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Title: Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, March 1899
Volume LIV, No. 5, March 1899
Author: Various
Editor: William Jay Youmans
Release Date: November 27, 2013 [EBook #44297]
Language: English
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Established by Edward L. Youmans
APPLETONS'
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY
EDITED BY
WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS
VOL. LIV
NOVEMBER, 1898, TO APRIL, 1899
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
VOL. LIV. ESTABLISHED BY EDWARD L. YOUMANS. NO. 5.
APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
MARCH, 1899.
_EDITED BY WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. The Evolution of Colonies. VII. Social Evolution. By
J. COLLIER. 577
II. Politics as a Form of Civil War. By FRANKLIN SMITH. 588
III. My Pet Scorpion. By NORMAN ROBINSON. (Illustrated.) 605
IV. The Peoples of the Balkan Peninsula--The Greek, the Slav,
and the Turk. By Prof. WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY. (Illustrated.) 614
V. Marvelous Increase in Production of Gold. By ALEXANDER E.
OUTERBRIDGE, Jr. 635
VI. The California Penal System. By CHARLES HOWARD SHINN.
(Illus.) 644
VII. The Scientific Expert and the Bering Sea Controversy. By
GEORGE A. CLARK. 654
VIII. A School for the Study of Life under the Sea. By ELEANOR
HODGENS PATTERSON. 668
IX. Science in Education. By Sir ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, F. R. S. 672
X. Shall we Teach our Daughters the Value of Money? By Mrs.
GEORGE ELMORE IDE. 686
XI. Sketch of Clémence Royer. By M. JACQUES BOYER.
(With Portrait.) 690
XII. Editor's Table: Words of a Master.--Fads and Frauds 699
XIII. Scientific Literature 704
XIV. Fragments of Science 712
NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 72 FIFTH AVENUE.
SINGLE NUMBER, 50 CENTS. YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00.
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
Entered at the Post Office at New York, and admitted for
transmission through the mails at second-class rates.
[Illustration: CLÉMENCE ROYER.]
APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
MARCH, 1899.
THE EVOLUTION OF COLONIES.
BY JAMES COLLIER.
VII.--SOCIAL EVOLUTION.
Perhaps there is no civilized institution to which, man has
accommodated himself with so ill a grace as monogamy. Hardly a
perversion of it has ever existed but may still be found. Polygamy is
widely spread in the most advanced communities; temporary polyandrous
_ménages à trois_ are known to exist elsewhere than among the Nairs
and Tibetans and _ancient_ Britons; the matriarchate in one shape or
another may be detected well outside the sixty peoples among whom Mr.
Tylor has discovered it; and marriage by free choice is far from
having superseded marriage by capture or by purchase. It is the less
surprising that abnormal or ancient forms of the union should have
been revived in colonies. In this relationship, as in most others, the
colonist, like the sperm cell after its junction with the germ cell,
sinks at once to a lower level, and the race has to begin life over
again. The fall is inevitable. The earliest immigrants are all of them
men. Everywhere finding indigenes in the newly settled country, they
can usually count on the complaisance or the submissiveness of the
tribesmen. Native women have a strange fascination for civilized men,
even for those who have been intimate with the European aristocracies
and have belonged to them. Adventurous Castins might find their
account in a relationship that was in perfect keeping with the wild
life they led. It is more strange that, enslaved by an appetite which
sometimes rose to a collective if seldom to a personal passion,
educated men, with a scientific or a public career flung open to them
at their option, able men who have written the best books about the
races they knew only too well, men of great position whose heroic
deeds and winning manners made them adored by women of their own race,
should have spoiled their prime, or inextricably entangled themselves,
or wrecked their own roof-tree and incurred lifelong desertion by the
wife of their youth. The bluest blood of Spain was not contaminated by
an alliance with the Incas, but just ten years ago the direct line of
an ancient English earldom was extinguished among the Kaffirs. The
truth seems to be that while a woman will not as a rule accept a man
who is her inferior in rank or refinement, a man easily contents
himself for the time with almost any female. The Bantu woman and the
Australian _zubra_ are not alluring, but they have never lacked
suitors. Colonial women shrink (or profess to shrink) from the
Chinaman; all colors--black, brown, red, and yellow--seem to be alike
to the undiscriminating male appetite. Yet it has its preferences. The
high official who stands unmoved before the cloudy attractions of the
Zulu, surrenders at discretion to the soft-voiced, dark-eyed,
plump-limbed daughters of Maoriland. In the last case a perverse
theory (of the future amalgamation of the races) may have been "the
light that led astray"; it certainly was used to justify their acts to
the consciences of the doers. Romance had its share: Browning's Waring
(who was premier as well as poet) threw a poetic glamour over the
miscegenation, as another minister found in the race the Ossianesque
attributes of his own Highlanders. It sometimes, even now, rises into
passion: the colonial schoolmaster who marries a native girl will
declare that his is a love match. But the chief reason at all times
was "the custom of the country." "It was the regular thing," remarked
an old legislator, looking ruefully back on his past. Nor is it to be
harshly censured. Corresponding to the Roman slave-concubinage which
Cato Major did not disdain to practice, it repeated a stage in the
history of the mother country when the invading Angles allied
themselves (as anthropology abundantly proves) with the native
Britons. While making a kind of atonement to the indigenes, it was a
solatium to the pioneer colonists for a life of hardship and
privation.
A higher grade was the concubinage of convictism, which was with women
of the same race and was capable of rising into normal marriage. In
the early days of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land it seems to
have been almost universal, and it lasted for many years. Not one in
ten of the officials lived with his legally married wife. In the
latter colony it was suppressed by the governor, who ordered them to
marry the women by whom they had families. In the former, if Dr.
Lang's account of his exertions is accepted, it was put down by the
exposure of guilty parties. It was accompanied by other features of a
low social state. The public and private sale of wives was not
infrequent. The colonial equivalent for a wife, in the currency of
those days, was sometimes four gallons of rum, or five pounds sterling
and a gallon, or twenty sheep and a gallon; one woman was sold for
fifty sheep.
Around gold and silver mining encampments nondescript relationships of
a slightly higher order arise. They are with free women, though the
women are apt to be of the same class as Bret Harte's Duchess of Poker
Flat, answering to the Doll Tearsheets of hardly more civilized
communities. They often issue in marriage. In mining townships, and
even in colonial towns, professional men are to be found married to
unpresentable women.
In colonies of regular foundation normal marriages are contracted
under difficulties. Few women at first go out, the emigrants intending
to return when they have made their fortune. Women have accordingly to
be sent. In the seventeenth century a number of girls of good repute
were persuaded to emigrate to Virginia, a subscription being raised to
defray the cost. In the following century wives were sent to settlers
in French Louisiana on the same plan. To French Canada women were
dispatched by shiploads. They were selected (according to Parkman) as
butchers choose cattle: the plumpest were preferred, because they
could stand the winter best and would stay at home. In Virginia women
were offered for sale to eager colonists, who willingly paid one
hundred pounds of tobacco for one, or as much as one hundred and fifty
pounds for a very pretty girl; a debt incurred for the purchase of a
wife being considered a debt of honor. In the early days of
Canterbury, New Zealand, when a consignment of servant girls arrived,
young farmers would ride over the Port hills and carry them off,
though in the style rather of young Lochinvar than of the Sabine rape.
Settlers have often requested the agent general for the colony or the
mayor of their native town to send them out a wife. Wives so easily
acquired are apt to be lightly parted with, and within the last few
years, in colonial villages, amicable exchanges have been
effected--one woman going with her children to the house of another
man, whose wife and children made a reciprocal migration. Facts such
as these (which might readily be multiplied) show how easily so-called
civilized man sloughs off the conventions of ages and sinks to a
primitive level. They soon disappear, however, and social colonial
conditions rapidly assimilate themselves to those of the mother
country. In most young colonies marriage is universal and it is early.
After a few days' acquaintance couples rashly engage themselves, in
utter ignorance of one another's character or of their own, and a
precipitate marriage follows, with such results as might be expected.
Statistics show that the age of marriage on the part of women is
steadily rising. In the early days of each colony a girl was deemed
_passée_ if she did not get married before she was twenty-one. In the
decade that ended the first century of New South Wales the proportion
of married women under that age fell from 28.17 to 23.55 per cent; in
less prosperous Victoria, after only half a century, it fell from 21
to 17.4; in New Zealand there was a big drop from 29.4 to 19.7. The
proportion of married women under twenty-five has also seriously
declined. The decrease is noticeably correspondent with the increased
number of young women who are gaining their own livelihood--largely as
teachers and typewriters. On these lines the colonies are following
the lead of the mother country. Long engagements, followed by late
marriages with fewer children, take the place of short engagements
with hasty marriages and larger families. Female celibacy is no longer
dishonorable, and women are beginning to understand that they may be
far happier single and self-supporting. The quality of marriage
improves with its rarity. When an Australian M. A. marries an M. A.,
or the most brilliant of New Zealand professors marries one of his
most distinguished students, we feel, as when a Dilke marries a
Pattison, that the ideal of the union has been realized.
The growth of the colonial house follows the development of the family
and repeats the history of the race. The immigrant procures his abode,
as he afterward buys his clothes, ready made. The ancient troglodyte
lives to-day in the Derbyshire cave dweller; the original Romanist
settlers of Maryland were driven to take refuge in cave houses in
Virginia; and the New Zealand hermit, like "great Pæan's son" at
Lemnos, "weeps o'er his wound" of the heart in a cave by the
resounding sea. Where they can not be found ready dug they can be
excavated, as they were by some early Pennsylvania colonists. Others
in Virginia, New York, and New England found it easier to dig holes in
the ground, thus imitating the Germans of Tacitus, whose winter
residences are also repeated in those basements which form the
wholesome abode of the London domestic servant. The wattle-and-daub
house of the Anglo-Saxon villager has been everywhere reproduced in
the colonies, and may still be abundantly found.
If the occupation of caves and the burrowing of holes suggests man's
distant affinity to the carnivora and lower quadrupeds, his simian
origin is confirmed by the use he makes of the tree. In the infant
city of Philadelphia there were "few mansions but hollow trees." A
rude form of tent is the next stage, the canvas consisting (as may
still be seen among the poorer campers-out) of clothes or rags. Then,
as in the early days of Sydney, the tents were covered in with bushes
and thatched over. Next (as may to-day be observed in the neighborhood
of Coolgardie) a framework of branches is employed to support the
canvas, and the tent is converted into a cabin. A stride toward the
house is taken when the branches are replaced by a regular woodwork,
with doors and windows; the envelope being still sometimes canvas,
which is soon replaced by corrugated iron. The Brazilian country house
where Darwin lodged sixty years ago was built of upright posts with
interwoven boughs. Another line of development starts from the trunk
of the tree. The early American colonists made bark wigwams. The
Australian pastoralist "erected a temporary house, generally of large
sheets of bark, in the first instance." In countries where the winter
is more severe or the bark less substantial, the backwoodsman builds,
as the early colonist built, a rude cabin of round logs. Then the logs
are hewn, or they are split or sawn into planks, and built into the
weatherboard houses still common in the rural parts of Australia, and
general even in New Zealand towns. In their earliest stages they are
still without a floor and are roofed with thatch or shingle. Towns
often thus remain like early Sydney, "a mere assemblage of paltry
erections intermediate between the hut and the house." The
architecture is of the simplest. A "butt" and a "ben," with a
"lean-to," form the prevailing type. As the family grows or its wealth
increases, new portions are added, till many colonial houses look for
all the world as if they had "come out in penny numbers." Even with a
few stately structures--luxurious mansions, extensive government
offices, Gothic parliamentary buildings--a wooden city has an
indefinable meanness of appearance. It is improved out of existence by
the dread agency of fire. Like Charles's London, New Orleans and many
another colonial town have thus had an Augustan renewal. Houses are
now built of brick, stone, or concrete; tile, slate, and iron replaced
thatch and shingle; two stories were ventured on; chimneys were
smaller but safer. They became susceptible of architecture: Spanish
features were introduced into those of New Orleans; the more northern
colonies copied the English country house, with modifications to suit
the hotter or colder climate; and in New South Wales a taste for
mansion-building came into vogue along with splendid equipages,
liveried servants, and pedigrees. Such houses were at first arranged
in all degrees of irregularity and confusion. The street is a modern
invention. The cows returning from pasture laid out Boston, and the
bullock teams climbing up from the harbor charted Sydney. Towns in
manufactured colonies, as Savannah, Augusta, most South American
cities, Christchurch and Invercargill in New Zealand, were planned
before settlement and have their streets at right angles.
A hundred years ago Talleyrand, exiled in the United States, described
the journey from one of these cities to the interior as successively
exhibiting all past stages of the human habitation from the mansion
to the tent, and just a century later one of Talleyrand's countrymen,
M. Pierre Leroy-Beaulieu, traveling in the reverse direction, from
"the bush" to Coolgardie, witnessed the gradual transformation of the
tent into the two-storied hotel. A great part of the history of the
race in the matter of habitations is thus museumed in the space of a
few miles.
If the temple rises out of the tomb, is modeled on that, and remains
to the last pre-eminently a place of sacrifice, the church is an
enlarged dwelling house. It is the house of the god, as the fetichist
called it--the house of God, as we still reverently call it; and in
Romanist countries to this day it is in a manner the abode of two
divine personages, who figure as dizened and painted dolls that are
named respectively God and the Mother of God! Both lines of
development are rapidly recapitulated in colonies. The temple appears
as the cathedral, which has modest beginnings, but gradually assumes
the architecture and proportions of Gothic cathedrals, losing
relation to the primary wants of the worshipers--comfort and
audibility--ministering mainly to their higher needs, and if used for
preaching at all, reserved for such occasional and sensational pulpit
oratory as that of Dominican monks like Lacordaire at Notre Dame in
Paris, or of a Protestant Dominican like the late Canon Liddon at St.
Paul's in London. The church, chapel, or meeting house may be found in
colonial villages in its most rudimentary form, scarcely
distinguishable in style from a dwelling house. According to the sect
it belongs to, it develops in one of two opposite directions. The age
of cathedrals is past, even in Roman Catholic countries, but the
tendency of Anglican and allied churches is to simulate the old
cathedral; high ritualistic sections mimic the gorgeous Madeleine. The
more liberal denominations, on the other hand, develop downward; the
colonial Baptist tabernacle is on the lines of Spurgeon's great
building at Newington, but the ancient pulpit is widened into a
platform and the seats slope upward as in a concert hall; it is a mere
auditorium, in which the preacher is all. The development in this
direction finds its extreme in the secularist hall, which is a mere
concert room, with a piano in place of an organ. The ceremonial
development is on the same lines--toward the gradual adoption of
ancient rites by the older churches, toward more freedom in the
younger sects. Many a colonial clergyman has wrecked himself or his
congregation through too much ritualism; a few have injured themselves
through an excess of liberalism.
A parallel evolution takes place in church government. Where an
organized settlement is made on political principles, congregations
carry their minister with them, or rather the ministers carry their
congregations. Where the colony is normally founded and grows up as
the mother country grew, the first ministers, like the first preachers
of Christianity itself, are often laymen. In an interior county of
Virginia Morris read every Lord's day to his neighbors from the
writings of Luther and Bunyan, and a meeting house was at length built
for him; it is a typical instance of the beginnings of most churches.
The part of laymen remains long prominent in colonies. The Anglican
lay reader is everywhere a feature of colonial church life. In the
more flexible churches a storekeeper or retired sea captain will read
Spurgeon's sermons or preach excellent sermons of his own in an Otago
village or the Australian bush. Where missionaries have been sent out
to convert the heathen in a country afterward colonized, many of them
remain as ministers, as did Augustin and his monks in England. The
Presbyterian catechist likewise becomes a settled minister. Others
arrive. Men of independent character, like Dr. Lang, of Sydney,
resolve not to wait for any dead man's shoes in the kirk, but sail
beyond the seas to colonies where there is no minister of their own
denomination. Heretics, incompatibles, men who have failed, men whose
health has given way, emigrate in increasing numbers. Still, the
supply is long deficient. Clergymen were scarce in New York. A bounty
was offered to immigrants in Virginia. Six years after the
establishment of the Church of England in North Carolina there was
only one clergyman in the country. The few there are repeat the
history of the first Christian bishops and the early English monks in
serving a circuit of two, three, or more churches. The state comes to
the rescue by providing for their support. In England contributions
were at first voluntary; by the eighth century tithes were levied,
folk-land was granted, and private endowments were made. Just so was
the Church of England established and endowed in New York, Virginia,
and North Carolina; in Maryland a poll tax of forty pounds of tobacco
was levied for its support. In Connecticut and Massachusetts a church
was set up in each parish on Congregationalist principles by a vote of
the people, who elected the minister and voted his salary. So
uncertain was the tenure that in several States even the Anglican
minister was hired from year to year; and quite lately an Anglican
church in a British colony engaged its incumbent, as it might have
engaged its organist, for a term. In 1791 the Church of England in
Canada was partially established, and its clergy endowed with grants
of land. The Australasian colonies have pursued a very various policy.
By the Constitution Act of 1791 one seventh of the ungranted lands in
New South Wales was set apart for the support of a Protestant clergy.
An attempt to endow the Anglican Church in South Australia in the
early forties was defeated by a radical governor. A recrudescence of
the ecclesiastical principle permitted the church settlements of
Otago and Canterbury in New Zealand to appropriate a portion of the
funds derived from the sale of lands for the endowment of the
Presbyterian and Anglican churches respectively. So far the colonies
followed, latterly with halting steps, the history of the mother
country. As in political, so in ecclesiastical government, they have
anticipated that history. The American state churches did not survive
the Revolution. In Canada the Presbyterians and other sects
successfully asserted their claims to a share in the church
endowments, which between 1840 and 1853 were distributed among the
municipalities, all semblance of a connection between church and state
being thus destroyed. New South Wales passed through a period of
religious equality with concurrent endowment of the four most numerous
denominations, and a long struggle against the principle of
establishment was ended in 1879, when the reserves were devoted to the
purposes of education. The practice of confiscating for the church a
portion of the proceeds of the land sales was gradually dropped in
Otago and Canterbury, probably more for commercial reasons than in
consequence of the opposition of the democratic governor aforesaid,
who spoked the wheel of the South Australians. Yielding to
Nonconformist pressure, the liberal Government in 1869 enforced the
principle of religious equality throughout the crown colonies, which
were thus, willingly or not, made to follow the lead of the movement
in Ireland. The internal organization of the colonial church is also
anticipative. Fifty-two years ago Sir George Grey bestowed on the
Anglican Church in New Zealand, then governed by him, a constitution
modeled on that of the corresponding church in the United States, as
the political constitution he drafted for the colony was modeled on
the Constitution of the United States; and it has been imitated in
other Australasian colonies, which have thus declared themselves
independent of the mother church, while the colony is still
politically dependent on the mother country. In yet another point the
daughters have outstripped the parent. Three Presbyterian
denominations still fissure the old home of Presbyterianism; only two
have ever existed in the colonies, and for thirty years these two have
been one. The four chief Methodist sects in Australia are also said to
be on the point of amalgamating.
The development of doctrine runs a fourth parallel to those of
buildings, cult, and organization, and in a brief space it
recapitulates a long history. In early colonial communities religious
dogma is found in a state of "albuminous simplicity." "A healthy man,"
says Thoreau, "with steady employment, as wood-chopping at fifty cents
a cord, and a camp in the woods, will not be a good subject for
Christianity." Nor will a bush-faller, at twenty-five shillings the
acre. Distant from a church and a minister, he gets out of the way of
attending the rare services brought within his reach, and forgets the
religion in which he was nurtured. It does not mingle with his life.
He is usually married at a registrar's. His children are unbaptized.
His parents die unshriven. The dull crises of his mean existence come
and go, and religion stands dumb before them. The inner spiritual
realities fade from his view as their outward symbols disappear, and
bit by bit the whole theological vesture woven by nineteen Christian
centuries drops off him like Rip Van Winkle's rotten garments when he
woke from his long sleep. In the matter of religion, as in almost all
else, the colonist has to begin life again poor.
As population grows and people come nearer to one another, two things
happen. The churches push their skirmishers into the interior, plant
stations, and have regular services. Gradually the old doctrines
strike root in the new soil, and at length a creed answering to
Evangelicalism is commonly held, thus repeating the first stage in the
history of Christianity in Asia as in England. On the other hand, many
of those whom neglect had softened into indifference or hardened into
contempt assume a more decided attitude. With the spirit of
independence which colonial life so readily begets, and stimulated by
the skeptical literature of the day, they take ground against the
renascent religion. Secularism, which denies what Evangelicalism
affirms and is on a level with that, is born. It organizes itself, has
halls and Sunday meetings, catechisms and children's teaching,
newspapers, and a propaganda. For a while it is triumphant, openly
contemptuous of the current religious mythology, and menacing toward
its exponents. The Secularist leaders make their way to the bench and
the legislature, the cabinet and the premiership. It is here the hitch
arises. Some (by no means all) of these leaders are found to prefer
power to principle, and prudently let their secularism go by the board
when a wave of popular odium threatens to swamp the ship. Financial
distress spreads. The movement loses _éclat_. As Bradlaugh's Hall of
Science in London has been sold to the Salvation Army, the Freethought
Hall in Sydney has been purchased by the Methodists, and in other
colonial towns the cause has collapsed. But it always remains, whether
patent or latent, as a needed counterpoise to the crudities of
Evangelicalism, and it is the core of that increasing mass of
religious indifferentism which strikes those who have been brought up
in the old country. Statistics are said to prove that Australia is
more addicted to church-going than England. If they prove any such
thing, then statistics (as Mr. Bumble irreverently said of the British
Constitution) are hasses and hidiots. You may sit down on any Sunday
morning at a colonial table with a dozen highly respectable persons
of both sexes and all ages, not one of whom has any thought of going
to church that day. Such an experience would be impossible in England.
The mistake has arisen from comparing England as a whole, which has
classes below the line of church-going or indeed of civilization, with
Australia as a whole, where such classes hardly exist. Compare
Australia in this respect with the English middle classes, and the
fallacy will be manifest.
When a colony has hived off from the parent state at a time of
religious excitement, and especially when it has religion for its
_raison d'être_, it starts fully equipped on lines of its own, the
earlier naturalistic stages being dropped. English theology and
Puritan religion emigrated to North America in the seventeenth
century, and there for two centuries they for the most part remained.
Ever since, in New England and the States of the middle belt, religion
has played the same high part as it did in old England under Oliver.
There has, therefore, been a theological development in the United
States to which, till fifty years ago, there was no antecedent
parallel in the mother country. While it has produced no theologian or
pulpit orator of the first rank--no Calvin, but only Jonathan Edwards;
no Bossuet or Chalmers, but only Channing and Beecher--its theological
literature compares favorably with that of England during the same
period, and its preachers are acknowledged to be the best in
Christendom. States and colonies that have grown up more normally get
at length on the same lines, and as they put on civilization the
tendency is to adopt ever more of the dogmatic system long inseparable
from it. By a well-understood sociological law it generates its
contradictory and corrective, and there springs up a higher
type of denial than secularism--what Huxley felicitously named
Agnosticism--the position of those who know nothing about the matters
which theological dogma defines, not the position of those who say
that nothing can be known. As the Evangelical develops into the High
Churchman and he into the Catholic, the Secularist refines into the
Agnostic and rarefies into the Unknowabilist.
The literature of colonies is at first theological, as the literature
of all countries is at first hieratic; the priest alone can write. But
it is long before the stage of original production is reached, and
books have to be imported before they can be written. The daughter
must go to school with the mother, who supplies her with hornbooks.
The continuity of the spiritual germ-plasm is insured by the
transmission of books. Rome was thus initiated by Greece in every
theoretical branch of knowledge. Rome thus educated early Europe.
Chests of manuscripts from Thessalonica, Byzantium, and Crete were the
precursors of the Renaissance. Books brought by Benedict to England
formed the first English library. So is it long with all new
countries. To this day the book circulation of the United States is
largely English; in contemporary colonies it is overwhelmingly
English, almost wholly Spanish, exclusively French or Dutch. The
second stage also repeats the literary history of the mother
countries. Colonial literature is a prolongation of the parental
literature and is at first commentative and imitative of that. In a
school at Canterbury founded by two foreign monks English written
literature took its birth. The literature of mediæval Europe was a
continuation of Roman literature. This stage may last long. Seventy or
eighty years after the Declaration of Independence the literature of
New England was still English literature of a subtler strain--perhaps
lacking the strength of the old home-brew, but with a finer flavor.
Naturally, in far younger Australia even popular poetry is still
imitative--the hand is that of Gordon or of Kendall, but the voice is
Swinburne's. The beginnings of a truly national literature are humble.
They are never scholastic, but always popular. As chap-books, ballads,
and songs were the sources of the æsthetic literature of modern
Europe, the beginnings of general literature in the United States have
been traced to the old almanacs which, besides medical recipes and
advice to the farmer, contained some of the best productions of
American authors. It is further evidence of the popular origin of
native literature that some of its early specimens are works of humor.
The most distinctive work of early Canadian and American authors is
humorous, from Sam Slick to ----; but it would be rash to say _who_ is
the last avatar of the genius of humor. If an alien may say so without
offense, Walt Whitman's poems, with their profound intuitions and
artless metre, seem to be the start of a new æsthetic, and recall
ancient Beowulf. Australian literature, after a much shorter
apprenticeship, has lately, in both fiction and verse, again of a
popular character, made a new departure that is instinct with life and
grace and full of promise.
