22,000 3.32 1.76
Uruguay 800 25,000 30,000 31.25 37.50
Venezuela 2,300 17,000 22,000 7.40 9.56
All other states 11,300 34,000 46,800 3.00 4.14
South Africa
Independent states 1,000 75,000 12,000 75.00 12.00
———————————————
Total independent states 505,800 718,271 622,313———————————————
Asiatic states 452,500 249,453 201,942
American and South African 53,300 468,818 420,371
The year is 1896, and where a different one is taken it is so marked
against the country in the table. The figures only represent the
direct merchandise trade. All specie and bullion shipments are
eliminated from the account.
II. Trade of India and Dependencies and of Colonies and other Possessions of the
United Kingdom (Year ending March, 1897).
Names of Colonies and other Possessions. Number of inhabitants.Importations. Thousands of dollars.Exportations. Thousands of dollars.Imports per capita. Dollars.Exports per capita. Dollars.
India and its dependencies 290,690 284,026 378,732.971.30
Colonies.
Cape Colony 1,820 91,800 39,000 50.04 20.15
Natal 778 18,000 6,500 23.15 8.20
Gold Coast and other Central African possessions 36,70019,00017,000 .52 .46
Canada 5,125 118,000 121,000 23.05 24.04
West Indies 3,614 30,000 25,000 8.33 6.94
Australasia and Oceanica 4,793 204,500 210,000 42.65 43.75
———————————————
Trade of all countries under British flag 343,520 765,326 797,232———————————————
Trade of colonies with white population16,130 461,320 411,584
Trade of Asiatic dependencies 290,690 284,026 378,732
III. Trade of Foreign Possessions of all other Countries than the United Kingdom.
Countries and their Colonial Possessions. Number of inhabitants in thousands. Importations in thousands of dollars. Exportations in thousands of dollars. Imports per capita. Dollars. Exports per capita. Dollars.
A. France (1894).
Asia 21,821 16,000 25,000 .73 1.14
Africa, outside of Algeria and Tunis 24,500 13,000 22,000.53.50
America and Oceanica 460 14,500 12,600 31.50 27.40
B. Germany (1897).
Africa 10,200 2,189 1,078 .21 .10
New Guinea 400 72 50 .18 .12
C. Italy.
Africa 400 5,600 3,000
D. Netherlands (1895).
East India 34,000 61,000 89,600 1.80 2.63
E.
Philippines 7,600 11,000 20,000 1.502.63
Summary of Statistical Tables of the Trade of Colonies and Dependencies of European
States and of Independent States other than of Europe and the United States.
Names of Divisions by Countries, Colonies, and Races.
Number of inhabitants in thousands.
Importations. Thousands of dollars.
Exportations. Thousands of dollars.
Inhabitants. Per cent to total.
Imports. Per cent to total.
Exports. Per cent to total.
Totals of tabulations I, II, and III 1,584,099 1,587,758 1,540,858 100.0 100.0 100.0
Under British flag 343,520 765,320 797,232 36.0 48.3 50.0
Under all other flags 605,180 818,779 790,527 64.0 51.7 49.8
Peoples of European descent 69,430 909,020 831,9847.3 57.4 52.4
Peoples of other races 879,271 675,079 755,774 92.7 42.6 47.6
Anglo-Saxon 17,130 519,300 407,584 1.8 32.8 25.7
Latin-American 52,300 389,700 424,400 5.5 24.6 26.7
Asiatic races 806,611 618,079 706,274 85.0 39.0 44.0
African races 72,500 57,000 49,500 7.7 3.6 3.6
States and colonies, wool chief export 11,100 441,300 394,5001.227.8 24.9
In examining these tables carefully the reader can form an idea
as to how the world's trade is divided, and see what the world is arming
to its teeth about.
The only Asiatic country about whose trade the possibilities of
war may be entertained is China. Japan has shown her teeth and
claws. The history of Poland, Port Arthur, or Kiao-tchow is not
likely to find repetition on her territory. Only the defenseless tempt
the avidity of the civilizing nations. The import trade of China, an
empire with one fourth the population of the entire world, is but
half as much again as that of Japan, with but one ninth of the population
of the Celestial Empire. Japan's trade has trebled within the
last dozen years. Her imports of merchandise are over two dollars
per capita. Those of China are thirty-four cents. It will be said
that China parceled out to modern nations will vastly extend in
trading opportunities. So it may. We have, however, national disposition
to take into consideration. England has devoted her best
efforts to India. After a century spent in bringing the various races
to submission, the process of "benevolent assimilation" is helped
along by a never-ending flow of capital from England. She has become
the teacher and administrator of the people of Hither and Farther
India. It is doubtful whether under existing conditions any
better government for their three hundred millions could be devised
by any outer force. Though England does her utmost, as she understands
it, to make the people under her dominion happy and prosperous,
although the rule of law and a degree of local independence
are established, yet she finds small thanks from her wards. They
have their own notions of happiness, and seem to prefer misery of
their selection to the advantages of the white man's ordering. The
fact is, the brown man and the yellow man have different notions
and desires from the white man. No amount of jostling, pushing,
and urging will make them take up our views, our tastes, our working
methods, except in the due development of time. Our ideas as
to necessaries of life and theirs are widely different. Their simple
needs are easily supplied from native hands, who understand far
better than our potters do the clay they have to deal with. The
progress in trade will not be rapid, and will certainly be disappointing
to those who expect to see it extend into general lines of merchandise.
The import trade of India and its dependencies (1897) is $284,000,000,
inclusive of Ceylon and the net trade of the Straits Settlements.
This amount, directly catering to the wants of fully three
hundred millions of people, is but about one third more than the
net import trade of Australasia, with a population of less than five
millions of people. The per-capita consumption of imported merchandise
of the Asiatic possessions of England is ninety-seven cents;
of Australasia, $41.66. I must say here in explanation that the
values of importations of merchandise, as published in the English
returns and lately reproduced by the Bureau of Statistics of the
Treasury Department, Colonial Systems of the World, is $305,000,000,
which would make a showing of $63.33 per capita. But in
the English returns the intercolonial trade figures are included.
The Treasury Bureau did not mention this in its publication, and
gave thereby a basis for erroneous deductions. I have deducted all
the intercolonial trade figures of imports and exports from the returns
of each of the Australian colonies, so as to bring the figures
to a basis of parity with the accounts of Canada, and other colonies
and dependencies where no duplications of this kind are possible.
The figures of importations remaining over are reduced by this process
to £40,500,000, or about $200,000,000—$41.66 per capita. The
inhabitants of the Anglo-Saxon colonies of the world number but
seventeen million. Their net imports of merchandise are $460,000,000.
The seven hundred and thirty millions of Hindu and Mongolian
populations import $530,000,000. These are the lands of
fabled wealth. Antiquity and the middle ages dreamed of riches inexhaustible
in connection with their names. To-day still the popular
belief is that the wealth of nations is dependent on the conduct of
direct trade with the far East. The country can not be rich whose
millions find happiness in a sufficient supply of millet or rice, whatever
the wealth of a small favored class may be. But these nations
were the teachers of the barbarians whose descendants now populate
America and Europe. The disciples have improved on the masters.
We have improved the tools which they invented and applied new
forces of production. We have cheapened the processes of production.
We have quintupled, we have decupled time. But whatever our improvements
in the tools, they are still our masters in the work. Any
one who would endeavor to substitute the product of our mills in
cotton, in silk, in wool, in wood, iron, clay, in lacquer, cloisonné, or
enamel, for theirs, and not see at a glance the hopelessness, would indeed
prove his incapacity for grasping the situation. Our best producers
study with profit the work of China and, chiefly, of Japan, and
are grateful for the inspiration they derive from it. But they do not
attempt to copy. Neither in color effect nor design could they stand
the test of comparison. Five thousand years have been recovered
from the sepulcher under which they had been sleeping. But the
oldest traces unearthed in the valley of the Euphrates still take us
back to the farthest East as the originator of what we cover by the
term "civilization." The Mongolian shares the lot of all who have
benefited the race.
If we can not expect great openings for our mill products in
Asia, Africa is a new field for the civilizing efforts of Europe, and
will repay cultivating, perhaps. The negro has neither factories nor
workshops. There at least is an unlimited field for trade expansion.
Germany, the latest comer, with the zeal of all fresh missionaries, is
eagerly taking up her colonizing mission. The result is not very
encouraging. There is a fine set of buildings with garden spots and
harbor improvements in the settlement at Cameroon, and a well-stocked
graveyard of what were once good German boys, victims of
the deadly climate and of the expansion fever. So far this is the
only net showing to the credit side of the ledger. The territory in
Africa covers nearly one million square miles. The possession of
such an empire is worth a sacrifice, apparently, and Germany is not
parsimonious in this direction. The contribution of the German
Government to the administration fund of the African colonies
was $2,194,000 in 1896-'97. This does not include the expense of
maintaining the military and naval forces stationed in the African
settlements. The annual importations of all the colonies amounted
(in 1897) to $2,261,000, inclusive of New Guinea. So it costs
the Government more than one dollar to enable its citizens to do a
dollar's worth of trade. The population is estimated at 10,200,000.
What possibilities stretch out before us, if they could be made to
wear shirts or uniforms like the native police force, which has been
organized at Cameroon! The extent of the territory, however, precludes
the possibility of successfully conducting the missionary
effort to induce them to wear clothes. The question also remains open
what return could be made, even if the recipients could be brought
to appreciate the advantage of a fuller covering of their nakedness
than the traditional one.
France is in possession of territories in Africa, the population
of which is on a more advanced status. The territories of the
Senegal have been under French dominion for a period of two hundred
years and more, and trade relations with the Senegal and Soudan
have been assiduously cultivated. In Asia, Tonquin and Annam
were to open the road to a very active trade with China. She has
held undisputed lodgment since 1814 in Pondicherry and other
towns in India that remained over to her from her East Indian empire
conquered by Dupleix and abandoned by Louis XV's weak
policy. Still, with all the tender care and an expenditure for the
colonial service, as per budget of 1898, of about 80,000,000 francs,
and not counting the colonial expense êtat of the ministry of war
and of the navy, the entire export trade of France to her Asiatic
possessions is 35,000,000 francs; to her African dominions, outside
of Algiers, 22,000,000 francs; and to her American possessions, with
barely five hundred thousand inhabitants, 35,000,000 francs. The
territories to which this trade caters have a population of about
twenty-two million in Asia and twenty-five million in Africa. If we
include the French islands in America and French Guiana, the exports
of French merchandise to all her colonies amount to about
95,000,000 francs. If we include the allowance for colonial service
from the naval and military budget, France has an expense that exceeds
the amount of her colonial export trade. How much better
off France would be if she would drop this burden! She could do
the same trading and save her money, annually wasted, and her men
annually slaughtered to the mania of colonial expansion.
The forty-five millions peopling the French possessions in Asia
and tropical Africa consume altogether about $30,000,000 worth
of foreign imports. The French share of this is about $11,000,000,
or a little over one third—eleven millions of trade against fourteen
millions of direct expense. The contributions to the American colonies
are but $2,000,000, inclusive of about $1,000,000 to the penal
establishment at Cayenne.
Italy's demonstration of the extent to which this madness can
carry otherwise sane statesmen is fresh in everybody's memory.
Outside of Russia, the poor—meaning the working classes—are in no
country of Europe as poor as in Italy. If we take the production
per acre in all the cereals as a gauge of interior development, then
no European country west of Russia, not excepting Spain, is in a
more backward state. Wise statesmanship would have found here
a field for cultivation sufficiently large to tax all its energies. The
peaceful acquisitions of industry did not satisfy the ambition of the
Government. Conquests in equatorial Africa were deemed more
essential to the kingdom's material welfare, but lately freed from
the deadening grasp of clericalism and absolutism, than the improvement
of opportunities lavishly present at home. What she has cultivated
at an enormous expense of blood and treasure has borne the
ordinary harvest of failure and disaster. The entire import trade of
Massowah, to which the whole world contributed, and which is largely
a transit trade, amounts to about $5,000,000. The expenditure
on account of her Red Sea possessions for the year 1895-'96 is given
in the Statesman's Year Book as 123,738,064 lires ($24,000,000).
The contribution to the maintenance of this her "white man's burden,"
from 1882 to 1895, was 303,905,926 lires. At present (1897-'98),
after the sobering lesson received in 1896, the net expense is
about $3,500,000 (17,000,000 lires).
The three powers—France, Italy, and Germany—point a lesson
of unmistakable significance. The figures speak for themselves.
No amount of expense can make the African and the Asiatic consume
an appreciable amount of European merchandise. No amount
of cultivation can make the tropics endurable to the northern man.
Labor and exertion on his part under the rays of a deadly sun and
a miasma-breeding soil are entirely out of the question. Those who
would make the endeavor in the manner of the temperate zone would
only succeed the sooner in reaching the end of white man's settlement
in the tropics, disease and death.
Many point to the Dutch East India settlements as a successful
commercial enterprise. But, taking the best construction given to
the story from the trader's point of view, the present satisfactory
conditions have been reached after a great deal of disappointment,
loss, and bloodshed. A large revenue is acquired from Government
sales of colonial produce; still, with all this added to the other
revenues from land tax, excise, and other duties, the Government has
a deficiency of over 10,000,000 florins a year in her East India possessions.
The budget for 1898 shows an expense état of 146,150,164
florins, which is met by a revenue from all sources of but 135,204,203
florins.
This is the richest part of the Malay world, and for centuries has
been in the possession of Europe's most enlightened people. The
results, if the per-capita unit of imports and exports is taken as a
criterion, are not different from those shown in the account of the
Philippines, governed for centuries by Spain. The loss of their
colonies is ascribed to the oppressive rule which the Spaniards exercised.
The Netherlands, devoting all their efforts to the development
of the resources of the islands, at least during the greater part of this
century, do not show much better results. The imports per
capita of the Dutch possessions are $1.80, and the exports $2.63.
The imports of the Philippines are $1.50 and the exports $2.63
per capita.
From this we may be permitted to deduce that the Malay Islands
are not likely to prove a more thankful field for cultivation by our
traders than to the extent indicated in the trade reports set forth
above.
Under the conditions here delineated, it would be inviting all
the risks and dangers connected with expansion and colonization,
while nothing is to be gained in a commercial sense that can not be
realized by the means now in our hands.
All the ends of trade can be attained without territorial expansion.
The trade in the hands of peoples under English sovereignty
is open to all commerce on equal terms. Not even the sovereign
country, except in the recent concessions by Canada, receives a preference.
The protection of the British flag is tendered gratis to the
colonies and dependencies. The imports of these countries cover
about one half of the trade of all the world, outside of Europe
and the United States. Though they have but 4.67 per cent of
the population, the Anglo-Saxon colonies do sixty-nine per cent
of the trade of all the colonies and dependencies of the British
Empire.
South and Central America absorb about one fourth—24.6 per
cent of imports and 26.7 per cent of exports—of the world's trade
here summarized. The colonies peopled by Anglo-Saxon population
and the Latin-American states together, though but 7.3 per
cent of the inhabitants, do an importing trade of 57.4 per cent of
the trade of the world here reviewed. The countries trading under
the protection of the British flag and the Latin-American states combined
have about seventy-three per cent of that trade among them.
All this trade, as well as by far the greatest part of the rest, is incontestably
accessible to-day on an equal basis to all the world. The
key to it lies in the best terms, the best value. The trader and not
the admiral governs the field. Prince Heinrich will not succeed
better than Admiral von Diederichs in convincing China of the advantages
Germany can offer if Mr. Carnegie's rails are cheaper than
Mr. Krupp's. A whole fleet of American battle ships will not convince
the Asiatics that our cotton goods are as desirable as the English
so long as the latter make goods suitable to their markets, and
the Americans offer only products calculated to cover the home
demands.
The golden rule is a more effective trade opener than the cannon's
mouth. Fair and square dealing among nations does not entail expense,
but brings in good returns. Our national policy, however,
has been one studiously calculated to array the world against us.
Like every policy in behalf of a selfish interest, it injures the foreign
people against which it is directed far less than the nation which devises
it.
The trade of Australasia, Argentina, and Uruguay, and the Cape
is based chiefly on wool and hides. The imports of these countries,
numbering but eleven million inhabitants, amount to $440,000,000,
equaling in amount the trade of China, Japan, Persia, and India, with
their seven hundred and fifty million inhabitants. Though but 1.2
per cent of the population of the world (outside of Europe and the
United States), their imports are 27.8 per cent of the totals of the
figures in the tables. In exports they do about $400,000,000, or
24.9 per cent of the total sum of exports here given. It would
be worth cultivating friendly relations with them. They are inhabited
by people of European stock, and come nearer to the standard
of life of Americans than any of the other nations of the globe.
Our latest effort to draw them closer to us was the Dingley tariff,
with its duty of eleven cents a pound on greasy wool and of fifteen
per cent on raw hides. The action can not be construed as a very
friendly one. But neither is the effect as calculated by the wise heads
who insisted on the provisions of the wool tariff, the woolen and
worsted manufacturers of the East, and the wool raisers of the West.
The wool and woolen trade of America has suffered many vicissitudes
during the thirty-five years of high tariffs. It has gone through
many periods of depression. But it is doubtful whether at any time
more disastrous conditions existed than have marked the twelve
months ending at this writing (March, 1899).
The situation can be appreciated from the fact that wool, imported
prior to the passing of the Dingley tariff, is being reshipped to England,
where it is bringing better prices than can be obtained here
under the ægis of the protective duty of eleven cents a pound. Three
and a half million pounds were shipped in the seven months ending
January 31st.
We should profit by this experience, try to cultivate friendly
relations in parts of the world where advantageous trade connections
can be established, instead of following the ignis fatuus of Asiatic
expansion.
THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE.
By EDMUND NOBLE.
It is an interesting and suggestive fact in Nature study that at
the outset man was thrown utterly upon himself for the very
vocabulary of the world-puzzle which presented itself to him for
solution. He had not only to unriddle his "inscription in an unknown
tongue," but to evolve even the possibility of an explanation
out of his inner consciousness. His first theories of the universe were
based, not on anything which the cosmos was, independently of him,
but upon his own nature and activities as a living animal. This resort
to himself as his chief means of interpretation resulted from the
very nature of the knowing process; for knowledge of things is
never in any absolute sense what things are, but is rather what they
are like. When we cognize an object we do it by referring that
object to the class of objects which in one or more respects it resembles.
And as in this process we draw from the objects most
familiar to us the principle of explanation which we need for the less
familiar things that have not yet become part of our mental possessions,
much depends upon priority in the setting up of mental
classes, as well as on the strength of the impression which they make
upon the mind. The earliest and deepest class impressions are necessarily
those which arise out of man's knowledge of himself—of his
body and the parts thereof, of his corporeal activities, and of his feelings
and thoughts; next, of the bodies of other men and of their
movements; finally, in the order of vividness, of the animate and
inanimate objects most nearly related to his life. It is these classes
which, by virtue of their priority and strength, naturally acquire
dominating influence over all later acquirements, and it is to them
that the mind refers the impressions gained from the more remote inorganic
world.
Among the simpler illustrations of the effort man makes to assimilate
the external system to himself are those with which we are more
or less familiar in the domain of language. We find them first in the
forms for gender by which, in all inflectional tongues, inanimate
objects are to this extent likened to living animals. A similar tendency
is at work in the widespread lingual habit of naming things after
parts of the body, as in the case of "door," called the "eye of the
house" by the native of Banks' Island; of "son-tree," the term applied
by the Siamese to "fruit"; of the Malay's use of the noun
"child" for "lock"; of "house-belly," the African Mandingo's
equivalent for "in the house"; and of "hair," often used for "leaf"
or "feather" in many Melanesian languages. In more modern
forms of speech the process is suggested by such expressions as the
head of a bridge, the eye of a needle, the mouth of a river, the neck
of an estuary, the trunk and arms of a tree, the lungs of a bellows,
the bones of an umbrella, the nose of a promontory, the ears of a
book, the fingers of a clock, the legs of a table, the veins of marble, the
foot of a mountain. Then there are analogies based on the activities
of the human body, for when we describe things as standing, sitting,
or lying; as rising, falling, running, or climbing—when we use
expressions like "striking clock," "dancing light," "sleeping lake,"
"yawning precipice," "laughing skies," "babbling brooks," "raging
billows," we are applying to the objects named terms originally used
to describe our own acts. The sense of hearing, again, is utilized
in such expressions as taube Nuss ("with nothing in the shell") and
taube Kohlen ("those which have burned out"). So the defect of
blindness is objectified in the cæcum vallum of Roman speech, in
ciego, said in Spanish of cheese that "has no eyes," and in the blinder
Schuss of the Germans, whose more familiar Augenblick everybody
recalls. Not less suggestive are the numerous expressions which project
conceptions of life and death into the environment, such as the
caput mortuum (tête morte) of chemistry, eau vive (Quellwasser),
"dead water" (turn of the tide), todte Farbe and lebhafte Farbe, vivus
lapis (firestone), "quicksand" and "quicksilver," the "dead of
night," "dead weight," a "dead level," and todtes Kapital. Nor
must we forget that the reading of vitality into inorganic objects,
common enough among savages, has by no means disappeared from
civilized races. Dr. Stanley Hall's inquiries have shown that out of
forty-eight children just attaining school age, twenty believed the
moon and stars to be alive, fifteen thought a doll and sixteen thought
flowers would suffer pain if burned. One pupil described the
crescent moon as "half stuck" or "half buttoned" into the sky; the
spluttering of coals in a fire was called "barking" by a girl four
years and a half old. Miss Ingelow says that when over two years
old, and for about a year after, she had the habit of attributing intelligence
not only to all living creatures, but even to stones and manufactured
articles.
This projection of words originally descriptive of the human body
or of its activities into the objective world of Nature finds its richest
illustrations in poetry, where it may be held to represent less the
elaborate artifice of a cultured mind than one of the most primitive
tendencies of that mind powerfully swayed by emotion. Yet the
process belongs equally to the more prosaic efforts which man puts
forth to utilize the objects of his environment in the interests of self-maintenance.
One of the earliest of these is seen in the use of words
describing parts of the body to facilitate the description of the external
world in its numerical aspects. Thus the Chinese use for
"two" certain syllables (ny and ceul) which originally mean "ears,"
the Hottentots employing the word for "hand" in the same sense.
In middle high German the word for "sheaf" (Schock) signifies
sixty, and is applied in that sense to all kinds of objects. The Letts,
owing to their habit of throwing fish three at a time, employ the word
mettens, "a throw," in the sense of "three." Among the same
people flounders are tied in lots of thirty, whence has arisen the practice
of designating thirty by the word kahlis, meaning "cord." The
Quichuas attach the significance of ten to the word chuncu, "heap."
The Gallas word for "half" has been traced to the verb chaba, "to
break," and is the equivalent of our own word "fraction." So in a
large number of languages the term for hand signifies "five," "two
hands" meaning ten, and "man" ("two hands and two feet")
twenty.
A like origin must be claimed for the measures of space and
weight needed by man in his industrial and commercial activities.
The finger, the thumb, the hand, the palm, the forearm, the foot—the
extended arms, as in the ancient orgya, and the extended legs, as
in the modern yard—have all played a fundamental part in determining
the standard measures of the civilized world. To the same class
belong the γυη, the extent of field that could be worked by a laborer
in one day; the stade, the distance which a good runner could traverse
without stopping to take rest; also measures of time, such as the old
division of the day based on the length of a man's shadow.
The human body was thus of primary importance as a means of
comprehending and coming into relations with the external world.
But men also sought to make the environment intelligible to them
by projecting into it the images gained from the more general aspects
of their life. Such phrases as "pig of iron," "monkey wrench,"
"battering ram," "lifting crane," remind us of a period in which
objects were actually shaped so as to enable the mind to accommodate
itself more completely to the thought of their vitality. The Greek
sailing vessel, for example, was so constructed—with the body of a
bird, with cheeks, eyes, and projecting ears—as to make it seem to
the navigators of the time as almost alive. And the dolphins, eagles,
ravens, and dragons which threatened England from the prows of
the invading Danish fleet have had their prototypes in almost every
nation that has betaken itself to the sea.
Not less suggestive are the more general aspects of the process.
Our ancestor called the earth's satellite the "moon," or "measurer,"
because it served him as a divider of time. The familiar grains of
wheat and barley which he harvested became the units of his measures.
So the names of his seasons were based on the fall of the
leaves, the reappearance of particular stars, or the periodical inundations
upon which he depended for his food. The most primitive
method in chronology is that which enables man to orient himself in
the world of time by associating particular lunations with vicissitudes
of weather, with seasonal aspects of vegetation, and with the constantly
changing sights and sounds of the animal world. In the
calendar of the Crees, for example, we find such designations as
"duck-month," "frog-moon," "leaf-moon," "berries-ripe-month,"
"buffalo-rutting moon," "leaves-entirely-changed," "leaves-in-the-trees,"
"fish-catching-moon," "moon-that-strikes-the-earth cold,"
"coldest-moon," "ice-thawing-moon," "eagles-seen-moon." So in
the calendars of Central America and Mexico, the months are named
variously after the arrival of birds, the blossoming of flowers, the
blowing of winds, the return of mosquitoes, and the appearance of
fishes. The Greeks constantly used the movements of birds to mark
the seasons; the arrival of the swallow and kite were thus noted.
Hesiod tells us how the cry of the crane signaled the departure of
winter, while the setting of the Pleiades gave notice to the plowman
when to begin his work. The Incas called Venus "the hairy,"
on account of the brightness of her rays, just as the Peruvians named
her the "eight-hour torch," or "the twilight lamp," from the time
of her shining. One at least of the three portions into which the
Greeks divided their night received its name—περὶ λυχνων ἁφάς—from
the social custom of lighting the lamps at dusk. For whole
races the departure of the sun made night a time of danger, and man
did his best to lessen the mystery of the heavens by filling their
obscure depths with the figures of animals and heroes, or by likening
their shining lines of cosmic cloud to a road or highway for the march
of beings celestial and terrestrial. Thus, for the speakers of Sanskrit
the Milky Way was "The Path of the Gods"; the Lithuanians
dubbed it "The Bird Road"; in Low German it is known as "The
Way of Cows"; the Cymris associated it with the course of the
wind; for Scandinavians it was "The Road of Winter"; the
Persians viewed it as the route along which the straw carrier drew
his burden; to this day the Winnebagoes call it "The Way of
the Chiefs."