Literature and art have no independent value, but are merely the
phonographic record of mental states, and would practically cease to
exist (as they did during the middle ages) if these disappeared. The
grand achievement of new, as of old, countries is man-making, and
every colony creates a new variety. The chief agent is natural
selection, of which the seamy side appears in vicissitudes of fortune.
Here again the law prevails. These recapitulate those vicissitudes in
early European societies which make picturesque the pages of Gregory
of Tours. There are the same sudden rises, giddy prosperities, and
inevitable falls. In the simple communities of ancient Greece the
distance between antecedent and consequent was short, and the course
of causation plain. Hence in myth and legend, in early historians
like Herodotus, early poets like Pindar, early dramatists like
Æschylus, we find a deep sense of the fateful working of the laws of
life. The history of colonies is a sermon on the same text. Goodness
is speedily rewarded; retribution no longer limps _claudo pede_, like
Vulcan, but flies like Mercury with winged feet. In Europe a
high-handed wrongdoer like Napoleon may pursue his career unchecked
for fifteen years, or a high-handed rightdoer like Bismarck for
five-and-twenty years; a would-be colonial Bismarck or Napoleon is
commonly laid by the heels in the short duration of a colonial
parliament. The vision of providential government, or the reign of
law, in old countries is hard, because its course is long and
intricate; in a colony it is so comparatively simple that all may
understand it and find it (as Carlyle found it) "worthy of horror and
worship." From witnessing the ending of a world Augustine constructed
a theodicy, and so justified the ways of God to man. We may discover
in the beginnings of a world materials for a cosmodicy which shall
exhibit the self-operating justice inherent in the laws of the
universe.
POLITICS AS A FORM OF CIVIL WAR.
BY FRANKLIN SMITH.
Why is it that, in spite of exhortation and execration, the
disinclination of people in all the great democracies of the world to
take part in politics is becoming greater and greater? Why is it that
persons of fine character, scholarly tastes, and noble aims, in
particular, seek in other ways than association and co-operation with
politicians to better the lot of their fellows? Why is it, finally,
that with the enormous extension of political rights and privileges
during the past fifty years, there has occurred a social, political,
and industrial degeneration that fills with alarm the thoughtful minds
of all countries? Aside from the demoralization due to the destructive
wars fought since the Crimean, the answer to these questions is to be
found in the fact that at bottom politics is a form of civil war, that
politicians are a species of _condottieri_, and that to both may be
traced all the ethics and evils of a state of chronic war itself. In
the light of this truth, never so glaring as at present in the United
States, the peril to civilization is divested of mystery; it is the
peril that always flows from anarchy, and the refusal of enlightened
men to-day to engage in politics is as natural as the refusal of
enlightened men in other days to become brigands.
The analogy between war and politics is not new. The very language in
common use implies it. When people speak of "leaders," "rank and
file," "party loyalty," "campaigns," "spoils of victory," etc., which
figure so conspicuously and incessantly in political discussion, there
is only a fit appropriation of the militant terms invented by one set
of fighters to describe with vividness and precision the conduct of
another set. What is new about the matter is the failure of thoughtful
persons to perceive and to act upon their perception that in politics,
as in war, vast economic, social, and political evils are involved. To
be sure, lives are not often sacrificed, as in a battle, nor property
destroyed, as in a siege or an invasion. But even here the analogy is
not imperfect. Political riots have occurred that have brought out as
completely as any struggle over a redoubt or barricade the savage
traits of human nature. People were maimed and killed, and houses
wrecked and burned. Especially was that the case in this country
during the antislavery struggle and the period of reconstruction. Even
in these days of more calm, political contests as fatal as the
Ross-Shea _émeute_ in Troy are reported from time to time. Owing,
however, to the advance in civilization since the sack of Antwerp and
the siege of Saragossa, the devastation wrought by political warfare
has assumed forms less deplorable. But in the long run they will be
found to be just as fatal to everything that constitutes civilization,
and just as productive of everything that constitutes barbarism.
"Lawless ruffianism," says Carl Schurz, pointing out in his Life of
Henry Clay the demoralizing effects of the fierce political struggles
during Jackson's administrations, "has perhaps never been so rampant
in this country as in those days. 'Many of the people of the United
States are out of joint,' wrote Niles in August, 1835. 'A spirit of
riot and a disposition to "take the law in their own hand" prevails in
every quarter.' Mobs, riots, burnings, lynchings, shootings, tarrings,
duels, and all sorts of violent excesses, perpetrated by all sorts of
persons upon all sorts of occasions, seemed to be the order of the
day.... Alarmingly great was the number of people who appeared to
believe that they had the right to put down by force and violence all
who displeased them by act or speech or belief in politics, or
religion, or business, or in social life." It is only familiarity with
such fruits of violent political activity, only a vision impaired by
preconceived notions of the nature of politics, that blinds the public
to their existence.
To see why politics must be regarded as a form of civil war rather
than as a method of business, as a system of spoliation rather than as
a science to be studied in the public schools,[1] it is but needful to
grasp the fundamental purpose of government as generally understood.
It is not too much to say that nothing in sociology is regarded as
more indicative of an unsound mind or of a mean and selfish
disposition than the conception of government as a power designed to
prevent aggression at home and abroad. Such a conception has been
contemptuously called "the police conception." "Who would ever fight
or die for a policeman?" cried an opponent of it, trying to reduce an
adversary to ignominious silence. It was not sufficient to reply with
the counter question, "Who would not die for justice?" and thus expose
the fallacy of the crushing interrogation. "No one," came the retort,
"could care for a country that only protected him against swindlers,
robbers, and murderers. To merit his allegiance and to fire his
devotion, she must do more than that; she must help to make his life
easier, pleasanter, and nobler." Accordingly, the Government
undertakes for him a thousand duties that it has no business with. It
builds schools and asylums for him; it protects him against disease,
and, if needful, furnishes him with physicians and medicines; it sees
that he has good beef and pork, pure milk, and sound fruit; it refuses
to permit him to drink what he pleases, though it be only the cheaper
grades of tea, nor to eat chemical substitutes for butter and cheese,
except they bear authorized marks; it transports his mails, supplies
him with garden seeds, instructs him in the care of fowls, cattle, and
horses, shows him how to build roads, and tells him what the weather
will be; it insures him not only against incompetent plumbers,
barbers, undertakers, horseshoers, accountants, and physicians, but
also against the competition of the pauper labor of foreign countries;
it creates innumerable offices and commissions to look after the
management of his affairs, particularly to stand between him and the
"rapacity" of the corporations organized to supply the necessaries of
life at the lowest cost; it builds fleets of cruisers and vast coast
fortifications to frighten away enemies that never think of assailing
him, and to inspire them with the same respect for "the flag" that he
is supposed to feel. Indeed, there is hardly a thing, except simple
justice, cheap and speedy, that it does not provide to fill him with a
love of his country, and to make him ready to immolate himself upon
her altars.
But I can not repeat with too much emphasis that every expenditure
beyond that required to maintain order and to enforce justice, and
every limitation of freedom beyond that needful to preserve equal
freedom, is an aggression. In no wise except in method does it differ
from the aggressions of war. In war the property of an enemy is taken
or destroyed without his consent. In case of his capture his conduct
is shaped in disregard of his wishes. The seizure of a citizen's
property in the form of taxes for a purpose that he does not approve,
and the regulation of any part of his conduct not violative of the
rights of his neighbors, are precisely the same. If he is forbidden to
carry the mails and thus earn a living, his freedom is restricted. If
he can patronize no letter carrier but the Government, to which he
must pay a certain rate, no matter how excessive, he has to a degree
become a slave. The same is true if he can not employ whomever he
pleases to cut his hair, or to fix his plumbing, or to prescribe for
his health. Still truer is it if he is obliged to contribute to a
system of public education which he condemns, or to public charities
which he knows to be schools of pauperism, or to any institution or
enterprise that voluntary effort does not sustain. In whatever way the
Government may pounce upon him to force him to work for some one
besides himself and to square his conduct with notions not his own, he
is still a victim of aggression, and the aggression is none the less
real and demoralizing because it is not committed amid the roar of
cannon and the groans of the dying.
To what extent the American people have become victims of this kind of
aggression can not be determined with precision. Still, an idea may be
had from the volume of laws enacted at every legislative session, and
the amount of money appropriated to enforce them. A commonplace little
appreciated is that every one of them, no matter what its ostensible
object, either restricts or contributes to individual freedom. The
examination of any statute-book will soon make painfully apparent the
melancholy fact that the protection of individual freedom figures to
the smallest extent in the considerations of the wise and benevolent
legislator. Of the eight hundred enactments of the Legislature of the
State of New York in 1897, for example, I could find only fifty-eight
that had this supreme object in view. If we apply the same ratio to
the work of all the legislatures of the country, and, allowing for
biennial sessions, make it cover a period of two years--namely, 1896
and 1897--the astonishing result will be that, of the 14,718 laws
passed, all but 1,030 aim, not to the liberation but to the
enslavement of the individual. But to this restrictive legislation
must be added the thousands of acts and ordinances of town, city, and
county legislatures that are more destructive of freedom even than the
State and Federal legislation. If not more numerous, they are
certainly more minute, meddlesome, and exasperating.
As to the amount of plunder passing through the hands of the modern
_condottieri_, that is susceptible of an estimate much more accurate.
If we take the expenditures of all the governments of the United
States, Federal, State, municipal, county, and town, for a similar
period of two years, they reach the enormous total of two billion
dollars, equal to more than two thirds of the national debt at the
close of the civil war.[2] Of this sum only about one hundred and
twenty million dollars, or six per cent, are devoted to the legitimate
functions of government--namely, the maintenance of police and
courts--and one hundred and forty million dollars to the support of
the military establishment.[3] All the rest is expenditure that should
no more be intrusted to the Government--that is, subject to the
application of political instead of business methods--than the
expenditure of a household, or a farm, or a cotton mill, or an iron
foundry. Even if it were a legitimate expenditure of the Government,
it could not be collected nor expended without injustice. Tax laws
have never been and never will be framed that will not permit some one
to escape his share of the burdens of the community; and the heavier
those burdens are, as they are constantly becoming to an alarming
degree, the more desperate will be the effort to shirk them--the more
lightly will they rest upon the dishonest and unworthy, and the more
heavily upon the honest and worthy. Moreover, it has never been
possible, and it never will be possible, to expend money by political
methods without either waste or fraud, and most usually without both.
Such a volume of legislation and taxation permits of the easy
detection of the vital difference between the theory and practice of
politics. According to the text-books and professors, politics is the
science of government. In countries like the United States, where
popular institutions prevail, the purpose of its study is the
discovery and the application of the methods that shall enable all
citizens, rich and poor, to share alike in the inestimable privilege
of saying what laws they shall have, and bear in proportion to their
means the burdens it entails. Such a privilege is supposed to confer
innumerable benefits. Every one is assured of scrupulous justice. He
is made to feel profound gratitude for his happy deliverance from the
odious tyranny and discrimination of a monarchy or an aristocracy. The
participation of everybody in the important and beneficent work of
government possesses a rare educational value. It leads the ignorant
and indifferent to take a deep interest in public questions, and to
attempt, as their strength and ability allow, the promotion of the
welfare of their beloved country. Thus they escape the deplorable fate
of burial in the sordid and selfish pursuit of their own affairs, and
the consequent dwarfing of their minds and emotions. Rising to broader
views of life and duty, they become patriots, statesmen, and
philanthropists.
Enchanting as this picture is, one that can be found in the speeches
of every demagogue, male and female, as well as in the works of every
political philosopher of the orthodox faith, it has no sanction in
the practice of politics. As long as the greater part of legislation
and taxation has nothing whatever to do with government, properly
speaking, politics can have no kinship with any pursuit held in esteem
by men truly civilized. What it consists of may be reduced to a
desperate and disgraceful struggle between powerful organizations,
sometimes united, like the Italian _condottieri_ and the Spanish
brigands, in the form of "rings," to get control of the annual
collection and distribution of one billion dollars, and to reap the
benefits that grow out of the concession of privileges. The
legislation placing this vast power in the hands of the successful
combatants is only an incident of their work. It simply enables them
under the form of law to seize the taxpayer, bind him like another
Gulliver with rules and regulations, and to take from him whatever
they please to promote their political ambition and private interests.
From this point of view it is easy to see that politics has no more
kinship with science or justice than pillage. Nor is it likely to make
people more patriotic, high-minded, and benevolent than the rapacity
of Robin Hood or Fra Diavolo.
However startling or repugnant may be this view, it is the only one
that furnishes an adequate explanation of the practice of government
as carried on in every democratic country in the world. The work of
private business and philanthropy, the work in which modern
democracies have come to be chiefly engaged, is not in itself
productive of the ethics and evils of war. Contrary to the common
belief, industrial competition, which is conducted by voluntary
co-operation, tends to the supremacy of excellence, moral and
material. In societies where civilization has made headway, a merchant
or manufacturer does not seek to crush rivals by misrepresenting them
or assailing them in other ways. His natural and constant aim is to
have his goods so cheap and excellent that the public will patronize
him rather than them. To be sure, the ethics of war often prevail in
industrialism. They are not, however, one of its products; they are
the fruits of militant ages and activities. But in political
competition, which is coercive, the policy pursued is precisely the
reverse. Not by proof of moral and material excellence does the
politician establish his worth. Not by the superiority of his services
or by his fidelity to obligations does he gain the esteem and
patronage of the public. It is by the infliction of injury upon his
rivals. He misrepresents them; he deceives them; he assails them in
every way within his reach. When he triumphs over them he uses his
power, not primarily for the benefit of the people whom he is supposed
to serve, but to maintain his supremacy in order to pillage them.
"Those who make war," says Machiavelli, whose famous book is a _vade
mecum_ for a modern politician as well as for an unscrupulous and a
tyrannical prince, "have always and very naturally designed to enrich
themselves and impoverish the enemy. Neither is victory sought nor
conquest desirable except to strengthen themselves and weaken the
enemy."
In the light of this truth the organization of powerful political
parties becomes natural and inevitable. It is just as natural and
inevitable that the more numerous the duties intrusted to the
State--that is, the greater the spoil to be fought for in caucus and
convention and on the floors of legislatures--the more powerful,
dangerous, and demoralizing they are certain to be. Were these duties
confined to the maintenance of order and the enforcement of justice,
it would be an easy matter for the busiest citizen to give them the
attention they required. So simple would they be that he could
understand them, and so important that he would insist upon their
proper performance. But when they become vast and complex, including
such special and difficult work as the education of children; the care
of idiots, lunatics, and epileptics; the supervision of the liquor
traffic, the insurance business, and railroad transportation, and the
regulation of the amount of currency needed in an industrial
community, it is beyond the powers of any man, however able, to
understand them all, and, no matter how much time he may have, to look
after them as he ought. When to these duties are added the management
of agricultural stations; the inspection of all kinds of food; the
extirpation of injurious insects, noxious weeds, and contagious
diseases; the licensing of various trades and professions; the
suppression of quacks, fortune-tellers, and gamblers; the production
and sale of sterilized milk, and the multitude of other duties now
intrusted to the Government, it is no wonder that he finds himself
obliged to neglect public questions and to devote himself more closely
to his own affairs in order to meet the ever-increasing burdens of
taxation. Neither is it any wonder that there springs up a class of
men to look after the duties he neglects, and to make such work a
means of subsistence. The very law of evolution requires such a
differentiation of social functions and organs. The politician is not,
therefore, the product of his own love of spoliation solely, but of
the necessities of a vicious extension of the duties of the State.
There is nothing more abnormal or reprehensible about his existence
under the present _régime_ than there is about the physician or lawyer
where disease and contention prevail. As long as the conditions are
maintained that created him, so long will he ply his profession. When
they are abolished he will be abolished. No number of citizens'
unions, or nonpartisan movements, or other devices of hopeful but
misguided reformers to abolish him, can modify or reverse this
immutable decree of social science.
Politics tends to bring to the front the same kind of men that other
social disorders do. A study of political leaders in the democratic
societies of the world discloses portraits that differ only in degree
from those that hang in the galleries of history in Italy in the
fifteenth century, in Germany during the Thirty Years' War, and in
France at the height of the French Revolution. Although the men they
represent may not be as barbarous as Galeazzo or Wallenstein or
Robespierre, they are just as unscrupulous and despicable. Like their
prototypes, some of them are of high birth; others are of humble
origin; still others belong to the criminal class. They do not, of
course, capture cities and towns and hold them for ransom, or threaten
to burn fields of wheat and corn unless bribed to desist; still they
practice methods of spoliation not less efficient. By blackmailing
corporations and wealthy individuals, they obtain sums of money that
would have filled with bitter envy the leaders of the famous or rather
infamous "companies of adventurers." With the booty thus obtained they
gather about them numerous and powerful bands of followers. In every
district where their supremacy is acknowledged they have their
lieutenants and sublieutenants that obey as implicitly as the
subordinates in an army. Thus equipped like any of the great brigands
of history, they carry caucuses and conventions, shape the party
policy, and control the legislation proposed and enacted.
To be sure, the economic devastation of politics is not as conspicuous
as that of war. It does not take the tragic form of burning houses,
trampled fields of grain, tumbling walls of cities, and vast
unproductive consumption by great bodies of armed men. Yet it is none
the less real. Not infrequently it is hardly less extensive when
measured in dollars and cents. Seldom does an election occur,
certainly not a heated congressional or presidential election, that
the complaint of serious interference with business is not universal.
So great has the evil become that, long before the meeting of the
national conventions in 1896, a concerted movement on the part of the
industrial interests of the country was started to secure an
abbreviation of the period given up to political turmoil. Even more
serious is the economic disturbance due to legislatures. As no one
knows what stupendous piece of folly they may commit at any moment,
there is constant apprehension. "The country," said the Philadelphia
Ledger, a year ago, referring to the disturbance provoked by the
Teller repudiation resolution in the Senate and the violent Cuban
debate in the House, "has got Congress on its hands, and, after their
respective fashions, Senate and House are putting enormous weight of
disturbing doubts and fears upon it.... To a greater or less degree a
meeting of Congress has been during recent years anticipated by the
community of business with timidity which in some instances has
amounted to trepidation." The State legislatures are hardly better. No
great industry has any assurance that it will not find itself
threatened with a violent and ruinous assault in some bill that a
rapacious politician or misguided philanthropist has introduced. In
New York the attacks of these modern brigands have become so frequent
and so serious that many of the larger corporations have had to take
refuge in adjacent States,[4] where they can enjoy greater, if not
complete immunity. In a less degree the same is true of the minor
legislatures--town, county, and municipal. Ordinances for pavements or
sewers or in concession of valuable privileges keep the taxpayers in a
state of constant anxiety. At the same time vast harm comes from the
neglect of more important matters. The time of legislators is spent in
intriguing and wrangling, and the millions of dollars that the
sessions cost are as completely destroyed as though burned by
invaders.
Though seldom or never recognized, politics has the same structural
effect upon society as war. The militant forces of the one, like the
militant forces of the other, tend to the destruction of social
mobility and the creation of social rigidity, making further social
evolution difficult or impossible. There is a repression of the spirit
of individual initiative, which calls into existence just such
institutions as may be required at any moment and permits them to pass
away as soon as they have served their purpose. There is an
encouragement of the class and parasitic spirit, which produces
institutions based upon artificial distinctions, and, like those in
China, so tenacious of life as to defy either reform or abolition. To
provide place and pelf for followers, political leaders, aided by the
misdirected labors of social reformers, favor constantly the extension
of the sphere of government in every direction. In New York, for
example, during the past eighteen years, thirty-six additions to State
offices and commissions have been made. Simultaneously, the
expenditures on their account have grown from less than four thousand
dollars a year to nearly seven million. This feudal tendency toward
the bureaucracy that exists in France and Germany, and in every
country cursed with the social structure produced by war, is not only
the same in the other States, but in the Federal Government as well.
Its latest manifestation is the amazing extension of the powers of the
interstate commerce commission demanded in the Cullom bill, and the
proposed establishment of a department of commerce to promote trade
with foreign countries. As in New York, there has been an enormous
increase in Federal expenditures. In the agricultural department it
has been from $3,283,000 in 1887 to $23,480,000 in 1897. In other
departments the increase has ranged from nineteen per cent in the
legislative and twenty-three in the diplomatic and consular to seventy
in the Indian, seventy-seven in the post office and river and harbor,
and one hundred and thirty-three in the pension. Another manifestation
is the pressing demand for the extension of the pension system to
civil officials. Already the system has been extended to policemen and
firemen. In some States the teachers in the public schools receive
pensions, and in others the clamor for this form of taxation is loud
and persistent. At the present time a powerful movement is in progress
to pension the civil servants of the Government. Still another
manifestation is the passage of laws in revival of the old trade and
professional corporations. For a long time those in protection of the
legal and medical professions have been on the statute-books, if not
always in force. But, as always happens, these bad precedents have
been used as arguments in favor of the plumbers, barbers, dentists,
druggists, and other trades and professions. But the most absurd
manifestation is the social classification of Government employees in
accordance with the size of their salaries, a form of folly
particularly apparent in Washington, and the establishment of
patriotic and other societies, like the Sons and Daughters of the
American Revolution, the Baronial Order of Runnymede, and the Royal
Order of the Crown, that create social distinctions based, not upon
character and ability, but upon heredity. Could anything be more
un-American, to use the current word, or hostile to the spirit of a
free democracy?
In the intellectual domain politics works a greater havoc than in the
social. Politicians can no more tolerate independence in thought and
action than Charles V or Louis XIV or Napoleon I. "I have never had
confidence in political movements which pretend to be free from
politics," said the Governor of New York at the close of the campaign
that restored Tammany Hall to power in the metropolis, showing that
the intolerance of this form of warfare does not differ from that of
any other. "A creed that is worth maintaining at all," he added, using
an argument made familiar by the agents of bigotry everywhere, "is
worth maintaining all the time.... Do not put your faith in those that
hide behind the pretense of nonpartisanship," he continued, striking a
deadly blow at all party traitors; "it is a device to trap
the thoughtless and unsuspecting." As was shown during the
Blaine-Cleveland campaign of 1884, politicians treat dissent as proof
of unmistakable moral and intellectual baseness. Only the progress of
civilization prevents them from pouncing upon such men as George
William Curtis, Carl Schurz, and Wayne McVeagh with the ferocity of
the familiars of the Inquisition. As it is, they are regarded with
more abhorrence than the members of the opposition; they are treated
with a greater wealth of contempt and hatred, and often pursued with
the malignant vindictiveness of the cruelest savages. "I submit," said
Mr. Wanamaker in one of his speeches against the Quay machine, "that
the service of self-respecting men is lost to the Republican party by
vile misrepresentations of reputable people, employment of bogus
detectives, venomous falsifiers, a subsidized press, and conspirators
who dare any plot or defilement, able to exert political control, and
by protecting legislation and by domination of legal appointees of
district attorneys and others not in elective but appointive offices."
During the memorable campaign of 1896, when political bitterness and
intolerance reached perhaps the highest point in the history of the
United States, thousands of voters, driven by the scourge of "party
regularity," either concealed or disavowed their convictions, and
marched under banners that meant repudiation of public and private
obligations. Even one of Mr. Cleveland's Cabinet officers, who had
stood up bravely for the gold standard, succumbed to party discipline
and became an apostate. The intolerant spirit of politics extends to
dictation of instruction of students. The prolonged assaults of the
protectionists upon Professor Perry and Professor Sumner are well
known. The same spirit inspired the attack upon President Andrews, of
Brown University, the dismissal of the anti-Populist professors in the
Agricultural College of Kansas, and the populistic clamor against
certain professors in the universities of Missouri and Texas. That
politics produces the same contempt for culture and capacity that war
does, evidence is not lacking. "There is," said Senator Grady, of
Tammany Hall, apologizing for the appointment of some illiterate to
office in New York city, "a class of persons, chiefly the educated,
who thinks that if a man begins a sentence with a small letter, or
uses a small 'i' in referring to himself, or misspells common words,
that he is unfit for public office. Nothing could be further from the
truth," he continues, using an argument that the barbarians that
overran Europe might have made; "it is an idea that only the
aristocracy of culture could hold.... We do not want the people ruled
by men," he adds, giving a demagogic twist to his reasoning, "who are
above them, or who fancy they are because they have wealth or learning
or blood, nor by men who are below them, but we want them ruled in a
genuine democracy by men who are the representatives in all their ways
of thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting, of the average man." What
is wanted, in other words, is not men anxious to acquit themselves
with ability and fidelity to the public interests, but men that will
look after the interests of their organization and do the other work
of political _condottieri_. It can, of course, be a matter of no
consequence whether such men spell or speak correctly, or whether they
conduct themselves like boors and ruffians.[5]
As implied in all that has been said, it is, however, upon morals that
the effect of politics is the most deplorable. From the beginning of
the discussion of the party platform and the nomination of the
candidates to the induction of the successful combatants into office,
the principles applied to the transaction of business play the
smallest possible part. The principles observed are those of war. All
the tactics needful to achieve success in the one are indispensable to
success in the other. First, there is, as I have already said, an
attempt to misrepresent and injure political opponents, and, next, to
confuse, befool, and pillage the public. I shall not, however,
describe the factional conflicts that precede a convention--the
intrigue, the bribery, the circulation of false stories, and even the
forgery of telegrams like the one that brought about the nomination
and defeat of Secretary Folger. They exhibit only on a small scale the
ethics of party warfare in general. More needful is it to illustrate
these, and to make clear the vanity of any hope of moral reform
through politics, or through any other agency, either religious,
philanthropic, or pedagogic, as long as it remains a dominant activity
of social life.