Science itself is indebted to terms and phrases in which outer realities
are assimilated to the circumstances of the life lived by man and by
the societies which he forms. Such words as "attraction," "repulsion,"
"resistance," "nature," "body," "atom," "current," contain
obviously anthropomorphic elements. The human origin of the idea
conveyed by the term "inertia" may be more or less veiled by unfamiliar
Latin elements, yet it is recovered for us again in Trägheit,
"idleness," the German form of the word. The phrase "natural
selection" contains a teleological element which has more than once
been used to throw discredit on the process which it describes. And
when one observes how persistently such an anthropopathic expression
as "affinity" is still applied to chemical reaction, or with what
naïveté the term "law" is transferred from the realm of human jurisprudence
into the domain of natural processes, one ceases to wonder
at the constant confusions of outer with inner in which so much of
the psychomorphism of the time has had its origin.
It would be strange, then, if, seen in so many of man's efforts to
interpret the inanimate things around him, this process of self-projection
should not also be valid for the larger relations of his mental
activity to the universe. It is but a step, in fact, from the application
of anthropomorphic words to the objects and processes of Nature,
to the employment regarding such processes of anthropomorphic
thought. As the child finds the satisfaction of its fancy in the discovery
of some strange face as suggested to him in the decorations of
the wall paper which surrounds his sick-bed, or in tracing out from
the contours of clothes hung up within range of his vision the preposterous
outline or figure of some human likeness or caricature, so
the savage, with a deeper purpose born of necessity, traces out from
the larger patterns of the moving world about him the organic shapes,
embodying will and personality, that are to serve him as explanations
of the external power which touches his existence for good or for
evil, and which, thus serving him, enable him to come into relations
with that power. It is the deepest interests of human life which
make this process necessary, and it is of the very nature of the
process that the characters thus projected into the environment must
always—throughout the history of human ascent, and at every particular
stage of it—be closely and definitely correlated with the degree
and kind of the self-knowledge which is its source.
The earliest of the animal characters displaying this correlation,
and used as a means of understanding the environment, could not
well have been other than that of motion. That by the higher mammals,
at any rate, moving things, even when inorganic, are generally
regarded as alive, is a view rendered probable by a large body of evidence.
But when man finally appeared on the scene, a new element
came in to complicate the merely animal attitude in which vitality
was attributed to inanimate objects in motion. By contemplating
the phenomena of his subjective life, and observing analogous phenomena
in his fellow-beings—through the consideration of dreams,
swoons, even death itself—our ancestor discovered in himself a character
deeper than that of vitality; came to recognize that the living
creature, animal and human, possesses an inner principle or essence
underlying its activities; is not only "alive," but also "animated."
At first the conception of vitality was one with the conception
of bodily activity; at last man learned to differentiate the movements
of the body from an inner essence to which he believed
them to be due—learned, in a word, to distinguish between the corporeal
existence and the soul. And having effected this first rude
division of the characters of soul from the merely physical attributes
of life, our ancestor soon projected the new view which he had
reached of himself into the objects of his environment. The beneficent
influences of Nature, so necessary to his life, he now invested
with the good purposes of the better nature within him; in the
maleficent forces of the cosmos he read the malignant will of his own
angry passions.
But it is not as mere phenomena that these powers, thus finally
ensouled and regarded as personal, can be thought about. In the
beginning the human mind carries on its mental processes largely
with the aid of images—recovered images of something seen, heard,
felt, or tasted—and is yet far off from the stage of scientific thought
in which abstract concepts take the place of the recovered mental
pictures which have been yielded through the senses. Man thus
needed concrete images with which to think about the personal powers
of the external world, and he naturally found them in the animal and
human shapes already familiar to him. Discovering some likeness
between a Nature force and some animal, he henceforth associated
the two, and recalled the image of the animal as the more concrete
means of mental recovery when he wished to think of the abstract
Nature power. Or, associating some departed ancestor, relative, hero,
or king with the Nature force—an association which would be greatly
strengthened by belief in the survival of the soul after death—he
gradually confounded the disembodied human power with the
soul of the Nature power, and through the law of least effort, used the
concrete image of the departed human being to stand in his mental
processes for the much more difficult thought of the Nature force.
But, whatever the process, animal shapes were obviously needed to
reduce the Nature powers to such a degree of concreteness as would
make it possible for primitive man to deal with them as objects of
thought. And it is not less certain that while, for some races, the
earliest shapes thus utilized were those of the lower animals, the final
form for all races was that of man himself.
In the anthropomorphic stage, then, there is the same effort to understand
the external system by assimilating it to something with
which man is already familiar. The worshiped deities may be many
or few, numberless as the Nature forces, polytheistic as among the
Greeks and Romans, or one as in the monotheism of the Semite.
Man likens them to himself, attributes to them not only his outward
shape, but also his failings and virtues, making his Pantheon resemble
not only the social order, but also the political system under
which he happens to live. It is the completeness of this assimilation
which made anthropomorphism the most persistent aspect of man's
intellectual growth the world has known. Yet the view could linger
only as the possession of the intellectually slothful and immature.
The inadequacy, the crudeness, of the conception in which Deity was
imaged as a gigantic man gradually forced itself upon the attention
of the more thoughtful. Increased mental activity, a better acquaintance
with natural processes, brought the idea of a power above
Nature rather than merely superior to man; and as the human mind
passed from the conception of the superhuman to that of the supernatural—as,
moreover, the thought of merely local gods gave way to
the idea of gods not limited in their functions to particular areas—the
anthropomorphic shapes naturally fell away from the powers they
could no longer adequately represent.
Then other changes, strictly correlated with man's advancing
knowledge of himself, ushered in the latest stage of his attitude toward
the external system. For in the same mind which had been compelled
to reject crude anthropomorphism, there had been growing
the consciousness of man as something more than a mere compound
of vitality, consciousness, and will—something more than a set of
bodily and mental capacities essential to the work of self-maintenance—the
thought that man was the sum of his higher, not of his lower
qualities, that henceforth he must be measured by the activities which
he carried on in the domain of pure thought. And this recognition
of mental attributes as the most worthy, the most exalted characters
of human personality, could not fail to impress itself upon the conception
of deity already undergoing deanthropomorphization. More
and more, therefore, in the higher mind of the race, the Divine Being,
not only losing his former bodily form, but yielding even the grosser
attributes of personality with which he has been invested, becomes
for the thought of man a psychical being in the deepest sense of that
term. Anthropomorphism, or man-likening, passes away, and in its
place comes psychomorphism, or mind-likening.
Two aspects are thus recognizable in the mental interpretation of
the environment: on the one hand an aspect which may be called
causal, since it seeks the source of the power exerted by Nature forces
and objects; on the other, an aspect which is obviously formal, its
main significance being that it condenses, so to speak, groups of
qualities into a single mental sign. The causal aspect yields, in howsoever
simple or complex a form, a theory of the cosmos or of its
parts; the formal aspect is no more than a means, ready at hand, in
the visible bodies of animals and men for facilitating the use of that
theory in processes of thought. Hence we may regard vitalism,
animism, psychomorphism as so many stages of man's attitude toward
the external system, corresponding with the degree of his power
to apprehend the more abstract as distinguished from the more particular
and superficial characters of things that come within the
range of his knowledge. In the first, he explicitly recognizes vitality,
the most obvious character of Nature force; in the second, subsuming
vitalism, he raises the soul life to the place of honor; in the third,
subsuming both vitalism and animism, he emphasizes in psychomorphism
the highest human qualities which his mind enables him
to recognize.
The passage from the idea of multiplicity to that of unity is
itself an inseparable part of the total process. As at the beginning
man reads vitality into the separate objects and forces of Nature,
without any thought of their underlying unity, so he regards as discrete,
unconnected, objectively unrelated, the multifarious souls with
which, in his thought, these various powers of the environment have
come to be animated. But in course of time, by an inner necessity of
intellectual growth, relations come to be perceived between the forces
of Nature, likenesses are recognized between the functions of spirits
and deities—between the powers put forth and the results achieved.
The result is a process of coalescence which, to describe it in the briefest
way, first merges a large number of spirit-evolved gods into a
smaller number of relatively independent divinities, forms these into
pantheons of gods each subordinated to a superior, and finally unites
all beings regarded as divine in the single, all-comprehending, omniscient
and omnipotent Deity of monotheism.
In all this advance, moreover, we find that the process illustrated
by the changing phases of man's mental attitude toward Nature also
holds good of the multifarious acts by which, in what is known as
religion, man has sought to realize that attitude in conduct. For,
in seeking to adjust himself to the system of Power, man has been
forced to conceive of his Pantheon in terms as well of his social
arrangements as of the political system under which he happened to
be living. The spirit world of a horde of savages could only reflect
the indefiniteness and disunion of the nomads whose imagination it
satisfied. But as the household made its appearance, as a definite
social structure arose, and the straggling tribes began to be united
into nations, the gods themselves took on the characters of an analogous
transformation. The divine selfishness—the "remota ab nostris
rebus"—long ago satirized by the poet Lucretius, obviously correlated
with the attitude of man toward man, just as naturally gave
way, with the growth of the social sympathies, to the thought of that
more active concern in human affairs which is one of the salient characters
of the later phases of monotheism. The original indifference
of Deity toward ethical issues—a widespread feature of the earlier
religious conceptions—could not but pass away with the moral stagnation
of the ancient communities out of which it had arisen. So the
comparatively new thought of a God definitely identified in his aims
and activities with the cause of moral reform is no less obviously a
result of the new attitude of man himself toward problems of social
improvement; while the persistence with which, in human thought,
morals remain associated with religion sufficiently illustrates the extent
to which man's view of each has been determined by the self-knowledge
which underlies his attitude toward both. Note also,
finally, the manifest relation in which our human thought regarding
mind and body has always stood toward conceptions of a world-soul,
and then the dependence of man's view of the relation of God to
the world upon the knowledge of his own planet and of its place in
the universe. For as long as our ancestor held the old geocentric
theory of the cosmos—regarded the heavens as a set of spheres revolving
around a flat earth—the thought of a deity outside the world related
to it as a mechanician might be to a cunningly devised piece of
clockwork which he had brought into existence, was inevitable. But
when the geographical discoveries of the fifteenth century co-operated
with the revelations of Galilei to secure the final triumph of the
Copernican over the Ptolemaic theory of the world-order, the ancient
view of Deity as external to his creation gave place to the essentially
modern conception of his immanence.
If now we attentively examine the progress above described, we
shall find that the earliest attitude of the human mind toward the
external system tends in the latest to repeat itself on a higher plane
and with a richer content. Thus vitalism, by the process of unification
and intensification, culminates in anthropomorphic monotheism,
while animism, through the coalescence of objects and forces at first
believed to be separately animated, finally develops into pantheism.
These two lines of thought, moreover, tend themselves to converge,
or, at any rate, to become interchangeable, since monotheism, by
deanthropomorphizing itself, approximates to pantheism, as is well
seen in the Christian theologies and ethical religions of the world;
while pantheism, by emphasizing the characters of intelligence and
will, is sometimes hardly to be distinguished from those modern
forms of monotheism which teach the doctrine of immanence. The
intellectual outcome of the whole movement, embodying the modern
attitude in Nature philosophy, is thus no longer anthropomorphism,
but psychomorphism, since it reads into the universe, not the characters
which distinguish human beings from the lower animals, but
the highest manifestation of the characters recognized to be common
to both, namely, psychic characters—the characters, in a word, of
mind. For the deepest reaches of human thought, the process of
man-likening has thus given way to the process of mind-likening.
On the subjective side of mental inquiry we get psychomorphic monotheism,
or what may be called theological pantheism; while on the
objective side we reach scientific pantheism, or monism. It is true
that the psychomorphism of scientific monism is reached by a process
different from that which has culminated in the mind-likening of
theological pantheism. Yet in both cases there is the same projection
of intelligence into the external system as a means of comprehending
it. And as the intelligence of atoms implies their vitality, we really
return in scientific monism to the vitalistic attitude of the primitive
observer of Nature. The salient difference between the two views is
this: that while early man subsumed under his concept of vitality
only the rudest characters thereof, the terms in the mind of the monist
connotes in all their richness the ideas associated with mind.
Enough has now been said to show the basis on which rests the
whole superstructure, of man's mental attitude toward the cosmos.
Despite all uncertainties regarding the details of the process, we may
be assured of its fundamental nature, and are thus compelled to
recognize the dependence of the forms of man's mental attitude toward
the universe upon his knowledge of himself. It is because his
own actions have their source in a personal will that he refers external
movements to will. He is conscious of his own acts, and the
world around him can not be devoid of a like illumination. Does
he himself plan? Nature must also be intelligent. And the highest
qualities which he can discover in himself he reads unhesitatingly
into the cosmos.
At first sight, then, knowledge may seem inextricably involved
in the process here described. If man can not know the external
system to which he must adapt himself save by assimilating it to
himself—save by interpreting it on the basis of analogies which he
discovers between his own body and its activities, and the world with
its activities—are we not committed by our very nature as organisms
to all the errors which that nature imposes upon us? If, in other
words, every effort to view the universe as it is, independently of us,
be rendered impossible by the very nature of the knowing process,
with what chance of success shall we seek to eliminate those vitalistic
and psychomorphic characters which seem to belong to that process
as its very warp and woof? In reality our knowledge inflicts upon
us no such dilemma. Man is the helpless "measure of the universe"
only to the extent that his reasoning processes are undeveloped. That
knowledge must always have a subjective element is undoubted, but
that man must always mistake the subjective vesture with which
things are clothed by the senses for the things themselves is an inference
which the whole history of thought negatives. While his life
remained simple, primitive man could regard appearances as realities
without prejudicing the overplus of utility brought to him by his
knowledge. Yet as his relation to the natural surroundings grew
in complexity, the importance of the reasoning process, with its veto
power over the deliverances of the senses, began to assert itself. At
first accepted with little or no demur, these deliverances came more
and more to be challenged in the interest of self-maintenance; and
finally, by expansion of a germ possessed by the mind in the beginning,
there was developed that way of dealing with the testimony of
appearances which we call the objective method. The evidence previously
accepted had been, though on the whole useful, in large
measure misleading. For in appearances men saw and felt mainly
what Nature was for them, and only to a minor degree what the external
world was for and in itself. The great need of the investigator
of Nature is to know what things are independently of man, in order
to know how they act on one another, as a means of knowing how
they will act on the human organism, and how that organism may
react on them in the interest of its own life. The prejudice done
by implicit reliance on sense testimony arose out of the fact that it
presented objects as largely unrelated to each other—as so much
being, rather than as so much doing, acting and interacting, determining
and interdetermining. It became the function of reason to
develop, out of the material furnished by the senses, a knowledge of
the true nature of the system external to man and involving him in
its scope which we call universe. In the carrying out of this function
the analogical process has remained, but the analogies utilized,
from being likenesses between what things seem to be to the senses,
have more and more become analogies between propositions made
regarding what things do, regarding how things act upon, are related
to and determine each other.
Our knowledge of Nature, therefore, illustrates progress from a
stage in which external objects are viewed as so much doing—from
a stage in which they seem more or less isolated, more or less independent
of each other—to a stage in which we know them as acting
and interacting, and therefore, by virtue of this action and interaction,
as interrelated and interdependent. It was because man had
to begin with the thought of the world around him as a series of
unconnected aspects that he fell into the error of regarding every object
as containing within itself the powers which it put forth; it was
by gradually progressing to the knowledge of the external system as
a process that he discovered how inextricably the smallest "flower
in the crannied wall" is linked to its vastest environment, and how
dependent must be the mechanism of the molecule, as well as
of the solar system, upon the whole universe Power which we call
cosmos.
Thus also is it with man's method of interpreting the external
world system. At first unable to fully perceive his own relation to
that system, as part of his inability to perceive general cosmic relations,
and therefore viewing himself as more or less independent of
Nature—as something imposed upon it rather than as something arising
out of it—he naturally sought to force it for purposes of explanation
into the narrow limits of his knowledge of himself, of his feelings,
his thoughts, his institutions. But as he grew in the power to comprehend
his place in the system of things—to understand the way
in which the objects and forces of the world were related to each other,
together with the way in which he, as knowing organism, was related
to the universe—he gradually ceased from his vain striving to subject
the cosmos to himself, and at last learned not only to subordinate himself
to the cosmos, but to trace to it unreservedly the whole method
and meaning of his origin as a living, thinking organism. Man
in the beginning could be no more than the measure of the universe.
That he has come at last, wielding the objective method,
to be its measurer, is the culmination of a struggle between false
and true ways of interpreting Nature which has had the whole
history of human thought for its arena, and for its final triumph
the establishment of the objective or scientific method of investigation
upon impregnable foundations.
FROM SERFDOM TO FREEDOM.
By EDWARD BICKNELL.
However keen our interest in the problems arising out of the
recent Spanish war, and however earnest our study of the policy
to be pursued toward our new dependencies, we should not forget
that the problems pressing for a solution before the war are still with
us. The labor question, which then commanded so much of our
thought, is still unsettled, and is by no means dwarfed by the subjects
now upon every lip. Rather, as has been shown in an article in a
recent number of this magazine, this question really forms one of the
most important elements of the present situation, and should not be
lost sight of in shaping public policy. We are entering upon an untilled
field as far as our institutions are concerned, and we have the
opportunity to start on a higher level in treating the relations of
capital and labor in our new possessions, if we have the wisdom to
know how, and the courage to do as well as we know.
It will help us in a consideration of the present status of the laborer
and of his future if we study his past, beginning, if not with Adam, at
least with the laborer's entrance into English history as a distinct
class. Any one at all familiar with Green's Short History of the
English People will see how much use I have made of that instructive
and fascinating work. And if I tell only an old story, it may still be
of value to many of us in recalling facts almost forgotten, and a help
to others whose vision into the past is limited. Brushing away the
cobwebs in the old attic of our father's house usually brings to light
treasures the recollection of which had slipped from our minds.
The free laborer, the man who works for wages, for whom and
where he chooses, did not exist as a class until within about six hundred
years. In the early days the laborer was tied to the soil where
he was born. Such a thing as a laborer going about to seek work
where he would, or having much to say about his master or his wages,
was usually out of the question.
At a very early day the towns or boroughs of England had preserved
old rights, or regained them, which the rural part of England
had lost, and in general serfage could not exist there as it did in the
country round them. Trade and manufacture, such as they were in
that day, did not make the demand for labor which was made by the
agricultural pursuits of the country or in the castles of the nobility.
So we do not find in the towns of the eleventh or twelfth century the
large labor class we do to-day. In general we may fairly say that the
labor class began in the country.
The manorial system had divided the rural part of England for
cultivation and general order into large estates. The lord of the
manor occupied a part of the estate for his own demesne and divided
the rest among his villeins or serfs, who in return were obliged to
render services to him. It is not necessary for my purpose to enter
into any long description or discussion of the different relations existing
between different tenants and their overlord, or the differences
existing under Saxon or Norman rule. The general relation of lord
of the manor and his tenants or villeins or serfs is the main point to
be observed. The villeins or serfs of the manor cultivated the lord's
home farm or demesne, filled his barn, cut his wood, and did all his
work. "These services were the labor rent by which they held their
lands." Some of these tenants, the villeins, were obliged to work on
the lord's demesne at harvest only and to help plow and sow, while the
others, the serfs, to speak in general terms, were obliged to help on the
home farm or in the castle the year round.
In course of time the use of a certain parcel of land by the tenant
and a right to pasturage and so forth on the one hand, and the amount
and kind of service required on the other, became definitely regulated
by custom; and instead of the use of the land being a mere indulgence
given to the tenant to be taken away from him on any whim of
his lord, it became a definite right in the land which must be respected
and could be pleaded at law.
"The number of teams," and so forth, "the services that a lord
could claim, at first mere matter of oral tradition, came to be entered
on the court roll of the manor, a copy of which became the title deed
of the villein." So after a while instead of "villein" he became a
"copyholder."
As time went on it grew to be customary, instead of rendering
services for the use of the land held by copyhold, to pay a money rent.
In other words, the system of leasing the little farms came into use,
and from that came the tenant farmer. This left the other laborers
about the lord's demesne or his castle as before. While the class of
villeins, who did only occasional services, although definite as to
amount and time, gradually commuted these services into money payments,
and became farmers, the other serfs still remained on the
manor, liable to do their work when and where it was customary.
This rise of the wealthier tenants made a new class between the large
proprietors, the lords of the manor, and the tenants or serfs still bound
by custom to work for their lords. But the same process which freed
the farmer from personal service in time became the chief way of
freeing the serf also. Until this came about the serf or laborer,
whatever other rights he might have, and he was not a slave, was
born to his holding and his lord. He could choose neither master nor
place of work. "He paid head money for license to remove from
the estate in search of trade or hire, and a refusal to return on recall
by his owner would have ended in his pursuit as a fugitive outlaw."
But the advance of society silently worked to free the laborer from
this local bondage. The runaway serf gained freedom by residence
in a chartered town for a year and a day. The influence of the
church was directed toward his emancipation, at least on all estates
outside of its own, but the main cause was the growing tendency to
commute labor services for money payments. As Mr. Green says:
"The luxury of the castle hall, the splendor and pomp of chivalry,
the cost of campaigns, drained the purses of knight and baron, and
the sale of freedom to a serf or exemption from services to a villein
afforded an easy and tempting mode of refilling them. In this process
even kings took part. Edward III sent commissioners to royal
estates for the especial purpose of selling manumissions to the king's
serfs, and we still possess the names of those who were enfranchised
with their families by a payment of hard cash in aid of the exhausted
exchequer." The Crusades, whatever else they may have accomplished,
aided in this freedom for the serf. Those costly expeditions
dissipated the estates of the barons, and, to use Hume's somewhat
strained expression, "Their poverty extorted from their pride those
charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the slave." And
so, following the rise of the farmer, came this new class—the free
laborer. By the latter part of the fourteenth century labor was no
longer, as a rule, "bound to one spot or one master; it was free to hire
itself to what employer and to choose what field of employment it
would."
This is the beginning of the labor class as we know it. In those
times labor was abundant and therefore cheap. The landowners in
the country and the craftsmen in the town found plenty of help, and
the new class then coming upon the stage could go where it was
needed. From a serf the common laborer had become his own master
as far as choosing his own employer and the place of his employment.
But just at this time a condition of affairs arose which put an
end to this state of things. In 1348 came the Great Plague. That
swept away more than half of the three or four millions who then
made up the population of England. The plague and the sudden rise
of wages which followed, although coupled with an increase in the
cost of living, quite naturally brought on an outburst of lawless self-indulgence
which told especially upon the laborer looking for work.
He easily became the "sturdy beggar" or "bandit of the woods."
While harvests rotted to the ground from lack of hands, in the towns
labor was just as scarce and equally as independent. The landowners
and wealthier craftsmen were startled and terrified by "what
seemed in their age the extravagant demands of the new labor classes."
Here we have the labor problem at once and at the beginning. And
from that time to this that problem has been with us. With the
capitalist one person and the laborer another there has been always
more or less discord. As Richard T. Ely has somewhere said,
although in theory capital and labor should be allies and not enemies,
the interests of those furnishing capital or labor are not precisely
identical. But five hundred years ago the labor class of to-day had
just come into existence. It had no organization then, and its members
few political rights. The landowners and craftsmen could appeal
effectively to the crown and Parliament through their wealth,
their political power, and the craftsmen, especially, through their
organizations. The laborer had only himself and brute force. As a
result, the legislation of that day reflects the demands of the upper
and middle classes only. The laboring class was considered only as
it affected the landowners and craftsmen. So the labor troubles of
that day were met with the Statute of Laborers. "Every man or
woman," runs this famous provision, "of whatsoever condition, free
or bond, able in body, and within the age of threescore years, ...
and not having of his own about the tillage of which he may occupy
himself, and not serving any other, shall be bound to serve the employer
who shall require him to do so, and shall take only the wages
which were accustomed to be taken in the neighborhood where he is
bound to serve" two years before the plague began. A refusal to
obey was punished by imprisonment. Here was an attempt to fix
the rate of wages by statute, and to fix them very much lower than
a fair market rate; and, further, to force the unemployed laborer
to serve any man who first demanded it. The statute failed in its
object, naturally, and so sterner measures were adopted. "Not only
was the price of labor fixed by Parliament in the next statute of
1351, but the labor class was once more tied to the soil." It was
made the servant not of one master but of a class—the employers.
"The laborer was forbidden to quit the parish where he lived in search
of better-paid employment; if he disobeyed, he became a 'fugitive,'
and subject to imprisonment at the hands of the justices of the peace."
Provisions had risen so that a day's work at the legal wages would
not purchase enough for a man's support, and therefore no such law
could be enforced literally. Still, the landowners persisted in trying,
and at last the runaway laborer, the man looking for better wages, was
branded on the forehead with a hot iron, while the harboring of serfs
in towns was rigorously put down. As the landowners wanted all
the labor they could get, the commutation of labor service for money
payments ceased, and every effort was made and every quibble taken
advantage of to annul manumissions previously made. In the towns,
under the pressure of the craftsmen, the system of forced labor was
applied with even more rigor than in the country, and strikes and
combinations became frequent.
That is the state of things in free England at a time when labor
was not strong enough to protect itself—called upon by the law of
the land to work for less than living wages or be branded as cattle!
The irrepressible conflict between capital and labor began with the
very beginning of the existence of the labor class.
In such a condition of things as here indicated, is it any wonder
that there were labor disturbances in those days—that there was a
peasant revolt? Already the doctrine of the equality of man and
social inequality was being preached to the lower classes. In 1360
John Ball—"a mad priest in Kent," as Froissart calls him—preached
such a communistic sermon as this to the sturdy yeomen of that day:
"Good people, things will never go well in England so long as goods
be not in common, and so long as there be villeins and gentlemen.
By what right are they whom we call lords greater folk than we?
On what grounds have they deserved it? Why do they hold us in
serfage? If we all came of the same father and mother, of Adam and
Eve, how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be
not that they make us gain for them by our toil what they spend in
their pride? They are clothed in velvet, and warm in their furs and
their ermines, while we are covered with rags. They have wine and
spices and fair bread; and we oatcake and straw, and water to drink.
They have leisure and fine houses; we have pain and labor, the rain
and wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and of our toil that these
men hold their state." That is the same cry against the inequality
of property and social condition which we hear to-day. And we
may thank him, and men like him and with his inspiration, that the
conditions of five hundred years ago have changed, and that the dawn
of a better and higher humanity has broken upon us. Filled with
socialism and communism as the words are, they still have a truth
which appeals to every sympathetic and thoughtful man.
And it was in those early days that the old rhyme was heard all
over the land:
"When Adam delved and Eve span.
Who was then the gentleman?"
The sermon was preached against the tyranny of property, the
rhyme was full of the democracy of the coming years.
I do not imagine that the instigators of such laws as the Statute
of Laborers were hard men as men go. They could see only their
side of the case. The laborer had become a necessity for them, and
they rather believed that the Almighty had put him on earth for their
advantage. I am afraid that something of that spirit still is left
among us. The feeling still exists that the employer and capitalist
can take care of and provide for the employees better than they can
themselves; that they should be very thankful when out of his abundance
the employer builds them a library or permits them to live in
some finely ordered village as he directs. But somehow the feeling is
growing now that if the wage-earner had a larger and fairer share in the
profits he could take care of himself better in the end and grow faster,
because he would be more his own master; and that the good things
now and then given him with more or less ostentation as gifts are
bought with the money he really ought to have and in the future
hopes to have himself.
Well, the result of such laws and the general social discontent and
the levy of new taxes upon even the lower classes brought about the
Peasant Revolt in 1381. Of course, the power of the upper classes,
aided by the courage of Richard II, then only a boy, put down the
revolt, but not until the king had promised amnesty and emancipation
to the serfs. Death on the scaffold and in the field soon showed
the participants how little such promises were worth. The serfs were
subdued, but strife between the laborers and employers was not ended.
The legislation still reflects the terror and greed of the landowners,
for, in spite of all, labor was in demand and had the market at its feet.
Legislation forbade "the child of any tiller of the soil to be apprenticed
in a town," and the landowners "prayed Richard to ordain 'that
no bondman or bondwoman shall place their children at school, as has
been done, so as to advance their children in the world by their
going into the church.'" But villeinage continued to disappear, and
within the next hundred and fifty years it had become "an antiquated
thing." The failure of the landowners to again fasten labor to the
soil and to fix low wages drove their energies in a new direction.
"Sheep farming required fewer hands than tillage, and the scarcity
and high price of labor tended to throw more and more land into
sheep farms." As personal service died away it became the interest
of the lord to unite the small holdings on his estate into larger ones.
The evictions consequent upon this course threw many laborers upon
the market, and the sheep farms diminished the number required,
while the smaller amount of holdings devoted to agriculture increased
the price of food. And so it is not surprising that within the course
of a comparatively few years, instead of a scarcity there was a glut
of labor; that pauperism increased, and social discontent continued;
that vagabondage with its dangers to society at large became a difficult
problem. Indeed, the poor have always been with us, but those of
us who find so much to depress us in these modern days can get new
courage by looking back to those old days and can see the real progress
which has been made. The whole lower class in England down to
the time of Elizabeth stood looking into the face of want. Henry
VIII confiscated the monasteries, but put nothing in their place, and
in a measure by so doing deprived the poor of some relief from the
wealth of the church. But Elizabeth inaugurated a system of poor-laws
which, although crude and somewhat hard, still served to ward
off some of the social danger. The course of events, however, and
the rise of new industries did more to make life for the laborer, the
landless man, less bitter. With the discovery of America and the
opening of fisheries in these western waters, and the adventurous and
buccaneering voyages of Drake and his compeers, came the gradual
development of manufacture, and a "more careful and constant cultivation
of the land." All these were new and larger avenues for
the employment of labor. By this time the laborer had grown
entirely away from serfage, had been freed from the terrible grasp
of a hopeless future, and the possibility of a degree of comfort and
independence had come into existence. We need not linger longer
over his early days. The laborer still had his peculiar trials and hardships,
but he had a future. From a subject class, the terror as well as
necessity of its employers, he has grown to be their equal before the
law, and this by his own efforts, aided, of course, by the advance of
society and the broader humanity of mankind.
The increase of manufacture brought with it a new danger to the
working class as we reach our times, and brought about a state of
things which gave rise to trades unions. Manufacture naturally in
the beginning was carried on in a small way, but in modern times,
especially as we get into this century, the small concerns grew into
large ones. Instead of one man or partnership with a comparatively
small amount of capital, the corporation or joint-stock company with
its large aggregation of capital carries on the business of manufacture
and trade. This aggregation of capital has made an entire change
in the relation between employer and employee. The corporation
came in the line of progress. Consolidation of capital has come to
stay, and properly so, but it brought with it dangers, just as every step
in advance has done. It was to meet the new dangers to the wage-earners
that trades unions came into being, for trades unions and
labor unions are really only organizations of labor as corporations are
aggregations of capital.
When industrial establishments were small, the owner, whether
in trade or manufacture, had practically absolute direction of his
business. In the industrial world what corresponds to an unlimited
monarchy in the political world has been the system. As establishments
grew larger, the autocratic power of the owner passed to the
manager acting for the owners. As one writer puts it: "Huge industrial
establishments are under the unrestrained control of a single
man. At his will they are set in motion; at his will they stand still;
at his will capital and labor unite and are fruitful; at his will they
are parted and remain barren. Men come and go at his bidding.
He knows no superior and recognizes no limitations. He calls an
attempt at control 'dictation' and resents it with anger." That is
the extreme case, and is industrial despotism. While the results
doubtless are good in many cases, and the laborer receives fair and
decent treatment in most cases, that is owing to the temperament or
prudence and good judgment of the master and not to the system.
Such a condition of things is becoming more and more modified. We
have reached in many cases a condition which may be said to correspond
to a monarchy with constitutional limitations—the master is
restrained in the exercise of his power by public opinion, the strength
of the workingmen, and in some cases by legal limitations. The
organization of boards of arbitration, and the recognition of the right
of the employee to a share in the profits, are daily extending. The
tendency toward giving the wage-earners a share in the business,
some modified form of co-operation, is daily extending. The trend
is toward what may be called industrial democracy, just as in the
political world real democracy is fast becoming the universal principle,
whatever the style of the government may be.
This advance in the industrial world has come about through the
agitation and power of labor organizations, of which, as they exist now,
trades unions were the early manifestation. The employer, as a rule,
looked after his own interests mainly, and the employee alone by
himself had to take what he could get and do as he was told. Just as
the people, after they sunk into subjection in the earlier days, had
little political power as against the nobility until they were strong
enough to take it, so the laborer still would be of little account except
as a more or less intelligent machine unless he had proved himself
a man, with a man's aspirations and a man's energy.
Labor organizations or trades unions came into existence in England.
The democratic spirit, the spirit of liberty, the Saxon spirit
of independence, which wrested from kings and the nobility all the
rights which the common people enjoy, has been doing in the industrial
world only what it did in the political world years before.
We may say that trades unions find their prototype in the frith
guilds or peace guilds of the Anglo-Saxon. A few words in general
about them and their successors and the spirit pervading them, the
causes of their existence and decay, will have a bearing on labor
organizations, which are like them in "being founded on similar mental
faculties and desires and as contemplating similar purposes."
These frith guilds seem to have been associations of neighbors for
mutual help and protection. They replaced the older brotherhood
of kinsfolk, which had existed among the German races, "by a voluntary
association of neighbors for the same purposes of order and
self-defense." An isolated existence for a man, even a freeman, was
one of danger, especially when the feudal temper of the nobles increased
and the Danish incursions broke over England. The ties of
kindred had become weakened, and the frith guild took the place of
the family. A mutual oath bound the members together, and the
monthly guild feast became the substitute for the old gathering round
the family hearth. A member could call upon the guild in case of
violence or wrong; when charged with crime, the guild answered for
him, and when guilty, punished him; when poor, it supported him; and
when dead, buried him. When these guilds were located in towns
rather than in the country, they inevitably tended in time to combine,
and eventually the town passed from a collection of guilds into one
large guild, and we have the town guild. The word "town" is used
in contradistinction from the word "country," just as we say "town
and country," "going to town," and so on. The spirit of independence
and freedom, kept alive in our town meetings here, and in our
local self-government, has come down to us through those old town
guilds and the boroughs of England. It is to the towns of England
and not to the country that we owe much of our liberty to-day.
So these guilds in towns, by joining together and making a town
guild, became quite strong communities. They made demands upon
the crown itself, and took upon themselves the government of the
towns where they were located. Their members were the landowners
of the town, and the other people who came there to settle, no matter
how numerous, had no part in the government. From being democratic
in the beginning, as the frith guilds were, the towns became
oligarchies.
In the course of time the differences between town and country
became more marked. The town guilds began to have less and less
to do with agriculture, although at first they were interested in it.
The wealth in the town is turned to trade and manufacture, such as
there was in those days. So, by the time of the Norman conquest, in
1066, we hear little of town guilds, but in almost every case merchant
guilds. The town guild has become a merchant guild, although composed
of the same constituency. The commercial spirit has become
the ruling spirit of the town.
As time went on and life and property became safer and trade
increased, the consequent accumulation of wealth in towns produced
important results in the character of these municipal institutions.
"In becoming a merchant guild the body of citizens who formed" the
government of "the town enlarged their powers of civic legislation by
applying them to the control of their internal trade." No longer
confining themselves to providing for public order or protection from
unjust oppression or dangers from without, they began to legislate for
their own immediate advancement and for their own pockets. "It
became their especial business to obtain from the crown or from their
lords wider commercial privileges, rights of coinage, grants of fairs,
and exemptions from tolls; while within the town itself they framed
regulations as to the sale and quality of goods, the control of markets,
and the recovery of debts." And further, the members of the guild
withdrew from the humbler trades to confine themselves to the larger
business of commerce or trades requiring large capital, leaving the
trades and traffic given up to their poorer neighbors. This ruling
class comprised only a part of the inhabitants, only the members of
the merchant guild. The great mass of the people, the artisans and
the poor, the men without land, the serfs escaped from the country
and gaining their freedom in the town, all had no voice in the government
whatever. They lived and worked and earned their daily bread
practically by permission or at least under the direct control of the
merchant guild. From a simple association, the guilds in towns had
become the governing body, and a government in the hands of a few
at that. From the need of protection on account of individual weakness,
the members of the guilds had grown to be in need of repression;
and with the demand for repression came the instrument of repression—the
craft guild. Against the autocratic power of the merchant
guild arose the craft guilds, or associations of workers in the various
trades, those trades abandoned by the merchants, and these guilds
"soon rose into dangerous rivalry with the original merchant guild
of the town."
These craft guilds in the old English towns, in order to attain their
objects, considered it necessary to compel the whole body of craftsmen
belonging to the trade to join the guild of that craft or trade; and
further, that the guild should have legal control over the trade itself—who
should be admitted to it, and so forth. "A royal charter was indispensable
for these purposes, and over the grant of these charters
took place the first struggle with the merchant guild, which had till
then solely exercised jurisdiction over trade within the borough."
The struggle was a fierce one and long continued, but the spread of
the craft guilds went steadily on, and the control of trade passed into
their hands. Then the next step—a share in the government of the
borough itself—was taken, and the government of the towns passed
from an oligarchy into the hands of the middle classes.
The craft guild came into being just as its predecessor had, from
the necessity of association for protection, and like it was democratic
at first; and, again like it, became in time an oligarchy as narrow as
that which it had deposed. The craft guild arose because the artisans
and tradesmen had grown to a position where they could recognize the
injustice and oppression of the merchant guild, and were strong enough
and persistent enough to assert themselves, and as long as the craft
guilds were democratic in spirit and were true to the needs for which
they were organized they flourished. But with age and success came
narrowness and bigotry and opposition to progress. They became
monopolies of employment and societies of greedy capitalists, and in
England withered away before the growth of the modern vast industrial
establishment.
I have ventured to give this general sketch of these guilds because
the same spirit and necessities which inspired them brought the trades
union into being. The trades union or labor organization was created
to protect the laborer and gain for him a better position in life, to
raise his standard of living. It is like the old guilds in being subject
to the same dangers as they were, and when it proves false to its true
objects it will pass away as did the old guilds. It will last only so long
as there is a necessity for its existence, as long as it does the work it
is born to do. And when it has come to deny freedom, to refuse another's
rights, and to repress industry, the seeds of dissolution are
already sown.
Trades unions or labor unions arose from the necessity of organization
among the laborers or wage-earners if they were to hold their
own against the aggregation of capital. The craft guild arose at a
time when trading and manufacturing concerns were small, when
the interest of both master and workman in a business were alike
joined in opposition to the exactions of a superior class—the merchant
guild; while the trades union came upon the field to protect the laborer
against his employer. Whatever other objects and aims it may have
had do not enter into my purposes in this paper. The personal relation
which had existed between the master and servant, the employer
and his few employees, the manufacturer and his half dozen workmen
or apprentices, no longer existed when the workers became
scores and hundreds, and the owner of the business was replaced by
the manager or superintendent. That personal relation was in some
measure a protection for both, but when that disappeared the temptation
to gratify owners and stockholders with big dividends became
too strong to be overcome. Against organized capital there was absolute
need of organized labor, and trades unions and labor unions and
such organizations came into existence.
There was no possibility of their existence until the laborer had
become intellectually and socially capable of organization, and until
the divine spirit of discontent drove him to association with his brother
worker. During all the years from the time of his serfdom up to
the time these organizations began he had been slowly growing in
development and gaining something in political position, but it was
not until political power came nearer and nearer to him that he gained
the strength to raise his standard of living, to make a stand for himself.
He knew the struggle would be a hard one, for everything he gained
seemed to be something taken away from those who held themselves
above him and better than he.
As a rule, we are very well content to let things alone if we ourselves
are fairly comfortable, and especially are we blind to another's
ills if the remedy for them is found in a renunciation of part of that
which we have always considered our own. There is nothing particularly
new in this. We easily can imagine some worthy burgher in
the olden time expostulating at the demand of the craft guild even to
be allowed to exist, and I do not imagine his language varied much in
spirit from the indignant disgust shown by some large employer of
labor to-day when he talks of labor unions. Doubtless these unions
to-day seem to him to have the same dangerous tendencies which the
craft guilds were talked of as having eight hundred years ago.
If there were no wrongs to right, if selfishness did not exist, if there
were a real belief in the brotherhood of man, and life were in accordance
with that belief, such organizations might not be necessary, or if
they existed have other aims; but until all men have an equal chance
for self-development, and a chance for something more than a mere
existence, labor unions or something to take their place must exist.
And so we stand to-day with labor unions and the labor problem,
so called, with us. The laboring class is discontented. Men claim
as rights what their fathers would have been glad to get as favors.
There are violence and bad blood and waste, and so there have been
from the beginning. But there have been also injustice and oppression
and greed from the beginning. While we may condemn strongly
much of the violence and wrongdoing of labor organizations, we can
find many extenuating circumstances. The same spirit of independence,
the same desire for equal justice which animated the old guilds of
England, and which have made the Englishman and those who have
sprung from him the freest as well as most law-abiding people on the
earth, are found within the organizations of labor. We in this country
hardly can find only danger in the spirit which impels the workingman
to resist every encroachment upon his rights, to strive for that
better future to which he believes he is entitled. There were many
things done in the youth of our history which in our manhood we
regret, and I hardly think, as a nation, our own robe is so unspotted
that we must draw it round us lest it be soiled by the violence of a
perhaps uneducated and inadvisable but still earnest effort after
higher and better conditions of life. Let us read and ponder over our
histories anew, and with humble hearts try to find a better way both
for the laborer and ourselves.
I have said that it was through his organization that the laborer
has made the industrial and social advance he certainly has made in
the last century. The trades unions, like the guilds before them, had
to struggle for a legal existence, and their early days were full of
violence. Dr. Brentano, in his work on Trades Unions, says: "They
have fought contests quite as fierce as those of the old craftsmen
against the patricians, if not fiercer. The history of their sufferings
since the end of the eighteenth century, and of the privations endured
for their independence, is a real record of heroism." May not we hope
with him that now they may cease using the arms of violence which
belong to former times and use the legal means which belong to our
days?
We can not approve of their violence, but let us not be unduly
alarmed by it. If society becomes so ossified in its usages and habits
and thinking that a newer and better thought can not get in, a nobler
way of living for all be entered upon, it sometimes seems as if in the
very nature of things violence must come to rend away the obstructions.
I believe that labor organizations are as much the instruments
of progress as the town guilds and craft guilds of old. They will do
their work, and the world will be the better for it. They tend to make
society more democratic industrially as well as politically, as their
predecessors did, and therefore better. For what is democracy
but a practical recognition of the brotherhood of man? If Christianity
amounts to anything, what higher aim should we have than
that?
Many students of the problems involved state that in the long
run labor still does not receive its full share of the profits; that in
order to keep up the standard of living which the wage-earner already
has reached he must have a larger reserve fund. In other words, he
must be able to save more. To do that and still live as he claims he
ought, his share in the profits, his wages, must be larger than now.
We can not claim that the standard is too high because admittedly it is
higher than ever before. Hon. Carroll D. Wright, in a recent address,
says: "Under the iron law of wages as announced by Ricardo, it [the
labor question] is a struggle simply to secure barely enough of food
and raiment and shelter to preserve the working physical machine,
the rule being that wages ought not to be paid over the bare necessities.
To-day the standard of living of the ordinary wage receiver
involves margins above the iron law of from ten to fifteen per cent,
out of which margin is to be found what are now called spiritual necessities,
means of leisure, reading, music, recreation, etc., so that the
demand of the worker in all civilized countries is for the expansion of
this margin. He feels entitled to this because society has insisted
upon educating him, giving him a taste for higher things, making him
a social and political factor; in fact, fitting him for membership in a
democratic community."
Labor organizations, in spite of much extravagant language and
many ill-advised acts, certainly aim at a better condition for the wage-earner.
We fail to see the intelligence underlying industrial controversies
because progress has been so rapid. Some of the methods
of labor organizations are violent and the weapons used are in a great
measure strikes and boycotts. That is industrial warfare and is as
costly and wasteful and cruel in many ways as any warfare is, but
very often these organizations seem to have no other method of making
their power felt; no other way of bringing about a needed reform.
And we can not say that all strikes have been or are necessarily wrong,
except in the same way that all warfare is an evil. The very readiness
to strike will effect a reform which a known weakness or lack of courage
on the part of the organization would have prevented. Such an
authority as John Stuart Mill says that "strikes, therefore, and the
trade societies which render strikes possible, are for these various
reasons not a mischievous, but, on the contrary, a valuable part of
the existing machinery of society." Whether in a particular case a
strike or boycott is right or wrong depends upon the facts of that case,
and whether we have reached a point where strikes are no longer right,
no matter what may have been the case in the past, is another question.
Let us hope we are nearer that time, at any rate. It will depend upon
the attitude of employers as well as employees.
Out of strikes themselves comes a remedy. Daniel J. Ryan, in
his article on Arbitration, records that "for sixteen years the disputes
of labor and capital in the rolling mills of England have been settled
by arbitration, and it has been an era remarkably free from strikes.
The Board of Arbitration for the north of England iron business was,
as all efforts of this kind usually are, the outgrowth of a strike." Now,
in this part of England before the formation of this board, strikes were
chronic. The works in that section recently had 1,913 puddling
furnaces—more than in all Pennsylvania, and half as many as in the
entire United States.
The limits of this article will not allow a discussion of voluntary
or involuntary arbitration, but let me say that in the above case we
see that a simple arrangement between the parties changed all the
strife to peace. Will society long tolerate a continuance of industrial
warfare when it has in its own hands a preventive? For its own
protection will it not tell employer and laborer, "You must settle your
differences quietly by mutual agreement, or, if you can not, I will
settle them for you"? It says this now to the individual. Men and
women are not allowed in these days to settle their rights and wrongs
by brute force. That method passed away long years ago in civilized
communities. And society must continue to suffer from the violence
and waste of strikes until it teaches employers and workingmen and
itself a higher and better way.
May not it be possible that the outcome will be that associations
of wage-earners are to be treated as the equals of the employer? Will
not the democratic spirit of the age to come so permeate the industrial
as well as the political world that the laborer and the employer will
each have a share in the business they together carry on?
I have tried to make a very broad sketch of the change which has
taken place in the condition of the laborer, with a consideration of
some of the means by which that has come about. No longer is he
a serf—no longer even the servant of a ruling class. He at length
has risen to a share in the government of his town and country. No
longer are laws passed against him specially, but in his favor. The
laborer has become free—free to follow along the path of his predecessors,
to gain full justice, but not to oppress others. Before
the law at least he is the equal of his employer. I have implied at
least that he has but followed the spirit which led his older brother of
the middle class up from practical subjection to power. The craft
guilds of the one, the labor unions of the other, are in the same line
as the old town guilds. They all are manifestations of that democratic
independence which seems necessary for political freedom.
They all imply the capacity for organization as they all have shown its
power. Let us believe that, like the old guilds, these labor organizations
are helpful parts of the machinery of human progress. They
force upon us the fact that there have been and are injustices which
must be righted. We are beginning to learn that we can not depend
upon one side alone for our political economy or our facts; that we
need an organization strong enough to compel respect in order to protect
those who without it would be, as they have been, helpless.
All the smoke and clash of industrial warfare seem terrifying; the
innocent victims shock our sense of justice, but it is leading to the
perfect peace. The true democracy—the brotherhood of man—is
forcing itself upon mankind. If we in our prejudice, our selfishness,
our ignorance, defy the signs of its coming, try to prevent its growth,
or find only license in liberty, we shall continue to suffer all the ills
which an obstruction of progress or a violation of its laws always
brings with it. Is it not true that never in the history of the world
has there been an agrarian rising, a peasant revolt, a labor war, that
back of it we do not find as a main cause the injustice, the oppression,
the selfishness of a more powerful class? And will there be perfect
peace, perfect prosperity, until the divine harmony—the real brotherhood
of man—is the rule of life? Wrong always breeds violence.
But out of that violence, when the wrong is made right, comes peace.
Massachusetts in her motto declares that "by the sword she seeks
peace," and, to use Richard T. Ely's words, "the Prince of Peace
proclaimed, 'Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I
came not to send peace, but a sword'; and yet truly was he called
the Prince of Peace." Often is war the price of peace. And no
one, no class of men, deserve their freedom unless, when all other
means fail, they have the courage and energy to pay the price.
Therefore, we will not be alarmed at struggles which in the end
will bring about a better condition of life for all. Rather let us try
to end those struggles by pushing bravely on toward the end mankind
is striving for. We, with such a past as ours, must not be false
to the ideal which is our birthright; we should not be incapable of finding
the true way. If we will forget our merely partisan strife, our
petty jealousies, our class distinctions, and have only one aim, justice
for all, an equal chance for self-development for all, whether he be
born rich or poor, the ruling spirit of the next century will keep America
still true to her high calling, and mankind still will find in her the
inspiration to raise the disheartened and lowly of other lands. The
truest patriotism is broad enough to help the unfortunate everywhere,
and with courage, intelligence, and a faith in true democracy we shall
not fail.
THE BERING SEA CONTROVERSY ONCE MORE.
By Prof. T. C. MENDENHALL.
Mr. Clark's interesting and, on the whole, fair review of
my article on Expert Testimony in the Bering Sea Controversy,
printed in this journal in 1897, might be allowed to stand,
without comment, as the best possible vindication of the work of
the Bering Sea Commission of 1891-'92, and as strong corroborative
evidence of the soundness of the position taken in the article
referred to. One or two quotations which he makes, however, are
placed in such relation to other parts of the paper as to imply meanings
which a reading of the article as a whole will show were never
intended. This is notably true of the description of the frame of
mind in which a scientific man should approach or conduct any investigation,
which Mr. Clark quotes, and the further statement that,
unfortunately, he often fails to come up to the standard set, and
especially when his own interests are involved.
It might easily be inferred that these remarks were meant to have
special application to the members of one or both Bering Sea commissions,
while as a matter of fact they were a part of the general
introduction, occurring some time before any reference is made to
the commissions. I should greatly regret having any one understand
that there was the slightest intimation of the existence of a "handsome
retainer," or anything of the sort, in connection with any or all
of the Bering Sea investigations.
As far as the American representatives on the first commission
are concerned, it is no harm to say that the pecuniary residual was unfortunately
affected by the wrong sign, and this was doubtless the
case as well with Dr. Jordan and his colleagues.
As to the truth of the statement regarding the "scientific expert,"
no evidence need be offered here, for it is furnished by every
court in the land, and not a day passes that does not witness a struggle
between "experts" who have nearly always started from the same
premises, but whose conclusions are diametrically opposed to each
other. What I do want to say is that this is quite consistent with
the perfect honesty and good intent of the experts themselves. It is
the result of the limitations to which the operations of the human
intellect are still subjected, and it is a fact always to be reckoned with
in matters of this kind. There should be no skepticism as to the
honesty and frankness of Sir George Baden-Powell and Dr. George
M. Dawson in assuming an attitude so opposed to that of the American
commissioners in 1892.
Mr. Clark regards my article of 1897 as a "prediction of failure
for the new commission," an assumption quite unjustified and unsustained
by the article itself, in which the fullest recognition is
shown of the great value of the work of Dr. Jordan and his colleagues.