"If Mr. Gage had been a politician as well as a banker," said Senator
Frye, criticising the secretary's honesty and courage at a time when
both were urgently needed, "he would not have insisted upon a
declaration in favor of a single gold standard. It was all right for
him to submit his scheme of finance, but hardly politic to be so
specific about the gold standard." Always adjusted to this low and
debased conception of duty, a party platform is seldom or never framed
in accordance with the highest convictions of the most intelligent and
upright men in the party. The object is not the proclamation of the
exact truth, as they see it, but to capture the greatest number of
votes. If there is a vital question about which a difference of
opinion exists, the work of putting it into a form palatable to
everybody is intrusted to some cunning expert in verbal juggling. A
money plank, for instance, is drawn up in such a way that the
candidate standing upon it may be represented by editors and orators
of easy consciences as either for or against the gold standard. The
same was true for years of the slave and tariff questions; it is still
true of the temperance question, the question of civil-service
reform, and of every other question that threatens the slightest
party division. Again, questions are kept to the front that have no
more vitality than the dust of Cæsar. Long after the civil war the
issues of that contest formed the stock in trade of the politicians
and enabled them to win many a battle that should have been fought on
other grounds. If need be, the grossest falsehoods are embodied in the
platform, and proclaimed as the most sacred tenets of party faith.
When the campaign opens, the ethics of the platform assume a more
violent and reprehensible shape. Not only are its hypocrisies and
falsehoods repeated with endless iteration, but they are multiplied
like the sands of the beach. Very few, if any, editors or orators
pretend to discuss questions or candidates with perfect candor and
honesty. Indeed, very few of them are competent to discuss them. Hence
sophistry and vilification take the place of knowledge and reason.
Were one party to adopt the Decalogue for a platform, the other would
find nothing in it to praise; it would be an embodiment of socialism,
or anarchism, or some other form of diabolism. If one party were to
nominate a saint, the other would paint him in colors that Satan
himself would hardly recognize. Not even such men as Washington and
Lincoln are immune to the assaults of political hatred and mendacity.
As the campaign draws to a close, we have a rapidly increasing
manifestation of all the worst traits of human nature. In times of
quiet, a confessed knave would scarcely be guilty of them. False or
garbled quotations from foreign newspapers are issued. The old Cobden
Club, just ready to give up the ghost, is galvanized into the most
vigorous life, and made to do valiant service as a rich and powerful
organization devoted to the subversion of American institutions.
Stories like Clay's sale of the presidency are invented, and letters,
like the Morey letter, are forged, and, despite the most specific
denials of their truth, they are given the widest currency. Other
forms of trickery, like the Murchison letter, written by the British
minister during Mr. Cleveland's second campaign, are devised with
devilish ingenuity, and made to contribute to the pressing and
patriotic work of rescuing the country from its enemies.
But this observation of the ethics of war does not stop with the close
of the polls, where bribery, intimidation, and fraud are practiced,
and the honest or dishonest count of the ballots that have been cast;
it is continued with the same infernal industry in the work of
legislation and administration. Upon the meeting of the statesmen that
the people have chosen under "the most perfect system of government
ever devised by man," what is the first thing that arrests their
attention and absorbs their energies? More intriguing, bargaining, and
bribery in a hundred forms, more or less subtle, to secure election
and appointment to positions within the gift of the legislature.
Little or no heed is given to the primary question of capacity and
public interests. Political considerations--that is, ability to help
or to harm some one--control all elections and appointments. What is
the next thing done? It is the preparation, introduction, discussion,
and passage of the measures thought to be essential to the
preservation of civilization. Here again political considerations
control action. Such measures are introduced as will strengthen
members with their constituents, or promote "the general welfare" of
the party. Very rarely have they "the general welfare" of the public
in view. Sometimes they seek to change district boundaries in such a
way as to keep the opposition in a perpetual minority. Sometimes they
have no other motive than the extortion of blackmail from individuals
or corporations. Sometimes their object is to throw "sop to
Cerberus"--that is, to pacify troublesome reformers within the party,
like the prohibitionists and the civil-service reformers. Sometimes
they authorize investigations into a department or a municipality with
the hope that discoveries will be made that will assist the party in
power or injure the party out of power; it happens not infrequently
that they are undertaken to smother some scandal, like the
mismanagement of the Pennsylvania treasury, or to whitewash some
rascal. Sometimes they create commissions, superintendents, or
inspectors, or other offices to provide rewards for party hacks and
heelers. Finally, there are the appropriation bills. Only a person
ignorant of the ways of legislators could be so simple-minded as to
imagine that they are miracles of economy, or that they are anything
else but the products of that clumsy but effective system of pillaging
known as log-rolling, which enables each to get what he wants with the
smallest regard for the interests of the taxpayer.
It is, however, during the debates over these wise and patriotic
measures that the public is favored with the most edifying exhibition
of the universal contempt of the legislator for its interests. They
disclose all the scandalous practices of a political campaign. There
are misrepresentations, recriminations, and not infrequently, as in
the case of Sumner, personal assaults. A perverse inclination always
exists toward those discussions that will put some one "in a hole," or
enable some one to arouse party passion. For this purpose nothing is
so effective as a foreign question, like a Cuban belligerency
resolution, or a treaty for the annexation of Hawaii, or a domestic
question, like responsibility for the crime of 1873, or the panic of
1893, or a comparison of party devotion to the interests of the "old
soldier." Not the slightest heed, as has been shown on several
occasions during the past few years, is paid to the shock that may be
given to business or to the disturbance of pacific relations with
foreign powers. In fact, the greater the danger involved in the
discussion of a delicate question, the more prone are the demagogues
to mouth it. To such questions as bankruptcy, railroad pooling, and
currency reform will they give their time and wisdom only when
business interests have almost risen in insurrection and compelled
attention to them.
The same policy of hypocrisy, deception, favoritism, and proscription
is a dominant trait of the administration of the Government. The
object almost invariably in mind is the welfare or injury of some
party, or faction, or politician. The interests of the public are the
last thing thought of, if thought of at all. Take dismissals and
appointments. They may, as has been known to occur even in the United
States, be made to better the public service. Even then a careful
study of motive will disclose the characteristic purpose of the
politician. In a choice between two men of equal ability, or rather of
equal inability, which is more commonly the case, preference is given
to the one with the stronger "pull." Often, as has been shown within
the past year or two, convicted rascals are appointed at the behest of
Congressmen and in defiance of the wishes of the business community,
and, in spite of the civil-service laws, officials are dismissed
because of their politics alone. In the letting of contracts it is not
difficult to detect the observance of the same judicious rule. The
virtuous formality of letting to the lowest bidder may be gone through
with, and the public may be greatly pleased with this exhibition of
official deference to its interests. Yet an examination of the work
done under the supervision of complaisant inspectors, who may be
blinded in various ways to the defects of that of a political friend,
or made supernaturally alert to the defects of that of a political
enemy, will reveal a trail that does not belong to scrupulous
integrity. That is why dry docks, like that in Brooklyn, why harbor
works, like those in Charleston, turn out defective; why the
Government has to pay more for the transportation of the mails than a
private corporation; why the cost of the improvement of the Erie Canal
was concealed until nearly all the money voted for the folly had been
expended; why of the money expended one million dollars was wasted, if
not stolen; why so much of the State Capitol at Albany has been built
over again; why the City Hall in Philadelphia has been an interminable
job; why the supplies of prisons, asylums, and other public
institutions are constantly proving to be inferior to those paid
for--why, in a word, everything done by political methods is vitiated
by the ethics of war. In the enforcement of laws very little justice
or honesty can be found. As a rule, they bear much more harshly on the
poor and weak, that is, those with small political influence, than on
the rich and strong, that is, those with much political influence.
Take the enforcement of liquor laws, health laws, factory laws, and
compulsory school laws. If a man with political influence wishes to
keep his children at home for any purpose, no truant officer is
indiscreet enough to trouble him; if, however, a poor woman, just made
a widow, wishes to have her oldest son work in disregard of the
statute, in order to keep her and her younger children out of the
poor-house, his official zeal is above criticism. Politics poisons
even the fountains of justice. Criminals that have sufficient
political influence can escape prosecution or obtain pardon after
conviction. Prosecuting officers are importuned incessantly, even by
"leading citizens," to abandon prosecution of them or to "let them off
easily." In the appointment of receivers and referees, judges are much
more inclined to give preference to political friends than to
political enemies. Finally, if political exigencies require it, there
is no hesitation to invoke the latent savagery of a nation. In proof,
recall the Venezuelan message of Mr. Cleveland, which "dished" the
Republican jingoes, and the German emperor's assault upon Hayti and
China to secure the adoption of his naval bill. To make the record
complete, I ought to add that for a purpose more odious--namely, the
increase of sales--newspapers, always the ready recipients of
political patronage, commit the same atrocious crime against
civilization.
Since politics is a form of civil war, involving aggressions upon
person and property, any extension of its field of operation must be
attended by precisely the same moral and economic effects that attend
the pursuit of civil war itself. No concession of suffrage to women,
nor any legal machinery, however ingenious, that may be invented, will
alter that fact. Already we are confronted with alarming
manifestations of the decadence of society that have always
accompanied civil strife. The public burdens are becoming so great,
equaling the per capita rate prevailing at the outbreak of the French
Revolution, that people in cities as well as in the country are being
driven from their homes by the sale of their property for unpaid
taxes. Both classes are joining the ranks of "the disinherited," just
as similar classes joined the brigands in France and Italy, and are
clamoring for the trial of the thousand absurd schemes for social ills
known as populism and socialism, all meaning an increase of the
functions of government, still further aggressions upon persons and
property, and an aggravation of the evils already complained of. At
the same time the moral tone of society is rapidly sinking to a low
level. "It is a melancholy reflection," says the report of the New
York State tax commission, dwelling upon the desperate efforts of
people to escape the aggressions committed on them and disclosing the
observance of a code of ethics committed in every walk in life, "that
in this Christian age neither the memory of early moral training, nor
present religious profession, hopes or fears for the hereafter, the
penalties of the law, nor any other possible considerations are
sufficient to restrain the average possessor of personal property
from forcing other men to pay the taxes for which he is justly liable,
by methods unquestionably immoral, if not absolutely criminal."
Further evidence of the same startling and deplorable fact, one
recalling the cruel indifference of the privileged classes of the
ancient _régime_ to the sufferings of the people that bore the burdens
that they ought to have shared, is to be found in the universal
tendency of people to get public improvements at the expense of
others, such as free baths, normal schools, interoceanic canals, etc.,
and the shocking prevalence of crimes of violence in every part of the
country. To be sure, there are coupled with this alarming decadence
extraordinary religious, philanthropic, and pedagogic efforts to
rescue society from the depths of degradation to which it is sinking.
But, as is shown by the history of the unparalleled moral enthusiasm
of thousands of ascetics and teachers of the highest character during
the decadence of Rome and the disorders of the middle ages, they will
be absolutely ineffective as long as the conditions prevail that
engender envy, hatred, deception, plunder, and murder, destroying not
only morality, but every vestige of fellow-feeling and patriotism.
"There is a nation," says Mr. Bodley in his new book on France,
bringing out this profound and important truth, "to the members of
which Frenchmen are more revengeful than to the Germans, more
irascible than to the Italians, more unjust than to the English. It is
to the French that Frenchmen display animosity more savage, more
incessant, and more inequitable than to any other race." Precisely the
same effect is to be noticed in the United States--the inevitable
effect of every form of aggression, even though it have the most
benevolent object in view.
Yet the conclusion is not that people should abstain from politics.
That would involve greater evils than those that now prevail. It would
be submission to aggression--freedom to predatory politicians to
continue their pillage. The thing to be done is to take up arms
against them, and to wage relentless war on them. But the object of
the struggle must not be the substitution of one set of politicians
for another, but to reduce to the smallest possible limits the sphere
of all political activity. Until this is done there can be no release
from so important a duty to self and to the community.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] An absurd suggestion made by the State Superintendent of New York.
[2] In order to get at the full amount of plunder, I ought to know how
much the beneficiaries of tariff and other laws pocket. But statistics
on this point are unfortunately not to be had. The amount must,
however, be very large.
[3] These figures represent the expenditures before the war with
Spain. That deplorable event will increase them considerably.
[4] It has been suggested by J. Novicow that, by a competition of this
kind among nations, an improvement in legislation might be forced upon
them.
[5] As in the demand of Johnny Powers, the great Chicago boss, for the
removal of Hull House from his ward, politics often leads to hostility
to the work of philanthropists to ameliorate the condition of the
poor. Another striking example of the same evil was the failure of a
Quay legislature to provide for the maintenance of the State
charitable institutions of Pennsylvania, and its sham investigation of
the pitiful condition of the inhabitants of a mining district.
* * * * *
SIR W. MARTIN CONWAY, with his two Swiss guides, Antoine
Maquiguez and Louis Pellissier, on September 9, 1898,
reached the top of Yllimani, Bolivian Andes, near La Paz.
The party were five days reaching the summit, 22,500 feet
above the sea, from the highest point of cultivation. The
guides were the same who ascended Mount St. Elias in 1897
with Prince Luigi of Savoy.
MY PET SCORPION.
BY NORMAN ROBINSON.
When I first came to Florida I heard terrible accounts of the deadly
work of a poisonous "bug," popularly known as the "grampus" or
"mule-killer."
My first informant was a "Florida cracker," who seemed fairly
intelligent, and whom I had employed in a little woodcraft. He
happened to encounter one of those terrible creatures, and promptly
"smashed" it with his axe. On expressing regret that I had no
opportunity of seeing it before it was crushed into so shapeless a
mass, he gravely assured me that he "didn't take no resks on them
varmints. Them's the pisenest things in Floridy. Rattlers ain't
nowhar! A man what gits bit by one of them critters--no medicine can't
save him! We calls 'em mule-killers, cause they's wust on mules. A
hoss nor a dog don't seem to mind 'em, but a mule is done dead when
one of them varmints strikes 'em."
I cross-questioned my informant a little as to his personal knowledge
of the matter, and especially as to the fatal results following the
bite of this very astonishing "bug." "Did you ever know," said I, "of
a mule's dying from the bite of this 'mule-killer'?"
"Oh, yes, I've knowed of several, and I hearn tell of lots. Ole man
Jernigan, he loss a likely mule what got struck by one of them
critters, and there was a man what died down to the Johnson place, bit
by one of them things. They tells me he took whisky enough to kill two
men, but it didn't do him no bit of good. He was powerful fond of
whisky, anyway, and he died mighty easy."
I subsequently made some inquiries in regard to these supposed
casualties, and came to the conclusion that my informant's accounts of
them were largely mythical. A mule had died in the neighborhood
mentioned, but the "mule-killer" was colic; and in the case of the
man, although he claimed to have been bitten by a "grampus," it was
generally believed that the "serpent of the still" was the most deadly
"varmint" he had recently encountered.
I soon found, however, that the belief in the venomous character of
this "whip scorpion," or _Thelyphonus giganteus_, as it proved to be,
was almost universal. The negroes, especially, are in mortal terror of
it. Only a few days since a colored boy that I had employed in hauling
wood brought me a small specimen, completely crushed, with the
triumphant announcement, "I've got him, but he like to done strike me
'fore I seed him."
"But how do they bite?" I asked, "with their claws?"
"Dey don't bite at all! Dey jes' strike you with de tail, and dey's a
pizen juice comes out, and den no doctor kain't save you!"
Newspaper stories confirming this belief occasionally go the rounds. I
remember reading one particularly circumstantial account of the
mishaps of a camping party somewhere in south Florida. "They were a
long way," said this veracious chronicler, "from any human habitation,
and the loss of their one mule from the bite of this pestiferous
scorpion brought with it no end of inconvenience and trouble."
The distressing story was told with great detail, and it was certainly
not calculated to diminish the popular dread with which this supposed
venomous creature is regarded. Even in scientific journals we find an
occasional echo of this general belief. Dr. Packard, too, certainly
good authority, in his Study of Insects accepts the current theory.
In the Proceedings of the Washington (D. C.) Entomological Society
there is an interesting discussion of this very question (vol. ii, No.
2). Professor Howard stated that a case of the bite of the
_Thelyphonus_ with fatal results was vouched for by a Mr. Dunn, a
professed naturalist, and that his testimony was entitled to weight.
Mr. Ashmead and Mr. Banks, both of whom had been familiar with the
_Thelyphonus_ in Florida, had handled them frequently, and believed
them harmless. Dr. George Marx confirmed this view by stating that
dissection failed to show the presence of any poison sac or fangs, a
statement which it seems has been confirmed by subsequent
investigations.
Altogether here was a "muddle" of conflicting testimony, which could
only be accounted for by supposing "some one had blundered."
A few months since, for my own satisfaction, I determined to make a
special study of our Florida "grampus." Not the least curious question
that first suggests itself is how this name, "grampus" (French, _Grand
poisson_, _great fish_), one of the _Cetaceæ_, ever got tacked on as a
popular label for our Florida _Thelyphonus_. I am utterly at a loss to
account for it.
Before catching "my bird" I, of course, had to make a cage for it.
This was constructed out of a large cigar box. About half of one end
was removed and replaced by wire gauze. In addition to the hinged
wooden cover, with which the box was furnished, I arranged a second
one of wire gauze, hinged on the opposite side, and closing underneath
the wooden one. This gave full control of light and air, both by day
and night, without disturbing my future prisoner, and at the same time
diminished the danger of his escape.
I knew very well that the scorpion I was after was of a very modest
and retiring disposition, and was never seen above ground in daylight
except by accident or mistake. I was also under the impression that
they were becoming rather rare, as it was more than a year since I had
seen one. Still, it was with the most abundant confidence, to say
nothing of the more prosaic requisites of a stout pair of gloves, a
paper bag, and a hoe, that I started out one afternoon to find my
_Thelyphonus_. I directed my course to the nearest wood, not for a
moment doubting that a few hours' work would bring to light the object
of my search. I labored faithfully until dark, overturning rotten
logs, sticks, bark, old rails, and other field and woodland _débris_
under which my "grampus" would be likely to be hiding, but the search
was altogether fruitless.
I then concluded to try a plan which I have usually found quite
successful. I told some of the bright boys in town what I wanted, and
offered them a liberal price for every live "grampus" they would
bring, cautioning them that their bite was said to be poisonous, and
at the same time instructing them exactly how to catch and handle
them. This scheme was also a failure. I then asked several friends who
are interested in natural history to aid me in the search. One
gentleman, who is a surveyor, and who in the pursuit of his profession
passes much of his time in the woods, entered with special interest
into my quest. These plans were all equally barren of results.
One day, after I had practically given up the search, I was hoeing
among the sprouts at the base of an old orange tree that had fallen a
victim to the "big freeze" when, under a pile of chips at the base of
the old stump, I suddenly unearthed my long-looked-for _Thelyphonus_.
It was a fine, full-grown specimen, decidedly resentful at this sudden
intrusion upon its privacy, and if a formidable pair of expanded
claws, brandishing tail, and a generally vicious look meant anything,
it was a customer that a prudent man would not care to pick up with
bare hands. With the aid of a wide-mouthed preserving jar and a stick
it was, however, soon secured, and in a short time transferred to the
cage that had been so long waiting for its occupant.
A few words may not be amiss concerning the great family of which my
little captive is not the least interesting member. The _Thelyphonidæ_
belong to the great spider family, _Arachnida_, which includes not
only the true spiders, but also the mites (_Acarids_), the ticks
(_Ixodes_), the _Tartarides_, _Phrynides_, _Phalangides_, and other
more or less related and mostly tropical groups. The whole subclass
has certain pretty well-defined characteristics. They are almost
without exception carnivorous (_insectivorous_). They are seldom
subject to metamorphosis. The legs are usually eight in number. The
eyes are always situated on the cephalo-thorax (head and breast
plate), and not infrequently are the same in number as the legs. Not a
few are fitted with poison sacs and fangs, and in the case of some of
the larger true spiders and scorpions the venom is very virulent, and
in some instances has proved fatal to human life.
As this is hardly the place for a technical description of my
_Thelyphonus_--a female--I shall content myself with a few facts and
measurements. Those who are curious as to her personal appearance can
consult the accompanying photograph. Most persons will conclude that
her beauty is not even "skin deep."
[Illustration: Photograph of a _Thelyphonus_]
The following post-mortem data will perhaps aid in giving a clearer
idea of this curious little creature. The length of the body from the
front of the cephalo-thorax to the end of the last post-abdominal
segment was fifty-two millimetres--a little more than two inches; the
length of the tail was fifty millimetres, thus making the total length
about four inches. The width of the abdomen in its widest part, near
the center, was thirteen millimetres, or approximately half an inch.
The claw-bearing palpi, or "feelers," which are large and very
powerful, have an extreme expansion of fifty-eight millimetres, nearly
two and a half inches. The tail is a curious organ, and consists of
forty-four short, jointed sections of a pale wine color, with a light
yellow ring at the base; a few short, scattered pointed hairs are
found on each segment. It is about two thirds of a millimetre in
thickness at the base and tapers to about half this diameter at the
end. When alarmed, the _Thelyphonus_ holds it curved over forward
after the manner of the true scorpions; a habit that probably points
to some common ancestor. Its true function appears to be that of an
extra palpus or "feeler."
The _Thelyphonus_ is generally of a wine color. In some places, as on
the cephalo-thorax, this color is black; around the mouth parts, the
legs, the sternal plate, and the under side of the abdomen, this wine
color is very pronounced.
The eyes are eight in number. Two of them are close together, on
opposite sides of a slightly elevated ridge at the front of the
cephalo-thorax. These eyes are bright, black, and beadlike, and about
two thirds of a millimetre in diameter. A little farther back, on the
outer edges of the cephalo-thorax, are placed the remaining six eyes,
three on a side, in a triangular group. These eyes are not quite as
large as those in front, but they are of a shining yellow color, and
altogether give the face of the whip scorpion a decidedly uncanny
look.
But to return to the history of my pet. As Madam Thelyphonus had
obviously been accustomed to rather primitive furniture, I did not
overburden her new apartments. A thickly sanded floor, a salt dish
filled with fresh water, a square of pine bark the size of my hand,
slightly elevated, with a few nice pieces of green moss to remind her
of the country home she had left, and my involuntary guest was ready
for housekeeping. She accepted her new quarters without question or
examination, and promptly retired to her bedroom under the bark.
But housekeeping, even for a whip scorpion, involves the food
question. Here I was upon uncertain ground. The strictly nocturnal
habits of the _Thelyphonus_ render all such investigations difficult.
Naturally, the authorities on this point are somewhat indefinite or
conflicting. The first things which I placed in the cage were a number
of roaches of assorted sizes. One investigator claims that they are
readily eaten by the _Thelyphonus_. Twenty-four hours passed and not a
roach was missing.
The matter, however, in which I felt a more immediate interest was the
supposed venomous character of my new pet. My experiments were,
therefore, especially directed to the settlement of this question. The
next night a large, full-grown toad, that for some time had made his
home in my back yard, was placed in the cage. The roaches were still
there, and right here a very interesting thing happened. The largest
cockroach, nearly two inches in length, was upon the side of the cage.
The toad had hardly got comfortably seated immediately in front of him
when the cockroach suddenly disappeared. I could not say that I saw
him disappear. I was looking directly at both, but the "dissolving
view" was too rapid for the eye to follow. To say that it was "quick
as a flash" would depend somewhat on what kind of a "flash" was meant.
I think nitroglycerin would undoubtedly have kept up with my _bufo_;
but, judging from what I saw, or rather didn't see, I should say that
this toad could have swallowed about six cockroaches while gunpowder
was getting ready to go off! Any one who wishes to get an entirely new
view of the meaning of the phrase "with neatness and dispatch" should
by all means try this "lightning combination" of cockroaches and a
Florida toad!
And now I was all ready for the coming "battle royal" that I had
reason to suppose would take place between my little captives. I
cautiously removed the bark under which Madam Thelyphonus was hiding,
and then awaited results.
They didn't come. The _Thelyphonus_ kept perfectly still, ditto the
toad. I must stir them up. With a stick I tried to irritate the
scorpion. She proved a perfect marvel of patience. She wouldn't
"irritate" worth a cent. I poked the toad over and on top of the
supposed vicious and venomous creature. The latter crept out from
under her unusual burden and crawled into a corner. The toad in a
dazed sort of way pulled himself together and hopped off. I still kept
up my pokings and proddings, thinking that possibly my "grampus" could
at last be teased into some manifestation of her supposed deadly
powers. It was a complete failure. Madam Thelyphonus proved to be a
perfect model of patient endurance under persecution. All I could do,
there was not a sign or motion of resentment. She could not be teased
or tormented into biting, pinching, or fighting anything or anybody.
My little captive had all the "ornaments of a meek and quiet spirit,"
and her only desire seemed to be to get out of the way. Now here was
certainly a curious contrast between reputation and real character. A
whole Stateful of slanderous natural history was disappearing under my
very eyes! "Mule-killer," indeed! Why, my little captive couldn't be
coaxed or goaded into harming a fly. In patient sufferance and
persistent good nature she could have given points to "Uncle Toby," in
his celebrated interview with that annoying insect. Still, although
this first experiment quite convinced me that my _Thelyphonus_ was
entirely harmless, I concluded to leave my captives together for the
night. In the morning, as I expected, both were in the best of health
and spirits, the toad eager to jump out, the scorpion eager to be let
alone.