Indeed, the article was purposely prepared and published
before the meeting of the second commission, that it might not seem
to be in any way a criticism upon its work. Now that both commissions
have made public their findings, the whole matter is easily
accessible, but Mr. Clark is hardly just to the first commissioners on
either side, by the slight reference he makes to their separate reports
to their respective governments. A more careful study of both
might have led to some modification of his views, even concerning the
partition of authorship which he has ventured to make. It is no
mean compliment, however, to find him admitting, in regard to the
report of the American commissioners, that "not a single statement
of fact in it has proved fallacious, and the more exhaustive investigations
of 1896 and 1897 corroborate its conclusions in every particular."
And this admission lies adjacent to his assertion that "the
investigations conducted by the two commissions [of 1891] were,
from a scientific point of view, of the nature of a farce." The fact
is, Mr. Clark seems to have strangely misunderstood the character
of the investigations which were contemplated and desired. The
natural history of the fur seal was not the question submitted to
the joint commission, except in so far as it specially affected seal life
in Bering Sea and the measures necessary for its proper protection and
preservation.
"Facts, causes, and remedies" were the subjects to be considered.
There is an old saying that the flavor of the pudding may often be
revealed by chewing the string, and no long and exhaustive investigation
was necessary to enable the American commissioners to arrive
at what Mr. Clark admits to be the "facts, causes, and remedies" for
the Bering Sea problem. Not many weeks were occupied in the
field, it is true, for the commission was delayed in its appointment
and notification, and the season was nearly over when it reached the
islands. But, as Mr. Clark justly remarks, one member of the commission,
Dr. Merriam, was already exceptionally well informed concerning
the habits of the fur seal, and some things may be so in
evidence that even a physicist can see them.
It is true that the joint report of the commission of 1891-'92
was meager, and the explanation lies close at hand in the unwillingness
of the American commissioners to swerve from what they were
convinced was absolutely true. Mr. Clark will look in vain for
the "handwriting of diplomacy mingled with that of science," for the
appearance of which in the report of the commission of 1897 he
offers apologies, except, indeed, it be the diplomacy of going straight
at the facts without concealment or evasion, on which Americans have
sometimes prided themselves.
The joint report was limited to that, and only that, on which the
commissioners were actually agreed, and the American commissioners
have explained in their separate report that had they been willing to
concede certain points the joint report would have been greatly augmented
in volume. Mr. Clark has reviewed the conclusions of the
commission of 1897, which he justly considers a most important and
valuable document. It has not escaped his attention that in a number
of the paragraphs of this report the American commissioners have
committed themselves to the approval of several doubtful statements,
such as that "the pelagic industry is conducted in an orderly manner,
and in a spirit of acquiescence in the limitations imposed by
law"; that a certain number of females may be killed without involving
the actual diminution of the herd; the "tendency toward equilibrium
theory"; that the herd is still far from a stage that threatens
extermination, and others. These statements he excuses as "balm
for the wounded feelings of the pelagic sealer"; "a concession to
diplomacy"; "a diplomatic concession to take the sting out of the
real admission"; "another concession to diplomacy," etc. I do not
wish to be understood as questioning the necessity or wisdom of inserting
these paragraphs in the joint report, but is it not a little strange
that with them in, and apologizing for them as he does, Mr. Clark
should have selected this as a model of what the report of a scientific
commission ought to be and sufficient of itself to forever fix the
value of the scientific expert in the settlement of government disputes?
As I have already intimated, no one appreciates more highly
than I the great work done by Dr. Jordan and his associates in the
study of the natural history of the seal. May not the work of the
two commissions, as bearing on the problem of the fur-seal industry,
be summed up about as follows?—The report of the American members
of the first commission related facts, declared causes, and proposed
remedies. The American case at the Paris arbitration rested on
these. As almost universally happens, arbitration resulted in compromise,
unsatisfactory to both parties, and, as has since turned out,
decidedly unfavorable to one. The commission of 1897 has made
a joint report of considerable length and much importance, in which
the "facts, causes, and remedies" of the report of 1892 are in a sense
confirmed, but with a number of concessions that do not strengthen
the American contention regarding pelagic sealing, the justice of
which seems to be admitted by Mr. Clark. But the practical question
is, What has been the effect of either or both of these commissions upon
the fur-seal industry? It would be unkind to press this question upon
one who characterizes the work of the first commission as above
quoted, and who speaks of the second as having, after being in joint
session one week, "concluded its labors, reaching a full and satisfactory
agreement." If he really wishes to know what progress is being
made under such an agreeable state of affairs, let him inquire of the
International Joint Commission, which is endeavoring to arrange
all outstanding differences between this country and Canada.
CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF INSANITY.
By SMITH BAKER, M. D.
It is being found out that cases of insanity may of themselves fall
naturally into two classes: the first comprising those who get
well, and the second those who do not. To the first class belong
the deliriums of fevers and other like diseases, and also certain acute
manias and melancholias and the so-called generalized insanities.
In the second class are included the insanities which last indefinitely,
or, if seemingly cured, which, in the proportion of from twelve to
fourteen per cent, come back again one or more times, and finally do
not recover. Says Regis: "Out of all forms of mental alienation or
insanity only the generalized types—i. e., mania and melancholia—are
curable. The systematized insanities are essentially chronic and
recover only exceptionally" (Practical Manual of Mental Medicine,
page 54). The latter are known by such specific names as paranoia,
chronic mania, chronic melancholia, insanity of doubt, circular
insanity, hereditary insanity, and the like. What makes such a division
of insanities into these two classes significant is not only that
those of the first class get well and the others do not, but that, generally
speaking, these latter are so founded in the constitution of the
individual that they can not recover, let everything as yet possible
be done for them as it may. Probably there are exceptions to this;
but, if so, they are not very often met with. All these cases seem
to be doomed from the very first either to follow a slowly downward
grade to the very end, or else to manifest a series of alternate
better and worse stages, which, while giving rise to bright hopes of
ultimate recovery, nevertheless just as surely tend more or less
rapidly downward, in pretty strict accordance with the rule. In
passing, it may be noted that not only the tragedy of such alternations
of emphatic despair and delusive hope constitutes not the least of the
wretchedness involved in the history of these cases, but that it is by
no means the easiest thing about them to manage; for, in the earlier
stages, it is almost impossible to make associates or relatives understand
the full meaning of the disease, or to take a correct view of its
probable outcome. Even much later on they cling to the possibility
of recovery, which is as delusive as it is painful, for the disease goes
on, nevertheless, with varying stride and manifestation, until it finally
becomes evident that hope is almost absolutely without any real foundation.
Now, when a case of persistent or recurrent but really irrecoverable
insanity is studied, with respect not only to the life of the individual
affected but to the lives of his ancestors, both remote and
near, and in sufficient detail, it is seen that the causes of the present
breakdown have been long and surely operative in those from whom
he has inherited certain unfavorable characteristics, and at whose
hands he has had his bringing up and education; and this even much
more weightily than in himself or the life which he has lived. So far
as the patient's own responsible life is concerned, the common causes,
such as accident, infection, overwork, mental and moral strain—in
fact, all the usual forms of stress—have, of course, been just as variously
to blame, and in just the same way as they have been in the production
of insanities in other individuals who finally recover. But
even in respect to these latter, it probably may be most frequently
discovered that the harmful effects of certain so-called exciting causes
have been experienced, not because of the common emergencies and
exigencies of life so much as because of some peculiar but unrevealed
characteristics which have produced and maintained a sort of vicious
maelstrom into which have been attracted all the detrimental influences
that have accidentally or intentionally come within reach.
For instance, such persons are almost always predetermined to grow
up into harmful bodily and mental habits. Says Peterson: "Among
all degenerates there is a taste or appetite for certain foods or drugs
which tend to favor their dissolution (alcohol, morphine, cocaine,
and the like)" (State Hospitals Bulletin, vol. i, p. 372). So also are
they apt to be wrongly educated, or to draw around them harmful
associates; to develop the most wearying and exhausting enthusiasms,
or to choose a business and place of residence to which they are not
adapted; to marry some one who will chiefly wear and burden them;
to assume responsibilities and positions out of keeping with their
native strength and endurance; in fact, to get entangled in all the
affairs of life in just the very way calculated to bring about the one
thing which should have been, by every known means, sought to be
avoided. It is in this way that "physiological fate" unconsciously
spins the web which ultimately fastens its own doom. That such a
pernicious course should eventually result in disaster is no wonder at
all; for when investigated deeply and comprehensively enough, it is
seen that of all possible persons, such are, by birth, the very least calculated
to endure the wear and tear thus engendered and maintained;
while, as scarcely a word is ever heard and scarcely an effort
is ever made as to the necessity for so training and educating and inspiring
these people that the defects of heredity will be remedied, it
follows that the most ordinary ventures of commonplace life are by
far more dangerous to them than to their better-endowed fellows.
When properly endowed by heredity, and adequately bred and educated,
it is almost beyond wonder, the amount and character of persistent
stress which human nature can triumphantly endure. When
otherwise, however, it is no wonder at all that sooner or later serious
breakdown comes to pass.
The importance of saying this is obvious when we consider that
as a rule active life is allowed to be entered upon without adequate
preparation and intelligent adaptation of either bodily or mental
strength to the stress that is likely to be encountered. Always it is
asked, if anything is asked at all, "Has he the skill to make his way?"
instead of, "Has he the prospective endurance required by what
he purposes undertaking?" while, if the latter chances to be considered
at all, the conclusion is most usually based upon present appearances
rather than upon past tendencies or actual developments.
Elsewhere I have said: "In almost every instance (of breakdown) I
have come across the result of some big educational blunder, owing
either to the system in vogue or else to those who execute it." (See
Steps toward Insanity, New York Medical Journal, August 14, 1897.)
There is one fact about heredity which seems not to be commonly
considered—namely, that each individual is really the descendant of
not only his immediate parents, but of the two lines of ancestry indefinitely
far back and widespread. Thus, in many instances, the
dominating characteristics are not those of father and mother, but of
grandparents, or of some other antecedent or collateral relatives instead.
In fact, each individual in its development from the germ
to adulthood passes through not only many animal forms, but through
many ancestral phases of character as well. And, as in the first case,
the size and strength of adult physical features depend on the stage
at which growth becomes abnormally extended, perverted, or arrested,
so, with regard to mental and moral qualities and their persistence
under stress, the outcome mostly if not entirely depends upon the extent
to which they are allowed or constrained to develop, or the reverse.
Here we often see the absolutely limiting influence of "atavism," or
what is characterized as "reversion," to generations further removed
than the parental, but which really is the result of an exaggeration
or a stoppage, or a perversion of development before the stage of
parental dominance is finally reached. In this way the featural and
mental characteristics of relatives as far removed as great-grandparents
or great-granduncles, as well as grandparents and uncles, are
seen to appear in children even when young, to be finally either accentuated
and made prominent, or else possibly outgrown or otherwise
overcome as the years go by, and as the later parental determining
powers and the corresponding environment come to manifest their
influence.
With this view of heredity in mind, it is easy to see how the real
basis of every mental breakdown may be and probably is simply an
overdoing or perversion or other irregularity at some premature or
"atavistic" stage of development; and that anything and everything
which may have had to do in causing this should be considered
as a primary step toward the insanity itself. But easy as it is to see
this theoretically, it does not necessarily follow that it is easy to get
hold of the real facts or to help the matter in any given case. Many
times families are loath to reveal things which might indicate such a
basis of the dreaded disease. Many times they do not recognize the
necessity of telling what they would otherwise be willing enough to
reveal. Many things are absolutely forgotten or have been at best only
vaguely comprehended. Sometimes conscious deception is practiced;
at others, the party who really has known the facts is dead or is otherwise
inaccessible. But more often, and more interfering still, is the
unconscious perversion of facts, either from the false meanings which,
owing to specific views and predilections and fears, are read into
them, not only by the laity, but often by the profession, or else from
the wrong deductions derived from actual facts clearly understood.
Try as one may, it is often most difficult to get a sufficient number
of clearly defined facts to enable even the most expert to form a
true and comprehensive idea of the case in hand. This leads to
the remark that what is now absolutely needed is some form of record-keeping
which shall become a general practice on the part of heads of
families and their physicians, and which may be handed down from
generation to generation; and not only this, but that these shall be
so accurately and fully kept that they may be worthy of consideration
as the best and in fact the only basis of a scientific generalization in
case of mental or moral emergency. That people as a rule would
probably resent this, as constituting an undue interference with the
sanctity of personal and family rights, while undoubtedly rendering
it practically nugatory for the time being, does not in any good sense
militate against either the scientific need or the great good which
would accrue from the use of such family records faithfully and intelligently
kept. It is encouraging to note that already the way for
such records is being opened in the demands made by the various questionnaires
sent out by Dr. G. Stanley Hall and others who are interested
in the scientific study of children. (See various issues of
the American Journal of Psychology, and of the Pedagogical Seminary,
for pertinent suggestions and results. Also an article by Dr.
William H. Thomson, in the Yale Medical Journal for April, 1898.)
Much more useful and in general satisfactory would this be than the
blind staggering after elusory causation now so universally and yet so
futilely pursued.
And the same may be said with reference to statistics as commonly
tabulated. These having reference but to the surface showings,
the after-the-mischief-is-done results, and so often obtained
under misleading constraint or other unfavorable influences, are
scarcely capable of even hinting the significance of real conditions,
and especially of tendencies that have existed antecedent to the
individual breakdown. For instance, such statistics as those compiled
by Dr. Wise (see State Hospitals Bulletin, vol. i, page 157),
when subjected to the requirements of an accurate causative consideration,
easily lend themselves to the criticism made by the author
himself, who says, "The careful inquirer can receive no reliable information
from the study of insane hospital statistics except the bare
fact of the number of insane persons under care and treatment."
Yet a glance at his tables shows that forty-two per cent of the cases
admitted to the New York State hospitals for the year ending September
30, 1895, are to be noted as suffering from constitutional degeneracies,
and so presumably to be incurable. The more than twenty
per cent of cases of insanity reported to have had hereditary antecedents,
although undoubtedly as accurate as possible under the circumstances,
merely chronicle the more obvious matters, and must necessarily
have left out of account all the less obvious but in many respects
even more important ones. And so with all the other series thus far
published. They are good as indicating where we are to look for some
of the steps toward insanity, but for the most part they are quite inadequate
for a basis of comprehensive discussion or anything like
accurate conclusion.
The pressing need, then, is that there shall be obtained a series
of statistics which shall be founded upon the most definite, penetrating,
and far-reaching studies of cases that it is possible for the trained
scientist, with the help of an intelligent, willing laity, to make.
In this respect it may be said that the assistance of the latter is
just as essential as the painstaking devotion of the former; for it
is upon the facts which an intelligent laity can observe and report
that the scientist can bring his training to bear in such a way as to
arrive eventually at accurate and therefore most useful generalizations.
But such concurrent observation and study will never be
until the public shall have come to look upon insanity as merely an
unfortunate disease instead of a stigmatized disgrace, which, with
certain exceptions, it should not be considered to be. Nor will this
be the case until professional examiners in lunacy shall regularly ask
for such family records, and thus create a need for their being made.
When both the public as well as the profession lay aside entirely the
common notions of a transcendental origin of insanity, and set to
work to study the perfectly natural steps through which degeneration
and breakdown eventually come to be, all will see the desirability
of such health records being accurately and fully kept, not only as
a help toward determining the nature and prospects of any given case,
but also toward preventing the development of those constitutional
tendencies which lead to trouble, as well as in helping on those that
provide against it.
When we come to study the causes of insanity with a view to
successfully preventing it, we are led to the supposition that the
nearer to very first steps we can push our investigations the greater
will be our service. Remembering that the well-born, well-bred
personality generally bears almost every sort of stress with comparative
impunity, it becomes us to ask just how does the opposite—the ill-born,
ill-bred—constitution come so to be, and hence to break down
so easily. Certainly, the weak, easily breaking strains must have
their origin and growth just as definitely as the more enduring ones,
and if we can get an accurate notion of such origin and the conditions
of subsequent growth, it seems probable that useful knowledge
will thus be attained.
With this object in view an investigation was undertaken which
should cover the life histories of a series of families with sufficient
detail and extension to warrant at least tentative conclusions as well
as also to indicate probable lines for future work. So far as possible,
inquiries were pushed along collateral as well as direct lines of ancestry;
and not only ill health but common habits and experiences
were, so far as possible, given the consideration strictly their due.
In every way the attempt was made to properly estimate the factors
appertaining to the more intimate personal life as well as those that
were more obvious and impersonal. Often, however, the completed
record proved to be more or less broken; more often still, important
items—the most important of all, in fact—could only be obtained
under promise of absolute secrecy as to future use. So, as matters of
absolute science, the following conclusions must stand chiefly as challenges
for future confirmation or change. But, so far as they can
be allowed to go, they may be accepted as pretty thoroughly based in
ascertained fact and legitimate generalization.
The very first conclusion, so far as the natural history of the steps
toward insanity is concerned, is that the weak constitutional strands
and tendencies have their beginnings in those ancestral marriages
which, chiefly for educational reasons, I have chosen to call "unphysiological."
By an unphysiological marriage one need not mean a
marriage between people obviously deformed or imbecile or insane,
or otherwise permanently unfitted, but rather between people who
are found to be not well adapted to each other in some important
sense. Thus, too great physical disproportion; too great disparity of
age, or of temperament, or of family or of natural tendencies; or, on
the other hand, too near a sameness, either through consanguinity or
other sources; or too fixed constitutional characteristics; or even too
great differences of education, religion, taste, or ambition. In fact,
it seems probable that anything and everything which difficultly
amalgamates in marriage, and as surely fails to blend in progeny,
may be considered as unphysiological in this connection. As I have
said elsewhere: "The parties entering into such an unphysiological
marriage may both be normal individually, but yet not physiologically
marriageable, because they are either too distantly or too nearly,
or in fact too unphysiologically, related, either physically or psychically.
In such cases the ultimate outcome is almost absolutely certain,
and is noted chiefly by a definite class of tensions and reactions
of both mind and body which invariably impress themselves upon
progeny, and which for the most part are made obvious in this particular
way. No matter how unphysiological such marriages may be,
however, they do not necessarily or very often result in the evolution
of insanity in the parties contracting them, but rather they do lay
the foundation of degenerative tendencies which almost invariably
predetermine the development of this affection in more or less remote
succeeding generations. Nor do the children of such marriages necessarily
or generally become insane, although they sometimes do;
but, impressed as these are by the degenerative malnutritions and tensions
and reactions of their parents, they tend to exhibit arrests and
eccentricities of development, which in turn become intensified in
the next, and again, in turn, in all the generations following, until
the instability becomes so marked that explosion occurs. In passing,
it may be said that the most frequent source of the initiatory
tensions and reactions resulting from unphysiological marriage is
undoubtedly found in abnormal cohabitation, and the unrest and unsatisfaction
and exhaustion resulting therefrom. Such a condition
of things begets in perfectly normal people an irritating, nagging,
exhausting, persistent erethism, which in time involves the whole
organism and deflects it from its norm. Two people enmeshed
in such a bond always go to excesses and irregularities, either in abstinence
or indulgence; or, if not this, then the whole matter becomes
aversional, with straining antipathy, perverting practices, and ideational
distrusts and loathings more and more predominating. No
wonder that such people predetermine succeeding generations to abnormal
sensitiveness, irregular growth, and erratic manifestations in
both mental and physical spheres." (See New York Medical Journal
for August 14, 1897; also Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases,
vol. xvii, page 669.)
Now, the outcome of such marriages seems to be a vitiated stream
of tendency, which carries with it in its progress from generation to
generation certain elements which predetermine to still fuller vitiation,
even with incurable insanity, as noted above. Thus, people
endowed with such natural characteristics, being altogether too
prone to gravitate toward each other, eventually marry, and thus
emphasize in progeny the vitiation already doubly initiated. Nature's
course demands that such people marry, if at all, into the
healthiest, most corrective stock possible. But here immediately
there arises not only a scientific prohibition, but an ethical question
which should be heeded: Should such people really marry even the
best of stock, with the probability of thus vitiating a stream which
until this time has evidently been becoming clearer and stronger?
Again, people who are constitutionally tending to mental breakdown
are very apt to load themselves down with duties and get themselves
into situations which must necessarily prove to be too onerous and too
perplexing for their poorly developed strength and skill. Of course,
circumstances often require this. Many times, however, there is a
kind of impulsive restlessness coupled with a short-sighted optimism,
both constitutional, which, altogether more than ordinary circumstances,
are to blame for undue assumption of work or care, and whose
effect is, perhaps, best seen in the persistent tendency of such people
to originate and perpetuate exhausting habits, both of mind and body.
Thus, the habit of self-poisoning from poorly digested and poorly
assimilated food is easily acquired by such people, and always becomes
a source of progressive brain starvation and often of consequent mental
breakdown. Says Dr. A. S. Thayer (Journal of Medicine and
Science, vol. iii, page 173), "There is ground for belief that exhaustion—fatigue—is
dependent upon poisoning of the cells of the
brain, muscles, and other tissues by the waste products of functional
activity." Again, as already noted, perversions of the natural instincts—of
appetite for food, of desire for gain, of social or other
ambitions, and especially of the sexual impulse and its habitual indulgence—fasten
themselves upon such individuals with a permanence
and destructiveness that must almost of necessity lead to disaster.
And so we may see that as a most natural, although often a
far-removed, result of unphysiological marriages, proceeding through
generations which have been thus predestinated to weakening
choices and practices, insanity finally appears to mark the ultimate
extent both of the mental disorganization and bodily inefficiency,
which extent is owing not only to the original initiating steps, but
also to subsequent stages of causation, progressively developed from
generation to generation.
Another great source of vitiation of the stream of tendency is
found in two people who marry in a truly enough physiological
sense, but who find or force themselves in lives of wear and tear which
progressively unfit them for childbearing and child nurture. Poorly
calculated ambitions, unexpected difficulties to be surmounted, depressing
oppositions, with perhaps more or less actual disease or accident,
largely account for this in a general way. Obviously, during
the child-rearing age, the effect of what parents are obliged to endure
and execute upon the fortunes of progeny becomes a matter of
far-reaching importance. That anything which persistently exhausts
or overstrains the parents must tell in the later dynamic tendency and
development is premised at least by certain recent studies, especially
those of Hodge on the influence of fatigue, and of Van Gieson on the
effects of exhaustion and intoxication upon the nervous elements.
(See also Peterson, op. cit.) In no sense can parents be said to live
for themselves chiefly. Always the influence of their own health,
happiness, and prosperity upon their children should be remembered,
and should be made as constructive as possible. That this can be
consciously attempted with commensurate results is more or less
evidenced not only by common observation but by investigation.
Not, however, in the sense that parents are always able to endow
children with some particular, much-wished-for characteristic, as so
many suppose—for it must be remembered that perhaps pretty fixed
tendencies for several generations may have to be overcome and reversed
before such special results can be obtained, but in the much
better sense of giving such an impetus healthward and strengthward
and lifeward as may later on be the beginning of a constitutional
foundation that shall support many generations of full health and
longevity.
If, then, the first steps—and, generally speaking, the most important
steps—are discovered in the unphysiological marriage and its
influence upon the bearing and rearing of progeny, then it is obvious
enough that prevention of incurable insanity should begin with giving
adequate attention to this phase of the subject, and this first and
emphatically. Already the law says that certain peculiarly afflicted
individuals can not marry; and probably this is about as far as the
law can helpfully go until, at least, public intelligence as well as
private sentiment will sustain it in going further. So we must look
to these latter—a widespread intelligence and a corresponding earnest
sentiment founded upon such intelligence—for the means of making
progress toward the prevention of insanity. But how can this needed
knowledge and helpful sentiment come to be? Certainly not by
perpetuating the present notions of so-called "modesty" and "purity,"
which, as now held, must always interfere with the study and
practice necessary for ascertaining the truth, and for applying it to
the needs of race-building. The time ought to come soon, very soon,
when matters of such serious content shall not be so absolutely subject
to the dominance of conventionality and guesswork and recklessness
as now, but shall instead be subject to the sway of accurate
science and its careful adaptation to human conditions. Every marriage
now is at best but an experiment—blind and chance-taking
often, in a most wasteful and dangerous sense. Let it remain, if it
must, an experiment still, but one which shall be henceforth conducted
with such foresight and skill, and withal with such intelligent purpose,
as shall certainly point to improved results from generation to
generation. Experience shows that it is comparatively easy to ascertain
what marriages, generally speaking, are prone to result in obviously
vitiated progeny; or if not in these, then, to some extent at least,
in the progeny which, being unnaturally constituted, are prone to
develop their weaker strands of personality, and so to break down
in the end. But to this course neither prudery nor superstition nor
selfishness will ever assent; it must be pursued in spite of these, and
by the only method which science now recognizes—namely, accurate
observation, careful record, and the most comprehensive, skillful comparison,
all in order that truthful inductions may be finally secured.
That parents should train up their children to look forward to marriage
not as the acme of personal indulgence and satisfaction, but as
a most responsible partnership for the developmental keeping of unborn
fortunes, and the proper nurturing of the children that may
come to them, is no longer speculation, but a science-founded fact.
Undoubtedly the highest state of adult satisfaction will always be
closely associated with what may be characterized as child completion.
Moreover, that an educational system which so thoroughly
ignores this most important of all educational subjects must, in time,
be subjected to the criticism which science may justly develop, is
amply borne out by the cases studied. Often, indeed, has it appeared
that had a modicum of real knowledge been at hand, most
disastrous results would naturally have been obviated. Educators
lead the day; why not they lead in directions which shall most truly
correct the results of physiological ignorance and daring? That no
man or woman should go forth from college with such vital knowledge
unlearned is probably the first and most important means of preventing
incurable insanity conceivable; and that these in turn should
never hesitate to diffuse popularly that which they have been so
favored in the learning, implies a duty which the intelligence itself
makes clear.
So, too, if persistent overstrain and exhaustion of parents, either
prospective or actual, leads directly to starvation of their own structural
elements, how probable that the initiating and bearing and nurturing
of children is to a like extent detrimentally interfered with in
any given case through the development of an "erratic cell growth."
Certain it is that completeness of development depends on two
things—namely, nutrition and exercise. In a biological sense both
these are dependent upon a right adjustment of supply to demand.
Hence starvation or engorgement, inactivity or overwork, each may
lead to the same dynamic result—that is to say, to an interference
with the proper growth of the organism. That due heed, then, should
always be given to the necessary health preservation of those who essay
to become parents, not only in preparation for but during the whole
so-called childbearing period, is so scientifically deducible that it
may be for all practical purposes considered as axiomatic. The way
to have healthy, long-lived, and happy children is for parents to
be healthful and intelligently careful themselves; while the whole
science of health must eventually consist in the science of such symmetrical
and high development as will enable individuals to endure
necessary strain, resist disease, and rapidly and fully recover from
accident and infection.
SKETCH OF WILLIAM PENGELLY.
The name of William Pengelly is most closely associated with the
explorations of caves in England containing relics of men together
with the remains of extinct animals, the results of which, confirming
similar conclusions that had been reached in France, convinced
English geologists of man's extreme antiquity. Speaking of
him at the time of his death as one of the last survivors of the heroes
who laid the foundation of geological science, Prof. T. G. Bonney
said, "He has left behind an example of what one man can do in
advancing knowledge by energy and perseverance."
William Pengelly was born at East Looe, a fishing village in
Cornwall, England, January 12, 1812, and died in Torquay, March
16, 1894. The name of Pengelly is not uncommon in Cornwall,
and has figured in English history—among others, in the person of
Sir Thomas Pengelly, who was chief baron of the exchequer, and
left certain sums for the discharge of debtors from the jails of Bodmin
and Launceston. His father was captain of a small coasting vessel,
and he acquired a strong attachment to the sea. He was sent
to the Dame's School in his native village when very young, and
before he was five years old had made so rapid progress that his
mother applied to the master of a school for larger boys to receive
him as a pupil. The master declined to take him, but, hearing
him reading as he passed the door of the house not long afterward,
concluded to grant the mother's request. At school he soon gained
such a reputation for scholarship that the boys made him spend all
his play hours helping them in their lessons. His school days ended
when he was twelve years old, and he accompanied his father to sea,
making, however, voyages that were seldom more than three days
long, most of the work of which consisted in taking in and taking out
cargo. The sailors soon discovered his clerkly gifts and employed
him to write their letters, but did not so well appreciate his excellent
conversational powers. On "tailoring days" it was understood that
his clothes should be repaired for him, while he read aloud for the
general benefit, and the sailors would amuse themselves by finding
solutions to questions in Walkingham's Arithmetic. His seafaring
life closed in his sixteenth year, when the death of a brother made it
desirable that he should remain at home.
Though working hard all the day for a mere support, young
Pengelly managed to spend several hours every night in study, seeking
to master mathematics. He had no tutor and no really good
text-books, but made such progress in his studies that in a comparatively
short time he became "a mathematical tutor of no mean order."
He bought his first Euclid of a peddler who occasionally visited the
place; then, having saved up a little money for the purpose, it was
a happy day for him when he walked thirty miles to Devonport and
back, bearing, on his return, twenty volumes in a bundle over his
shoulder; among them were the works of some of the standard authors,
for he cultivated a literary as well as a mathematical taste.
He received his first lesson in geology while he was still a sailor
boy, at Lyme Regis—a spot exceedingly rich in fossils. A laborer
whom he was observing broke a stone, the opening of which disclosed
a fine ammonite. To his question as to what the fossil was, the
laborer replied that if he had read his Bible he would have known;
that there was once a flood that covered all the world; the things
that were drowned were buried in the mud, and this was a snake which
had suffered that fate. "A snake! but where's his head?" He was
again referred to the Bible, which would tell him why the snakes
in the rocks had no heads. "We're told there that the seed of the
woman shall bruise the serpent's head. That's how 'tis." The second
lesson came a few years later, in a reading club of which Pengelly
was a member. They were reading Dick's Christian Philosopher,
and came to a geological section, when the reader remarked
that "as geology was very likely to be extremely dry, and as many
good people thought it dangerous if not decidedly infidel in its teachings,
he would propose that the selection should not be read. This
was passed by acclamation, and the reader passed on to astronomy."
While still young, Pengelly removed to Torquay, where he spent
the remainder of his life. Shortly after arriving there, he opened
a small day school on the Pestalozzian system, into which he introduced
the novelty of the use of chalk and the blackboard in giving
instruction. Beginning with six pupils, the school grew rapidly.
He had private pupils, too, and in 1846 these had become so numerous
that he gave up his school, and as a special tutor in mathematics
and the natural sciences found his life occupation. Some of his
pupils became distinguished in after life; while others, like the two
Russian princes, nephews of the Czar Alexander II, and Princess
Mary, of the Netherlands, all of whom became much attached to him,
were famous by reason of their position. His attention was brought
for a third time to geology while looking over some books which he
thought might be useful to his pupils, when he found one published
by the brothers Chambers, which contained a chapter on that science.
This was not much, but it was enough to inform him how much had
already been done in geology, and, perhaps, to give him a hint of
some of the possibilities that lay in it. From this time on, he was ardently
interested in geology. The journal of his first visit to London
and the British Museum, in 1843, attests how he was becoming absorbed
in it. He spent his holidays in geological explorations and in
excursions which gradually grew larger, until his position as a geologist
was recognized, and he became an authority respecting all points
and phenomena which had come under his personal knowledge. A
hint dropped to him by Professor Jameson as he was about to visit the
Isle of Arran taught him to make his notes of observations on the
spot, and greatly helped, his daughter Hester observes in the biography
on which we have drawn very largely, "to form those habits of extreme
accuracy which characterized all his scientific work."
In 1837 Mr. Pengelly assisted in the reorganization of the Torquay
Mechanics' Institute, with which he maintained a connection
for more than twenty years, and before which he delivered many lectures.
In 1844 he participated in the organization of the Torquay
Natural History Society, of which he became, in 1851, honorary
secretary, and remained so for more than thirty-nine years. "Under
his guidance it became a scientific power in the country. Year after
year he lectured there, tincturing the locality with his own enthusiasm;
and from the society there ultimately sprang the museum in
Babbacombe Road, with its admirable collections."
His lectures, delivered gratuitously at Torquay, were very popular,
and were attended by large audiences. The fame of them
spread, and he was called to other places—Exeter, Exmouth, and
larger towns and farther off, and to the great learned societies—where
he lectured, always with success, and to the satisfaction and delight
of his audiences. "Those persons living, and they are many," says
Mr. F. S. Ellis in the preface to Hester Pengelly's biography of her
father, "who had the good fortune to hear Pengelly lecture will bear
ready witness to the complete mastery he always had of his subject,
and of the faculty of imparting his knowledge. Even when speaking
upon abstruse subjects to a mixed audience, he would make the
matter perfectly clear without in any degree appearing to talk down
to the capacity of those he was addressing.... His manner was no
less pleasing and attractive than the language in which he clothed
his ideas was grateful to the ear." Geology and astronomy furnished
the subjects of the lectures.
It would be impracticable in a brief sketch to follow the detail
of Pengelly's geological investigations previous to his engaging in
systematic cave exploration. They embraced fields chiefly in Devonshire
and Cornwall, and afforded subjects for correspondence and
discussion with many of the most eminent British geologists, and
some of other countries than England. A study of some fossil fish,
first observed by Mr. Charles W. Peach in Cornwall, furnished the
occasion for one of his first recorded papers, On the Ichthyolites of
East Cornwall, in the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society
of East Cornwall, 1849-'50; and a single volume—the seventh—of
these Transactions contains nine of his papers. Another subject of
interest was the beekites, curious formations of chalcedonic silica on
the limestone fragments in the New Red Sandstone of Devonshire,
first observed by Dr. Beek, of Bristol, concerning which he read a
paper at the Cheltenham meeting of the British Association, the first
which he attended, in 1856. In 1860 he completed the formation of
a collection of Devonian fossils from Devon and Cornwall, which was
presented by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts to the new museum of
the University of Oxford, in connection with the foundation of a
geological scholarship, and was named "the Pengelly Collection."
The first of the more important geological researches with which
Pengelly's name is intimately associated was the exploration of the
peculiar formation at Bovey Tracey, for the identification of its fossils
and the determination of its age. The plain in which the formation
lay had an aspect suggesting the basin of an ancient lake, and its
deposits, "very different from the solid rocks of the surrounding
hills," confirmed the suggestion. They consisted of gravels, sands,
and clays, distinctly stratified, with seams of lignite, for which
they had been worked. The pits had already attracted some notice,
and the deposits had been mentioned in scientific literature, but
very little had been learned concerning their age. In 1860 the
subject was mentioned by the late Dr. Falconer, an eminent paleontologist,
to Miss Burdett-Coutts as one the investigation of which
would be a boon to science. Miss Coutts supplied the money that
was needed, and the direction of the systematic investigation was intrusted
to Pengelly; on learning which, Sir Charles Lyell wrote to
him: "I am very glad of the prospect of our knowing something of
the Bovey coal plants. It is almost a reproach to English geology
that they have been so little explored, as they are perhaps the only
fossils of the Tertiary period to which they belong." In order to
determine accurately the nature, thickness, and order of the successive
beds, and to make a satisfactory collection of fossils, a new section
of the deposit was made, measuring one hundred and twenty-five feet,
down to the bottom of a seam of lignite four feet in thickness, the
"last bed" of the workmen, but not at the actual base of the deposit.
Thirteen of the thirty-one beds of lignite which were cut through,
and two of the beds of clay, yielded distinguishable plant remains.
These were sent to Dr. Oswald Heer, of Switzerland, for examination;
and he determined from the collection fifty species, including
ferns, conifers, figs, cinnamon trees, an oak, a laurel, vines, andromedas,
a bilberry, a gardenia, a water lily, and some leguminous
plants. Heer referred the group to the Lower Miocene period, but
some modification was afterward made in this determination in the
light of a fuller knowledge of the Tertiary flora. The deposits and
work at Bovey Tracey were the subject of a memoir to the Royal
Society by Sir Charles Lyell; and Dr. Heer's account of his work—The
Fossil Flora of Bovey Tracey—was published in 1863.
While this investigation was going on, Lyell was preparing the
fifth edition of his Manual of Geology. He invited Pengelly to suggest
corrections to the text, saying that, besides positive mistakes, he
would "be glad of any hints and suggestions made freely, which your
knowledge of the manner in which beginners are struck may enable
you to send us." The criticisms supplied by Mr. Pengelly were
adopted by Lyell except where they had already been made unnecessary.
On the accidental discovery by workmen, in 1858, of a cavern in
Windmill Hill, overhanging the town of Brixham, Pengelly at once
thought of finding what was in it, and what story it might have to
tell. He visited the place and applied to the owner for permission
to explore it in behalf of the Torquay Natural History Society. But
on consultation with Dr. Hugh Falconer it was decided that as that
society probably had not means sufficient to bear the expense of the
exploration, the Royal and Geographical Societies should be applied
to for a grant. This was obtained, and the work was carried on
under the superintendence of Professor Prestwich and Mr. Pengelly,
on whom, as a resident of the place, the burden substantially fell.
The decision to explore the cave was brought about largely by the
fact that it was a virgin cave which had been inaccessibly closed
during an incalculably long period, the last previous event in its
history having been the introduction of a reindeer antler, which was
found attached to the upper surface of the stalagmitic floor. It was
therefore free from the objection urged against Kent's Cavern that,
having been long known and open, it had probably been ransacked
again and again. A thorough method of exploration was determined
upon, beginning with the examination and removal of the
stalagmitic floor; after which the upper bed should be dealt with
in a similar manner horizontally throughout the entire length of the
cavern, or so far as practicable; then the next lower bed, and so on,
till all the deposits had been removed. By this method the general
stratigraphical order of the deposits and their characteristics could
be learned, all their fossils secured, and the highest possible exactness
attained. The excavations were continued through twelve
months, at the end of which the cave had been practically emptied.
Besides furnishing interesting indications relative to its physical history,
the cave yielded sixteen hundred and twenty-one bones and
thirty-six flints. While most of the flints were flakes, some of which
possibly might not be artificial, three were fairly well made implements
of paleolithic type; and it was therefore concluded that man
either frequented or at any rate sometimes entered the Brixham Cave
while Devonshire was inhabited by various mammals which are now
extinct. Previous to the execution of this work, all geological evidence
as to the antiquity of man had been received, even by English
geologists of the first rank, with what Pengelly called apathy and
skepticism. After the work it soon became evident, Pengelly said
in an address to the Section of Anthropology of the British Association,
in 1883, that this geological apathy had been more apparent
than real. "In fact, geologists were found to have been not so much
disinclined to entertain the question of human antiquity, as to doubt
the trustworthiness of the evidence which had previously been offered
to them on the subject." The discoveries are thought to have had a
considerable share in disposing Mr. Prestwich to undertake the investigation
of the remains at Amiens and Abbeville in France and
Hoxne in England, "which added to his own great reputation and
rescued M. Boucher de Perthes from undeserved neglect." Prof.
Boyd Dawkins says that they established beyond all doubt the existence
of paleolithic man in the Pleistocene age, and caused the whole
of the scientific world to awake to the fact of the vast antiquity of
the human race. Of course, they aroused a theological controversy
which was long and bitter, and has only recently died out. Pengelly
had no trouble through it all. "Geologists," he said, "see no mode
of reconciling the Mosaic account of creation with geological science....
For myself, I am satisfied that science can do nothing for the
salvation of the soul, and that the Bible is able, through God's grace,
to make us wise unto salvation." No doubts or difficulties could
ever undermine his faith as a Christian.
The evidence accumulated at Brixham suggested the propriety of
a re-examination of other evidences of man's antiquity, and particularly,
in England, of those from Kent's Hole, or Cavern, at Torquay.
The existence of this cave had been known from time immemorial,
but the first recorded exploration of it was made in 1824 by
Mr. Northmore, of Cleve, looking for organic remains and an ancient
temple of Mithras. Mr. W. C. Trevelyan followed him, and first
obtained results of value to science. The Rev. J. MacEnery, a
Roman Catholic priest, began a four years' exploration of the cave
in 1825, and prepared a narrative of his work, which was not published
for several years after his death, having been lost, and found
by Pengelly after a long search. He showed that the cave had been
inhabited, practically at the same time, by man and various extinct
animals; but the antiquity of man not being yet a live subject, little
regard was paid to his evidences. With a grant of a hundred pounds
from the British Association, the work was begun under the direction
of a committee of which Pengelly was the leading spirit and
the working member. It opened a new chapter in his life, his daughter
says, "for he not only superintended the exploration of the cavern,
but undertook its entire management, throwing himself, heart
and soul, into the numerous duties which it entailed. The labor was
arduous, and severely taxed his energies for fifteen years; but it
was a congenial employment, and most faithfully performed....
After undertaking the exploration, Pengelly became such an enthusiast
in the progress made that, when in Torquay, he never (unless
prevented by illness) failed on a single week day to visit the cavern,
while he devoted many hours at home in the examination of the specimens
exhumed. He even abridged his short holidays, and all idea of
living in London was abandoned on this account." In the investigation,
the surface accumulations having been removed and preserved
for examination, the floor of granular stalagmite was stripped off, so
as to lay bare the cave earth, and this was dug out ultimately to a
depth of four feet in a series of prismatic blocks, a yard long and a
foot square in section, layer by layer. This material was examined
in the cave by candlelight, then at the door by daylight. A box was
appropriated to each "yard," in which all the objects of interest found
in that particular earth were put. The boxes, with the record of
what they contained, were sent daily to Pengelly, who cleaned the
articles and repacked them, and kept regular records of his day's
works. Other materials were dealt with with similar thoroughness
in ways according to their nature. "Whatever was discovered beneath
the stalagmite flooring must have been sealed up by it for, at the
very least, two thousand years, probably for a much longer time."
The exploration was completed June 19, 1880. The more than seventy-three
hundred prisms of material which proved productive yielded,
besides fifty thousand bones examined by Prof. Boyd Dawkins, numerous
implements, including those of bone, the work of man. Two
deposits were evident, one of "cave earth," and one of breccia beneath
it. A glance at the implements from them showed that they
were very dissimilar. Those from the breccia were more massive
and ruder in every way than the others, and none of them were of
bone. "In short, the stone tools, though both sets were unpolished
and coeval with extinct mammals, represent two distinct civilizations.
It is equally clear that the ruder men were the more ancient, for
their tools were lodged in a deposit which, whenever the two occurred
in the same vertical section, was invariably the undermost." Various
conditions in the deposits united in indicating that the interval
between them must have been very considerable. Other caves were
examined by Pengelly, but his most important discoveries were made
in those of Brixham and Kent.
A third section of Pengelly's scientific work reviewed by Prof.
T. G. Bonney in the summary he has added to Miss Pengelly's biography,
from which we have quoted freely, includes miscellaneous
papers on geology and kindred subjects, relating almost exclusively
to the southwest of England. As a rule, the papers are comparatively
short, being the fruits of researches which either did not demand a
long time, or could be carried on at intervals as circumstances allowed,
and appeared mostly in the transactions of local societies.
Pengelly was one of the prime movers and a leading spirit in the
organization, in 1862, of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement
of Science, Literature, and Art, at Plymouth, and was its president
in 1867-'68. The objects of the association were "to give a
stronger impulse and a more systematic direction to scientific inquiry
in Devonshire, and to promote the intercourse of those who cultivate
science, literature, or art in different parts of the country." It worked
according to the methods of the British Association, with literature
and art added to its objects, besides giving some attention to history
and archæology. The first meeting was held under the presidency
of Sir John Bowring. In 1872 the president was the bishop of the
diocese, Dr. Temple, now Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1863 Pengelly
was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
From 1856, when he read a paper at the Cheltenham meeting, Mr.
Pengelly was almost a constant attendant upon the meetings of the
British Association, and gained, as the years advanced, a prominent
position among its leading members. He was president of the Geological
Section at the Plymouth meeting, 1877. At the jubilee meeting
of the association, held at York in 1880, he made the acquaintance
of Prof. Asa Gray, which ripened into a friendship and resulted
in a visit of Professor Gray and Mrs. Gray to Torquay.
He met another distinguished American man of science, Prof. O.
C. Marsh, recently deceased, at the International Geological Congress
in London, in 1888. In 1801 he received a visit from Prof.
G. F. Wright. He opposed the transference of the meeting of
the British Association to Montreal in 1884, on account of the expense
and the sacrifice of time which he thought many who would
like to attend could not afford, and did not go himself. In
March, 1874, he was visited at Torquay by Professor Phillips and
others in behalf of a number of members of the British Association,
and presented with an illuminated parchment containing the signatures
of the contributors and a check, as a testimonial "in recognition
of his long and valued services to science in general, and
more especially for the exploration of Kent's Cavern. Replying to
the addresses, he said he had done the work in connection with Kent's
Cavern simply because he liked it.... He had experienced intense
pleasure in it, and he could assure them that, on his finding a
Machairodus latidus, after seven years and a half exploration, the
discovery of that one tooth, in his opinion, was worth all the money
that had been spent in the exploration of the cavern."
Besides geology, Mr. Pengelly had a living concern with astronomy,
on subjects of which he lectured and read papers, and in folklore,
and was "extremely interested" in the religious history of Cornwall.
He became a member of the Society of Friends about 1853,
and married his second wife, Lydia Spriggs, in that body. She
assisted him in his scientific work, preparing diagrams.
Of Pengelly's character as a man, Professor Bonney speaks of
the great charm in his personality, and the union in him of "such
strong mental powers, and no less strong sense of what was just, true,
and right, to such genuine humor and hearty enjoyment of wit."
Sir Archibald Geikie speaks of his "genial, kindly, and helpful nature,
and his invariably bright, cheery, and witty talk." Prof. Rupert
Jones characterizes him as "a good example of a religious man—earnest,
persevering, and exact in scientific research." The Rev. Robert
Hardy says, "He did not obtrude his theological opinions, but it was
easy to perceive that he was a man of true religious character." Sir
Joseph Lister, looking back to the times of his acquaintance with
him, recalled "vividly the impression of his great intellectual powers,
his genial benevolence, and his sparkling humor."
As a lecturer his style is described as having been "most attractive.
It is incisive, clear, and at times there are touches of humor.
His perfect knowledge of the subject, combined with intense earnestness,
clothed his lecture with genuine eloquence."
Miss Pengelly's biography abounds with illustrations of her
father's rare faculty of attracting and interesting workingmen. A
letter from one such man expresses gratitude, mingled with great
pleasure, for the lasting happiness he was "so anxious and constant
to impart to us young men during the Young Men's Society and afterward
at the Mechanics' Institute, ... and I have often felt and said
I owe more gratitude for the small amount of knowledge I possess,
to Mr. Pengelly, of Torquay, than to any living man, and I think
there are a few now in Torquay who might truly say so too."
Editor's Table.
KINDERGARTENIZED CHILDREN.
We do not know whether the verb
"to kindergartenize" has yet
crept into the language, but, after
reading the article of Miss Marion
Hamilton Carter in the March Atlantic
on The Kindergarten Child—after
the kindergarten, one is
disposed to think that such a verb
is a present necessity. The question
as to whether the kindergarten on
the whole is a good institution is too
wide for discussion within the restricted
limits of the Table; but no
one can read Miss Carter's article
without being forced to the conclusion
that, in some of its aspects,
kindergarten work is of very doubtful
utility. That lady found by
actual experience with two or three
successive levies of kindergarten
children that they seemed to have
an impaired rather than an improved
faculty of acquiring knowledge,
that their infancy seemed to
have been artificially prolonged, that
they had become accustomed to a
nauseating amount of endearment
in the language addressed to them
by their instructors, that they
seemed to expect to be continually
amused, and that a certain drill
through which they had been put for
the alleged purpose of developing
their powers of imagination had gone
a long way toward making them
incapable of speaking of things simply
as they found them. All this is
set forth in Miss Carter's article in
a manner which leaves little doubt
that she has described things substantially
as they fell under her observation.
There is one important principle
in education which it seems to us
the kindergarten system too much
ignores, if it does not completely set
it at defiance, and that is that very
young children require a great deal
of letting alone. The spontaneous
activity of the little ones—and they
are sure to be active if they get the
chance—is worth more for their education
than any amount of directed
activity. Their imaginations, too,
will take care of themselves much
better than we can take care of
them. Nothing is less favorable to
the development of imagination in
a child than constant intercourse
with grown people who have passed
the imaginative stage, and whose
daily duty it is to lay out ordered
knowledge for assimilation by these
babes. It is no wonder that part of
the system should consist of special
exercises for the cultivation of the
very faculty which the system as a
whole is so adapted to dull and to
weaken. Anything much more silly,
however, than the method described
by Miss Carter it would be difficult
to imagine.
The great popularity of the kindergarten
is due in large measure to
the fact that it relieves mothers during
part of the day of the care of
their small children. That it does
this in very many cases at the expense
of weakening the tie between
mother and child there is too much
reason to fear. The State has been
stepping in more and more between
parents and children, until now it
lays its hand almost upon the cradle.
The mothers of the republic are giving
way, so far as influence over the
rising generation is concerned, to
the schoolmarms; but it is idle to
expect that the latter can take the
place of the mothers we used to
know. The kindergarten constitutes
a vast extension of the educational
machinery previously in
operation, and machinery is always
impressive, especially to those who
do not understand it. What people
see is that the system works
very smoothly and uniformly and
rhythmically, and that it saves, or
seems to save, them a great deal of
trouble; and that it is enough to
make them think it something very
fine. Whether it is really saving
trouble in the end is a question
which we consider quite open to discussion.
There is room, in our opinion,
to inquire whether the stimulus
of society is not too early and too
systematically brought to bear on
the infants who throng the educational
nursery—whether it is well
for children of three and four to be
brought every day under the eye of,
and more or less into competition
with, a large number of companions
of their own age. We doubt much
whether it tends to simplicity of
character, and we can not but regard
it as distinctly unfavorable to the
development of individuality. The
rule of fashion begins at once to
operate with great intensity, and the
child loses the power of conceiving
life except in the herd. As to
whether trouble on the whole is being
saved to parents by the new system,
the question could best be answered
by ascertaining whether, in
the long run, parents have more or
less trouble with their children now
than formerly. We should be surprised
to hear any one maintaining
that they had less.
We are aware that parents, for
the most part, enthusiastically testify
that their children enjoy the kindergarten
very much; but may it
not be possible for children, as well
as their elders, to like what is not
altogether for their good? We do
not consider that we can safely follow
all a child's likes and dislikes in
the matter of diet, or companionship,
or hours for going to bed and
rising. Sensible people do not think
that everything children crave
should be given to them, or that
more than a limited number of excitements
should be thrown in their
way. It is one of the drawbacks to
wealth that the possessors of it can
hardly refrain from half burying
their children beneath a profusion
of toys, and crowding upon them
such a multitude of distractions, in
the way of travel, shows of all kinds,
and society, that all chance of development
from within is well-nigh
destroyed. It has been remarked by
many that the children of to-day
who rarely read a story that is not
illustrated, have much less imagination
than the children of former
days, who in reading had to make
and did make their own mental pictures.
Yet what pampered child
ever said he or she was pampered
too much? What overflattered
child ever asked for a surcease of
flattery? What child suffering from
an excessive amount of social excitement
ever requested that it might
have less of such unhealthy stimulation?