The next night I tried a mouse. This sharp-toothed, frisky little
rodent would, I thought, be likely to get into trouble if there was
any to be found. The teasing process was not repeated, as it had
proved such a complete failure. The mouse, however, ran round the
cage, tumbling over the _Thelyphonus_, in the most rapid and reckless
way. Every time the latter seemed to regard these awkward encounters
as unavoidable accidents, and excused them accordingly. As to biting,
pinching, or resenting them in any way, she showed not the slightest
symptom of them. She simply crawled into a corner and kept as quiet as
circumstances would permit. As in the case of the toad, both were left
together overnight. All that really happened, so far as I could see,
was that the mouse had nearly gnawed a hole through the cage; but
evidently he was none the worse for having shared his bedroom with
this terrible "mule-killer," "worse than a rattlesnake," according to
the accepted belief.
It is certainly a curious question how so perfectly harmless a
creature can have acquired such a bad reputation. I know of no modern
parallel. In Shakespeare's time a similar popular prejudice was
entertained against one of the most useful servants that farmers and
horticulturists possess. The well-known lines--
"The toad, ugly and venomous,
Holds yet a precious jewel in its head"--
were but the echo of this crude and cruel fancy. So with our
_Thelyphonus_. It is not only absolutely harmless, but, as I shall
soon show, one of the most useful helps in keeping within bounds one
of our most serious pests.
The comment that I once heard, by a not over-intelligent and somewhat
profane individual, upon seeing a dead whip scorpion--"Any ---- fool
can see that that critter is rank pisin!"--probably partially explains
the matter. It must be conceded that the looks of the _Thelyphonus_
are decidedly against it. Its long, frisky tail, its big, threatening
claws, and its generally uncanny and vicious appearance are quite
sufficient to inspire caution if not positive dread. It "looks pisin,"
and that settles it with the ignorant. With the better informed the
fact that the creature belongs to a bad family, that its nearest
relatives are unquestionably venomous, may help to explain, though it
can hardly excuse, the widespread currency which even scientific men
have helped to give to a most erroneous and slanderous belief.
And now as to the food question. This, of course, was a very vital
matter to my little prisoner, and one of great interest to me. After
the failure of the cockroach diet, I next tried grasshoppers. These
also have been declared to be greatly relished by the _Thelyphonus_. I
did not find it so. The first one placed in the cage was, to be sure,
partially eaten. But, unfortunately, a colony of ants had got into the
cage, and were dining on my dead _Gryllus_. This left the matter a
little uncertain. On fencing out these intruders, and repeating the
experiment with the same and half a dozen other species, I became
convinced that my _Thelyphonus_, at least, was not fond of
grasshoppers. Then began a kind of general system, or no system, of
haphazard feeding, or rather trials of food. My marketing range for my
particular "boarder" was by no means a limited one. During the month
of September, when most of these investigations were in progress,
Florida is by no means deficient in insect life. Every day from two to
ten new and different species were placed in the cage. A list was
kept, to avoid repetition, until my captive was offered her choice of
something over a hundred varieties of "bugs," worms, grubs, spiders,
ants and their eggs, lizards, butterflies, etc.--everything, indeed,
that I could think of or conveniently catch, which it seemed possible
my little captive might fancy. Of all this heterogeneous collection,
nothing, so far as I could see, was ever killed or eaten. A tiny piece
of fresh beef, placed in her cage at night, was the only thing that I
could persuade her to touch. Even of this I am not absolutely certain.
In the morning these little pellets of fresh meat were usually found
rolled in the sand and often apparently diminished in size. Several
times they disappeared altogether. The presence, however, of other
predatory insects sometimes left the matter a little in doubt. But, as
my captive remained in good health for over a month while this plan of
trial dieting was in progress, I am inclined to think that more or
less of the fresh beef was really consumed by her. Still, she took the
greatest care that I should never catch her eating, even when
surprised with a sudden light at night, a time when she was always
especially active.
I was getting a little tired of this seemingly fruitless
investigation, and had about concluded to persuade my _Thelyphonus_ to
crawl into a bottle in company with a few drops of chloroform, to have
her picture taken, and then forward the "embalmed remains" to the
Museum of Natural History in Central Park, New York, to which they had
already been promised.
I concluded, however, to make one more effort. So the next day I spent
some time in hunting for new and untried insects, of which I procured
half a dozen or so, and among other things quite a lot of so-called
"wood-lice," "white ants," _termites_, our only representative of a
family that in most warm countries is so destructive to exposed wooden
structures. All of these "finds" were tumbled, as usual, upon the
floor of my captive's cage, and I left them with very little
expectation that she would see among them anything that suited her
fastidious taste. The next morning, to my surprise, every white ant
had disappeared; nothing else was touched. The question was solved.
For about three weeks my _Thelyphonus_ was supplied each day with a
liberal allowance of what in this latitude, at least, seems to be its
exclusive food.
Now, this white ant (_Termes flavipes_) is in Florida one of our worst
pests. Possibly there may be some compensating benefits which they
confer, in the more rapid removal of decaying vegetable matter. In
most respects, however, they are an unmitigated nuisance. The annual
destruction of property, of fencing, building foundations, and exposed
woodwork of every kind must be estimated at hundreds of thousands of
dollars. The worst of it is, too, that it is impossible to know when
they are at work. They are always hidden. In case they are compelled
in their destructive labors to pass over the outside of anything, they
always build a hard gallery of cemented sand or clay, under which
they travel securely. Unfortunately, too, they do not always confine
their ravages to dead wood. Every orange grower fears them, and if
they once get a foothold the tree that they attack is often destroyed
before anything is suspected to be the matter. They "love darkness
rather than light," and "their deeds are evil." And it is these
miserable pests that my little-appreciated and much-slandered
_Thelyphonus_ has been all her life fighting! And those big, strong
claws of hers, that look so formidable, what are they for but to tear
down and break in pieces the hard, honeycombed structures in which her
food is hidden? It was all plain enough now!
I confess, when I first discovered these facts which turn popular
natural history so completely topsy-turvy, I felt like taking off my
hat and making my profoundest bow to my little captive, and in the
name of justice and humanity asking pardon for all the slanders and
indignities heaped upon her race.
Since writing the above, a private note from Prof. L. O. Howard, chief
of the Division of Entomology in the United States Department of
Agriculture, Washington, D. C., furnishes important additional
testimony upon the question of the harmlessness of this arachnid.
Professor Howard says, "The _Thelyphonus_ is not poisonous."
Perhaps a way of reconciling at least some of the conflicting
statements that have been made on the subject may be found in the
facts revealed by modern bacteriological investigations. It is well
known that under special conditions the bite of the most harmless
animal may convey to the human system pathogenic germs which will
speedily prove fatal. Most of the deaths reported in the newspapers
from the bite of the _Thelyphonus_ are no doubt imaginary, or due
entirely to other causes. Any well-authenticated case--if such there
has been--is probably to be explained in the manner above indicated.
This theory, too, helps to "let down easy" some prominent naturalists
whose great names have served to give countenance to one of the most
widespread and persistent errors in current natural history.
* * * * *
In a memorial address of the late Dr. James Hall, made at
the recent meeting of the Geological Society of America,
Secretary H. L. Fairchild referred to Dr. Hall's development
as almost coeval with that of the science of geology in
America, and his sixty-two years of activity as connecting
the work of the self-taught pioneers in this branch with the
widespread field of activity of to-day. Dr. Hall's accuracy
and well-balanced observation had made his first work, a
report on the Geology of Western New York, a classic of the
science to-day.
THE PEOPLES OF THE BALKAN PENINSULA--THE GREEK, THE SLAV, AND THE
TURK.[6]
BY WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, PH. D.,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY; LECTURER IN ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
The significant geography of the Balkan Peninsula may best be
illustrated by comparing it with the other two south European ones,
Italy and Spain. The first point to notice is that it is divided from
the mainland by rivers and not by a well-defined mountain chain.
Iberia begins definitely at the Pyrenees, and Italy proper is cut off
from Europe by the Apennine chain. On the other hand, it is along the
line of the Danube and of its western affluent, the Save (see map
between pages 614 and 615), that we find the geographical limits of
the Balkan Peninsula. This boundary, as will be observed, excludes the
kingdom of Roumania, seeming to distinguish it from its trans-Danubian
neighbor Bulgaria. This is highly proper, viewed from the standpoint
of geography and topography. For Roumania is, for the most part, an
extensive and rich alluvial plain; while the Balkan Peninsula, as soon
as you leave the Bulgarian lowlands, is characteristically rugged, if
not really mountainous.
[Illustration: PEOPLES OF THE BALKAN PENINSULA
After SAX '78]
From Adrianople west to the Adriatic, and from the Balkan Mountains
and the Save River south to the plains of Epirus and Thessaly, extends
an elevated region upward of two thousand feet above the sea, breaking
up irregularly into peaks often rising above five thousand feet. There
is no system in these mountains. The land is rudely broken up into a
multitude of little "gateless amphitheaters," too isolated for union,
yet not inaccessible enough for individuality. As White observes, "If
the peninsula, instead of being the highly mountainous and diversified
district it is, had been a plateau, a very different distribution of
races would have obtained at the present day." Nor can one doubt for a
moment that this disordered topography has been an important element
in the racial history of the region.
In its other geographical characteristics this peninsula is seemingly
more favored than either Spain or Italy. More varied than the former,
especially in its union of the two flora of north and south; far
richer in contour, in the possession of protected waters and good
harbors than Italy; the Balkan Peninsula, nevertheless, has been,
humanly speaking, unfortunate from the start. The reason is patent. It
lies in its central or rather intermediate location. It is betwixt
and between; neither one thing nor the other. Surely a part of Europe,
its rivers all run to the east and south. "By physical relief it turns
its back on Europe," continually inviting settlement from the
direction of Asia. It is no anomaly that Asiatic religions, Asiatic
institutions, and Asiatic races should have possessed and held it; nor
that Europe, Christianity, and the Aryan-speaking races should have
resisted this invasion of territory which they regarded in a sense as
their own. In this pull and haul between the social forces of the two
continents we finally discover the dominant influence, perhaps, which
throughout history has condemned this region to political disorder and
ethnic heterogeneity.
As little racial as of topographical system can we discover in this
Balkan Peninsula. Only in one respect may we venture upon a little
generalization. This is suggested by the preliminary bird's-eye view
which we must take as to the languages spoken in the peninsula. This
was a favorite theme with the late historian Freeman. It is developed
in detail in his luminous writings upon the Eastern question. The
Slavs have in this part of Europe played a rôle somewhat analogous to,
although less successful than, that of the Teutons in the west. They
have pressed in upon the territory of the classic civilizations of
Greece and Rome, ingrafting a new and physically vigorous population
upon the old and partially enervated one. From some center of
dispersion up north toward Russia, Slavic-speaking peoples have
expanded until they have rendered all eastern Europe Slavic from the
Arctic Ocean to the Adriatic and Ægean Seas. Only at one place is the
continuity of Slavdom broken; but this interruption is sufficient to
set off the Slavs into two distinct groups at the present day. The
northern one, of which we have already treated,[7] consists of the
Russians, Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks. The southern group, now before
us, comprises the main body of the Balkan peoples from the
Serbo-Croatians to the Bulgars, as shown upon the accompanying map.
Between these two groups of Slavs--and herein is the significant
point--is a broad belt of non-Slavic population, composed of the
Magyars, linguistically now as always Finns; and the Roumanians, who
have become Latin in speech within historic times. This intrusive,
non-Slavic belt lies along or near the Danube, that great highway over
which eastern peoples have penetrated Europe for centuries. The
presence of this water way is distinctly the cause of the linguistic
phenomenon. Rome went east; and the Finns, like the Huns, went west
along it, with the result as described. Linguistically speaking,
therefore, the boundary of the southern Slavs and that of the Balkan
Peninsula, beginning, as we have said, at the Danube, are one and the
same.
We may best begin our ethnic description by the apportionment of the
entire Balkan Peninsula into three linguistic divisions, viz., the
Greeks, the Slavs, and the Tatar-Turks. Of these the second is
numerically the most important, comprising the Serbo-Croatians, the
Albanians, and, in a measure, the Bulgarians. Their distribution is
manifested upon our map, to which we have already directed attention.
These Slavic-speaking peoples form not far from half the entire
population. Next in order come the Greeks, who constitute probably
about a third of the total. As our map shows, this Greek contingent is
closely confined to the seacoast, with the exception of Thessaly,
which, as an old Hellenic territory, we are not surprised to find
Greek in speech to-day. The Slavs, contrasted with the Greeks, are
primarily an inland population; the only place in all Europe, in fact,
where they touch the sea is along the Adriatic coast. Even here the
proportion of Greek intermixture is more considerable than our map
would seem to imply. The interest of this fact is intensified because
of the well-deserved reputation as admirable sailors which the modern
Dalmatians possess. They are the only natural navigators of all the
vast Slavic world. Everywhere else these peoples are noted rather for
their aptitude for agriculture and allied pursuits. There is still
another important point to be noted concerning the Greeks. They form
not only the fringe of coast population in Asiatic as well as in
European Turkey; they, with the Jews, monopolize the towns, devoting
themselves to commerce as well as navigation. Jews and Greeks are the
natural traders of the Orient. Thus is the linguistic segregation
between Greek and Slav perpetuated, if not intensified, by seemingly
natural aptitudes.
Perhaps the most surprising feature of our map of Turkey is the
relative insignificance of the third element, the Turks. There were
ten years ago, according to Couvreur, not above seven hundred and
fifty thousand of them in all European Turkey. Bradaska estimated that
they were outnumbered by the Slavs seven to one. Our map shows that
they form the dominant element in the population only in eastern
Bulgaria, where they indeed constitute a solid and coherent body.
Everywhere else they are disseminated as a small minority among the
Greeks or Slavs. Even about Constantinople itself the Greeks far
outnumber them. In this connection we must bear in mind that we are
now judging of these peoples in no sense by their physical
characteristics, but merely by the speech upon their lips. Nowhere
else in Europe, as we shall soon see, is this criterion so fallacious
as in the Balkan states. Religion enters also as a confusing element.
Sax's original map, from which ours is derived, distinguishes these
religious affiliations as well as language. He was indeed the first to
employ this additional test. The maze of tangled languages and
religions upon his map proved too complicated for our imitative
abilities. We were obliged to limit our cartography to languages
alone. The reader who would gain a true conception of the ethnic
heterogeneity of Turkey should consult his original map.
The word Turk was for several centuries taken in a religious sense as
synonymous with Mohammedan,[8] as in the Collect for Good Friday in
its reference to "Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics." Thus in
Bosnia, where in the fifteenth century many Slavs were converted to
Mohammedanism, their descendants are still known as Turks, especially
where they use the Turkish speech in their religion. Obviously in this
case no Turkish blood need flow in their veins. It is the religion of
Islam, acting in this way, which has served to keep the Turks as
distinct from the Slavs and Greeks as they are to-day. Freeman has
drawn an instructive comparison in this connection between the fate of
the Bulgars, who, as we shall see, are merely Slavonized Finns, and
the Turks, who have steadily resisted all attempts at assimilation.
The first came, he says, as "mere heathen savages (who) could be
Christianized, Europeanized, assimilated," because no antipathy save
that of race and speech had to be overcome. The Turks, in
contradistinction, came "burdened with the half-truth of Islam, with
the half-civilization of the East." By the aid of these, especially
the former, the Turk has been enabled to maintain an independent
existence as "an unnatural excrescence" on this corner of Europe.
Even using this word as in a measure synonymous with religious
affiliations, the Turks form but a small and decreasing minority in
the Balkan Peninsula. Couvreur affirms that not over one third of the
population profess the religion of Islam, all the remainder being
Greek Catholics. This being so, the query at once suggests itself as
to the reason for the continued political domination of this Turkish
minority, Asiatic alike in race, in speech, and in religion. The
answer is certain. It depends upon that subtle principle, the balance
of power in Europe. Is it not clear that to allow the Turk to go
under, as numerically he ought to do, would mean to add strength to
the great Slavic majority, affiliated as it is with Russia both by
speech and religion? This, with the consent of the Anglo-Saxon and
other Teutonic rivals of the Slav, could never be allowed. Thus does
it come about that the poor Greek is ground between the upper Turkish
and the nether Slavic millstone. "Unnatural disunion is the fate of
the whole land, and the cuckoo-cry about the independence and
integrity of the Ottoman Empire means, among the other evil things
that it means, the continuance of this disunion." Let us turn from
this distressing political spectacle to observe what light, if any,
anthropology may shed upon the problem.
* * * * *
From the relative isolation of the Greeks at the extreme southern
point of the peninsula and especially in the Peloponnesus, it would
seem that they might be relatively free from those ethnic disturbances
which have worked such havoc elsewhere in the Orient. Nevertheless,
Grecian history recounts a continuous succession of inroads from the
landward north, as well as from the sea. It would transcend the limits
of our study to attempt any detailed analysis of the early ethnology
of the country.[9] Examination of the relationship of the Pelasgi to
their contemporaries we leave to the philologists. Positively no
anthropological data on the matter exist. We are sufficiently grateful
for the hundred or more well-authenticated ancient Greek crania of any
sort which remain to us. It is useless to attempt any inquiry as to
their more definite ethnic origin within the tribal divisions of the
country.[10] The testimony of these ancient Greek crania is perfectly
harmonious. All authorities agree that the ancient Hellenes were
decidedly long-headed, betraying in this respect their affinity to the
Mediterranean race, which we have already traced throughout southern
Europe and Africa.[11] Whether from Attica; from Schliemann's
successive cities excavated upon the site of Troy; or from the coast
of Asia Minor; at all times from 400 B. C. to the third century of our
era; it would seem proved that the Greeks were of this dolichocephalic
type. Stephanos gives the average cranial index of them all as about
75.7, betokening a people like the present Calabrians in head form;
and, for that matter, about as long-headed as the Anglo-Saxons in
England and America. More than this concerning the physical traits of
these ancient Greeks we can not establish with any certainty. No
perfect skeletons from which we can ascertain their statures remain to
us. Nor can we be more positive as to their brunetness. Their
admiration for blondness in heroes and deities is well known. As Dr.
Beddoe ('93) says, almost all of Homer's favorites were blond or
chestnut-haired, as well as large and tall. Lapouge[12] seems inclined
to regard this as proof that the Greeks themselves were of this type,
a deduction which appears to us in no wise well founded.[13] As we
shall see, every characteristic in their modern descendants and every
analogy with the neighboring populations leads us to the conclusion
that the classical Hellenes were distinctly of the Mediterranean
racial types, little different from the Phoenicians, the Romans, or
the Iberians.
Since the Christian era, as we have said, a successive downpour of
foreigners from the north into Greece has ensued.[14] In the sixth
century came the Avars and the Slavs, bringing death and disaster. A
more potent and lasting influence upon the country was probably
produced by the slower and more peaceful infiltration of the Slavs
into Thessaly and Epirus from the end of the seventh century onward. A
result of this is that Slavic place names to-day occur all over the
Peloponnesus in the open country where settlements could readily be
made. The most important immigration of all is probably that of the
Albanians, who, from the thirteenth century until the advent of the
Turks, incessantly penetrated the land. As a result the Albanian
language is spoken to-day over a considerable part of the
Peloponnesus, especially in its northeastern corner, where it attaches
to the mainland. Only one little district has preserved, it may be
added, anything like the original classical Greek speech. The Tzakons,
in a little isolated and very rugged district on the eastern coast,
include a number of classical idioms in their language. Everywhere
else, either in the names of rivers, mountains, and towns, or in
borrowed words, evidence of the powerful influence of the Slavic
infiltration occurs. This has induced Fallmerayer, Philippson, and
others to assert that the Slavs have in fact submerged the original
Greeks entirely.[15] Explicit rebuttal of this is offered by Hopf,
Hertzberg, and Tozer, who admit the Slavic element, but still declare
the Greeks to be Greek. This is a matter concerning which neither
philologist nor geographer has a right to speak; the anthropological
testimony is the only competent one. To this we turn.
The modern Greeks are a very mixed people. There can be no doubt of
this fact from a review of their history. In despite of this, they
still remain distinctly true to their original Mediterranean ancestry.
This has been most convincingly proved in respect of their head
form.[16] The cephalic index of modern living Greeks ranges with great
constancy about 81. This, it should be observed, betokens an
appreciably broader head than in the case of the ancient Hellenes.
Stephanos, who has measured several hundred recruits, finds
dolichocephaly to be most prevalent in Thessaly and Attica; while
broad-headedness, so characteristic, as we shall see, of the Albanians
and other Slavs, is more accentuated toward the north, especially in
Epirus. About Corinth also, where Albanian intermixture is common, the
cephalic index rises above 83. The Peloponnesus has probably best
preserved its early dolichocephaly, as we should expect. In Thessaly
alone are the modern Greeks as purely Mediterranean as in classic
times. There can be no doubt that in Asia Minor at least, the word
Greek is devoid of any racial significance. It merely denotes a man
who speaks Greek, or else one who is a Greek Catholic, converted from
Mohammedanism. Greek, like Turk, has become entirely a matter of
language and religion, as these people have intermingled. Thus in the
southwest of Asia Minor, where Semitic influences have been strong,
von Luschan[17] makes the pregnant observation that the Greeks, in the
main, look like Jews and speak Turkish. Here, then, is proof positive
that no Greeks of pure Mediterranean descent remain to represent the
primitive Hellenic type in that region. But it is equally certain that
in the main body of the Greeks at home in Greece, the original racial
traits are still in the ascendant. The smoothly oval and long faces in
our two Greek portraits are surely of Mediterranean type. To this, the
ideal form, the purest elements in the nation still tend to revert.
[Illustration: GREEKS.
ROUMANIANS. County Hunyad, Hungary.
BULGARIANS. County Temes, Hungary.
BALKAN STATES.]
Whatever may be thought of the ancients, the modern Greeks are
strongly brunet in all respects. Ornstein ('79) found less than ten
per cent of light hair, although blue and gray eyes were
characteristic of rather more than a quarter of his seventeen hundred
and sixty-seven recruits. This accords with expectation, for among the
Albanians, next neighbors and most intrusive aliens in Greece, light
eyes are quite common. Weisbach's ('82) data confirm this, ninety-six
per cent of his Greeks being pure brunets.[18] In stature these people
are intermediate between the Turks and the Albanians and Dalmatians,
which latter are among the tallest of Europeans. In facial features
Nicolucci's early opinion seems to be confirmed, that the Greek face
is distinctively orthognathous--that is to say, with a vertical
profile, the lower parts of the face being neither projecting nor
prominent. The face is generally of a smooth oval, rather narrow and
high, especially as compared with the round-faced Slavs. The nose is
thin and high, perhaps more often finely chiseled and straight in
profile. The facial features seem to be well demonstrated in the
classic statuary, although it is curious, as Stephanos observes, that
these ideal heads are distinctly brachycephalic. Either the ancient
sculptors knew little of anthropology, or else we have again a
confirmation of our assertion that, however conscious of their
peculiar facial traits a people may be, the head form is a
characteristic whose significance is rarely recognized.
* * * * *
Linguistically the pure Slavs in the Balkan states comprise only the
Serbo-Croatians and the Albanians (see map), dividing between them the
ancient territory of Illyria. This western half of the peninsula,
rugged and remote, has been relatively little exposed to the direct
ravages of either Finnic or Turkish invaders. Especially is this true
of Albania. Nearly all authorities since Hahn are agreed in
identifying these latter people--who call themselves Skipetars, by the
way--as the modern representatives of the ancient Illyrians. They are
said to have been Slavonized by the Serbo-Croatians, who have been
generally regarded as descendants of the settlers brought by the
Emperor Heraclius from beyond the Save. This he is said to have done
in order to repopulate the lands devastated by the Avars and other
Slavs who, Procopius informs us, first appeared in this region in the
sixth century of our era. The settlers imported by Heraclius came, we
are told, from two distant places: Old Servia, or Sorabia, placed by
Freeman in modern Saxony; and Chrobatia, which, he says, lies in
southwestern Poland. According to this view, the Serbo-Croatians are
an offshoot from the northern Slavs, being divided from them to-day by
the intrusive Hungarians, while the Albanians alone are truly
indigenous to the country.
The recent political fate of these Illyrian peoples has been quite
various, the Albanians alone preserving their independence continually
under the merely nominal rule of the Turks. Religion, also, has
affected these Slavs in various ways. Servia owes much of its present
peace and prosperity to the practical elimination of the Moslems.
Bosnia is still largely Mohammedan, with about a third of its people,
according to White ('86), still professing that religion. The
significance of this is increased, since it was mainly the upper
classes in Bosnia, according to Freeman, who embraced the religion of
Islam in order to preserve their power and estates. The conversion was
not national, as in the case of the Albanians. Thus social and
religious segregation work in harmony to produce discord. With
multitudes of Jews monopolizing the commerce of the country and the
people thus divided socially as well as in religion, the political
unrest in Bosnia certainly seems to require the strong arm of Austrian
suzerainty to preserve order.
Whatever the theory of the historians as to origins may be, to the
anthropologist the modern Illyrians--Serbo-Croatians and Albanians
alike--are physically a unit. Two characteristics render this ethnic
group distinctive: first, that it comprises some of the tallest men in
the world, comparing favorably with the Scotch in this respect; and,
secondly, that the Illyrians tend to be among the broadest-headed
people known. In general, it would appear that the people, of
Herzegovina and northern Albania possess these traits to the most
notable degree, while both in the direction of the Save and Danube and
of the plains of Thessaly and Epirus they have been attenuated by
intermixture. Presumably also toward the east among the Bulgarians in
Macedonia and Thrace these characteristics diminish in intensity.