The inference we draw is
that it does not settle the question
finally in favor of the kindergarten
to say that children enjoy it. If
Miss Carter's experience is to be depended
on, the result at least of
some kindergarten training is to
stimulate the vanity of the little
ones and give them a quite undue
sense of their self-importance. They
would enjoy that while it lasted,
poor little things! but it would be a
bad preparation for the subsequent
work of education. One broad fact
stares the educational world in the
face, and that is that the average
child has to-day, at a given age, a
less capacity for learning than the
average child of twenty-five or thirty
years ago. What share the kindergarten
may have had in this
retardment of intellectual development
is a question which deserves
investigation. Messrs. McLellan
and Dewey, in their work on The
Psychology of Number (International
Education Series), say (page
154): "We have known the seven-year-old
'head boy' of a kindergarten,
conducted by a noted kindergarten
teacher, who could not recognize
a quantity of three things
without counting them by ones....
There is surely something lacking
either in the kindergarten as a preparation
for the primary school, or in
the primary school as a continuation
of the kindergarten, when a
child, after full training in the kindergarten,
together with two years'
work in the primary school, is considered
able to undertake nothing
(in arithmetic) beyond the number
twenty." These authors enter into a
very elaborate analysis of the number
concept, and lay down with extreme
care what they conceive to be
the best lines of approach to the
youthful mind in the teaching of
arithmetic. It seems to us, however,
that the number concept will dawn
upon the youthful mind without
much effort on the part of teachers
when the time arrives for it to be
of use. In most childish games the
element of number is involved. The
smallest girl with a skipping rope
will get into the way of counting her
skips with a more or less distinct
conception of the difference between
one number and another. So in the
matter of "turns" in any game in
which two or more are engaged: if
one child wants to have more
"turns" than it is entitled to, the
others have to be very young indeed
not to protest. In a tug-of-war
with, say, four on each side, the addition
of a fifth to one side without
permission would make trouble in
the camp. When candies are being
distributed the arithmetical sense is
generally keenly alive.
We conclude by commending
Miss Carter's article to the careful
consideration of all who are interested
in educational problems. She
writes with a certain tinge of vexation,
and, without meaning it, may
have somewhat forced the case
against her kindergarten children.
The Atlantic Monthly deserves credit,
we must add, for the many able
and timely articles which it has lately
been publishing on educational
topics—articles stamped by the
breadth of thought and high culture
which are characteristic of our contemporary,
and eminently adapted
to assist in delivering our educational
methods from bondage to a
mechanical routine, and bringing
them nearer to the simplicity and
freedom of Nature.
IS FREEDOM LIMITED BY CLIMATE?
Since the United States turned
its ambition toward the tropics, the
question as to whether its political
institutions can be extended to the
inhabitants there has been widely
discussed. As might be expected,
the philanthropic advocates of expansion
have insisted that "the
blessings of freedom and civilization"
are not limited by latitude
or longitude. Any other position
would, of course, have involved them
in the charge of inconsistency and
hypocrisy. But certain philosophic
expansionists, as they may be politely
called, have taken the opposite view.
"It is a cardinal fact," they say, quoting
the language of a recent essay of
Mr. Benjamin Kidd, "that in the
tropics the white man lives and works
only as a diver lives and works under
water.... Neither physically,
morally, nor politically can he be
acclimatized in the tropics." Still
quoting his language, they say again
that "a clearer insight into the laws
that have shaped the course of human
evolution must bring us to see
that the process which has gradually
developed the energy, enterprise, and
social efficiency of the race northward,
and which has left less richly
endowed in this respect the people
inhabiting the regions where the conditions
of life are easiest, is no passing
accident, nor the result of circumstances
changeable at will, but
part of the cosmic order of things
which we have no power to alter."
Whether Mr. Kidd recognizes the
odious significance of his captivating
speculation or not, it is certainly a
plea and an apology for slavery and
political despotism in the tropics.
Most welcome will it be to all those
nations and people of easy conscience
and measureless greed that now hold
in bondage of greater or less intensity
millions of the inhabitants of
that rich and splendid region. But
there is reason to believe that it must
be relegated to the limbo of a kindred
and popular superstition. Within
the past year much has been said
about the genius of the Anglo-Saxon
for freedom and the ethnic incapacity
of the Latins for that boon of
civilization. Even so great a scholar
as Guizot encourages this extraordinary
theory. Again and again does
he point out in his History of Civilization
how the spirit of freedom may
be traced to the Teutonic hordes that
swarmed the forests of Germany.
He does so despite the overwhelming
evidence against him to be found in
his own pages even. In apology for
his misinterpretation of social phenomena
there can be urged his ignorance
of the law of evolution and of
the hardly less important law of the
militant origin of despotism and the
pacific origin of freedom. No such
apology can, however, be made in behalf
of Mr. Kidd, or of any other
apostle of imperialism. Not only
have they at command all the generalizations
of social science, but all
the facts upon which those generalizations
are based, to prove that
neither climate nor race is a limitation
upon freedom.
If climate determined the character
of the political institutions of a
people, many questions would be suggested
at once that would be beyond
solution. Why, for instance, should
a certain freedom have existed in
Athens, and the most intolerable despotism
in Sparta? Again, why
should there be despotism in Russia
and Germany as well as in Morocco
and Egypt? Another series of questions
equally perplexing can be
raised. Why should there be more
freedom in England to-day than
six hundred or even one hundred
years ago? The climate has not
changed in the interval. Why
should the institutions of Spain in
the thirteenth century have been
more liberal than in the seventeenth?
Why was it that the freedom
that existed in Germany before
the Thirty Years' War had virtually
ceased to exist at the Peace of Westphalia?
Here also the climate had
not changed. Why, finally, was there
a reaction toward despotism in
France after the French Revolution,
in Germany after the disturbances
of 1848, in England after the Crimean
War, and in the United States
after the rebellion? The only satisfactory
answer to these questions is
to be found in the fact that militant
activities always lead to despotism,
and pacific activities always to freedom.
When people get into war, the
central power must exercise all the
authority over life and property essential
to success in battle. The impulse
thus given to despotism spreads
to every part of the social fabric.
When people are devoted to the pursuits
of peace, the forces that make
for freedom transform their ideas,
feelings, morals, and institutions,
political, industrial, and social.
Whether despotism exists, as Mr.
Kidd and his followers assume,
among all the indigenous populations
of the tropics, only a careful investigation
of the subject would permit
one to say. But that it must, as they
contend, always exist there, none of
the laws of social evolution gives the
slightest warrant. Wherever it does
exist, it had the same origin that it
had in England, and in obedience to
the same forces of peace and industry
that operated against it in that
country, it must pass away. The
struggles between clans and tribes
for the possession of desirable territory,
or for the capture of food or
slaves, or for the gratification of
predatory and belligerent instincts,
gave rise to the permanent chief, to
the ruling hierarchy, and to all the
other characteristics of a militant
society. The degree of heat or humidity
or the luxuriant vegetation of
the tropics had no more to do with
this political organization than the
degree of cold, or the dryness of the
atmosphere, or the comparative poverty
of the soil of some of the Western
States with the similar political
organization of the Indians that
roamed over them. None of these
physical characteristics can prevent
the play of those forces that drive
people eventually to the adoption of
that form of social organization that
will best promote their happiness.
As the social philosophy of evolution
shows, the social organization best
fitted for this purpose is the one
where the largest individual freedom
prevails. Since the abolition of
slavery and serfdom and many other
forms of despotism has been found
necessary for the best interests of
society in Europe, we have a right
to believe that the abolition of the
same forms of despotism will be
found necessary for the best interests
of society in the tropics.
It is true that in the tropics the
white man has found it uncomfortable
to work, and has often reduced
the indigenes to a kind of slavery.
But that either is inevitable and unavoidable
because of the laws of social
evolution, or any more than a
temporary reversion, there is no
reason for holding. Alfred Russel
Wallace, who spent twelve years in
the tropics, says in a recent article
that the white man can and does
work in every part of them. If he
does not work, it is simply for the
same reason that he does not work in
Europe or the United States—namely,
because he does not have to.
When, however, necessity lays its
heavy hands on him, driving him to
earn his living by the sweat of his
brow, he does it in the tropical region
quite as well as he does in the temperate.
That is shown particularly
in Queensland. But when natives
can be reduced to slavery the crime
is committed with slight compunction,
and defended on the same
ground that it was defended in the
South and elsewhere. The time
must come, however, as it came in
Brazil and in other countries where
slave labor was found too wasteful
and demoralizing, when it will be
displaced with free labor. The time
must come, too, when free institutions
will be found as essential under
the equator as farther north. Without
them social evolution can not
reach its highest point, nor man attain
to his greatest happiness, a state
that he is always seeking, no matter
where he lives.
Scientific Literature.
SPECIAL BOOKS.
The famous discovery in Java, by Dubois, of the skullcap, femur, and
two teeth in the upper Tertiary rocks has led to many interesting discussions,
among which was a paper read by Ernst Haeckel before the
International Congress of Zoölogists, held in Cambridge, England, last
year. In this paper Haeckel contended that in these remains we had at
last the long-sought-for missing link. This paper excited much interest,
which led to a request for its publication. The intelligent public, without
knowing much about the value of the osteological points under discussion,
were ready to grant that here indeed was the missing link, since
the highest authorities in science were divided in opinion as to whether
the remains belonged to a very low member of the human race or a very
high member of the manlike apes. The conclusion would naturally follow
that it made but little difference whether the remains proved to be those of
man or monkey, as here was a creature so intermediate in structure that
it stood on the dividing line, so to speak. In this little book Haeckel presents
the old evidences as to the structural similarities between man and
the higher apes, and places the Java remains (Pithicanthropus erectus)
as the last link in the chain of descent. He also traces the ancestors of the
apes through the mammalian series down, step by step, to the lowest vertebrates,
and on through the invertebrates to the lowest forms of life. The
suggestions are in many cases hypothetical yet instructive, as showing the
possible lines of descent.
The unaccountable attitude of the distinguished Virchow in the presence
of these remains is in harmony with his uncompromising and, one might
say, unreasoning attitude in regard to the derivative theory. Haeckel shows
this up very clearly in the following, which we quote: "Virchow went to
the Leyden Congress with the set purpose of disproving that the bones
found by Dubois belonged to a creature which linked together apes and
man. First, he maintained that the skull was that of an ape, while the
thigh belonged to man. This insinuation was at once refuted by the expert
paleontologists, who declared that without the slightest doubt the bones
belonged to one and the same individual. Next, Virchow explained that
certain exostoses or growths observable on the thigh proved its human
nature, since only under careful treatment the patient could have healed
the original injury. Thereupon Professor Marsh, the celebrated paleontologist,
exhibited a number of thigh bones of wild monkeys which showed
similar exostoses, and had healed without hospital treatment. As a last
argument the Berlin pathologist declared that the deep constriction behind
the upper margin of the orbits proved that the skull was that of an ape, as
such never occurred in man. It so happened that a few weeks later Professor
Nehring, of Berlin, demonstrated exactly the same formation on a
human prehistoric skull received by him from Santos, in Brazil."
Mr. Russell expresses a hope that the review of some of the characteristics
of rivers given in one of the chapters of his Rivers of North America
may stimulate a desire in American students "to know more of the
many and varied charms of their native land." The study of rivers is an
alluring one, whether pursued upon the little local stream of one's neighborhood
or upon the grand rivers that form systems and determine geographical
districts; whether made with the assistance of a fishing-rod or
of a steamboat. It can not fail to be promoted by Mr. Russell's instructive
book, which the local student or the excursionist may consult with profit,
while the geographer and geologist will find it a convenient manual. A
river, when we come to think of it, means a great deal. Economically, it
is the most valuable topographical feature a country can possess; geologically
and geographically, it is a result of prominent features of the earth's
structure, and is the cause of modifications in its surface which in time
may revolutionize the topographical conditions and produce climatic and
physical changes. All these characteristics of rivers are systematically and
comprehensively set forth in Mr. Russell's book, where the life-history of
the stream is presented, from its beginning in a little mountain torrent
or hillside rill, through its course as it descends to the plain, wearing and
tearing and deepening its channel. In the plain its character and action
are modified under the new conditions in which it finds itself, and gradually,
as it approaches its mouth, it deposits, whereas it had torn away at its beginning,
and shows contrasts quite as marked as those between youth and
old age. Rivers have their growth in time, too, and a stream that has been
carrying on its work for long ages presents different characteristics
throughout its course from one that comes fresh to its task, and these differences
are pointed out. We are told, too, how rivers grow, drawing new
affluents to themselves and extending their sources backward, and how
when the sources of streams on different sides of a watershed approach
on the summit, there is a struggle for the mastery. These are only a few
of the new suggestions which the book offers us. Coming to the more
matter-of-fact details, the laws governing streams and their course; the
influence of inequalities and the hardness of rocks, especially on riverside
scenery; and the office of rivers as carriers of material in suspension
and in solution, are considered; then their deposits, under various heads
and aspects, and the effects of changes in the elevation of the land, of
variations in the load of material and of changes of climate upon them; the
origin and characteristics of stream terraces and stream development, the
topics concerning which are too many and varied to bear more than a
passing reference. The more salient characteristics of American rivers
are discussed as to the nine drainage slopes—the Atlantic, St. Lawrence,
Hudson Bay, Arctic, Bering, Pacific, Great Basin, Gulf, and Caribbean—each
slope presenting its own general characteristics, with varieties in
detail almost as numerous as the rivers. The whole is briefly summarized
in the last chapter, The Life History of a River. We have given merely
the tamest inventory of only a part of the topics of Mr. Russell's book. As
the subject is treated by the author with careful attention to specific features,
as the magnitude of our river systems is indicated, and as rivers with
different or contrasting characteristics—the St. Lawrence and the Colorado,
for example—are compared with one another, the subject takes on an
aspect that is really grand.
GENERAL NOTICES.
An unfulfilled intention entertained
by two successive prosectors of the London
Zoölogical Society—the late Professor
Garrod and the late W. A. Forbes—of
writing a treatise on bird anatomy,
is carried out in the present work
by their successor, Frank E. Beddard.
Professor Garrod had nearly completed
an account of the Anatomy of the Fowl,
which was to be followed by a presentation
of the anatomical characters of
the different groups. Professor Forbes
died before he was able to add anything
to the manuscripts left by Professor
Garrod. In the instance of the present
work the detailed account of Gallus,
with which Professor Garrod intended
to preface his book, has been rendered
unnecessary by Dr. Shufeldt's monograph
on the Raven, dealing with one
particular bird type. Accepting this as
a sufficient presentation of that feature
of the subject, Mr. Beddard begins with
a general sketch of bird structure, purposely
avoiding histological detail and
the elaborate description of anatomical
facts, which in the present state of our
knowledge are not of great use in classification.
The main part of the book is
the account of the structure of the different
groups of birds, which is treated
of to a considerable extent; and a large
number of facts, some of which are recorded
for the first time, are incorporated
in the systematic part of the book.
While all the principal facts pertaining
to the subject are believed to have been
given, and nothing of importance to
have been left out, references are made
in each section to most of the memoirs
already published. The majority of
the facts of bird structure have been
verified by the author, especially those
relating to osteology and anatomy, and
he has drawn liberally on the notebooks
of his two predecessors. The book gives
first an account of the general structure
of birds; next of the reproductive
and renal organs, the circulatory, respiratory,
and muscular systems, osteology,
brain and nervous system, and
affinities of birds, and, finally, the classification.
Bush Fruits is the first of a proposed
series of monographs on the various
types of American fruits, to be published
under the editorial direction of
Prof. L. H. Bailey. Its purpose is to
present both the practical and the technical
phases of all the important questions
concerned in the cultivation and
domestication of the fruits that grow
on bushes; and the attempt is made to
present these two sides separate from
the details of history, botany, and entomology,
so that the practical reader
may be introduced at once to the information
he is seeking. The aim is
made to treat general truths and principles
rather than mere details of practice,
leaving the reader to think out
and solve the local problems for himself.
The author, Mr. F. W. Card, who
presented the work originally as a Cornell
University thesis, was first a bush-grower,
and then a student and teacher,
acquiring first the practice and then the
theory. The fruits treated of are raspberries,
blackberries, dewberries, currants,
gooseberries, buffalo berry,
gounie, huckleberries, Juneberries, the
cranberry, barberry, and sand cherry—all,
as to their important types, except
the currants, evolutions from the species
of our own woods. A useful list
of American books on bush fruits is
given in the appendix.
The History of the World, from the
Earliest Historical Time to the Year
1898, is the latest addition to the Concise
Knowledge Library, "a series of
volumes on great subjects, containing
in an abridged form a wealth of exact
information which can be thoroughly
relied upon by the student, and yet of
such a popular character as to meet the
needs of the general reader." This compact
volume of 790 pages presents a
complete survey of the world's history.
After a brief introduction describing
the various races that have furthered
civilization, ancient history proper begins
with the Egyptians, the people of
whom we possess the earliest records,
and who were the first to emerge out of
the darkness of prehistoric times. Closely
connected with them, both by racial
affinities and political ties, were the
other great empires in the southwestern
part of Asia that one after the other
rose, flourished, and fell into decay. The
interesting part of the book here is the
constant reference to the familiar facts
of the Bible, the connection of the
known with the unknown. The rise and
development of Greece and Rome, following
in due course, bring us down to the
middle ages. Mediæval history has for
its stage Europe, and for its argument
the upbuilding of the states on
which our modern political institutions
rest. Modern history, dating from the
discovery of America, then turns the
eyes of the nations westward, to found
empires beyond the sea. Nor is the
East forgotten. Asia, the cradle of
man, and Africa, where he first rose
into consciousness of himself and recorded
his deeds, again claim the historian's
attention. But now it is China
and Japan on the one continent, and
the conquests and colonies of the Europeans
on the other. Neither is the
country youngest in civilization, Australasia,
passed by. And the history of
all these countries, whether east or west,
is brought down to date. Even our recent
war with Spain is briefly told. Indeed,
the value of the book as a work of
reference lies in the fact that it encompasses
all the world's history, giving in
compact, handy form the chief data in
the progress of the human race, that
otherwise must be sought for in a dozen
different places. Another valuable feature
of the book, attainable only on the
plan of rigid selection of salient points,
is the connection between the different
peoples. Their interdependence, the
sequence of their appearance on the
stage of action, and their decline, are
most vividly realized in such a bird's-eye
view. The book has maps and a full
index.
The essays comprised in Mr. William
M. Bryant's volume entitled Life,
Death, and Immortality, and Kindred
Essays have developed, as he expresses
it, one by one during a number
of years past. The term developed is
a happy one, for the papers were certainly
not made to order, but read like
results of systematic, continuous thinking.
They concern the religious aspect
of human nature. The author thinks
that negative criticism has for the time
being exhausted its resources, and the
time has come for further positive interpretation
of the fundamental conceptions
of the Christian doctrine as to
man's nature and destiny. A reference
to a few of the points in the first essay,
which gives the title to the book, will
afford a view of the author's method.
Men of science are constantly insisting
that the total quantity of energy is
changeless, and nothing can be added to
it and nothing taken away. What are
the "total quantity of energy" and the
"great first cause" but the same, to the
activity of which is due every phase
of reality? This being changeless, it
could not at some period "have created
a world and afterward left it to
spin on of its own accord 'without interference.'"
Mind is a form of energy,
consequently indestructible and undying,
and the question of immortality is
reduced to the form "whether in respect
of man's essential nature as a
thinking unit, death can ever be more
than transition from one to another
grade of life." Other essays are on
Oriental Religions, Church Organization,
The Heresy of Non-Progressive
Orthodoxy, Christian Ethics and those
of other religions, and Eternity.
Professor Merriman's Elements of
Sanitary Engineering is a thoroughly
practical treatise setting forth the principal
rules and laws relating to sanitation,
both individual and municipal,
as it is practiced to-day. A brief historical
introduction is followed by a
classification of diseases, and a general
consideration of such questions as
filth and disease, impure air and disease,
drinking water and disease, etc.
The second chapter takes up the question
of the purification of water. Chapter
III discusses the practical aspects,
for a municipality, of water-supply systems.
Consumption of water, capacity
of storage reservoirs, pipe lines, pumping
engines, tanks and stand pipes and
street mains are among the special
headings. Sewerage systems are next
dealt with. A discussion of questions
connected with the disposal of garbage
and sewage forms the fifth and last
chapter of the book. An item which
adds value to the volume is the series of
exercises and problems, practically applying
the laws set forth, which follows
each chapter.
An Epitome of Human Histology
has been written by Mr. Weysse to
meet the difficulty in which the conscientious
student of microscopic anatomy
is placed who finds himself in possession
of a great many isolated facts
about the minute structure of the body,
but with rather an indefinite conception
of the relation of those facts to one another
and of the subject as a whole. In
the writing the author has sought to
present all the facts that are of real
importance to the student; to express
them in the briefest and clearest language,
omitting whatever is not strictly
required; and to arrange them in such
a way that the reader, in considering
any organ, may, if he will, actually
sketch each part as he proceeds, and
thus make a diagrammatic plan or picture
of the entire structure. The book
is not for idle students, but for serious
ones, and it is not a text-book or intended
to take the place of one; and it
can serve its true purpose only when
used by students who have had laboratory
practice as well as lectures in histology,
and have thus examined the
actual structures.
In his work on Elementary Botany,
Professor Atkinson introduces the
method which he has found successful
in teaching beginners. Many of the
newer botanical text-books, in reacting
against the plan of presenting first the
higher types of plant life, overwhelm
the student not only with a multitude
of unfamiliar forms, but demand from
him powers of comparison and analysis
that are generally the result of much
scientific discipline. In this book the
pupil receives some preliminary guidance
in habits of correct induction. By
studying the processes of transpiration,
nutrition, growth, and irritability in
plants belonging to higher as well as
lower groups, he learns the universality
of these life principles, and is led to see
the foundations for sound generalization.
This the author considers vastly
more important than the knowledge of
individual plants. The student, however,
in this investigation becomes acquainted
with special forms among the
lower plants, and is thus prepared to
take up morphology systematically.
This topic begins with the study of
Spirogyra, and ends with an outline of
twenty lessons in the angiosperms.
The final third of the book is devoted to
ecology, the study of plants in their
natural surroundings and of their modifying
factors—climate, soil, topography,
etc. The illustrations, which are above
the average throughout the work, are
in this division exceedingly good. The
descriptive text of the same section is
entertaining enough to be used as a
class reader, and would interest those
unfamiliar with botany. There are
several slight errors to be corrected in
a future edition. In the table of measures
a kilometre is made to equal one
hundred instead of one thousand metres,
and the references to plates are occasionally
wrong. On page 345 the reference
should be 449, and on page 349
should be 458 in place of 457. In describing
pollination of the skunk cabbage,
the words "rub off" are ambiguous.
The uninitiated might suppose
that the insect obtained pollen from the
stigmas instead of depositing it there.
The book is not intended for recitation,
but for reference and as a guide in
study. It is supplied with an appendix
upon the collection and preservation of
material, and an index.
A notice of a book of this nature
is justified in this column, since it contains
much that will be of interest to
the student of ethnology, folklore, and
cognate subjects. It is interesting to
get a glimpse of matters pertaining to
social customs, ways of thinking, and
the occurrences which animated these
ways among the Japanese a thousand
and more years ago. The author says,
"It is a remarkable and, I believe, an
unexampled fact that a very large and
important part of the best literature
which Japan has produced was written
by women."
The preparation of his Elementary
Text-Book of Botany was undertaken
by Mr. Vines to meet a demand which
appeared to exist for a less bulky and
expensive volume than his Students'
Text-Book. A more important feature
than the diminution of the bulk is
claimed in the simplification which the
contents have undergone from the omission
of certain difficult and still debatable
topics. The usual divisions into
morphology, anatomy, physiology, and
systematic botany are followed; but
the caution is appended that it must
not be forgotten that these are all
parts of one subject, different methods
of studying one object—the plant.
Hence they must be pursued together.
"For instance, the morphology of the
leaf can not be profitably studied without
a knowledge of its structure and
functions; and it is also important to
know what is the systematic position
of each of the various plants whose
leaves afford the material for study. In
a word, the student should not attempt
to read the book straight through from
the beginning as if it were a novel. On
the contrary, he may begin with any
one of the four parts as his main subject;
but that part must be studied in
close relation with the other three
parts"; and this method of proceeding
is facilitated by the insertion of a large
number of cross-references in the text.
A satisfactory account is given by
C. Francis Jenkins in Animated Pictures
of the development and present
state of chronophotography, or the art
of "conveying by persistence of vision
a counterfeit impression of objects in
motion through the display in rapid
succession of a series of related pictures."
The story shows very clearly
that this, like most other inventions
of consequence, is no sudden discovery,
but is the culmination of a very long
series of experiments. The principle of
it is embodied in the toy, the zoetrope,
the origin of which is not known,
though a citation from Lucretius indicates
that something of the kind existed
in his time. With the discovery
of instantaneous photography, a new
application of the principle of the zoetrope
was found. Muybridge and
Marey were pioneers in this development
with their photographs of the motions
of animals valuable in sciences.
Since their work was begun the photographic
processes and apparatus have
been greatly improved. Mr. Jenkins
forecasts a brilliant and useful future
for the art, which he hopes will be prosecuted
along the line of other than its
present most popular uses. The book
is practical as well as historical and
prophetic, and contains an account of
Mr. Jenkins's phantoscope as the first
successful "moving picture projecting
apparatus," for which he received the
Elliott Cresson medal from the Franklin
Institute.
The Metric System of Weights and
Measures, prepared by Mr. A. D. Risteen,
and published by the Hartford Steam-Boiler
Inspection Company, Hartford,
Connecticut (price, $1.25), gives what
has long been wanted—a neat volume,
convenient for the pocket and durably
bound, furnishing tables for instantly
converting all the metrical units up to
one hundred of each into those of the
English weights and measures, and vice
versa. Calculation, being needed only
for the numbers above one hundred, for
which there are already short devices, is
reduced to the lowest possible limit.
Terrestrial Magnetism, an international
quarterly journal, edited by L. A.
Bauer and Thomas French, Jr., and
published at the University of Cincinnati,
is the recognized organ of the International
Conference on Terrestrial
Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity.
The September number, 1898, contains
the proceedings of the conference,
which met in connection with the last
Bristol meeting of the British Association.
It contains in full the welcoming
address of Prof. W. E. Ayrton, the opening
address of A. W. Rücker, president
of the conference, and ten of the papers
read at the meeting.
The name of Prof. John Trowbridge
as author of such a book as Philip's
Experiments; or, Physical Science
at Home (D. Appleton and Company,
$1) is a sure guarantee of its scientific
value. The author has given a
chapter substantially out of his own experience,
for he says his taste for science
and for drawing were stimulated
by his father in the manner here described.
His object in publishing it is
"to show that a few moments devoted
each day at home to simple investigations
can result in habits of self-reliance
in the acquirement of a modern language
and in the study of the art of
drawing." He endeavors also to show
how to cultivate a taste for mathematics
by studying practical problems
in surveying and in sailing a boat; and
how much a parent can accomplish in
the formation of a son's tastes without
special knowledge, and without the expenditure
of much time and money.
The account is in the form of letters
from the father to a friend, describing
his experiments with his son Philip in
this method of teaching. He has always
cultivated fellowship with the
boy; and, finding him inclined to improve
and add to the designs on the
wall-paper, puts objects to be drawn
and copied in his way, and induces him
to go out and draw from Nature. So
the boy learns to study forms and observe.
To teach language he gives him
regularly the daily German newspaper,
to pick out what he can from it, and
joins him in the sport. In a similar
way he introduces Philip to surveying
and physics, and other branches of science.
The plan is a success; Philip
attracts attention by the ingenuity
which his training has enabled him to
develop, and going to college is graduated
with credit and in possession of a
live as well as a book knowledge of
what he has studied.
In The Story of the English (American
Book Company) the more prominent
facts of English history from the
beginning to the present time are related
by H. A. Guerber in simple, brief
narratives. A commendable feature of
the book is the insistence in the preface
of the essential oneness of the English
and American people—an idea that can
hardly be too sedulously cultivated.
The author's principal object has been
to render pupils so familiar with the
prominent characters of English history
that they shall henceforth seem like old
acquaintances, and, in addition, to
make the story attractive; but it is a
fact to be regretted that he has regarded
the growth of English law and liberty
and the changes in religion as too unintelligible
and uninteresting to be
more than touched upon "very briefly
and in the most simple way." The
growth of law and liberty are the very
things that it is most important to fix
the attention of children upon, and it
is only because they have suffered comparative
neglect in the education of
teachers in favor of stories of war and
intrigue that they are not the most intelligible
and interesting branch of the
subject.
Prof. Francis E. Nipher, of Washington
University, having been called
upon to present a paper to an educational
convention on the Greater Efficiency
of Science Instruction, undertook
to show how such changes as were
adapted to promote that end might be
accomplished without radical departures
from present methods; and the
Introduction to Graphical Algebra
(Henry Holt & Co., New York, 60
cents) is the result of that effort. The
author believes that the study of algebra
and geometry as distinct subjects
having no relation to each other gives
the pupil a false idea of the intellectual
situation of to-day; that by injecting
here and there into the ordinary instruction
in algebra such material as is
found in his book, new meaning will
be given to the operations involved in
the solution of equations, and new interest
in the subject may be aroused;
and that as scientific investigators are
making much use of other methods
than Euclid's, while the study of his
geometry should not be banished from
our schools, some of the time given to
it might be usefully spent in elementary
analytical geometry or graphical algebra.
The treatise is brief and convenient
in size and composed in clear language.
The New Man, a Chronicle of the
Modern Time (Philadelphia: The Levytype
Company), is a story written by
Ellis Paxson Oberholzer with reference
to that expansion of women's education
and sphere of action which is suggested
by the phrase "the new woman."
In it "the new woman is developed
to her logical conclusion, and the
new man as he must needs become under
the reaction of her influence," and
it deals with "men and women imbued
with the modern university spirit,
whose emotional natures are developed
under the scientific impulse of our
time, and whose thoughts and actions
reflect that impulse in the midst of all
the varied realities of our modern life."
Armageddon (Rand, McNally &
Co.), to the plot of which the author's
name of Stanley Waterloo seems curiously
appropriate, is possibly a specimen
of a class of literature to which we
are likely to be treated in abundance
for a few years to come. The spoliation
of the Spanish Egyptians by the Americans
having come to a halt with the
gain of Puerto Rico and the Philippines,
the great Anglo-American alliance enters
upon the view and is made a fact,
though informally. The two nations
together build the Nicaragua Canal,
and are about to celebrate its completion,
when they are anticipated by the
precipitation of the war of the nations
through the simultaneous occurrence of
a number of slight international quarrels
in different parts of the world.
Germany, Russia, the Scandinavians,
and the Latins are pitted on one side,
and the British and Americans, assisted
by the British colonies and the Japanese,
on the other; and the battle of
the combined fleets occurs near the
Canaries. The hero of the story has invented
an air ship which carries terrible
explosives to be dropped from a great
height into the midst of the enemy.
This engine does its work at the decisive
moment, and then follows the
grab game of negotiations, in which
might rules, and Germany joins the
Anglo-Saxon alliance against the rest
of the world. Finally, the air-ship engine
of destruction has rendered war
henceforth forever impossible.
Mr. James Reid Cole, president of a
classical and military school at Dallas,
Texas, has published under the title of
Miscellany what is substantially a picture
or transcript of his own life. It
contains a variety of articles—literary
essays, school addresses, and even
schoolboy compositions—the chief interest
of which is to the author and his
close friends. Other papers, such as A
Bird's-eye View of Johnston's Surrender,
the sketches of the Life of Lieutenant
C. C. Cole, the Looking Backward
over the course of the author's own life,
and political and legislative speeches
may have a more general value as partial
reflections of the times to which
they relate, more intimate than are
usually to be derived from ordinary
sketches and histories.
The publications of the New York
Academy of Sciences now consist of
two series—the Annals (8vo) and the
Memoirs (4to). The Transactions, in
which the shorter papers and business
reports have hitherto appeared, are
abolished, and the matter appears in
the Annals. This publication, which
was begun in 1824, contains the scientific
contributions and reports of researches,
together with the reports of
meetings. The complete volumes will
hereafter coincide with the calendar
year. Vol. X, Nos. 1 to 12, contains
three papers by H. S. Davis and one
by Frank Schesinger based on the
Rutherfurd photographs of the stars;
The Nature and Origin of Stipules, by
A. A. Tyler, and an examination of the
Ascidian Half-Embryo, by H. E. Crampton,
Jr. Vol. XI, Part II, contains the
annual address of retiring President J.
J. Stevenson, February 28, 1898, on the
Debt of the World to Pure Science,
and six articles on special subjects in
biology.
The Commissioner of Labor was authorized
by Congress in 1895 to make
an investigation, so far as it could be
done within the limits of the regular
appropriations to his department, relative
to the economic aspects of the
liquor traffic. He interpreted such an
investigation to include the consideration
of monetary conditions; of the
agricultural and other products used in
the production of liquors; of the manufacture
of liquors as a distinct industry;
of transportation, consumption,
and the traffic in them; of the revenue
derived from them and the laws regulating
its collection; and of the experience
and practice of employers in relation
to the use of intoxicants. In some
of these phases of the subject the facts
were not separable from those relating
to other matters; in others, they were
to be found in the reports of other departments;
and original inquiry was
necessary only with reference to the last
three items of the category. The results
of this inquiry are given in the
Twelfth Annual Report of the Commissioner
of Labor, 1897, under the heading
of Economic Aspects of the Liquor
Problem.
A New Story of the Stars is an essay
in which A. W. Bickerton, professor of
chemistry and physics in Christ Church
College, New Zealand, sets forth a
theory of the origin of universes or of
parts of universes by impact. Nebulæ
already existing—but how existing we
are not informed—careering through
space, are supposed to collide, whereby
heat and light are developed. They
may meet in face, and would then
probably coalesce, but more likely the
impact would be a grazing one, when
three bodies would be produced; a portion,
or slice, as the author calls it, of
each of the colliding bodies would be
sheared off, forming an intensely hot
and bright new star, while the original
masses would go on their course, having
the parts that had been in contact
heated and made brilliant, so as to present
in their revolutions the aspect of
variable stars. The author's attention
was drawn to this subject by the appearance
of a new star in Cygnus in
1877. A little while afterward Nova
Aurigæ appeared, presenting exactly
the phenomena he had predicted. Professor
Bickerton writes as one who understands
his subject; there is nothing
in his speculations, so far as we have observed,
that grates harshly with known
facts, and it can be read, as he reads
it, to account plausibly for some of the
facts—just as can several other theories
of the formation of the universe which
are still only speculations. The problem
is yet far from comprehension, and is one
of the legacies which the nineteenth century
is destined to bequeath to the
twentieth. (Published at Christ Church,
New Zealand.)
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins
and Reports. Connecticut: Twenty-second
Annual Report, for 1898, Part I,
Fertilizers. Pp. 101.—Cornell University:
No. 163. Three Important Fungous Diseases
of the Sugar Beet. By B. M. Duggar.
Pp. 30; No. 164. Peach-Leaf Cure,
etc. By B. M. Duggar. Pp. 20.—Massachusetts
Agricultural College (Hatch Station):
No. 58. Manurial Requirements of
Crops. Pp 16.—New Jersey: No. 135. Poisonous
Plants. By Byron D. Halsted.
Pp. 28.—North Dakota Weather and Crop
Service, Fifth Annual Report. B. H.
Bronson, section director. Pp. 78; Monthly
Reports for October and November,
1898. Pp. 8 each.—Ohio: No. 96. The
Army Worm and Other Insects. By P.
M. Webster and C. W. Mally. Pp. 26;
No. 97. Some Diseases of Wheat and
Oats. By A. D. Selby. Pp. 32; No. 98.
Small Fruits. By W. J. Green. Pp. 146.—West
Virginia: No. 53. Commercial Fertilizers.
By J. H. Stewart and B. H. Hite.
Pp. 36.
American Asiatic Association, Journal
of the. Vol. I, No. 5. John Foord, editor.
Pp. 16.
Ayer, N. W., and Son. American Newspaper
Annual, 1899. Philadelphia. Pp.
1400.
Berea Quarterly, February, 1899. Berea
College, Kentucky. Pp. 28. 30 cents.
$1 a year.
Berry, Arthur. A Short History of Astronomy.
New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons (University Series). Pp. 440. $1.50.
Bradford, Gamaliel. The Lesson of
Popular Government. New York: The
Macmillan Company. 2 vols. Pp. 520
and 590. $4.
Brown, William Harvey. On the South
African Frontier. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons. Pp. 430, with map. $3.
Buckley, Arabella B. The Fairy-Land
of Science. New York: D. Appleton and
Company.
Clayton, C. Helm. Studies of Cyclonic
and Anti-Cyclonic Phenomena with Kites.
Blue Hill (Massachusetts) Meteorological
Observatory. Pp. 15, with plates.
Force, General Manning F. General
Sherman. New York: D. Appleton and
Company (Great Commanders Series).
Pp. 353.
Guignet, E., and Gamier, Edouard. La
Céramique, Ancienne et Modern (Ceramics,
Ancient and Modern). Paris: Félix
Alcan. (Bibliothèque Scientifique Internationale.)
Pp. 311. 6 francs.
Gellé, Le Dr. M. E. L'Audition et ses
Organes (Hearing and Its Organs). Paris:
Félix Alcan. (Bibliothèque Scientifique
Internationale.) Pp. 326. 6 francs.
Hancock, James Denton. The Louisiana
Purchase treated in its Relations to the
Constitution of the United States and the
Declaration of Independence. Pp. 8.
Herzberg, Henry. True versus False
Education. Pp. 20.
Hinsdale, Guy, M. D. Acromegaly.
Detroit: William M. Warren. Pp. 88.
$1.50.
International Correspondence School,
Scranton, Pennsylvania. Short Courses
in English Branches, Bookkeeping, Stenography,
and Mechanical and Ornamental
Drawing. Pp. 16.
Jacobs, Joseph. The Story of Geographical
Discovery. New York: D. Appleton
and Company. (Library of Useful
Stories.) Pp. 200. 40 cents.
Kingsley, Mary H. West African
Studies. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Pp. 633, with maps. $5.
Library Notes, Vol. IV, No. 16. Edited
by Melvil Dewey. Simplified Library
School Rules. Pp. 72. Quarterly. 50
cents. $1 a year.
Lille, Société Photographique de. Le
Nord Photographie. January, 1899. (Sixth
year.) Lille, France. Pp. 20.
Mason, William P. Examination of
Water (Chemical and Bacteriological).
New York: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 135.
$1.25.
Macalaster, The. Monthly. February,
1899. St. Paul, Minnesota, Macalaster
College. Pp. 32. 15 cents. $1 a year.
Parsons, Frances Theodora. How to
Know the Ferns. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons. Pp. 215. $1.50.
Rafinesque, C. S. Ichthyologia Ohioensis;
or, Natural History of the Fishes inhabiting
the River Ohio and its Tributary
Streams. A reprint of the original, with
life, etc. By R. Ellsworth Call. Cleveland,
Ohio: The Burrows Brothers Company.
Pp. 175. $4.
Reprints. Ashmead, Albert S., M. D.
No Evidence in America of Pre-Columbian
Leprosy. Pp. 10.—Grant, Sir James. The
Alimentary Canal and Human Decay In
Relation to the Neurons. Pp. 8.—Hopkins,
Thomas C. Clays and Clay Industries
of Pennsylvania; I, Clays of Western
Pennsylvania (in part). Pp. 183.—Howard,
L. O. The Economic Status of
Insects as a Class. Pp. 33.—Jackman,
Wilbur S. Constructive Work in the Common
Schools. Pp. 18.
Russell, Frank. Explorations in the
Far North. University of Iowa. Pp. 290.
Schiavone, Mario. Il Principio della
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Binaerostato (The Principle of the Horizontal
Dirigibility of Aërostats and the
Binaërostat). Potenza, Italy. Pp. 48.
Schubert, Hermann. Mathematical
Essays and Recreations. Translated by
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cents.
Scrutten, Percy E. Electricity in Town
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148. $1.
Sloyd Bulletin No. 2, March, 1899.
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Smithsonian Institution publications:
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686.—Bolton, H. C. A Select Bibliography
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Diplopoda of the Genus Pachybolus.
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Fragments of Science.
Death of Professor Marsh.—Othniel
C. Marsh, professor of paleontology
in Yale University, and curator
of the geological collection of that institution,
died of pneumonia at his
home in New Haven, Connecticut, March
18th. He had not been in good health
for several years, and succumbed to the
effects of a cold which he had caught
before wholly recovering from a previous
cold. A sketch of his life up to
that time, embracing the most active
parts of his career as a geological explorer,
in which he gained great renown,
was given, with a portrait, in the Popular
Science Monthly for September,
1878. During the period that has intervened
he made studies of the results
of his explorations and other geological
work, and published papers of
very high scientific value. About a
year ago he transferred his extensive
and famous collections at the Peabody
Museum to the university. These collections
were among the finest of their
kind in the world, and were especially
remarkable for their fossils of immense
animals exhumed from the Western
plains. They were greatly admired by
Professor Gaudry, the eminent French
geologist, who spoke of them in terms
of high praise in the Revue des Deux
Mondes of October 15, 1898. It was
through his efforts that the funds were
obtained from George Peabody, his
uncle, for the construction of the Peabody
Museum, a part of which has been
built. His health having apparently
improved for a few months previous to
his death, he had been working with
renewed activity at the museum, and
had recently written articles on paleontological
subjects. Having considerable
means of his own, he served the
university without salary, and carried
on his explorations mostly at his own
cost, paying large sums to assistants
and for other items in the work. He
left ten thousand dollars to the National
Academy of Sciences, of which he was
one of the founders and was for several
years president, and all of the rest
of his estate, estimated to be worth
nearly one hundred thousand dollars,
to Yale University.
Popular Co-operation in Health
Work.—In a review of A Quarter Century
of Public Health Work in Michigan,
Mr. Theodore R. MacClure, chief
clerk of the State Board of Health
office, says that experience in the State
has indicated that it is necessary to
have the co-operation of the people if
the dangerous communicable diseases
are to be restricted and prevented. In
order to accomplish this result, the
State Board of Health has published
leaflets relating to the modes of spreading
and the best methods for the restriction
and prevention of such diseases.
These leaflets have been printed
by tens of thousands, and whenever a
dangerous disease is reported to the
central office several copies of the leaflet
relating to the disease in question are
usually sent to the local health officer.
He is requested to place one of these instructive
publications with the family
where the disease exists, and a copy
with each neighbor of the infected premises.
The instruction comes at a time
when people are interested to know
about the disease in question, and in
this way their general co-operation is
sought and secured. Citizens are thus
educated and become familiar with
their duties in the premises, are taught
wherein the dangers lie and how to
avoid them, and are prompted by the
strongest considerations to do their part
in the matter.
Death of Prof. Oliver Marcy.—Dr.
Oliver Marcy, professor of natural
science in Northwestern University,
who died February 19th, in the eightieth
year of his age, was a native of
Coleraine, Massachusetts; was graduated
from Wesleyan University in 1846,
became teacher of mathematics in Wilbraham
Academy, Massachusetts, and
later professor of geology, etc., in that
institution. In 1862 he was appointed
professor of geology in Northwestern
University, Evanston, Illinois, but
taught in addition, at times, other
branches of science and even some
branches in other lines. He was twice
acting president of the university. In
conjunction with Prof. Alexander Winchell,
he prepared a monograph on Fossils
from the Niagara Limestone of
Chicago, which was read to the Boston
Society of Natural History. In 1866 he
was naturalist to a Government expedition
to the Bitter Root Mountains in
Idaho and Montana, in which he collected
scientific material, and of which
he published an account in 1867. He
wrote papers concerning the geology of
the shore of Lake Michigan and of the
region about Chicago; brought two fossil
trees found in the university grounds
to scientific notice; and contributed
considerably to geological publications.
He was curator to the natural history
collection of his university for nearly
thirty years. Two fossil species and a
mountain in Montana have been named
after him.
Which is the Fittest to Survive?—Prof.
A. W. Rücker spoke in his opening
address at the recent meeting of the
International Magnetic Conference in
Bristol, England, of what seems to be
a law of Nature, that the products of
an organism are fatal to itself; in accordance
with which, he said, pure science
is threatened by the very success
of its practical applications. The smoke
of our cities blots the stars from the
vision of the astronomer, and now the
science of terrestrial magnetism is
threatened by the artificial earth currents
of the electric railway. Prof. W.
E. Ayrton, in his welcoming address,
took another view of the subject and
answered the reference the electrical engineers
make to the principle of the
survival of the fittest when they are
told of the ruin their wires are bringing
upon magnetic observatories—"So
much the worse for the observatories"—"Can
the system of electric traction
that has already destroyed the two
most important magnetic observatories
in the United States and British North
America be the best and fittest to survive?
Again, do we take such care and
spend such vast sums in tending the
weak and nursing the sick because we
are convinced that they are the fittest
to survive? May it not be perhaps because
we have an inherent doubt about
the justice of the survival of the strongest,
or perhaps because even the strongest
of us feels compelled modestly to
confess his inability to pick out the fittest,
that modern civilization encourages,
not the destruction but the preservation
of what has obvious weakness,
on the chance that it may have unseen
strength? When the electrical engineer
feels himself full of pride at the
greatness, the importance, and the power
of his industry, and when he is inclined
to think slightingly of the deflection of
a little magnet compared with the whirl
of his one-thousand-horse-power dynamo,
let him go and visit a certain dark
storeroom near the entrance hall of the
Royal Institution, and while he looks
at some little coils there, ponder on the
blaze of light that has been shed over
the whole world from the dimly lighted
cupboard in which these coils now lie.
Then he may realize that while the
earth as a magnet has endured for all
time, the earth as a tramway conductor
may at no distant date be relegated to
the class of temporary makeshifts, and
that the raids of the feudal baron into
the agricultural fields of his neighbors
were not more barbarous than the
alarms and excursions of the tramway
engineer into the magnetic fields of his
friends."
Teaching the Teachers.—The following
suggestive paragraph is taken
from the inaugural address of William
Henry Preece, president of the British
Institution of Civil Engineers: "Our
educational methods have begun at the
wrong end. We ought to teach the
masters first and then the men. Moreover,
we have to teach the teachers and
those who have control of the purse-strings.
The County Councils of England
are scarcely qualified as yet to
discharge the very serious duty of
properly dealing with a question so few
of them understand—though many of
them have tackled the matter manfully,
especially the London County Council,
through its Technical Education Board,
on which a large proportion of co-opted
experts have seats, who, by supporting
existing institutions, have contributed
toward the supply of teachers. But
how are we to approach the masters?
A fault once discovered is halfway to
repair. It is difficult to remove the
scales from the eyes of the man who has
been successful in business and knows
not of his blindness; but the coming
generation will be more enlightened,
and the future masters better educated.
We are suffering from a lack of competent
teachers. A teacher who has
had no training in the practical world
is worse than useless, for he imparts
ideas derived from his inner consciousness
or from the false teaching of his
own abstract professor, which lead to
mischief. In my own experience I have
met with very serious inconveniences
from this cause. The ideal professor of
pure abstract science is a very charming
personage, but he is a very arrogant
and dogmatic individual, and, being a
sort of little monarch in his own laboratory
and lecture room, surrounded by
devoted subjects, his word is law, and
he regards the world at large, especially
the practical world, as outside his domain
and beneath his notice. He is
generally behind the age. These are
not the men for technical institutes.
Such teachers should possess the diploma
of this institution."
The People of India and the Missionaries.—In
the light of three
months' special observation, J. T. Sunderland
has reviewed in the New World
Magazine the prospects of the success
of Christian missions in India. There
are several causes that hinder their
progress, among which the author mentions
as more important the number
of Christian sects and denominations;
the character of the doctrines preached,
in that in many aspects they do not
appeal to Hindu or Mohammedan faith
or modes of thought, and in some contradict
them, and as to those points are
a serious hindrance to the progress of
Christianity; and the vices of many
Europeans, creating a prejudice against
their professed religion that is not
wholly contradicted by the testimonies
and examples of the missionaries and
men of nobler stamp. To the last objection
the answer is easy, though it
may not always be convincing, that
these wicked men sin not because they
are natural products of Christianity,
but because they disobey it. A strong
factor in disarming prejudice against
Christianity and winning favor for it
is the fact that through it, directly or
indirectly, certain very important kinds
of good are coming to India—education,
schools, books, science, invention. The
contact of India with Christian lands,
civilization, thought, and life, is steadily
telling upon Indian thought. Further,
"it is to be said to the honor of
all the Protestant missions of India, at
least, of whatever name, that they are
helping, instructing, and lifting up the
lower classes, and offering them hopes
and prospects such as they could not
have had under their old faiths. This
is much, very much." The very presence
of the missionary in a community
is likely to be an enlightening influence.
He is a man of more than common
education, and "has brought with
him to India something of the thought,
the culture, the ideals of life, the habits
and customs of the Western world. He
introduces higher standards of living.
He gives his influence in favor of better
public sanitation, better homes for the
people, better streets and public buildings,
better public improvements generally.
His home and family life, in
which the wife receives the same consideration
as her husband, and the
daughters are educated with the same
care as the sons, becomes a valuable
object lesson in the community where
he dwells." The missions as a whole
are regarded by the author as an important
factor in a great religious
evolution. The precise form and direction
which this evolution will take
seem to be a matter yet to be determined.
Weeds under Cultivation.—For
several years past the botanical department
of Michigan Agricultural College
has maintained a "weed garden," and
has grown a hundred or more species
of the most troublesome weeds in plots.
Some curious results from the experiments
are recorded by Prof. W. J. Beal
in a paper read at the meeting, 1897,
of the Society for the Promotion of
Agricultural Science. The most vigorous
and aggressive weeds seem to take
on under cultivation the weakness and
capriciousness of delicate cultivated
plants. "It is very instructive," Professor
Beal says, "to note how much
better many of these plants thrive when
they get away from the spot where they
have been confined for from two to several
years. Seedlings of Jamestown
weed were larger in the plantain bed
than in their own. After three years
the plantain nearly ran out and Amaranthus
albus entirely disappeared. One
species of pigweed grew finely for two
years, but afterward made a small display;
and another variety did not seem
very persistent for a plant that ranked
among the weeds, but shied off from its
home ground 'as if searching for fresh
fields.' Barnyard grass (Panicum crusgalli)
behaved like pigweed, and 'needed
considerable attention.' The little
round-leaved mallow, which roots deeply
about rubbish piles in mellow soil,
was grown of respectable proportions
in the garden with considerable difficulty,
and with no more ease in the bottom
lands of other parts of the botanic
garden. Considerable pains is required
every year to keep on hand even fairly
well-grown specimens of mullein. Knotgrass,
which thrives with abuse and
seems to enjoy trampling by feet, was
grown with difficulty in the plots. 'Insects
prey upon it; rust causes it to
dwindle and disappear.' 'Motherwort
grows rank four feet high near the barnyard
fence, and the flowers are covered
with bees, but when kept several years
in the same bed it goes off into the
sulks as though neglected.' Shepherd's
purse is often disturbed by a parasitic
fungus, and it is difficult to grow nice
plants long in the same place. Cocklebur,
if found long in the same spot, is
troubled sadly with a mildew, and
more recently also with a rust."
Operations against Woodchucks.—Prof.
F. H. Storer records in the Bulletin
of the Bussey Institution, Harvard
University, the results of his experiments
in the destruction of woodchucks,
which, besides being very injurious
to lands he had under cultivation,
appeared to be increasing.
Smothering by a volatile liquid driven
into the burrow has been suggested by
Professor Hilgard, who recommends bisulphide
of carbon. Professor Bussey
finds that liquid not wholly satisfactory
and liable to objections, and prefers
a preparation of naphtha or other
volatile liquid. In any event, some device
seems to be needed for forcing a
considerable quantity of the vapor into
the very end of the burrow. Poisons
are dangerous because of the probability
that the animal would bring the
food on which they are placed to the
mouth of the burrow for eating, where
children or useful animals might get it.