Thus, for example, while the Herzegovinians, measured by Weisbach,
yielded an average stature of five feet nine inches, the Bosnians were
appreciably shorter; and the Dalmatians and Albanians were even more
so. Nevertheless, as compared with the Greeks, Bulgars, Turks, or
Roumanians, even the shortest of these Slavs stood high. From this
specific center outward, especially around the head of the Adriatic
Sea, over into Venetia, spreads the influence of this giantism. It
confirms, as we have said, the classical theory of an Illyrian cross
among the Venetians, extending well up into the Tyrol.
As for the second trait, the exaggerated broad-headedness, it too,
like the tallness of stature, seems to center about Herzegovina and
Montenegro. Thus at Scutari, in the corner of Albania near this
last-named country, Zampa[19] found a cranial index of 89; in
Herzegovina the index upon the living head ranges above 87. It would
be difficult to exceed this brachycephaly anywhere in the world. The
square foreheads and broad faces of the people correspond in every way
to the shape of the heads. Its significance appears immediately on
comparison with the long oval faces of the Greeks.
One more trait of the Balkan Slavs remains for us to note. The people
are mainly pure brunets, as we might expect, but they seem to be less
dark than either the Greeks or the Turks. Especially among the
Albanians are light traits by no means infrequent. In this respect the
contrast with the Greeks is apparent, as well as with the Dalmatians
along the coast and the Italians in the same latitude across the
Adriatic. Weisbach found nearly ten per cent of blond and red hair
among his Bosnian soldiers, while about one third of the eyes were
either gray or blue. The Herzegovinians are even lighter than the
Bosnians, almost as much so as the Albanians. From consideration of
these facts it would appear as if the harsh climate of these upland
districts had been indeed influential in setting off the inland
peoples from the Italian-speaking Dalmatians along the coast. For
among the latter brunetness certainly increases from north to south,
conformably to the general rule for the rest of Europe. In the
interior, blondness apparently moves in the contrary direction,
culminating in the mountain fastnesses of northern Albania and the
vicinity. On the whole, we find also in this trait of brunetness
competent evidence to connect these Illyrians with the great body of
the Alpine race farther to the west. We have another illustration of
its determined predilection for a mountainous habitat, in which it
stoutly resists all immigrant tendencies toward variation from its
primitive type.
* * * * *
The Osmanli Turks, who politically dominate the Balkan Peninsula,
notwithstanding their numerical insignificance, are mainly distinctive
among their neighbors by reason of their speech and religion. Turkish
is the westernmost representative of a great group of languages, best
known, perhaps, as the Ural-Altaic family.[20] This comprises all
those of northern Asia even to the Pacific Ocean, together with that
of the Finns in Russian Europe. Its members are by no means unified
physically. All varieties of type are included within its boundaries,
from the tall and blond one which we may call Finnic, prevalent about
the Baltic; to the squat and swarthy Kalmucks and Kirghez, to whom we
have in a physical sense applied the term Mongols. The Turkish branch
of this great family of languages is to-day represented in eastern
Europe by two peoples, whom we may roughly distinguish as Turks and
Tatars.[21] The term Tatar, it should be observed, is entirely of
European invention, like the similar word Hungarian. The only name
recognized by the Osmanli themselves is that of Turk. This, by the
way, seems quite aptly to be derived from a native root meaning
"brigand," according to Chantre. They apply the word Tatar solely to
the north Asiatic barbarians. By general usage this latter term,
Tatar, has to-day become more specifically applied by ethnologists to
the scattered peoples of Asiatic descent and Turkish speech who are
mainly to be found in Russia and Asia Minor.
[Illustration: UZBEG. Ferghanah.
KIPTCHAK.
KARA-KIRGHEZ.
TURKOMAN TYPES.]
Of the two principal physical types to-day comprised within the limits
of the Ural-Altaic languages, the Turks and Tatars seem to be
affiliated with the Mongol rather than the Finn, not physically alone,
but in respect of language as well. As a matter of fact, they are
racially nearer the Aryan-speaking Europeans than most people imagine,
in everything except their speech. Their nearest relatives in Asia
seem to be the Turkoman peoples, who, to the number of a million or
more, inhabit the deserts and steppes of western Asia. It was from
somewhere about this latter region, as we know, that the hordes of
the Huns under Attila, and those of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, set
forth to the devastation of Europe. The physical type of these
inhabitants of Turkestan has been fairly well established by
anthropologists. It persists throughout a great multitude of tribes of
various names, among whom the Kara-Kirghez, Uzbegs, and Kiptchaks are
prominent.[22] On page 625 we have portraits of these Turkoman types.
The most noticeable feature of the portraits is the absence of purely
Mongol facial characteristics. Except in the Kara-Kirghez the features
are distinctly European. There is no squint-eye; the nose is well
formed; the cheek bones are not prominent, although the faces are
broad; and, most important of all, the beard is abundantly developed,
both in the Uzbeg and the Kiptchak. The Kara-Kirghez, on the other
hand, betrays unmistakably his Mongol derivation in every one of these
important respects. One common trait is possessed by all three--to
wit, extreme brachycephaly, with an index ranging from 85 to 89. The
flatness of the occiput is very noticeable in our portraits in every
case, giving what Hamy calls a "cuboid aspect" to the skull. These
portraits, if typical, should be enough to convince us that the
Turkoman of the steppes about the Aral and Caspian Seas is far from
being a pure Mongol even in his native land, although a strain of
Mongol blood is apparent in many of their tribes.
The fact is that the Asiatic Turkomans, whence our Osmanli Turks are
derived, are a highly composite type. A very important element in
their composition is that of certain brachycephalic peoples of the
Pamir, the Galchas and mountain Tadjiks. These are for all practical
purposes identical with the Alpine type of western Europe. In their
accentuated brachycephaly, their European facial features, their
abundance of wavy hair and beard, and finally in their intermediate
color of hair and eyes,[23] these latter peoples in the Pamir resemble
their European prototypes, or perhaps we had better say, congeners. So
close is this affiliation that the occurrence of this type in western
Asia is the keystone in any argument for the Asiatic origin of the
Alpine race of Europe. The significance of it for us in this
connection is that it explains the European affinity of many of the
Turkoman tribes, who are more strongly European than Mongol in their
resemblances. It is highly important, we affirm, to fix this in mind,
for the prevalent opinion seems to be that the Turks in Europe have
departed widely from their ancestral Asiatic type, because of their
present lack of Mongol characteristics, such as almond eyes, lank
black hair, flat noses, and high cheek bones.
[Illustration: NOMAD IVERVEK. Lycia, Asia Minor.
TURK. Lycia, Asia Minor.
TURK. Lycia, Asia Minor.
TURKS.]
Either the Osmanli Turks were never Mongols, or they have lost every
trace of it by intermixture. Our portraits on the opposite page give
little indication of Asiatic derivation except in their accentuated
short-and broad-headedness. This is considerably more noticeable in
Asia Minor than in European Turkey.[24] West of the Bosporus the Turks
differ but little from the surrounding Slavs in head form. They have
been bred down from their former extreme brachycephaly, which still
rules to a greater degree in Asia Minor. In our portraits from this
region the absence of occipital prominence is very marked. In addition
to this, the Turks are everywhere, as Chantre observes, "incontestably
brunet." The hair is generally stiff and straight. The beard is full.
This latter trait is fatal to any assumption of a persistence of
Kirghez blood, or of any Mongolic extraction, in fact. The nose is
broad, but straight in profile. The eyes are perfectly normal, the
oblique Mongol type no more frequent than elsewhere. In stature
tallness is the rule, judging by Chantre's data, but in this respect
social conditions are undoubtedly of great effect. On the whole, then,
we may consider that the Turks have done fairly well in the
preservation of their primitive characteristics. Chantre especially
finds them quite homogeneous, considering all the circumstances. They
vary according to the people among whom their lot is cast. Among the
Armenians they become broader-headed, while among the Iranian
peoples--Kurds or Persians--the opposite influence of intermixture at
once is apparent.
The Bulgarians are of interest because of their traditional Finnic
origin and subsequent Europeanization. This has ensued through
conversion to Christianity and the adoption of a Slavic speech. Our
earliest mention of these Bulgars would seem to locate them between
the Ural Mountains and the Volga.[25] The district was, in fact, known
as Old Bulgaria till the Russians took it in the fifteenth century. As
to which of the many existing tribes of the Volga Finns represent the
ancestors of these Bulgarians, no one is, I think, competent to speak.
Pruner Bey seems to think they were the Ostiaks and Voguls, since
emigrated across the Urals into Asia; the still older view of Edwards
and Klaproth made them Huns; Obédénare, according to Virchow, said
they were Samoyeds or Tungus; while Howorth and Beddoe claim the honor
for the Chuvashes. These citations are enough to prove that nobody
knows very much about it in detail. All that can be affirmed is that
a tribe of Finnic-speaking people crossed the Danube toward the end of
the seventh century and possessed themselves of territory near its
mouth. Remaining heathen for two hundred odd years, they finally
adopted Christianity and under their great leaders, Simeon and Samuel,
became during the tenth century a power in the land. Their rulers,
styling themselves "Emperors of the Slavs," fought the Germans;
conquered the Magyars as well as their neighbors in Thrace, receiving
tribute from Byzantium; became allies of Charlemagne; and then
subsided under the rule of the Turks. Since the practical demise of
this latter power they have again taken courage, and in their
semi-political independence in Bulgaria and northern Roumelia rejoice
in an ever-rich and growing literature and sense of nationality.
Bulgarian is spoken, as our map at page 614 indicates, far outside the
present political limits of the principality--indeed, over about two
thirds of European Turkey. Gop[vc]evi['c] has made a brilliant attempt
to prove that Macedonia, shown by our map and commonly believed to be
at bottom Bulgarian, is in reality populated mainly by Serbs.[26] The
weakness of this contention was speedily laid bare by his critics.
Political motives, especially the ardent desire of the Servians to
make good a title to Macedonia before the disruption of the Ottoman
Empire, can scarcely be denied. Servia needs an outlet on the
Mediterranean too obviously to cloak such an attempted ethnic
usurpation. As a fact, Macedonia, even before the late Greco-Turkish
war, was in a sad state of anarchy. The purest Bulgarian is certainly
spoken in the Rhodope Mountains; there are many Roumanians of Latin
speech; the Greeks predominate all along the sea and throughout the
three-toed peninsula of Salonica, while the Turks are sparsely
disseminated everywhere. And as for religion--well, besides the
severally orthodox Greeks and Turks, there are in addition the Moslem
and apostate Bulgarians, known as Pomaks, who have nothing in common
with their Greek Catholic fellow-Bulgars, together with the scattering
Pindus Roumanians and Albanians in addition. This interesting field of
ethnographic investigation is, even at this late day, practically
unworked. As Dr. Beddoe writes--and his remarks are equally applicable
to Americans--"here are fine opportunities for any enterprising
Englishman with money and a taste for travel and with sufficient
brains to be able to pick up a language. But, alas! such men usually
seem to care for nothing but 'killing something.'"
[Illustration: PEOPLES IN HUNGARY AND TRANSYLVANIA (SIEBENBÜRGEN)
After Jekelfalussy, '85]
The Roumanians, or Moldo-Wallachians, are not confined within the
limits of that country alone. Their language and nationality cover not
only the plains along the Danube and the Black Sea, but their speech
extends beyond the Carpathian Mountains over the entire southeastern
quarter of Hungary and up into the Bukovina. Transylvania is merely a
German and Magyar islet in the vast extent of the Roumanian nation.
There are more than a third as many Roumanians as there are Magyars
in the Hungarian kingdom, according to the census of 1890. Politically
it thus happens that these people are pretty well split up in their
allegiance. Nor can this condition be other than permanent. For the
Carpathian Mountains, in their great circle about the Hungarian basin,
cut directly through the middle of the nation as measured by language.
This curious circumstance can be accounted for only on the supposition
that the disorder in the direction of the Balkan Peninsula, incident
upon the Turkish invasion, forced the growing nation to expand toward
the northwest, even over the natural barrier interposed between
Roumania proper and Hungary. Geographical law, more powerful
than human will, ordains that this latter natural area of
characterization--the great plain basin of Hungary--should be the seat
of a single political unit. There is no resource but that the
Roumanians should in Hungary accept the division from their fellows
over the mountains as final for all political purposes.[27]
The native name of these people is Vlach, Wallach, or Wallachian.
Various origins for the name have been assigned. Lejean asserts that
it designates a nomad shepherd, in distinction from a tiller of the
soil or a dweller in towns. Picot voices the native view as to ethnic
origins by deriving the word Wallach from the same root as Wales,
Walloon, etc., applied by the Slavs and Germans to the Celtic peoples
as "foreigners." This theory is now generally discountenanced.
Obédénare's attempt to prove such a Celtic relationship has met with
little favor.[28] The western name Roumanian springs from a similarly
exploded hypothesis concerning the Latin origin of these people. To be
sure, Roumanian is distinctly allied to the other Romance languages in
structure. It is an anomaly in the eastern Slavic half of Europe. The
most plausible explanation for this phenomenon, and one long accepted,
was that the modern Roumanians were descendants of the two hundred and
forty thousand colonists whom the Emperor Trajan is said to have sent
into the conquered province of Dacia. The earlier inhabitants of the
territory were believed to have been the original Thracians. Since no
two were agreed as to what the Thracians were like, this did not
amount to much. Modern common sense has finally prevailed over
attempts to display philological erudition in such matters. Freeman
expresses this clearly. Roumania, as he says, lay directly in the
pathway of all invasions from the East; the hold of the Romans upon
Dacia was never firm; the province was the first to break away from
the empire; and finally proof of a Latinization only at the late date
of the thirteenth century is not wanting. The truth seems to be that
two forces were contending for the control of eastern Europe. The
Latin could prevail only in those regions which were beyond the potent
influence of Greece. Dacia being remote and barbarian, this Latin
element had a fighting chance for survival, and succeeded.
Our ethnic map at page 614 shows a curious islet of Roumanian language
in the heart of the Greek-speaking territory of Thessaly. There is
little sympathy between the two peoples, according to Hellène. The
occurrence of this Roumanian colony, so far removed from its base, has
long puzzled ethnographers. Some believe the peoples were separately
Romanized _in situ_; others that they were colonists from Dacia in the
ninth and tenth centuries. At all events, these Pindus Roumanians are
too numerous--over a million souls--to be neglected in any theory as
to the origin of their language.[29] Another islet of quasi-Roumanian
speech occurs in Istria, on the Adriatic coast. Its origin is equally
obscure.[30]
It is no contradiction that, in spite of the fact of our exclusion of
Roumania from the Balkan Peninsula owing to its Latin affinities,
thereby seeming to differentiate it sharply from Bulgaria, the latter
of Finnic origin; that we now proceed to treat of the physical
characteristics of the two nationalities, Roumanian and Bulgarian,
together. Here is another example of the superficiality of language,
of social and political institutions. They do not concern the
fundamental physical facts of race in the least. At the same time we
again emphasize the necessity of a powerful corrective, based upon
purely natural phenomena, for the tendency of philologists and
ethnographers to follow their pet theories far afield, giving
precedence to analogies of language and customs over all the potent
facts of geographical probability. Let us look at it in this light. Is
there any chance that, on the opposite sides of the Danube, a few
Finns and a few Romans respectively interposed among the dense
population which so fertile an area must have possessed, even at an
early time, could be in any wise competent to make different types of
the two? There is nothing in our confessedly scanty anthropological
data to show it, at all events. We must treat the lower Danubian plain
as a unit, irrespective of the bounds of language, religion, or
nationality.
It was long believed that the Bulgarians were distinctive among the
other peoples of eastern Europe by reason of their long-headedness.
All the investigations upon limited series of crania pointed in that
direction. This naturally was interpreted as a confirmation of the
historic data as to a Finnic Bulgarian origin very distinct from that
of the broad-headed Slavs. Several recent discoveries have put a new
face upon the matter. In the first place, researches by Dr.
Bassanovitch, of Varna, upon several thousand recruits from western
Bulgaria prove that in the west these Bulgarians even outdo many of
the Balkan Slavs in their broad-headedness.[31] At the same time it
appears that the older authorities were right, after all, in respect
of the eastern Bulgarians. Among them, and also over in eastern
Roumelia, long heads are still the rule. The oval-faced Bulgarians
among our portraits are probably of this dolichocephalic type. Their
contrast facially with the broad-headed Roumanians is very marked.
Thus it is established that the Bulgarian nation is by no means a unit
in its head form. We should add also that, although not definitely
proved as yet, it is highly probable that similar variations occur in
Roumania. In the Bukovina brachycephaly certainly prevails. Our
square-faced Roumanians on page 621 may presumably be taken to
represent this type. This broad-headedness decreases apparently toward
the east as we leave the Carpathian Mountains, until along
the Black Sea it seems, as in Bulgaria, to give way to a real
dolichocephaly.[32]
How are we to account for the occurrence of so extended an area of
long-headedness all over the great lower Danubian plain? Our study of
the northern Slavs has shown that no such phenomenon occurs there
among the Russians. It certainly finds no counterpart among the
southern Slavs or the Turks. The only other people who resemble these
Bulgars in long-headedness are the Greeks. Even they are far
separated; and, in any event, but very impure representatives of the
type. What shall we say? Two explanations seem to be possible, as Dr.
Beddoe observes.[33] Either this dolichocephaly is due to the
Finnicism of the original Bulgars, or else it represents a
characteristic of the pre-Bulgarian population of the Danube basin. He
inclines with moderation to the former view. The other horn of the
dilemma is chosen by Anutchin[34] in a brilliant paper at the late
Anthropological Congress at Moscow. According to his view--and we
assent most heartily to it--this dolichocephaly along the Black Sea
represents the last survival of a most persistent trait of the
primitive inhabitants of eastern Europe. Referring again to our study
of Russia,[35] we would call attention to the occurrence of a similar
long-headed race underlying all the modern Slavic population. We are
able to prove also that such a primitive substratum occurs over nearly
all Europe. It has been unearthed not far from here, for example, at
Glasinac in Bosnia. When archæological research is extended farther
to the east, new light upon this point may be expected. It will be
asked at once why this primitive population should still lie bare upon
the surface, here along the lower Danube, when it has been submerged
everywhere else in Central Europe. Our answer is ready. Here in this
rich alluvial plain population might, expectedly, be dense at a very
early period. As we have observed before, such a population, if
solidly massed, opposes an enormous resistance to absorption by
new-comers. A few thousand Bulgarian invaders would be a mere drop in
the bucket of such an aggregation of men. We are strengthened in this
hypothesis that the dolichocephaly of the Danubian plain is primitive,
by reason of another significant fact brought out by Bassanovitch.[36]
Long-headedness is overwhelmingly more prevalent among women than
among men. The former represent more often what Bassanovitch calls the
"dolichocephalic Thracian type." The oval-faced Bulgarian woman among
our portraits would seem to be one of these. Now, in our treatment of
the Jews,[37] we have sought to illustrate the principle that in any
population the primitive type persists more often in the women. The
bearing of such a law in the case of the Bulgars would seem to be
definite. Their long-headedness, where it occurs, must date from a far
more remote period than the historic advent of the few thousand
immigrants who have given the name Bulgaria to the country.
As for the other physical traits of the Bulgarians and Roumanians
there is little to be added. It goes without saying that they are both
deep brunets. Obédénare says the Roumanians are very difficult to
distinguish from the modern Spaniards and Italians. This is probably
true in respect of brunetness. The Oriental cast of features of our
portraits, on the other hand, can not fail to attract attention. More
than two thirds of Bassanovitch's nineteen hundred and fifty-five
Bulgarians were very dark-haired. Light eyes were of course more
frequent, nearly forty per cent being classed as blue or greenish. A
few--about five per cent--were yellow or tawny-haired, these
individuals being at the same time blue-eyed. This was probably
Procopius's excuse for the assertion that the Bulgars were of fair
complexion. He also affirmed that they were of goodly stature. This is
not true of either the modern Roumanians or Bulgars. They average less
than five feet five inches in height,[38] being considerably shorter
than the Turks, and positively diminutive beside the Bosnians and
other southern Slavs. The Bulgarians especially are correspondingly
stocky, heavily boned and built. We may also affirm a real difference
in temperament between the two nationalities, built up, as we assert,
from the same foundation. The Wallachians are said to be more
emotional and responsive; the Bulgarians inclined to heaviness and
stolidity. Both are pre-eminently industrious and contented
cultivators of the soil, with little aptitude for commerce, so it is
said. We hesitate to pass judgment upon either in respect of their
further aptitudes until fuller data can be provided than are available
at the present time.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Advance sheets from The Races of Europe, in press of D. Appleton
and Company, many footnotes and detailed references being here
omitted.
[7] Popular Science Monthly, October, 1898.
[8] Consult Taylor, 1890, p. 48; Von Luschan, 1889, p. 198; Sax, 1863,
p. 97.
[9] Consult Fligier, 1881. Stephanos, 1884, p. 430, gives a complete
bibliography of the older works. Cf. also Reinach, 1893 b, in his
review of Hesselmeyer; and on the supposed Hittites, the works of
Wright, De Cara, Conder, etc.
[10] Stephanos, 1884, p. 432, asserts the Pelasgi to have been
brachycephalic, while Zampa, 1886 b, p. 639, as positively affirms the
contrary view.
[11] Nicolucci, 1865 and 1867; Zaborowski, 1881; Virchow, 1882 and
1893; Lapouge, 1896 a, pp. 412-419; and Sergi, 1895 a, p. 75, are best
on ancient Greek crania.
[12] 1896 a, p. 414.
[13] Stephanos, 1884, p. 439.
[14] Philippson, Zur Ethnographie des Peloponnes. Petermann, xxxvi,
1890, pp. 1-11, 33-41, with map, gives a good outline of these.
Consult also Stephanos, 1884, pp. 422 _et seq._
[15] Cf. Couvreur, 1890, p. 514; and Freeman, 1877 d, p. 401.
[16] Weisbach, 1882; Nicolucci, 1867; Apostolides in Bull. Soc.
d'Anth., 1883, p. 614; Stephanos, 1884; Neophytos, 1891; Lapouge, 1896
a, p. 419. Von Luschan, 1889, p. 209, illustrates the similarity
between the Greek and the Bedouin skull.
[17] 1889, p. 209.
[18] Neophytos finds 82.5 per cent of dark-brown or black hair, only
five per cent blond or red; while seventeen per cent of the eyes were
dark among two hundred individuals.
[19] 1886 b, p. 637.
[20] Vambéry, 1885, divides the Ural-Altaic family into five
groups--viz., (1) Samoyed, (2) Tungus, (3) Finnic, (4) Mongolic, (5)
Turkish or Tatar.
[21] On terminology consult Vambéry, 1885, p. 60; Chantre, 1895, p.
199; Keane, 1897, p. 302.
[22] Complete data on these people will be found in Ujfalvy, 1878-'80,
iii, pp. 7-50; Les Aryens, etc., 1896, pp. 385-434; Bogdanof, 1888;
Yavorski, 1897.
[23] Ujfalvy (Les Aryens, etc., 1896, p. 428) found chestnut hair most
frequent, with twenty-seven per cent of blondness, among some of the
Tadjiks. The eyes are often greenish gray or blue (Ujfalvy, 1878-'80,
iii, pp. 23-33, tables).
[24] On the anthropology of European Turks, Weisbach, 1873, is the
only authority. He found an average cephalic index of 82.8 in 148
cases. Elisyeef, 1890-'91, and Chantre, 1895, pp. 206-211, have worked
in Anatolia, with indices of 86 for 143 individuals, and 84.5 for 120
men, respectively. Both von Luschan and Chantre give a superb
collection of portrait types in addition.
[25] Read Pruner Bey, 1860 b; Howorth; Obédénare, and especially
Kanitz, 1875, for historic details.
[26] 1889 a, with map, in Petermann, 1889 b. Cf. criticism of his
contention by Oppel, 1890; Couvreur, 1890, p. 523; and Ghennadieff,
1890, p. 663.
[27] Auerbach, 1898, p. 286, gives a full summary of the rival
controversy between Roumanians and Hungarians as to priority of title
in Transylvania.
[28] Cf. Picot, 1883, in his review of Tocilescu; and Rosny, 1885, p.
83.
[29] Picot, 1875, pp. 390 _et seq._
[30] Auerbach, 1898, p. 211.
[31] 1891, p. 30. Dr. Bassanovitch has most courteously sent me a
sketch map showing the results of these researches. Deniker, 1897, p.
203, and 1898 a, describes them also.
[32] Deniker, 1898 a, p. 122; Weisbach, 1877, p. 238; Rosny, 1885, p.
85.
[33] 1879, p. 233.
[34] 1893, p. 282.
[35] Popular Science Monthly, October, 1898, p. 734.
[36] 1891, p. 31. Women dolicho-, twenty-five per cent; meso-,
forty-two per cent; brachy-cephalic, thirty per cent; while among men
the percentages are 3, 16, and 81 ± per cent respectively.
[37] Popular Science Monthly, January, 1899, p. 350.
[38] Bassanovitch's series of 1,955 individuals averages only 1.638
metre. _Op. cit._, p. 30. Auerbach, 1898, p. 259, gives an average of
1.63 metre for 880 Wallachians in Transylvania. Obédénare, 1876, p.
374, states brown eyes to be most frequent in Roumania.
MARVELOUS INCREASE IN PRODUCTION OF GOLD.
BY ALEXANDER E. OUTERBRIDGE, JR.
The increasing annual production of gold in the world is a matter of
such far-reaching economic importance, not only in the financial
affairs of nations, but also in their industrial progress and in their
civilization, that a vast amount of patient study has been given by
eminent statisticians to the subject, and much time expended in
compiling, from various historical records and other sources of
information, statistical data which can be confidently accepted as
approximately correct, showing the annual production of the precious
metal from the time of the discovery of America down to the present
day.
A publication of the United States Treasury Department, issued in
1897, containing information respecting the production of precious
metals, etc., gives statistical tables showing the annual production
of gold in the world, commencing with the year 1493. The earlier
records are taken from a table of averages for certain periods
compiled by Dr. Adolph Soetbeer, and the later figures (from 1885 to
1896) are the annual estimates of the Bureau of the Mint. Other tables
show the annual production of gold from the mines of the United States
alone from 1845 to 1896, and it is from these official sources mainly
that the information has been gathered for this article, supplemented,
however, by a full and very interesting communication to the author
from the Director of the Mint, giving the latest figures, not yet
published, and containing the estimates and deductions of the director
respecting the production of gold in the world in 1898. This
information is so timely and valuable that the author is of the
opinion that the courteous letter of the Director of the Mint in
response to his inquiries, if appended to this article, may prove to
be--like the postscript of a lady's correspondence--its most important
feature.
Students of political economy are well aware of the fact that some
theorists have maintained that the annual production of gold in the
world (apart from the phenomenal discoveries in California about the
middle of the century, which were of an ephemeral character) does not
keep pace with the natural increase in trade requirements, if gold is
to maintain its position as the standard measure of value and the
universal medium of exchange. This theory, after having passed through
the various stages of _pro_ and _con_ argument in academic theses,
became the "war cry" of a political party in this country composed of
heterogeneous elements in the community, all inspired with one common
idea that the balance of power in commercial transactions had been
destroyed by the overwhelming force of concentration of capital and
the "cornering" of the visible supply of gold in the world by a few
enormously wealthy bankers. It was shown that, while the average
annual production of gold in the world in five years from 1855 to 1860
exceeded $134,000,000, there was a constant decline thereafter, so
that the annual average during five years from 1881 to 1885 barely
exceeded $99,000,000, according to official estimates; also that the
annual gold product of the mines of the United States declined from a
value of $65,000,000 in 1853 to $33,000,000 in 1892. Furthermore,
although a rising tendency was observed in each subsequent year, the
production from the mines of this country in 1894 was still under
$40,000,000, as was shown by the statistics of the United States
Treasury Department.
While admitting the general accuracy of these statements of fact, it
is the purpose of this paper to endeavor to show that the conclusions
drawn therefrom were entirely fallacious, because due cognizance was
not taken of the wonderful progress that has been made in recent years
in mining and metallurgical arts whereby countless millions of tons of
ore containing gold in such a finely divided state, or in such a
refractory condition, that it was formerly worthless (costing more to
recover the gold than the value of the precious metal contained in the
ore), have now rendered these low-grade ores the most stable sources
of supply of gold. Metallurgists, having knowledge of these facts,
have at various times during the past ten years predicted that a
golden stream would soon begin to flow from these practically new and
apparently inexhaustible sources; but the people at large were wholly
incredulous, and they are now astounded at the magnitude of the
production of gold in the world in the past two years; and more
especially, perhaps, are they amazed at the increase of production in
the United States, as shown by the official reports of the Director of
the Mint.
The gold production of the world in 1897 amounted in value, according
to the most reliable estimates, to more than $237,000,000, and in 1898
to more than $280,000,000; and it is the opinion of the Director of
the Mint that the final compilation of figures will show that the
production was "somewhere between $290,000,000 and $300,000,000!"
_Gold Production of the World._
----------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------
| 1897. | 1898.
+----------+---------+------------+----------+---------+------------
COUNTRIES. | Fine | Kilo- | | Fine | Kilo- |
| ounces. |grammes. | Value. | ounces |grammes. | Value.
----------------+----------+---------+------------+----------+---------+------------
| | | | | |
_North America._| | | | | |
United States | 2,774,935| 84,870.5| $59,210,795| 3,110,788| 95,200.7| $64,300,000
Canada | 299,467| 9,164.0| 6,190,000| 686,502| 22,071.1| 14,190,000
Newfoundland | 3,000| 93.3| 62,010| 3,000| 93.3| 62,010
Mexico | 344,498| 10,715.0| 7,121,189| 365,032| 11,354.0| 7,668,866
Central America | 25,399| 789.9| 525,000| 25,399| 789.9| 525,000
| | | | | |
_South America._| | | | | |
Argentina | 15,235| 473.8| 314,907| 15,235| 473.8| 314,907
Bolivia | 3,144| 98.0| 65,000| 3,144| 98.0| 65,000
Brazil | 70,732| 2,200.0| 1,462,120| 84,633| 2,591.0| 1,750,000
Chile | 68,096| 2,118.0| 1,407,544| 68,096| 2,118.0| 1,407,544
Colombia | 188,679| 5,868.7| 3,900,000| 188,679| 5,868.7| 3,900,000
Ecuador | 6,430| 199.9| 132,900| 6,430| 199.9| 132,900
Guiana (British)| 101,505| 3,156.9| 2,098,098| 88,617| 2,756.0| 1,861,393
Guiana (Dutch) | 32,983| 1,025.8| 681,748| 28,273| 865.3| 584,421
Guiana (French) | 59,859| 1,861.7| 1,237,310| 66,593| 2,038.0| 1,376,477
Peru | 5,787| 180.0| 119,628| 5,787| 180.0| 119,628
Uruguay | 6,880| 214.0| 114,600| 6,880| 214.0| 114,600
Venezuela | 39,384| 1,224.9| 814,067| 39,384| 1,224.9| 814,067
| | | | | |
_Europe._ | | | | | |
Austria-Hungary | 105,397| 3,278.2| 2,178,556| 105,397| 3,278.2| 2,178,556
France | 10,513| 327.0| 217,304| 10,513| 327.0| 217,304
Germany | 90,921| 2,780.9| 1,879,357| 90,921| 2,780.9| 1,879,357
Italy | 10,325| 316.0| 213,431| 10,325| 316.0| 213,431
Norway | 650| 20.0| 13,508| 653| 20.0| 13,508
Russia | 1,046,965| 32,408.2| 21,538,490| 1,216,100| 37,217.0| 25,136,994
Sweden | 3,702| 133.3| 76,524| 3,702| 133.3| 76,524
Turkey | 387| 12.0| 8,000| 387| 12.0| 8,105
United Kingdom | 2,032| 62.5| 42,001| 2,032| 62.5| 42,001
| | | | | |
_Asia._ | | | | | |
China | 321,296| 9,992.8| 6,641,190| 321,296| 9,992.8| 6,641,190
India (British) | 353,147| 10,983.4| 7,299,554| 369,018| 11,479.3| 7,753,150
Japan | 34,509| 1,073.3| 713,300| 34,509| 1,073.3| 713,300
Korea | 34,918| 1,086.0| 721,765| 34,918| 1,086.0| 721,765
Malay Peninsula | 25,000| 777.6| 516,750| 25,000| 777.6| 516,750
Borneo | 4,837| 150.6| 100,000| 4,837| 150.6| 100,000
| | | | | |
_Africa._ | | | | | |
Witwatersrand | 2,511,544| 78,112.6| 51,913,607| 3,554,746|108,790.0| 73,476,600
Other districts,| | | | | |
S. A. R. | 232,466| 7,230.0| 4,805,072| 229,528| 7,024.3| 4,744,350
West Coast | 24,276| 755.0| 501,793| 24,276| 742.9| 501,793
Rhodesia | ...| ...| ...| 10,000| 306.3| 206,700
Madagascar | 19,351| 601.8| 400,000| 19,351| 601.8| 400,000
Australasia, | | | | | |
7 colonies | 2,520,333| 77,130.6| 52,095,338| 2,945,426| 91,024.7| 61,480,763
|----------+---------+------------+----------+---------+------------
Totals |11,399,475|351,486.2|$237,332,456|13,805,407|425,333.1|$286,218,954
----------------+----------+---------+------------+----------+---------+------------
The above table, showing the estimated production of gold from all
parts of the world in 1897 and 1898, is abstracted from the Annual
Statistical Number of the Engineering and Mining Journal (January 1,
1899), and, although these figures may differ somewhat from those of
the Director of the Mint, and from the final compilations, they are
believed to be not very far from truth.
It will be seen that the principal countries contributing to the grand
total in both years were Africa, the United States of America,
Australasia, Russia, Canada, Mexico, and India, the names being given
in the order of the respective importance of these countries as gold
producers in 1898.
It may surprise many readers to observe that India is placed at the
foot of the list, for we are accustomed to associate India with gold,
Mexico with silver, and Russia with platinum; and it may also prove a
surprise to find that the contribution of the Klondike region, which
has created such a great sensation, is so trifling as compared to the
grand total. In 1897 the Klondike was credited with an output of less
than $3,000,000, and in 1898 of a little over $10,000,000.
It will be observed in the estimates of the Government's agents
(January 1, 1899) of the production of gold in the United States for
1898 (see the letter of the Director of the Mint, appended hereto)
that the gold production of the State of Colorado was more than twice
that of the Klondike region, and the production of California was
nearly fifty per cent greater than that of the Klondike.
Other surprising facts crop out in studying in detail the increasing
production of gold, more especially in the United States. For example,
California has always been regarded as pre-eminently the gold-giving
State, and until 1897 she led all the other States in the value of
gold annually produced. Colorado, on the other hand, was equally
famous as a silver-producing State, and while still holding this
leading position she has actually passed California in the production
of gold. Colorado has thus taken the lead over all the States in the
production of gold and silver.
The output of gold in the United States in 1898 was more than twice
that of 1890; and the production of gold in the world in 1898, at the
lowest estimate, was much more than twice the estimated production in
1890. In the decade just prior to the California gold discoveries, in
1849, the average annual production in the world is estimated to have
been less than $13,500,000. In the previous decade it was less than
$10,000,000. Assuming these figures of Dr. Adolph Soetbeer (which are
accepted by the nations of the world, and incorporated in many
official documents) to be approximately correct, it appears that the
estimated production of gold in the world in the first third of the
present century was but little more than the production in the single
year 1898!
It is, indeed, difficult to comprehend the full significance of these
figures at a glance: the production of gold in the past five years has
amounted to more than $1,100,000,000; and if production should
increase during the next five years in anything like the ratio of the
past five years, it may be that a new economic problem, the very
antithesis of that alluded to in the commencement of this paper, may
present itself for solution. At all events, the cry of the Populists
and others that increasing scarcity of gold is the cause of much of
the poverty and of other ills of mankind, must surely be drowned in
the golden stream now flowing from all quarters of the globe, almost
threatening to become a rushing torrent, dangerous to the stable
foundations of the world's commerce. That this, however, fortunately
is an imaginary danger will appear from the following arguments:
Modern gold-getting by scientific methods compels the permanent
investment of an enormous amount of capital, and a moderate return
only in dividend is looked for as a rule; thus the balance between
acquisition and disbursement is likely to be maintained in the future.
One of the chief causes of the extraordinary increase of production in
very recent years is to be found in the application of the "cyanide
process" to the recovery of gold from "tailings." This process is also
largely applied to obtaining gold from very low-grade ores, that, in
some cases, contain an average of less than one quarter of an ounce of
gold distributed throughout a ton of ore! At the present time there
are about twenty-five cyanide plants in this country, and over forty
in the Transvaal, where the process has received its greatest
development.
Although the fact that cyanide of potassium would dissolve gold quite
readily was known long ago, having been employed by Faraday in his
experiments with thin films of transparent gold, and used very
extensively in the making of solutions of gold for electroplating
baths during fifty years past, the practical application of the
solvent to obtaining gold from low-grade ores is less than ten years
old.
In Utah there is a dry bed of an ancient lake, the floor of which may
be said to be carpeted with gold; according to a recent report this
bed of limestone, eight miles by ten, varying from twenty to forty
feet in thickness, and containing gold in proportion running from six
to twenty dollars per ton, is an "ideal ore" for treatment by the
cyanide process. A number of cyanide mills are now working the
deposit, all paying dividends, and it is said that the only limit to
output is the capacity of the mills. It is estimated that there are
"5,000,000,000 tons of ore in the district, containing $50,000,000,000
worth of gold!" Although this statement is startling, the estimate is
not a wild guess, for the blanket of ore has been cut in many places;
hundreds of samples have been taken from different depths, and in all
cases the finely distributed gold has been found, apparently having
been deposited from solution in a mineral water which formed the lake
in prehistoric times.
A similar deposit of silver was found in New Mexico about twenty years
ago and was christened the "Silver Lake" Mine. This was worked
profitably until the great fall in price of silver made the operation
a losing one. The "blanket" still contains millions of ounces of
silver, and it is probable that cheaper methods of recovering the
metal from the ore will be devised whenever the price of silver shall
have fallen low enough to enable it to take its place among the
so-called "economic" metals, having far wider application in the arts
than have the precious metals. At present silver holds an unfortunate
place "betwixt and between" the precious and the economic metals.
Twenty years ago aluminum was more valuable than silver is to-day, and
its production was correspondingly limited. Last year the price was
reduced to a point which so widely extended its use that the
production increased from 1,900 pounds in 1888 to more than 5,000,000
in 1898.
Although the gold deposit in the Camp Floyd district in Utah already
alluded to may actually contain several billions of dollars' worth of
gold, it will cost some billions of dollars' worth of labor and
capital to recover the precious metal and will consume much time in
the process; so that there is little reason to fear that gold will
become so plentiful on account of this discovery that it will cease to
be regarded as a precious metal. About forty years ago the assayers of
the United States Mint announced that the clay underlying the city of
Philadelphia contained more gold than had been brought from California
and Australia, and this remarkable statement has never been disproved
or even questioned. The gold, however, still remains locked fast in
the clay, and the value of the precious metal has not yet fallen in
consequence of the announcement of this old discovery. At that time
the idea of profitably recovering gold from low-grade ores had not
been born, and it is an interesting fact to note that in California
gold is now being obtained from clay (by hydraulic washing methods) in
which there is but little more than the average proportion of gold to
the ton that the assayers found in the clay under the streets of
Philadelphia. This does not prove, however, that it will now pay to
excavate under the streets of the Quaker City, and undermine the
buildings in order to wash out this gold, and until Philadelphia shall
be provided with a far more copious water supply the most sanguine or
suave promoter of great undertakings would find it impossible to
obtain subscriptions to any scheme to recover this fugitive gold, or
even, perhaps, difficult to give away shares of stock to influential
individuals either in or out of councils.
An impression has prevailed that the production of gold in South
Africa attained its maximum point in 1897, and that thenceforth the
animal output would be smaller. On account of this fear the "Kaffirs"
(South African gold-mining stocks) suffered a decline in the London
stock market some months ago, but the statistics showed that the
output during the first half of 1898 was larger than in the previous
half year, and in the latter months of the year the increase was even
more pronounced.
In an address given before the Mining and Metallurgical Section of the
Franklin Institute on Mining and Minting of Gold and Silver in
November last, the writer said that the production of gold in South
Africa in 1898 would not fall far short of $70,000,000, and would
probably be nearer $80,000,000. The estimate of the Director of the
Mint fixes the amount almost at the latter figure. The United States,
in spite of the considerable increase over 1897, takes second place as
a world's producer of gold, Africa having contributed in 1898 an
amount equal to that of the United States and Canada (including the
Klondike) combined.
The startling announcements of discoveries of virgin gold in the
Klondike and of rich placer gold deposits in other localities have had
little to do with the enormous increase in production of gold in the
world in recent years, though formerly such discoveries constituted
the main source of supply of the precious metal. Digging for nuggets
is a lottery pure and simple, in which a few prizes are obtained and
many losses are suffered. It is said that for every dollar in gold
taken out of the Klondike to date, two dollars have been carried in,
and this is perhaps a conservative estimate. In fact, it is easy to
prove by figures, if the value of labor be counted even at the lowest
wage rate, say one dollar per diem, that far more money has been lost
by the many gold-seekers than has been gained by the few fortunate
ones in this twentieth-century search for the golden fleece.
The business of extracting gold from low-grade ores by scientific
methods on a large scale, where the precious metal is evenly
distributed throughout the matrix or gangue, is a legitimate field for
the investment of capital, because the element of chance is reduced to
a minimum, and even may be eliminated altogether. The margin of profit
per ton of ore is not large as a rule in these operations, and thus
the stability of value of the product is assured, whatever the output
may be.
"TREASURY DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF THE MINT,
"WASHINGTON, D. C., _February 1, 1899_.
"_Alexander E. Outerbridge, Jr., Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania._
"SIR: In answer to the inquiries in your letter of January
31st, I take pleasure in sending you such information on the
production of gold in the principal gold-producing countries
in 1898 as is at this early day available, comparing it
with the gold output of the same countries in 1897. And
first of the United States:
"Inclosed you will find an estimate made by the agents of
the bureau of the gold yield of the several States and
Territories in 1898. The aggregate outturn was $65,782,667.
It must be clearly borne in mind that this is only an
_estimate_, not the ascertained actual production. In 1897
the gold product of the United States was $57,363,000.
Assuming the estimate of the gold product of the United
States in 1898 to be correct, there was an increase in the
latter year over the gold yield of 1897, in round numbers,
of $8,420,000.
"The gold product of the Witwatersrand in 1898 was 4,295,602
ounces crude, and of the whole of the South African Republic
4,555,009 ounces crude, representing a value of $79,801,025.
"As the gold product of the Transvaal in 1897 was
$57,633,861, the increase in 1898 was $22,167,164. The
figures here given are those published in all the leading
papers interested in such matters in England and on the
European continent. They are not, any more than the figures
given below, official to the Bureau of the Mint.
"I have not yet seen any figures of the total gold product
of Australia in 1898, but the output of five out of the
seven colonies has been published. The figures are as
follows:
-------------------------+----------------+----------------
| 1897. | 1898.
| Ounces crude. | Ounces crude.
-------------------------+----------------+----------------
New South Wales | 292,217 | 341,722
New Zealand | 251,645 | 280,176
Queensland | 805,928 | 918,100
Victoria | 812,765 | 837,258
West Australia | 674,994 | 1,050,183
+----------------+----------------
Total | 2,837,549 | 3,527,439
| | 2,837,549
| +----------------
| | 689,890
-------------------------+----------------+----------------
"There was an increase in the gold product of these five
colonies of $13,107,910, the ounce crude averaging about $19
in value. The total gold product of Australia in 1898 was,
as I estimate it, about $67,792,000. In 1897 it was
$55,684,182. As yet no figures of the gold output of the two
Australian colonies--Tasmania and South Australia--have come
under my observation.
"Persons not connected with the bureau, but whose opinions
are entitled to respect, have estimated the increase in
India's gold output in 1898 at about $500,000, and in that
of Canada (including the Klondike) at $8,000,000. I have
thus far no data on which to predicate an increase or
decrease in the gold yield of Russia. The product of these
last-mentioned countries in 1897 was:
India $7,247,500
Canada 6,027,100
Russia 23,245,700
"The increase in the principal countries mentioned above, of
their gold product in 1898 over 1897, reduced to a table,
gives a total of $52,195,000, as follows:
United States $8,420,000
South African Republic 22,167,000
Australia 13,108,000
Canada 8,000,000
India 500,000
-----------
Total $52,195,000
"The world's product in 1897 was $237,504,800. In 1898 it
will probably not be less than $289,699,800. My opinion is
that it will be somewhere between $290,000,000 and
$300,000,000.
"If any further information reaches me within a week or two,
I shall be glad to communicate it to you.
"Respectfully yours,
"GEORGE E. ROBERTS, _Director of the Mint_."
_Agents' Estimate, January 1st, of the Production of Gold in the
United States for 1898._
States and Territories. Gold.
Alaska $2,039,930
Arizona 3,185,490
California 14,883,721
Colorado 24,500,000
Idaho 2,273,902
Michigan 65,000
Montana 5,209,302
Nevada 2,959,731
New Mexico 360,000
Oregon 1,343,669
South Dakota 5,841,406
Texas 7,500
Utah 2,170,543
Washington 599,483
Wyoming 5,168
South Appalachian States 337,832
-----------
Total $65,782,677
THE CALIFORNIA PENAL SYSTEM.
BY CHARLES HOWARD SHINN.
Theoretically every new commonwealth in organizing its institutions
can measurably avoid the errors of older communities, and can venture
upon promising experiments elsewhere untried. In practice, however,
new States are usually compelled to face unforeseen difficulties, and
although their various departments gain something in flexibility, they
lose in systematic organization. They have the faults as well as the
virtues of the pioneer.
Penology, like every other department of human thought, is a
battlefield of opposing principles. But I know of nothing in print
more inspiring to the officers of the State engaged in prison and
reform work than Herbert Spencer's Essay on Prison Ethics. It is
likely that many of the people who should read it are not aware of its
value and interest to themselves. Beginning at the foundations, Mr.
Spencer makes a lucid exposition of the necessity of "a perpetual
readjustment of the compromise between the ideal and the practicable
in social arrangements." As he points out, gigantic errors are always
made when abstract ethics are ignored.
If society has the right of self-protection, it has, as Mr. Spencer
asserts, the right to coerce a criminal. It has authority to demand
restitution as far as possible, and to restrict the action of the
offender as much as is needful to prevent further aggressions. Beyond
this point absolute morality countenances no restraint and no
punishment. The criminal does not lose all his social rights, but only
such portion of those rights as can not be left him without danger to
the welfare of the community.
But absolute morality also requires that while living in durance the
offender must continue to maintain himself. It is as much his business
to earn his own living as it was before. All that he can rightfully
ask of society is that he be given an opportunity to work, and to
exchange the products of his labor for the necessaries of life. He has
no right to eat the bread of idleness, and to still further tax the
community against which he has committed an aggression. "On this
self-maintenance equity sternly insists." If he is supported by the
taxpayers the breach between himself and the true social order is
indefinitely widened.
Such principles as these could easily have been made a fundamental
part of the California prison system when the State was organized, for
the famous Code of Reform and Prison Discipline, prepared about 1826
by a New Orleans lawyer, Edward Livingston, was well known to some of
the ablest men of pioneer California, and a strong effort was made to
obtain its adoption in complete form. That remarkable code known as
the Livingston system agrees with the Spencerian principles of ethics,
and has been a source of inspiration for the most advanced penal
legislation of recent years. Louisiana adopted it only in part, but
Belgium has the Livingston code in its entirety. California, suffering
under difficult local conditions, took a course in the liberal pioneer
days that has for a time rendered progress along the lines of modern
development extremely difficult.
[Illustration: WARDEN W. E. HALE, of San Quentin.]
California is a large and populous State, many portions of which are
thinly settled and hard to reach. In early days it had many Spanish
and Mexican outlaws, and became a refuge for criminals from all parts
of the world. When the State was organized, money was extremely
abundant, and every one had golden dreams. The idea of self-supporting
prisons seemed absurd, not only because the rich young State seemed
capable of supporting any expense, but also because no manufactures
were yet established, and the most active penologist would have found
it hard to find suitable employment for prisoners.
As time went on, the very strong labor unions of California, aided by
many newspapers and politicians, accepted the principle that every
dollar a convict earned was taken from some citizen, and that the
State was bound to support its criminals in idleness. Numbers of good
and earnest men in the service of the State as prison commissioners,
wardens, and other officials studying methods elsewhere and mindful of
local conditions, have made untiring efforts to stir the public
conscience, and to gain recognition of a criminal's right to earn his
own living by productive labor. As long ago as 1872 Hon. E. T. Crane,
of Alameda County, chairman of a joint Assembly and Senate committee,
made an excellent and progressive report on prison reforms. Something
has been gained since then, and, though working under adverse
conditions, the prisons have been excellently managed. But these
results are due to individuals, not to the system, nor to the
well-meant but often injurious enactments of legislatures meeting
biennially for only sixty days.
Under the system of biennial State appropriations, nearly all
institutions suffer at times from mistaken kindness, and at other
times from undue parsimony. Since there is no general supervising
board for the two State prisons and the two State reform schools, and
no settled ratio of appropriation based upon the number of inmates,
the friends of each institution naturally do their best to obtain as
large appropriations as possible from each new legislature. Hence
arise special visiting committees and combinations between legislators
from different parts of the State to "take care of" institutions whose
regular annual income should not be dependent in the least upon
politics.
The appropriations made by the last two legislatures for all purposes
connected with prisons and reform schools, including salaries of
officials, are shown in the following table:
_State Appropriations from July 1, 1895, to July 1, 1899
(Forty-seventh to Fiftieth Fiscal Years, inclusive)._
----------------------------+----------------+---------------
NAME OF INSTITUTION. | Sum granted. |Average yearly
| | grants.
----------------------------+----------------+---------------
San Quentin Prison | $615,153.40 | $153,788.35
Folsom Prison | 488,000.00 | 109,500.00
Preston School of Industry | 237,000.00 | 59,250.00
Whittier State School | 403,000.00 | 100,750.00
Transportation of prisoners | 150,000.00 | 37,500.00
+----------------+--------------
Totals | $1,848,153.40 | $460,988.35
----------------------------+----------------+--------------
Some small appropriations for improvements are necessarily included in
these totals, but nothing more than may be expected every year or two.