While experimenting with burning Cayenne
pepper or sulphur on touch paper,
in order to smoke out the burrows, the
author became acquainted with the
"woodchuck torches" of Mr. B. M.
Wedger, of Roslindale, Massachusetts.
These consist of nitrate of soda, sulphur,
mealed gunpowder, and sulphide of antimony,
so packed into a tube like a
Roman candle that on burning the fuse
the vapors would be forced by great
pressure to the farthest recesses of the
burrow. They proved effectual, and it
was indeed rare that any woodchuck
to which they were applied ever reported
himself again. Professor Storer
also describes some experiments he
made in burning sulphur in the burrows,
with special expedients for insuring
more rapid and perfect combustion
of the sulphur; these promised fairly
well. Mr. Henry Stewart has described
in the Country Gentleman an effectual
method of destroying woodchucks with
blasting powder or dynamite.
Evolution in Lamps.—The story
of lamps from Herodotus down to 1830,
Mr. Henry C. Mercer says, in an instructive
study on Light and Light Making
in the contributions of the Bucks County
(Pa.) Historical Society, is not one
of development. In principle and form
they remain the same, whether as the
tin cylindrical or boat-shaped cups on
candlestick pedestals and the round tin
cups with hemispherical lids, or the lidless
cups resting on wooden stands such
as were recently rescued by the author
from the garret rubbish of old Bucks
County. And before Herodotus, as we
follow the lamp back into the tombs of
the Old World, we find the boat-shaped
form of earthenware preceding the boat-shaped
form of iron and possibly even
that of bronze. The chalk-cup lamp
found by Canon Greenwell in the neolithic
flint mines at Grimes Graves, England,
perhaps the oldest wick-floating
lamp in the world, is not essentially different
from the oyster shell filled with
lard and provided with wicks that may
be found among Virginia negroes to-day.
The Egyptian, Grecian, Phœnician,
and Roman lamps, as they have
been found in the tombs and as we see
them in the museums, are not unlike
the lard lamps that were most in use
early in the nineteenth century. Then
crude grease gave way to sperm oil and
lard oil, with especial adaptations of
the lamps that made them more convenient
and improved the light; and
burning fluids that were convenient and
clean and gave a brilliant light, but
were dangerous; and kerosene, with
other improvements in the lamps and
refinements in the oil that enabled it to
give the most perfect artificial light yet
found and to keep up the fight for
quality with gas and electricity—all
these having come in within the life-time
of men still among us. Besides
the old lamps, our ancestors had candles,
molded when the price of tin, the
material for the molds, did not forbid
the luxury, and before them tallow
dips; a suspended wick was dipped into
a pot of hot tallow, on a cold day, and
the operation was repeated till layer
after layer of grease hardened, and the
candle was thick enough. These candles
were, however, troublesome in hot
weather, on account of their propensity
to yield to the temperature and fall
over. "Who shall say, however, that
candle-dipping is older than molding,
when we know ... that they molded
candles in County Galway, Ireland, in
late years by punching holes in peat
and pouring in tallow on the down-hung
wick of twisted flax fiber?" The
Irish had, too, as had the negroes, the
rush light, a greased rush set in a hole
in a wooden block serving as a candlestick;
or rushes joined in a triple twist
which flies apart when lighted, increasing
the blaze. From this Mr. Mercer
passes to forms of candlesticks and
torches and cressets and methods of
producing fire, whither we can not follow
him, for the multitude of details he
notices, which will not bear abstracting.
Inconsistent Philozoists.—In his
address at the opening of the physiological
and pathological laboratories at
Belfast, Ireland, Lord Lister took occasion
to give some illustrations, drawn
from practice, of the value of pathological
research. "There are people," he
said, "who do not object to eating a
mutton chop—people who do not even
object to shooting a pheasant with a
considerable chance that it may be
only wounded and may have to die after
lingering in pain, unable to obtain its
proper nutriment—and yet who consider
it something monstrous to introduce
under the skin of a guinea-pig a
little inoculation of some microbe to
ascertain its action. These seem to
me to be most inconsistent views. If
these experiments upon the lower animals
were made for the mere sport of
the thing, they would be indeed to be
deprecated and decried; but if they are
made with the wholly noble object of
not only increasing human knowledge,
but also of diminishing human suffering,
then I hold that such investigations
are deserving of all praise. Those
little know who lightly speak on these
matters how much self-denial is required
in the prosecution of such researches
when they are conducted, as
indeed they always are, as far as I am
aware, with the object of establishing
new truth."
The Ruins of Xkichmook, Yucatan.—The
group of ruins in Yucatan
called Xkichmook was discovered by
Mr. Edward H. Thompson in 1888,
when he read a paper before the American
Antiquarian Society embodying his
first impressions of it. He has since
made studies of it extending over a period
of seven years. The group is about
one hundred and forty miles south of
Merida and forty or fifty miles east of
Campeche, situated in a narrow valley
between a series of rocky hills, and has
to be approached by precipitous paths
over the hillsides, and thence down the
beds of dry arroyos whose yearly
freshets wash away all vegetation. Ten
buildings, including one called the Palace,
and two mounds were explored,
and some miscellaneous excavations
were made—all of which are described
in the author's paper (Field Columbian
Museum), with figures of the buildings
and objects. Pottery and flaked stone
implements were plentiful, but polished
implements and specimens of sculpture
were exceedingly rare. The flat under
surfaces of the ceiling stones of the
vaulted chambers seem to have contained
very elaborate designs; in another
chamber portions of a painting
were still partly preserved; in another,
curious drawings or glyphs in strong
black lines once existed; in another was
a painted human figure, of which only
the flowing headdress, a portion of the
face, and certain devices issuing from
the mouth and probably indicating
speech, now remain. The mysterious
red hand was found painted in various
places, and in one a human hand in
blue pigment was found, the impression
of which was so fresh and perfect in
places that even the minute lines of the
skin were visible. In ten years of investigation
among the ruins of Yucatan
and Campeche not as many specimens
of worked obsidian were found as
could be picked up in half an hour
among certain Mexican ruins; but
traces of ancient fabrication of flint implements
were more plentiful than anywhere
else.
The Seventeen-Year and the
Thirteen-Year Locusts.—The periodical
cicada, or seventeen-year locust,
as it is called, is distinctly American,
and has the longest life period of any
known insect. It is especially remarkable,
Mr. C. L. Marlatt observes in his
memoir upon it, in its adolescent period,
the features of particular divergence
from other insects being its long subterranean
life of thirteen or seventeen years,
and the perfect regularity with which
at the end of these periods every generation,
though numbering millions of
individuals, attains maturity almost at
the same moment. At this moment the
brood issue from the ground, leaving
innumerable exit holes, and swarm over
trees and shrubs, filling the air with
their strident calls, and laying their
eggs in slits which they cut in the trees.
The larvæ, when hatched, fall to the
ground, and quickly burrow out of
sight, each "forming for itself a little
subterranean chamber over some rootlet,
where it remains through winter
and summer, buried from sun, light,
and air, and protected in a manner from
cold and frost.... It lives thus alone
in its moist earthen chamber," rarely
changing its position unless some accident
to the nourishing rootlet may necessitate
its seeking another, passing
the thirteen or seventeen years of its
hypogeal existence in slow growth and
preparation for a few weeks only of
winged life in the air and light. Other
cicadas appear every year, usually in
comparatively small numbers. They
are probably equally long in maturing,
but the periods of their lives have from
some cause or another been cast in
"off" years. The thirteen-year broods
are southern, and the shortening of their
periods of development may possibly be
accounted for by the longer season of
warmth in the southern year giving
them the number of hours or of aggregate
degrees of warmth in thirteen
years that the more northern broods
can not receive in less than seventeen
years. This, however, is only speculation,
and there are difficulties in applying
the supposition to make it fit all the
facts; and many believe that the two
races are specifically different. The
late Prof. Charles V. Riley distinguished
twenty-two different broods of
cicadas in the United States, seven of
which appertain to the thirteen-year
period (Cicada tredecem).
MINOR PARAGRAPHS.
The Bureau of Nature Study of
Cornell University is making a praiseworthy
effort to interest children in
caring for birds, or, as its circular has it,
treating them as "summer boarders."
It publishes a leaflet entitled The Birds
and I, which it sends free to teachers
who ask for it and who will give it to
their pupils. It has pictures of various
styles of bird houses, which may serve
as patterns for the construction of
homes for the summer guests. "The
kind of birds," the interesting circular
of the bureau says, "that will set up
housekeeping in the homes that you
provide will harm no one. They are
never cross, never throw stones or rob
us, but are always happy and have
cheerful songs. We are always kind to
people having such dispositions, and
why should we not be so to birds as
well?" The bureau invites correspondence
from boys and girls disposed to
entertain birds.
The National Geographic Society
offers prizes of one hundred and fifty
dollars and seventy-five dollars severally
for the first and second best essays
relating to pre-Columbian discoveries
and settlements of the Norsemen on the
mainland of North America, and the
location of the lands mentioned in the
Icelandic Sagas, the competition to
close December 31, 1899. The essays
sent in should be typewritten in the
English language, not exceeding six
thousand words in length, and may be
accompanied by maps and illustrations
for explanation of the text, but not for
embellishment. The committee of
awards consists of Mr. Henry Gannett,
Prof. Albert Bushnell Hart, Mrs. Anita
Newcomb McGee, Prof. John Bach McMaster,
and Coast Survey Superintendent
Henry S. Pritchet.
Experiments by a German naturalist,
Herr Albrecht Bethe, summarized in
the Revue Scientifique, upon recognition
of one another by ants, confirm the
opinions of Lubbock, McCook, Forel,
and others that they are guided by the
sense of smell. Herr Bethe found that
an ant "whitewashed" with liquid of
ants of its own nest was well received
by its fellows when it went among
them; but when the liquid of ants of
a different nest was applied it was attacked
at once. An ant washed with
alcohol, next with water, and then with
the liquid of a strange species was well
received in a nest of that species, although
it was much smaller than any
of the individuals composing it. Another
ant washed with alcohol and
water, dried, and immediately returned
to its fellows of its own nest, was attacked
by them; but when kept for
twenty-four hours after drying, or long
enough to recruit itself, was received
by them.
The following tables are taken from
a paper by Dr. J. Richardson Armstrong
in a recent Lancet, describing his experience
with diphtheria antitoxine in
private practice in treating one hundred
and twenty-two cases of diphtheria:
Recovered. Died.
1.
Total number of cases treated from June 27 to Dec. 17, 1897 42 36 6
Severe cases; antitoxine injected 22 20 2
Mild cases; antitoxine not injected2016 4
2.
Total number of cases treated, January 1 to December 31, 189880773
Severe cases, injected 55 54 1
Mild cases, non-injected 25 23 2
In answer to the question, Should
every case of diphtheria be treated
with antitoxine, Dr. Armstrong says:
"Some of the cases are sufficiently
mild not to need it, so I will not go so
far as to say that it is absolutely essential
to inject in every case, although
I would call it an excellent practice to
do so, and the patients would make
much more rapid recoveries. I think
that injection ought to be insisted upon
as early as possible in every case that
is at all severe or likely to prove so,
and I think that the medical man who
does not employ antitoxine and who
loses a large proportion of his cases is
incurring a responsibility which is almost
criminal. The earlier a patient is
injected the greater is the chance of
recovery, and the more rapid is the recovery."
Among the leading principles of forestry,
as defined by the chief fire warden
of Minnesota, are that the best
agricultural land should not be devoted
to forest while wood and timber can be
profitably grown on soil that is unfit
for farming purposes; that the management
should be continuous, and no
more timber should be taken out of the
forest in one year, or in a series of ten
or twenty years, than grows in the entire
forest in the same period; that the
cutting of timber should be in blocks
or strips, so as to facilitate reproduction
on the clear areas by seeds falling from
the trees left standing; and that the
forest, when young, must have in numbers
vastly more trees than when it is
mature. To make good timber, the forest,
when young, must be crowded so
as to secure height growth. Mixed
wood, managed on forestry principles in
the Black Forest of Germany, has per
acre, at the age of twenty years, 3,960
trees; at the age of one hundred years,
262 trees.
A new process for the production of
a textile material is thus described in
Industries and Iron: "It consists of
'squirting,' in a fashion similar to that
of making electric incandescent carbons,
pure gelatin in threads of about one
thousandth part of an inch in diameter,
the thread being taken away on revolving
tapes. The threads are wound upon
reels and exposed to formalin vapor,
which exercises a most remarkable
effect on the gelatin, rendering it insoluble
in any medium yet applied to it.
The tensile qualities of the thread are
also increased, while, in opposition to
that produced under the Lehner process
(which is simply forming nitrated cellulose
into threads for weaving), it is
capable of taking up any dye desired;
and it is, of course, impervious to any
hygroscopic influence.
NOTES.
Prof. E. C. Pickering, of the Harvard
College Observatory, announces the discovery
by Mrs. Fleming of a new variable star
in Sagittarius. It was found on eight of the
photographs in her large collection. On
March 8, 1898, it was of the fifth magnitude,
and on April 29, 1898, of the eighth magnitude.
A plate taken on March 9, 1899, shows
it still visible and of the tenth magnitude.
Its spectrum resembles that of other new
stars. The entire number of new stars discovered
since 1885 is six, of which five have
been found by Mrs. Fleming.
Because of the great loss by fire which
occurs every year in the Russian villages, the
government is making efforts to induce the
peasantry, says the Saturday Review, to employ
some less dangerous material than straw
thatch for the roofing of their izbas. There
has already been a large increase in the
use of shingle, and this has led to a considerable
importation from Belgium and Germany,
and also from the United States, of
simple and inexpensive shingle making machines,
for use in rural districts. German
manufacturers, whose "commercial intelligence
department" is remarkably well informed,
are now making redoubled efforts to
meet the immense demand anticipated. An
improved and inexpensive hand fire engine is
also being provided. Roofing felt or paper
is very generally used under the shingle, and
the demand for this is also increasing.
A fourth specimen of the Notornis Mantelli,
a bird of New Zealand supposed to
have become extinct, was captured in August
last, and has been prepared for the museum
by Mr. W. B. Benham. The first specimen
was obtained, recently slain, by Mr. W.
Mantell, in 1849, and is preserved in the
British Museum; the second was killed by
Maoris in 1851, and is in the Colonial Collection;
and the third, now in the Dresden
Museum, was taken in 1879. All these
birds were found in a single denuded region
of the country. The present specimen was
caught by a dog in the bushes near Lake Te
Anan, still in the same region, and is a very
fine young female.
A plant growing in the dense jungles of
Langsuam, Siam, was described by H. Warington
Smyth, in an address to the Royal Geographical
Society, as having the property of
setting up a great irritation in the skin of
any person coming in contact with it. "It
has a large, broad leaf, and the Siamese declare
that, after being badly stung by it, the
only remedy is the heat of a fire; to bathe
in a stream, which is the natural impulse, is
considered absolutely fatal. A spot on the
Kra-Champawn trail is known as Burmatai,
from the fact that a party of Burmese,
coming across to harry their neighbors in the
old fighting days, are said to have got into a
thick growth of this plant, and to have bathed
in the stream to allay the agony, with the
result that they all died there." The Siamese
call the plant kalang-ton chang.
In the western part of Belgium the dog
has been employed as a beast of burden from
time immemorial. The Belgian dog (known
only by this name) is a large, compactly built
animal, measuring from twenty to thirty
inches in height; the hair is smooth and
short, generally tan or dark brown in color.
It is the custom to crop both ears and tail.
The dogs are usually driven before carts
weighing from one hundred to one hundred
and twenty pounds, in teams of from two to
six abreast. A harness very similar in arrangement
to that of the horse is used.
Six of these animals will draw from six to
eight hundred pounds. They are put to work
when about a year old. They vary in price
from twenty-five to sixty shillings. There
are over two thousand dogs in Ghent licensed
as draught animals.
A plant described by M. Henri Chantrey
as most probably answering to the manna
found by the Hebrews in the desert is the
thallophyte Canona esculenta, or edible lichen,
which grows in the deserts of Persia, Arabia,
Mesopotamia, and Sahara. It is a grayish
cryptogam of about the size of a pea, bearing
short bracteate appendages on its top;
when cut, it resembles a mass of dull white
flour paste. It is an ephemeral substance,
and must be collected the morning it appears,
as it will soon dry up; but when
properly prepared it can be kept in a close
vessel. It is highly appreciated by the
wandering Arabs, who have often been saved
by it from starvation, and they lay up stores
of it when opportunity offers. It is easily
collected, for it never adheres to any foreign
body, and, so far as appearance goes, seems
as if it might have been thrown on the
ground. There is but little suggestion of
the mushroom in its taste, which is rather
starchy, with a slight flavor of sugar. Cattle
are very fond of it. The Arabs boil it into
a gelatinous paste, which they serve in
various ways. They preserve it by drying it
in the shade and pack it in bladders or skins.
It is not a complete first-class food, but is
very good for a few days till something better
can be got.
The Jernkontoret of Sweden is an ironmasters'
exchange at Stockholm, which was
founded in 1747 for the financial convenience
of the subscribers, and now possesses a
reserve fund of about $1,500,000. The
functions of the society have been considerably
enlarged since its institution. It has
organized a corps of mining engineers and
metallurgists, who receive salaries from it,
and further from manufacturers whom they
may serve. They are often commissioned
to go abroad and obtain information and
practical hints bearing upon their profession.
The institution is supported by a light assessment
on the production of its constituency.
It has a fine building, and publishes an annual
volume in Jernkontorets Annalen, containing
original memoirs and reports from
technical agents, which is sent gratuitously
to all the masters of forges in Sweden, and
is sold abroad.
In a number of glass mirrors of the
third and fourth centuries, examined by M.
Berthelot, the glass was coated with a
metallic substance and with a layer of whitish
material. The metal proved to be lead,
with no trace of gold, silver, copper, tin,
antimony, or mercury, and no sign of organic
substance was present. It was thus
shown that no extraneous material was used
to cement the lead to the glass. The mirrors
appeared to have been cut from hollow
blown glass globes, and it is possible that
before the globe was cut the molten lead had
been poured into the interior, and had adhered
to the previously warmed glass. The
whitish layer consisted of lead carbonate
and lead oxide formed by the oxidation of the
lead coating and calcium carbonate, which
had been deposited from the water of the
district in which the mirrors were found.
The list of recent deaths among men
known in connection with science and its applications
includes the names of Prof. Karl
Müller, botanist, one of the founders of the
German scientific weekly, Die Natur, February
9th, aged eighty-one years; Sir John
Struthers, emeritus professor of anatomy in
the University of Aberdeen, in his sixty-seventh
year; John Kreusi, mechanical engineer
and inventor, at Schenectady, N. Y.,
January 22d, aged fifty-six years; Thomas
Cook, teacher of anatomy and author of
works on the subject, in London, February
8th; Dr. A. Veitmeyer, civil engineer, in Berlin;
Dr. Carl Schoenlein, of the Zoölogical Station
at Naples, aged forty years; Major-General
Joseph J. Reynolds, of the United States
Army, formerly professor of mechanics and
engineering at Washington University, St.
Louis, February 26th, aged seventy-seven
years; Dr. Alexandre Laboulbène, professor
of the history of medicine in the University
of Paris, and author of a treatise on pathological
anatomy and a book on French entomological
fauna, aged seventy-three years;
Dr. Philipp J. J. Valentini, Americanist and
student of ancient Mexican and Central
American monuments and codices, in New
York, March 16th, in his seventy-first year;
Gustave Wiedmann, professor of physics and
chemistry in the University of Leipsic, and
writer on electricity and magnetism; and
Major J. Evans, professor of pathology in
the Calcutta Medical College, March 13th.
FOOTNOTES:
Advance sheets from The Races of Europe, now in the press of D. Appleton and
Company, to appear in May. Footnotes and references are herein largely omitted.
Popular Science Monthly, January, 1898, pp. 304-322.
Le Mirage Orientale, 1893 a; and in his admirable outline of sculptural origins in
Europe (1894-'96).
Arii e Italici, Torino, 1898, especially pp. 199-220.
Reinach, 1893 a, pp. 543-548. G. de Mortillet, 1897, denies the claim.
Chantre, 1884; Hoernes, 1892; Bertrand and Reinach, 1894 a; Sergi, 1898 a; and
Orsi (Bull. Paletnologia Italiana, xi, 1885, p. 1 et seq.) are best authorities. See also Hallstatt
in the subject index of our Bibliography, soon to be published as a Special Bulletin
of the Boston Public Library.
Hoernes, 1892, p. 529; Bertrand, 1876 a, second edition, pp. 207-216, fixes about
800 B. C.; but 1894 a, p. 80, carries it back to 1200-1300 B. C.
Zuckerkandl, 1883, p. 96.
Weisbach, 1897 b.
This fact has been established beyond doubt by the recent great work of Studer and
Bannwarth, Crania Helvetica Antiqua, 1894. Vide p. 13. Sergi's attempt to interpret the
data otherwise (1898 a, p. 67) is entirely erroneous. Gross's data apparently refer entirely
to the later period of Teutonic invasions in the iron age (1883, p. 106). Cf. Munro, pp.
537 and 541.
Popular Science Monthly, December, 1897, p. 151.
From Montelius, 1897.
Cf. maps and data in J. Geikie, 1894; Penck, 1884; and Niederle, 1893, p. 25.
Bertrand, 1876 a and 1876 b, gives a full account of it. The best recent authorities
upon Scandinavian culture are Sophus Mueller, 1897, and Montelius, 1895 b. Other works
of reference are those of Worsaae, Nilsson, Hildebrand, Madsen and Rygh, full titles being
given in our supplementary Bibliography of the Anthropology and Ethnology of Europe.
Comprising nearly two thousand titles, it will be provided with a detailed subject index.
Bertrand, 1876 b, p. 40.
Reinach, 1892, pp. 72-78, for severe criticism of Penka's hypotheses.
Compendium of the Tenth Census of the United States, Part II, p. 1659. See documents
in the new statistical laboratory, the only one in Italy, of Professor Cognetti, recently
published at Turin.
Bodio. Bulletin de l'Institut international de Statistique, 1889, pp. 112 and 128. See
some Sanitary Statistics in Italy and other European States, by Dr. Rasori.
Haikwan tael, 74.9 cents.
Yen, 52.9 cents.
Peso, gold, 96.5 cents.
Milreis, paper (1896), 20-1/2 cents.
Peso, gold.
Soler, 43 cents.
Dollar (47 cents) for exports, gold dollar for imports.
Peso, $1.
Bolivar, 19.3 cents.
Rupee, 32 cents. For Straits Settlement and Ceylon, Mexican
dollars @ 47 cents.
Codrington. The Melanesian Languages.
See Henle. Poetische Personification.
Contributions to the Ethnology and Philology of the Indian Tribes of the Missouri
Valley. Dr. F. V. Hayden, 1862.
The Native Calendars of Central America and Mexico. Daniel G. Brinton.
Popular Science Monthly, vol. xlv, article Astronomy of the Incas.
Les Origines Indo-Européennes. Pictet, p. 568.
See a paper by G. K. Schneider in vol. ii of Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche
Philosophie.
"It is perfectly certain that two in every three children are irretrievably damaged or
hindered in their mental and moral development in the schools; but I am not sure that they
would fare better if they stayed at home."—Baldwin, in Mental Development, p. 38.
See an instance clearly elucidative of this in an account of the Kelly murder trial,
given by Dr. Walter Channing in the American Journal of Insanity for January, 1898,
page 385.
See New York Medical Journal for August 14, 1897.
See also Dr. Edward Cowles. Shattuck Lecture on Neurasthenia.
See Peterson. The Stigmata of Degeneration. State Hospitals Bulletin, vol. i, p. 327.
The Last Link. Our Present Knowledge of the Descent of Kan. By Ernst Haeckel. Adam and
Charles Black. 1898.
Rivers of North America. A Reading Lesson for Students of Geography and Geology. By Israel
C. Russell. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 327. Price, $2.
The Structure and Classification of Birds.
By Frank E. Beddard. London and New York:
Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 548.
Bush Fruits. A Horticultural Monograph of
Raspberries, Blackberries, Dewberries, Currants,
Gooseberries, and other Shrublike Fruits. By
Fred W. Card. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Pp. 537. Price, $1.50.
The History of the World, from the Earliest
Historical Time to the Year 1898. By Edgar Sanderson.
With Maps. New York: D. Appleton
and Company. 1898.
Life, Death, and Immortality, and Kindred
Essays. By William M. Bryant. New York:
The Baker & Taylor Company.
Elements of Sanitary Engineering. By Mansfield
Merriman. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
London: Chapman & Hall, Limited. Pp. 216. $2.
An Epitome of Human Histology. By
Arthur W. Weysse. New York: Longmans,
Green & Co. Pp. 90. Price, $1.50.
Elementary Botany. By George Francis Atkinson,
Ph. D. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
Pp. 444. Price, $1.25.
A History of Japanese Literature. By W. G.
Aston, Late Japanese Secretary to H. M. Legation,
Tokyo. D. Appleton and Company.
An Elementary Text-Book of Botany. By
Sydney H. Vines. London: Swan, Sonnenschein
& Co. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Pp. 611. Price, $2.25.
Animated Pictures. An Exposition of the
Historical Development of Chronophotography,
its Present Scientific Application and Future Possibilities,
and of the Methods and Apparatus employed
in the Entertainment of Large Audiences
by Means of Projecting Lanterns to give the Appearance
of Objects in Motion. Washington,
D. C.: C. Francis Jenkins. Pp. 118, with plates.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent
spellings have been kept, including inconsistent use of hyphen (e.g.
"air ship" and "air-ship"), diacritical marks (e.g. "êtat" and "état"), and
proper names (e.g. "Dostoievski" and "Dostoiewski").
Some illustrations were relocated to correspond to their references in the
text.