It is proper to rate the average annual expense of these institutions
at nearly half a million dollars, nor can this sum be materially
reduced until the State accepts the fundamental principle that prisons
should be made nearly or quite self-supporting.
San Quentin was once managed to some extent on the contract system.
Furniture-makers and other manufacturers paid half a dollar a day for
each convict employed, and at one time as many as eight hundred men
were thus utilized, giving the prison an income of twenty-four hundred
dollars a week. The system was so violently attacked by labor unions
that it was finally abandoned, and now I am told that convict-made
furniture, stoves, and other articles such as were formerly made at
San Quentin are brought to California from Joliet, Illinois, and other
places by the carload.
Having abandoned the contract system, the State decided to make jute
bags, chiefly for grain, and to sell them as nearly as possible at
cost direct to the consumers, so as to help the agricultural classes.
Machinery costing $400,000 was obtained in England, and after many
difficulties a factory was established at San Quentin. The price of
raw material fluctuates greatly, and the mill has sometimes lost
money, sometimes made a somewhat nominal profit. During the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1891, for instance, 2,574,254 pounds of goods
were manufactured at a total operating expense of $160,684.07, and
were sold at a price which nominally gave $40,275.07 profit. But no
sinking fund was allowed for, to cover wear and tear of machinery, nor
did the operating expenses include even the maintenance of the
convicts while at work. The following fiscal year the profit estimated
in the same way was $39,293.18. During the fiscal year 1893-'94 the
loss on the jute mill was $14,660.22; in 1894-'95 there was a profit
of $6,670.56; and in 1895-'96 a loss of $12,288.45.
In five years, therefore, there was nominally a profit of about
$60,000 in this department, but since neither interest, sinking fund,
nor maintenance of the laborers is included among the expenses, the
system can be looked upon only as a means of giving needed exercise to
the prisoners and cheap grain sacks to the farmers. Financially it is
a burden to the taxpayers. The old contract system had its drawbacks,
but it at least afforded a profit, and gave convicts a chance of
learning something about certain trades at which they could perhaps
work when released; the jute mill not only offers no such opportunity,
but is in other ways peculiarly unfit for modern prison requirements,
since all operations in such mills can be stopped or delayed by the
misbehavior of a few operatives. Far better are industries wherein
small groups or individuals are engaged in various separate minor
operations. Besides this, the sacks made by prison labor will probably
have only local uses hereafter, because of a recent act of Parliament
which is held to prevent wheat shipments in such sacks.
The Folsom Prison owns a magnificent water power and enormous quarries
of granite. Between 1888 and 1894 convict labor amounting to 683,555
days were expended upon a dam, canal, and powerhouse, and over 2,000
horse power can already be used. About 250 horse power is now utilized
by the prison for electric lights, ice manufacture, and other
purposes. The quarries are being worked to some extent, and crushed
rock for roads is sold at cost or nearly so. There is a farm that
supplies many articles at less cost than if purchased in the market.
At Folsom, as at San Quentin, the authorities do all in their power to
economize, and to utilize convict labor, but the policy of the State
prevents definite progress.
Meanwhile the reports of the prison directors and wardens and the
messages of Governors have urged in the strongest terms a change. The
biennial report of 1892-'93 and 1893-'94 says respecting the great
Folsom water power: "If we can use this power solely with regard to
profitable results to the State, we can return each year a surplus
into the State treasury. We do not think that the State should refrain
from working its convicts or utilizing its advantages because it may
have some effect upon other businesses. All over the United States
prisoners are engaged in manufacturing, and our investigations lead us
to believe that the effect of prison competition, so called, is
greatly overestimated."
[Illustration: FOLSOM STATE PRISON.]
The biennial report of 1894-'95 and 1895-'96 returns to the subject,
states that the jute mills can not be a success under the restrictions
of the present law, and urges that they should be run on a business
basis, for a profit. It continues, "One source of profit would be to
make use of the granite owned by the State" (at Folsom). It suggests a
consolidation of the two prisons at Folsom, where, with prison labor
and free power, and granite on the ground, a model prison could be
constructed. Warden Aull, of Folsom Prison, in discussing the subject
in 1896, said that for nine years the improvements there have employed
the convicts, but now some new scheme must be devised. "The convicts
must be kept at work. Every consideration of discipline, economy,
reformation, and health demands this." But he believes that it will
not pay the State to make shoes, blankets, clothing, brooms, tinware,
etc. (as has been suggested at various times) for the eight thousand
inmates of our State institutions. There are over two thousand
convicts at Folsom and San Quentin. Only a small part of these, he
says, could be utilized in making goods for State institutions, nor
would there be any profit unless manufacturing was on a large scale
for the outside markets as well. The experiment that New York is
making will be watched with much interest here.
The California labor unions recently adopted resolutions favoring "the
quarrying of stone by convict labor, and the placing it upon market
undressed at a low figure, in order to give employment to
stone-cutters, stone-masons, and others employed on buildings." The
State rock-crushing plant, if kept running, will utilize the labor of
about two hundred and fifty convicts. Any advance beyond this point
means open war with all the labor unions.
Evidently the time when the prisons of California are to be entirely
self-supporting is still remote, and the public as well as the union
need much more education upon the subject. Some reduction of expenses,
together with any utilization of convict labor that indirectly
benefits a few classes, is all that can be hoped for at present, but
ultimately the reformation of the criminal by making him capable of
self-support as well as anxious to live in peace with society, will be
recognized as the aim of wise penal legislation.
There is no doubt but that many profitable industries can be found, as
yet unnaturalized in California, and therefore coming only
incidentally into competition with existing industries, but well
adapted to prison labor. One of these industries is the growth and
preparation of osier willows of many species, and their manufacture
into many useful forms, especially into baskets for fruit pickers and
for wine makers. Another possible industry is the growth and
preparation of various semitropic species of grasses and fiber plants,
from which hat materials, mattings, the baskets used in olive-oil
manufacture and a multitude of other articles can be made. The sale of
crushed rock at Folsom should, of course, be at a price which at least
pays for the sustenance of the convicts employed. The enormous water
power of the prison should ultimately be fully utilized for
manufacturing purposes.
Let us now turn to a consideration more in detail of the separate
prisons, and to a brighter side--that which concerns the men who are
doing the best they can with a bad system. San Quentin, the oldest of
the two, has been for six years under the wardenship of an able and
attractive man, William E. Hale, formerly Sheriff of Alameda County.
Those who have read the wonderfully interesting reports of the
National Prison Convention are familiar with his methods and views.
The report for 1895 (Denver meeting) shows that Warden Hale, in the
breadth and sanity of his views, easily takes rank among the best
wardens of the country. He thoroughly understands California and the
Californians, and while progressive has never attempted the
impossible. In his various reports and addresses he especially urges
more industrial schools, better care of children, and more
kindergartens, such as those established in San Francisco by the late
Sarah B. Cooper. And, indeed, who can read Kate Douglas Wiggin's story
of Patsy without recognizing the value of kindergartens in the
prevention of crime? The San Francisco police once traced the careers
of nine thousand kindergarten pupils, and found that not one had ever
become a law-breaker.
Last summer San Quentin was the scene of an "epidemic of noise" on the
part of many of its inmates. Some of the newspaper accounts of the
affair were painfully exaggerated, and the prison management in
consequence was severely criticised. The fact is that the outbreak was
quelled rapidly and effectually, without outside help, with only a few
days' interruption of work on the jute mill, and without injury to any
person. A hose was simply turned into the noisy cells until their
inmates were subdued.
There have been very few escapes in the history of the prison, and
none in recent years. Its situation, on the extreme eastern end of a
rocky peninsula of Marin County, projecting into the bay of San
Francisco, is extremely well chosen for safety and isolation. The
State owns a large tract here, but it is very poor soil, and much of
its surface clay has been stripped for brick-making, so that no income
from it is possible unless more bricks can be made and sold. The
prison accommodations are extremely cramped, and large quantities of
brick should be used in needed extensions. Many small industries could
be carried on here, if permitted, for water carriage to and from San
Francisco is very cheap. Heavy manufactures requiring expensive steam
power are not justified here.
The abandonment of the large State improvements at San Quentin seems
contrary to the dictates of economy. Equally unwise is the suggestion
that it be made a prison to which only the most dangerous classes of
criminals should be sent. On the other hand, Folsom, with its quarries
and water power, seems fitted for a receiving prison, where all
convicts, without exception, should be placed on indeterminate
sentences at hard labor, and from which, on good behavior, on the
credit system, they might be removed by the prison directors to San
Quentin, there to work at more varied but no less self-supporting
trades. The ponderous jute-mill machinery should all be transferred to
Folsom, where power is now running to waste. At San Quentin, first,
the State should adopt more advanced reformatory methods.
Official statistics of the two prisons contain many interesting
features. In mere numbers the increase during the past two decades has
not kept pace with the increase in the State's population. San
Quentin at present usually contains about fourteen hundred and Folsom
about nine hundred, but an increase equal to the gain in population
would give them three thousand instead of twenty-three hundred. Even
during the so-called hard times of recent years there has been no
marked additions to the criminal classes in California, and the two
great strikes--that of the ironworkers and that of the railroad
brakemen and firemen--led to surprisingly few violations of the laws.
Close observers say that there has been a marked increase during the
past decade in the number of tramps, and that petty criminals have
increased everywhere. But there are no statistics of the county and
township jails. It seems certain that many villages and small towns,
even where incorporated, have increasing trouble with gangs of
hoodlums who are rapidly fitting themselves for State prisons. The
reform schools have been largely recruited from this semi-criminal
element, but stronger laws, swifter punishment, more firmness in
dealing with young offenders, and, in brief, a higher grade of public
sentiment on the part of citizens of small towns is evidently
necessary. According to recent discussions in the New York Evening
Post, the same sort of thing occurs in staid New England, and there,
as here, it is one of the most serious problems of the times. From
such a class of idle and vicious boys the prisons will hereafter be
recruited, rather than from newcomers.
The nativity tables of both prisons show that the number of
California-born convicts ranges in recent years from eighteen per cent
in 1890 to nearly twenty-five per cent in 1895-'96. In that year in
San Quentin, out of 819 American-born convicts, 314 were born in
California, 68 in New York, 44 in Pennsylvania, 41 in Illinois, 36 in
Ohio, and 35 each in Massachusetts and Missouri. Oregon sends 12,
Arizona 10; Washington and Nevada are represented by only one apiece.
The Southern States, excepting Kentucky and Virginia, send very few.
Something the same proportion throughout holds at Folsom, and fairly
indicates the States from which the population of California is
chiefly drawn. The total of American nativity at San Quentin is
sixty-four per cent; at Folsom, as last reported, it was about
sixty-five per cent. Of the foreign born (thirty-six per cent at San
Quentin), 99 out of 481 were Irish, 82 were Chinese, 56 were German,
49 were Mexican, and 44 were English. No one doubts that the laws are
strictly enforced against the Chinese and the Mexicans (meaning
Spanish-Californians); the other classes have votes and influence, and
often have better chances for avoiding punishment for misdeeds. Japan
contributes only one convict to San Quentin and two to Folsom. The
Chinese as a rule go to prison for assaults upon each other
("highbinding"), for gambling, or similar offenses, but seldom for
crimes against Americans. The Mexicans generally come to grief from
an old-time _penchant_ for other people's horses, or from drunken
"cutting scrapes."
A racial classification attempted at Folsom showed that out of 905
convicts 704 were Caucasian, 89 Indian and Mexican, 62 Mongolian, and
50 negroid. I do not find this elsewhere, so it may stand alone as
merely one year's observations.
Of much more importance are the statistics of illiteracy, kept for a
term of years. Warden Hale reports in 1896 that out of 1,287
prisoners, 120 can neither read nor write, 220 can read but can not
write, and 947 can both read and write. Of course, many who are rated
in the third class read and write very poorly, and a careful
classification in terms of the public-school system is essential to
clearness. Warden Aull, at Folsom, reports that out of 905 convicts, 6
are college men, 81 are from private schools, 53 from both public and
private schools, 582 have attended public schools only, and 147 are
illiterate, while the remaining 36 call themselves "self-educated."
According to the evidence of the wardens, no full graduate of any
American university has ever been an inmate of either prison. The
so-called college men were men who had spent some time at a college of
one kind or another. So-called professors appear among the convicts,
but I have been unable to discover that any professor in an
institution of standing has been at either San Quentin or Folsom since
its establishment.
The preceding statistics of illiteracy are defective, but some
additional light can be had from the tables upon occupations. Among
905 prisoners at Folsom, 96 occupations were represented. In round
numbers, thirty-four per cent were mechanics, twenty-nine per cent
were rated as laborers, twenty per cent were in business, and seven
per cent were agriculturists. But a closer analysis of the statistics
on this point shows that nearly fifty-seven per cent of the entire
number came from the following occupations: acrobat, barber,
bar-tender, butler, cook, gardener, hackman, hostler, laborer,
laundryman, mill-hand, miner, nurse, sailor, vaquero, and "no
occupation" (22).
The classification of crimes is very complete in all prison
statistics, and usually follows the legal phraseology. Nearly all come
under three great divisions--crimes against property, crimes of anger,
and crimes which arise from a perverted sexuality. From year to year
the proportion in these great divisions varies but little. In 1894 out
of 1,287 convicts, 796 were sentenced for crimes against property, 358
of which were for burglary, 170 for grand larceny, and 39 for forgery;
there were 343 commitments for assaults and murder, 188 of which were
for murder in either the first or the second degree; lastly, there
were 85 commitments for rape and other sex crimes. This was a typical
year, and will serve to illustrate for all and at both prisons.
The terms of imprisonment are long: out of 1,300 men in one annual
report, 143 were for life, and 392 for ten years or more. Over 300
prisoners had served more than one term, and some were even serving
their eighth term. Some at Folsom have reached their twelfth term. The
ages of the prisoners have ranged from sixteen to eighty-six, but the
danger period is evidently between eighteen and forty.
All of the prison officers agree respecting the bad physical condition
of the convicts. Many of them are weak and ill when they enter the
prison; many are the victims of unnamable personal vices. The
physicians at San Quentin in 1895 reported 27 cases of scrofula, 30 of
syphilis, 22 of epilepsy, 29 of opium habit, 62 of rheumatism, 70 of
typhus fever, and 124 of general debility. Medical statistics at
Folsom show similar conditions, aggravated by the malarial climate of
that locality. The death rate, formerly higher at Folsom than at San
Quentin, is now considerably lower, owing to the much better
accommodations for the prisoners, and the hard outdoor labor required.
In 1896 it was but .79 of one per cent.
It is gratifying to observe that the cost of maintenance of the
prisoners has been gradually reduced. Nearly thirty years ago
legislative committees reported that the cost of running the State's
prisons was four or five times as much in proportion to the inmates as
that of any other State in the Union, and that the prisoners lived
better than the average landowner. More economical methods were
gradually adopted, and by 1891 the cost per diem of a convict was 40
cents. This has been still further reduced; at San Quentin to 30.45
cents, and at Folsom to 32.50 cents.
There will always be outside criticisms of the food supplied as "too
good for convicts," but it is merely that of ordinary field laborers,
with much less variety. Under California conditions it could not well
be made cheaper. If the food statistics of the prisons were so
compiled as to separate the butter, olives, raisins, canned fruit,
etc., properly used on the tables of officers and wardens, from the
articles purchased for the prisoners, much misapprehension would be
prevented.
As long as the State pays the entire expense bill, however, there will
be a natural restiveness on the part of the taxpayers; the prison
management, no matter how careful it is, must suffer for the sins of
the system. The present directors and wardens are intelligent and
honest men, who could put the prisons on a self-supporting basis if
they had the authority and the necessary means for the plant required.
A comparatively small amount of manufactures would pay the daily
maintenance of the prisoners, and thus render the management much less
subject to public criticism.
This article is already as long as seems desirable, and I must close
without describing the California reform schools, which are
comparatively new, but have attracted much attention. At some future
time I may have an opportunity to take up that subject.
THE SCIENTIFIC EXPERT AND THE BERING SEA CONTROVERSY.
BY GEORGE A. CLARK.
In the November number of the Popular Science Monthly for 1897, Dr.
Thomas C. Mendenhall reviews at some length the workings of the Bering
Sea Commission of 1892. Dr. Mendenhall was himself a member of this
commission, and his account of its inside history is interesting and
instructive as throwing light upon the after-work of the Paris
Tribunal of Arbitration for which it was to prepare the
natural-history data.
Dr. Mendenhall naturally finds little to commend in the work of his
colleagues, the British experts, but he does not stop there, and
proceeds to generalize in an uncomplimentary way regarding scientific
experts as a class. For example, he lays down the following just and
admirable rule for scientific investigation: "It should be commenced
with no preconceived notions of how it is to come out, and judgment
should wait upon facts," and then continues to say: "Justice to the
man of science obliges the admission that, take him in his laboratory
or library, with no end in view except that of getting at the truth,
and he generally lives fairly up to this high standard; but transform
him by the magic of a handsome retainer, or any other incentive, into
a scientific expert, and he is a horse of another color."
It is not the purpose of this article to argue the cause of the man of
science, or to say whether or not this arraignment is just. It is the
intention merely to bring into contrast with the notable example of
failure which Dr. Mendenhall cites, an equally notable example of
success on the part of the scientific expert. If I mistake not, this
simple comparison will be all the vindication the man of science
needs.
To understand the full force of Dr. Mendenhall's article, it must be
remembered that it appeared on the very eve of the meeting of a second
Bering Sea Commission called to consider the selfsame issues which
occupied the attention of the commission of 1892. The article
therefore stands as a prediction of failure for the new commission.
Nor does Dr. Mendenhall leave his meaning obscure in this regard. He
says, "It is difficult to see what good will come from further
discussions, investigations, or declarations"; and his conclusion is,
"It will be impossible to know absolutely which group of scientific
experts (American or British) was right in regard to pelagic sealing,"
this last subject being the rock on which the commission of 1892
split.
It is not necessary here to go into the details of this first
commission. These are given in Dr. Mendenhall's article. Two things
only are essential to bring this meeting into contrast with the one of
1897. These are the instructions under which it was organized and its
final report. Both are brief. The first is comprehended in the
following statement, quoted from the Treaty of Arbitration of 1892:
"Each Government shall appoint two commissioners to investigate
conjointly with the commissioners of the other Government all facts
having relation to seal life in Bering Sea, and the necessary measures
for its protection and preservation."
The commissioners duly visited the fur-seal islands in Bering Sea,
made their investigations, and were called together at Washington to
deliberate upon the results obtained, and to prepare a joint report
for the guidance of the Tribunal of Arbitration then about to convene
at Paris. With Dr. Mendenhall was associated, on behalf of the United
States, Dr. C. Hart Merriam. Great Britain was represented by Sir
George Baden-Powell and Dr. George M. Dawson. The commission began its
labors on the 8th of February, and completed them on the 4th of March
following. Its final report, shorn of verbiage, consists of the
following colorless statement: "We find that since the Alaska purchase
a marked diminution in the numbers of the seals on and habitually
resorting to the Pribilof Islands has taken place; that it is
cumulative in effect, and that it is the result of excessive killing
by man." One half of the work set for the commission--namely, measures
for protection--was left wholly untouched.
In view of this meager and unsatisfactory result, it is perhaps not to
be wondered at that Dr. Mendenhall should grow skeptical of the value
of expert scientific evidence. But had he sought a cause of the
failure of 1892 he might easily have found one more rational than the
alleged "handsome retainer," or other "incentive."
It is manifestly true that the man of science can legitimately appear
as an "expert" only when his evidence is desired on some line along
which he has done work. An invertebrate morphologist is not an expert
in electricity; nor a physicist in the habits of pinnipeds. One only
of the four gentlemen, called upon in 1892 without their own consent
to act as experts, had even a passing knowledge of the life history of
marine mammals. Dr. Mendenhall was a physicist, Dr. Dawson a
geologist, and Sir Baden-Powell something of a sportsman. Dr. Merriam
alone, a mammalogist of the first rank, was a scientific expert in any
proper sense.
Moreover, the investigations conducted by the two commissions were,
from a scientific point of view, of the nature of a farce. Less than
two weeks were spent upon the islands, and that at a date in the
season least favorable of all for observations. This meant that the
greater part of their information was got second-hand by the
commissioners.
In marked contrast to the findings of the joint meeting is the
individual report of the American commission, prepared largely by Dr.
Merriam. This stands out as a notable contribution to the subject of
which it treats. Though largely a compilation, so well was the work of
sifting and weighing evidence done, 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. This was the work of the true "scientific expert," and he
can ask no better vindication. The joint commission contained
"experts" of another sort, and its report was necessarily different.
The second Bering Sea Commission came into existence in much the same
way as the first. An agreement was reached in 1896 between the two
nations whereby the entire fur-seal question should become the subject
of a new investigation. This agreement was the outgrowth of
dissatisfaction on the part of the United States with the workings of
the regulations of the Paris award.
The new investigation was begun at once and extended through the
seasons of 1896 and 1897, and again the experts were called together
at Washington to agree, if possible, on a joint statement of fact. The
scope of the investigation and the object of the joint meeting are
succinctly stated in the following words quoted in the preamble of the
commission's report: "To arrive, if possible, at correct conclusions
respecting the numbers, conditions, and habits of the seals
frequenting the Pribilof Islands at the present time as compared with
the several seasons previous and subsequent to the Paris award."
In the commission of 1897 the United States were represented by Dr.
David S. Jordan and Hon. Charles S. Hamlin; Great Britain, by Prof.
D'Arcy W. Thompson and Mr. James M. Macoun. It convened on the 10th of
November and concluded its labors on the 17th, reaching a full and
satisfactory agreement.
It will best serve our purpose to give the final report of the
commission of 1897 in full. Two reasons make this appropriate: First,
the substance of the sixteen concisely worded propositions of which it
is made up can scarcely be stated in fewer words than the original. In
fact, instead of condensing them, it will be necessary to amplify and
explain many of the points made in order to be sure that they are
clear to the lay reader. Second, the report has for some reason
received practically no notice in the American press, and it is to be
feared that the importance of the document has not been fully
appreciated by the American public.
1. There is adequate evidence that since the year 1884, and
down to the date of the inspection of the rookeries in 1897,
the fur-seal herd of the Pribilof Islands, as measured on
either the hauling grounds or breeding grounds, has declined
in numbers at a rate varying from year to year.
This proposition is in effect a restatement of the first clause of the
agreement of 1892, but it is much more definitely put. The decline is
not made to date vaguely "since the Alaska purchase" (1867), but
"since the year 1884." This latter date is significant for a number of
things. Prior to it for a period of thirteen years there had been no
difficulty in securing the normal quota of 100,000 skins annually. In
other words, up to that time the herd had remained in a state of
equilibrium, yielding a maximum product. Again, this date marks the
advent of pelagic sealing in Bering Sea, and the beginning of that
remarkable expansion of the industry which culminated ten years later
in 1894. The decline of the herd is thus made synonymous with the rise
of pelagic sealing.
The real significance of this proposition, however, lies in the fact
that the decline is declared to have been continuous to the present
time. In other words, it did not stop or even slacken with the season
of 1894. In this season, it will be remembered, the regulations of the
Paris award, avowedly for the "protection and preservation of the
fur-seal herd," went into effect. Translated into direct statement,
this proposition is an admission that the regulations have failed of
their object.
2. In the absence for the earlier years of actual counts of
the rookeries such as have been made in recent years, the
best approximate measure of decline available is found in
these facts:
_a._ About 100,000 male seals of recognized killable age
were obtained from the hauling grounds each year from 1871
to 1889. The table of statistics given in Appendix I[39]
shows, on the whole, a progressive increase in the number of
hauling grounds driven and in the number of drives made, as
well as a retardation of the date at which the quota was
attained during a number of years prior to 1889.
_b._ In the year 1896, 28,964 killable seals were taken
after continuing the driving till July 27th, and in 1897
19,189 after continuing the driving till August 11th. We
have no reason to believe that during the period 1896 and
1897 a very much larger number of males of recognized
killable age could have been taken on the hauling grounds.
The reduction between the years 1896 and 1897 in the number
of killable seals taken, while an indication of decrease in
the breeding herd, can not be taken as an actual measure of
such decrease. A number of other factors must be taken into
consideration, and the real measure of decrease must be
sought in more pertinent statistics, drawn from the breeding
rookeries themselves.
We have already noted that in that portion of the period, 1871 to
1889, which falls prior to 1884, thirteen years in all, no difficulty
was experienced in securing the full quota, and it may be added that
this was completed not later than July 20th. A retardation of the date
at which the quota can be filled is a direct indication of the degree
of exhaustion of the hauling grounds. In marked contrast with these
earlier years stand the conditions of 1896 and 1897, when greatly
reduced quotas only were obtained, notwithstanding the unusual
prolongation of the driving period.
The statement here made that the difference between the quotas of 1896
and 1897 is not an actual measure of decline in the breeding herd
requires explanation. The quota of any year is dependent upon the
birth rate of three years previous, killable seals being males of
approximately three years of age. The difference noted, therefore,
while not indicative of the actual decrease for the seasons 1896 and
1897, is a direct measure of such decrease for the seasons of 1893 and
1894, when the seals in question were born.
That the rate of decline as thus shown was greater in 1893-'94 than in
1896-'97 is explained by the fact that, whereas only 30,000 seals were
taken at sea in 1893, 60,000 were taken in 1894; while in 1896 43,000
were taken as against only 25,000 in 1897. In other words, the pelagic
catch of 1894 exceeded that of 1893 by one hundred per cent, while
that of 1897 fell seventy-two per cent below that of 1896. It is not,
therefore, strange that the quota of 1897 should show a reduction of
thirty per cent as against one of twelve per cent in the breeding herd
for the same year.
3. From these data it is plain that the former yield of the
hauling grounds of the Pribilof Islands was from three to
five times as great as in the years 1896 and 1897, and the
same diminution to one third or one fifth of the former
product may be assumed when we include also the results of
the hunting at sea.
This proposition needs little comment. It is a simple deduction from
the conditions of the preceding paragraph. The minimum estimate of
former conditions is the lowest possible figure that could be in any
way defended. The larger figure is apparently more nearly correct. The
quota of 1898, of which we now have the record also, was about 18,000.
It is not so stated in this paragraph, but the inference is inevitable
that what is thus given as the decline of the "yield of the hauling
grounds" is equally the decline of the breeding herd. A breeding herd
which yielded without difficulty annually 100,000 killable animals
(superfluous males of three years of age) must be reduced to something
like one fifth its former size when it is able only with extreme
difficulty to yield a quota of 20,000 such animals.
4. The death rate among young fur seals, especially among
the pups, is very great. While the loss among the pups prior
to their departure from the islands has been found in the
past two years to approach twenty per cent of the whole
number born, and though the rate of subsequent mortality is
unknown, we may gather from the number which return each
year that from one half to two thirds have perished before
the age of three years--that is to say, the killable age for
the males and the breeding age for the females.
The maximum and minimum figures here represent a division of opinion.
The larger figure of two thirds would even seem to be a conservative
estimate. The birth rate of 1897, as we know from close estimate, was
approximately 130,000; it must have been greater in 1894, approaching
200,000. From this larger birth rate only about 20,000 males survived
(the quota of 1897). There was doubtless a like number of females, the
sexes being equal at birth and subject to like causes of natural loss.
This gives a total of 40,000 in all, out of a birth rate of 200,000,
which survived to the age of three years. This is one fifth, and it is
evident that the mortality exceeds rather than falls below the maximum
of two thirds.
5. The chief natural causes of death among pups, so far as
known at present, are as follows, the importance of each
being variable and more or less uncertain:
_a._ Ravages of the parasitic worm _Uncinaria_; most
destructive on sandy breeding areas and during the period
from July 15th to August 20th.
_b._ Trampling by fighting bulls or by moving bulls and
cows, a source of loss greatest among young pups.
_c._ Starvation of pups strayed or separated from their
mothers when very young, or whose mothers have died from
natural causes.
_d._ Ravages of the great killer (_Orca_), known to be fatal
to many of the young, and perhaps also to older seals.
At a later period drowning in the storms of winter is
believed, but not certainly known, to be a cause of death
among the older pups.
The causes of death here enumerated are natural and inherent in the
conditions under which the herd exists. That some of them were not
known or fully understood until the investigations of 1896 and 1897
does not make them new or recent in their action. They have been
constant factors, acting with greater intensity in the past when the
herd was larger and more crowded upon its breeding grounds.
Photographs taken in 1891 and 1892 show that the parasitic worm was
then doing its deadly work, and more extensively in proportion as the
herd was larger. For 1,495 pups dead from this cause counted by us on
Tolstoi sand flat in 1896, 4,000 were counted on the same ground by
the British commissioner of 1892. Moreover, the bones of innumerable
pups on ground already abandoned in that year by the declining herd
attest the existence of this cause of death prior to that time. We
have no reason to suppose that it has not always preyed upon the herd.
Death by trampling must at present be at a minimum on account of the
scattered condition of the rookeries. The storms of winter and pelagic
enemies must, of course, take toll in proportion to the number of
animals.
But the significant fact shown by this proposition is that the gain of
the herd must be small at best under such a natural death rate. We may
suppose these natural losses to have been the checks which in a state
of nature prevented the indefinite increase of the herd. When,
therefore, to this total loss of from two thirds to four fifths of the
entire birth rate before breeding age is attained, we add the
tremendous artificial loss through the destruction of gravid and
nursing females resulting from pelagic sealing, it is not to be
wondered at that the equilibrium was broken and the herd sent on a
rapid decline.
6. Counts of certain rookeries, with partial counts and
estimates of others, show that the number of breeding
females bearing pups on St. Paul and St. George Island was,
in 1896 and 1897, between 160,000 and 130,000, more nearly
approaching the higher figure in 1896 and the lower in 1897.
These figures are based upon counts of all the breeding families on
both islands for each season. On certain rookeries the live and dead
pups were counted. In this way an average size of family was obtained
which was used to complete the census where pups could not be counted.
7. On certain rookeries where pups were counted in both
seasons, 16,241 being found in 1896 and 14,318 in 1897, or,
applying a count adopted by Professor Thompson, 14,743 in
the latter year, there is evident a decrease of nine to
twelve per cent within the twelvemonth in question. The
count of pups is the most trustworthy measure of numerical
variation in the herd. The counts of harems, and especially
of cows present, are much inferior in value. The latter
counts, however, point in the same direction. The harems on
all the rookeries were counted in both seasons. In 1896
there were 4,932; in 1897 there were 4,418, a decrease of
10.41 per cent. The cows actually present on certain
rookeries at the height of the season were counted in both
seasons. Where 10,198 were found in 1896, 7,307 were found
in 1897, a decrease of 28.34 per cent.
The important element in these special counts, undertaken with a view
to determining the relative condition of the breeding herd for the two
seasons, is the count of pups. All other classes of rookery population
fluctuate from day to day, but the pups remain constantly on shore and
near to the place of birth for the first six weeks of their lives, and
it is merely a matter of patience and skill in counting them. Such a
count on any rookery is an absolute record of the number of breeding
females which has visited it for the season in question.
The minimum figure of nine per cent adopted by Professor Thompson is
based upon a recount of a single rookery made by himself under
conditions less favorable for accuracy than in the case of the
official counts, which give the larger figure of twelve per cent, and
which were made jointly by representatives of both commissions.
8. It is not easy to apply the various counts in the form of
a general average to all the rookeries of the islands. We
recognize that a notable decrease has been suffered by the
herd during the twelvemonth 1896 to 1897, without
attempting, save by setting the above numbers on record, to
ascribe to the decrease more precise figures.
This is a rather extreme statement of the uncertainty which may be
assumed to attach to these figures. The problem is not an easy one at
best and its factors are complex. This should always be borne in mind,
but not to the extent of doubting the value of the figures. The areas
counted were large enough to be fairly typical. The counts were
carefully done, and are accurate enough for all practical purposes.
The probable error for the 15,000 more or less pups counted would not
exceed 500. But as the counting was done in exactly the same manner
and by the same persons for the two seasons, such errors as may exist
are common to both counts and the relative conditions are unaltered.
The figure of twelve per cent, moreover, must be taken as in itself a
minimum, since it is the result of a number of individual counts
varying in accuracy; and all in a sense underestimates, inasmuch as
more animals are always overlooked among the rocks than are counted
twice.
But the exact percentage of decrease is immaterial. That it has been a
"notable" decrease is sufficient, and this is unquestioned. It may be
noted in passing that this unequivocal decrease occurs in two seasons
during which there was perfect enforcement of the regulations of the
Paris award.
9. The methods of driving and killing practiced on the
islands, as they have come under our observation during the
past two seasons, call for no criticism or objection. An
adequate supply of bulls is present on the rookeries; the
number of older bachelors rejected in the drives during the
period in question is such as to safeguard in the immediate
future a similarly adequate supply; the breeding bulls,
females, and pups on the breeding grounds are not disturbed;
there is no evidence or sign of impairment of virility of
males; the operations of driving and killing are conducted
skillfully and without inhumanity.
It was agreed by the commission of 1892 that "excessive killing by
man" was the cause of the decline of the herd. As to the "man" in
question the two sets of commissioners differed diametrically. The
Americans placed the responsibility with the pelagic sealer; the
British, with the lessees through their methods of sealing on land.
To any one who is at all familiar with the conspicuous part which the
theories of close killing, and especially overdriving, played in the
British contention before the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration, this full
and frank vindication comes as a refreshing surprise. That it should
be agreed to by British scientific experts ought to revive even Dr.
Mendenhall's faith. It is true that the statement is carefully limited
to the seasons under observation, but neither the principle nor the
methods of land killing have been altered within the past half century
except in so far as they have been improved. It was an absurd and
foolish theory which ascribed to the treatment of the non-breeding and
superfluous male life of a herd of polygamous animals responsibility
for the decline of its breeding stock, but it served a purpose useful
to Canadian interests before the Paris tribunal. It is now forever
eliminated from the fur-seal question.
10. The pelagic industry is conducted in an orderly manner,
and in a spirit of acquiescence in the limitations imposed
by law.
This statement is true, though wholly irrelevant to the question of
the efficiency of the regulations themselves. Moreover, it stands as
an implied impeachment of the active and efficient patrol fleet
constantly maintained by the United States and Great Britain for the
enforcement of the regulations governing the pelagic industry. For
example, there were in 1896 five American and three British vessels
engaged in active patrol of the waters of Bering Sea. One would think
it a foregone conclusion that the pelagic industry should be
law-abiding, whether of its own volition or not. In addition to all
this, however, the regulations are as admirably suited to the needs of
the pelagic sealer as if he had himself prepared them. There is,
therefore, no reasonable incentive to violate them. Viewed in this
light, this statement seems ludicrous, but it has a justification not
evident at first sight.
The British experts demanded this statement as a balm for the wounded
feelings of the pelagic sealer, and, such being the fact, the American
commissioners assumed that it could do no harm to place it on record
that he has conformed to the requirements of the law. But from the
American point of view this paragraph has a wider and deeper meaning.
We have seen in the opening paragraph that the decline in the herd has
been continuous and uninterrupted during the period of the Paris
regulations. It is admitted in paragraph 8 that the decrease for this
same period has been a "notable" one. The rate is specified in
paragraph 7 as from "nine to twelve per cent" during two years when
the regulations were rigidly enforced. It only requires the climax of
paragraph 10, asserting the perfect observance of the regulations, to
complete their condemnation.
11. Pelagic sealing involves the killing of males and
females alike, without discrimination and in proportion as
the two sexes coexist in the sea. The reduction of the males
effected on the islands causes an enhanced proportion of
females to be found in the pelagic catch; hence this
proportion, if it vary from no other cause, varies at least
with the catch on the islands. In 1895 Mr. A. B. Alexander,
on behalf of the Government of the United States, found 62.3
per cent of females in the catch of the Dora Sieward in
Bering Sea; and in 1896 Mr. Andrew Halkett, on behalf of the
Canadian Government, found 84.2 per cent in the catch of the
same schooner in the same sea. There are no doubt instances,
especially in the season of migration and in the course of
the migrating herds, of catches containing a different
proportion of the two sexes.
There are two ways and two alone whereby killing by man affects the
fur-seal herd--namely, killing on land and killing at sea. Land
killing has been vindicated in paragraph 9. We have here the necessary
condemnation of pelagic killing expressed in equally full and frank
terms. Land killing takes only males and leaves an adequate supply of
bulls for breeding purposes; pelagic killing takes males and females
alike, the latter sex constituting 62 to 84 out of every 100 killed.
It is not a vital matter that the female sex should be found to
predominate in the pelagic catch, except in so far as it proves the
falsity of the returns made so persistently by the Canadian sealing
captain that the sexes are taken in virtually equal proportion at sea.
The essential thing is that females are killed at all. That three
fourths of all the animals taken at sea (during one season 140,000
animals were so taken) are of this sex only emphasizes the destructive
nature of this industry.
12. The large proportion of females in the pelagic catch
includes not only adult females that are both nursing and
pregnant, but also young seals that are not pregnant and
others that have not yet brought forth young, with such
also as have recently lost their young through the various
causes of natural mortality.
This statement is put in the mildest possible form out of
consideration for the old-time British contentions that the breeding
females did not leave the islands while their young were dependent
upon them, and that those taken at sea were "barren." The
investigations of 1896 and 1897 proved conclusively that every female
of two years old and over taken at sea was pregnant, and that those
over two years of age when taken in Bering Sea were in addition
nursing, having dependent pups on the islands. The manner of statement
seems to imply an equality in importance between "young" seals and
"adults." As females are never killed on land, they are naturally of
all ages when found at sea, and the young animals (yearlings and
two-year-olds) are necessarily vastly in the minority.
13. The polygamous habit of the animal, coupled with an
equal birth rate of the two sexes, permits a large number of
males to be removed with impunity from the herd, while, as
with other animals, any similar abstraction of females
checks or lessens the herd's increase, or, when carried
further, brings about an actual diminution of the herd. It
is equally plain that a certain number of females may be
killed without involving the actual diminution of the herd,
if the number killed does not exceed the annual increment of
the breeding herd, taking into consideration the annual
losses by death through old age and through incidents of the
sea.
This paragraph is really supplementary to 9 and 11. Neither the
methods nor yet the principle of land killing are at fault. The animal
being polygamous, a part of its male life can be removed with
impunity. On the other hand, the killing of females leads to
disastrous results.
The concluding sentence is a concession to diplomacy. It is true that
a certain number of females may be killed without producing actual
diminution. If pelagic sealing were stopped to-day the herd would
naturally begin to increase. The measure of its increase would be the
difference between the natural loss of adult breeders through old age
and incidents of the sea, on the one hand, and the yearly accession of
young breeders to bear their first pups, on the other. We can closely
estimate the latter factor. It was equal, for example, to the quota of
20,000 in 1897, or sixteen and two thirds per cent of the birth rate.
The quota was composed of males of approximately three years, and we
may assume that a like number of three-year-old females entered the
rookeries for the first time in the same season. We have then a gross
gain to the breeding herd of sixteen and two thirds per cent.
We have no means of exact estimate for the loss of adult females
because we do not know the period of life in the female. If, however,
we estimate it at thirteen years, which seems to be a conservative
figure, the animal would have ten years of breeding life. Then, from
old age alone, ten per cent of the adult breeding females must die
annually. This leaves a net gain of six and two thirds per cent with
accidental factors unaccounted for. The killing of females which does
not produce actual diminution must come well within this margin of six
and two thirds per cent. It only remains to be stated that the pelagic
catch of 1897, which was the smallest on record since 1884, exceeded
fourteen per cent.
14. While, whether from a consideration of the birth rate or
from an inspection of the visible effects, it is manifest
that the take of females in recent years has been so far in
excess of the natural increment as to lead to the reduction
of the herd in the degree related above, yet the ratio of
the pelagic catch of one year to that of the following has
fallen off more rapidly than the ratio of the breeding herd
of one year to the breeding herd of the next.
This paragraph corrects possible erroneous implications which might be
drawn from the truism in the preceding paragraph. A certain number of
females may be taken, etc., but so many in excess of the safety limit
have been taken that the herd has been reduced "in the degree related
above"--that is, for 1896-'97, nine to twelve per cent, and for
1884-'97, fifty to eighty per cent.
Dr. Mendenhall said: "It will be impossible to know absolutely which
group of scientific experts was right (in 1892) in regard to pelagic
sealing." The admission made in this paragraph, taken together with
other admissions made in paragraphs 11 and 12, effectually disproves
this prediction. It ought to be a source of gratification to Dr.
Mendenhall and to his colleague, Dr. Merriam, to find it thus clearly
proved that they were right and their British associates wrong.
The final clause is here again a diplomatic concession to take the
sting out of the real admission. The rapid fall in the pelagic catch
as compared with the more even decline of the breeding herd is a
natural phenomenon. Pelagic sealing not only destroys the herd, but it
is necessarily self-destructive because it preys upon its own capital.
The more successful it is the sooner it must cease. With the decline
of the herd it is itself declining, and the rapidity of its fall
proves the nearness of the end. For the years since 1894 the pelagic
catch has been 61,000, 56,000, 43,000, and 25,000 respectively. It is
a significant fact that in four years, under regulations which permit
the pelagic sealer to take all he can get, the product of his industry
has fallen to less than one half.
15. In this greater reduction of the pelagic catch, compared
with the gradual decrease of the herd, there is a tendency
toward equilibrium, or a stage at which the numbers of the
breeding herd would neither increase nor decrease. In
considering the probable size of the herd in the immediate
future, there remains to be estimated the additional factor
of decline resulting from reductions in the number of
surviving pups, caused by the larger pelagic catch of 1894
and 1895.
The two statements in this paragraph are not related. The first is a
part of the preceding paragraph and is self-evident. Should the
pelagic catch continue to decrease, as it must, it will eventually
come within the margin of six and two thirds per cent. It has yet to
fall far before this end is reached. Then will come that much-mooted
"equilibrium," when the herd will be too insignificant to be worthy of
attack--the equilibrium of ruin. There is no comfort in this prospect,
either for the pelagic sealer or for the owner of the herd, and it
takes no note of the injury which has been accomplished in the past,
much less of possible restoration in the future. The equilibrium here
suggested is purely a figure of speech, another concession to
diplomacy.
The final statement of this paragraph is more important. The
starvation of pups as a result of the killing of mothers at sea has
been a fact strenuously denied from the first by the British side of
the fur-seal controversy. After the actual counting of 16,000 of these
starved pups in 1896, this position could no longer be maintained. At
the same time a specific admission of the fact of starvation and of
the destruction of unborn pups was too difficult a matter for the
British experts to face. These facts are left to be inferred from the
"reductions in surviving pups" here noted and from the admission that
"nursing and pregnant females" are taken in the pelagic catch. Stated
directly, it is here admitted that on account of "the larger pelagic
catch of 1894 and 1895," numbers of pups starved to death on the
rookeries or died unborn with their mothers which in the course of
Nature should have reached the killable and breeding age.
16. The diminution of the herd is yet far from a stage which
involves or threatens the actual extermination of the
species, so long as it is protected in its haunts on land.
It is not possible during the continuation of the
conservative methods at present in force upon the islands,
with the further safeguard of the protected zone at sea,
that any pelagic killing should accomplish this final end.
There is evidence, however, that in its present condition
the herd yields an inconsiderable return either to the
lessees of the islands or to the owners of the pelagic
fleet.
The statements of this concluding paragraph must be taken in close
connection, and the "ifs" must be carefully noted if they are not to
prove very misleading. The opening sentence refers to the biologic
extinction of the herd as contrasted with its commercial ruin. The
former is as yet far off, the latter is a matter of history, as is
admitted in the concluding statement--"an inconsiderable return." This
means simply that the herd has ceased to be a commercial factor, and
henceforth under present conditions sealing, whether on land or at
sea, must be conducted at a loss.
This has an important bearing upon the suggested impossibility of
bringing about the extinction of the species. It all depends upon
whether present conditions are maintained. The breeding islands and
the sixty-mile protected zone must be guarded. It cost the United
States $175,000 for patrol in 1896. England's expense was less, but
still considerable. It is beyond reason that this expensive protection
should be continued at a loss or without hope of ultimate restoration
of the herd. Remove the protection for a single season and the herd
would be practically exterminated. A scattered remnant would doubtless
escape to maintain a melancholy equilibrium, or perhaps to recuperate
and again attract the cupidity of some adventurous sealing captain,
but the herd as such would be at an end.
Stated without reference to diplomatic necessities, this concluding
paragraph admits two important things: first, that the herd of fur
seals resorting to the Pribilof Islands is commercially ruined;
second, that its extinction as a species only awaits the abandonment
of certain arduous and costly measures of protection now maintained
solely in the hope of more adequate protection and the ultimate
restoration of the herd.
Such was the work of the Conference of Fur-Seal Experts of 1897. The
handwriting of diplomacy is mingled with that of science in its
findings, but the resulting obscurity affects only minor matters. The
important issues of the vexatious Bering Sea controversy are squarely
met and finally settled. It is needless to say that there no longer
exists a fur-seal question. It is merely a question of how to get rid
of the destructive agency of pelagic sealing. This is a matter for
diplomacy to adjust. Any odium which may have attached to the "man of
science" as a result of the failure of the meeting of 1892 is
effectually wiped out, and if the lesson is read aright by the
nations, henceforth the scientific expert must be counted an essential
factor in the settlement of governmental disputes.
FOOTNOTE:
[39] This table of statistics need not be quoted here in full. The
following section, embracing the ten years prior to 1889 and including
1884, will suffice:
-------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------+----------
| | Hauling | | |
YEAR. | Date quota | grounds | Number of | Killed on | Killed at
| filled. | driven. | drives. | land. | sea.
-------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------+----------
1879 | 16 | 71 | 36 | 110,411 | 8,557
1880 | 17 | 78 | 38 | 105,718 | 8,418
1881 | 20 | 99 | 34 | 105,063 | 10,382
1882 | 20 | 86 | 36 | 99,812 | 15,551
1883 | 19 | 81 | 39 | 79,509 | 16,557
1884 | 21 | 101 | 42 | 105,434 | 16,971
1885 | 27 | 106 | 63 | 105,024 | 23,040
1886 | 26 | 117 | 74 | 104,521 | 28,494
1887 | 24 | 101 | 66 | 105,760 | 30,628
1888 | 27 | 102 | 73 | 103,304 | 26,189
1889 | 81 | 110 | 74 | 102,617 | 29,858
-------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------+----------
* * * * *
In a paper on the industrial applications of
electro-chemistry, Mr. Thomas Ewan points out as among those
that may yet be developed, that it is possible, by
compressing sulphur dioxide and air into separate carbon
tubes dipping in sulphuric acid, to cause the two gases to
combine to form sulphuric acid, and at the same time furnish
an electric current. "The alluring prospect," he says, "of
obtaining electric energy as a by-product in a chemical
works should be a sufficient incentive to efforts to
overcome the numerous difficulties in the way."
A SCHOOL FOR THE STUDY OF LIFE UNDER THE SEA.
(_Naples Aquarium._)
BY ELEANOR HODGEN PATTERSON.
To go deep down under the sea, in the warm waters of the south, where
exist not only the varieties of fish with which we are familiar, but
thousands of jewel-like forms of animal life never seen by us, has
hitherto been impossible to any but the boldest fishermen and divers.
But of late years in the small aquarium at Naples the sea has been
brought up, so to speak, upon the earth for us to see these strange
creatures as they exist in their homes under the water, as they eat
their food, as they love and hate, and prey upon each other.
Small as the collection at first seems to be, there is no zoölogical
station in the world to compare with it. Probably there never will be
again. Because of its advantageous station on the shores of the
Mediterranean, where it is claimed the waters which wash Italy and
Sicily yield a greater variety of sea life than even tropical waters,
and also its comparative accessibility to all countries, the scholars
who come here from all over the world find that they are able to study
here as they can nowhere else the strange habits of the tiny animals
down at the bottom of the sea.
There is no superfluous room taken up in the Naples aquarium for the
fish that may be studied in aquariums elsewhere. Only the rarest, the
strangest, the most curious creatures are here to be seen.
But one room of the beautiful building devoted to the zoölogical
station, which stands on that street of Naples running along the sea,
is shown to the public. One walks into it from the level of the
street, and the transition from the light outside to strange
semi-darkness is as if one were to suddenly find himself walking upon
the bottom of the sea.
The light comes only from above, shining through water of many
hundreds of cubic feet, on to what seems at first a garden of moving
flowers behind tanks of clear glass, which seem, so complete is the
illusion, not like glass at all, but water. The visitor walks along
dark alleys lined on both sides with these brilliant tanks, and the
beautiful sea animals are so close that it seems easy to touch them.
It is like being in a narrow, dark theater with the stage all around
and about, strangely illuminated, not by footlights, but by a radiance
from above.
There are about thirty tanks in all, and at the very first of these
glass-walled vats we stopped entranced. Behind it were piles of rocks
shining in the water, and from every crevice grew what seemed
brilliant flowers, but of colors so soft and waxlike that they were
almost more lovely than our flowers of earth.
"Surely these deep red ones that cover the rocks to the left are a
species of aster, and these are cacti, and these, yes, these
reddish-brown one are chrysanthemums and nothing else."
But even as we spoke we saw the petals of first one, then another,
flower wave back and forth, and in and out, with curious curling
movements, as none of our flowers do, even in the most various winds,
and then from above a long pole was suddenly thrust down into the
water, at the end of which was stuck a piece of raw red meat about as
large as a walnut.
It was the keeper come to feed his strange charges. Again and again
were the bits of meat thrust down into the hearts of the sea flowers,
and then we discovered with a kind of shock that these asters and
cacti and chrysanthemums were not flowers at all, but flesh-eating
animals, and that each waving petal was a mouth, by which the creature
sucked in the blood of the meat.
When all the juice had been extracted from the meat, the many mouths
attached to each seeming flower, that had been tightly curled upon the
raw flesh, now unfolded again into their petal-like positions in a
circle, one over the other, and the meat, now but a tiny ball of dry
pulp, slowly sank to the bottom of the tank. What the calyx was like,
or whether it had any body at all, we could not see, so entirely
hidden was it behind these many waving, armlike mouths.
In the next tank several sea horses were swimming merrily in and out
of rocks that were covered by a growth of miniature trees. They were
smaller than the tiniest hobbyhorse that has ever been seen, as small
almost as the toy horses in a "Noah's ark." The resemblance of these
small fish, not larger than smelts or minnows, that have come to be
known as "sea horses," to real horses is in the head only. The rest of
the body tapers off into the ordinary fishlike form. I wondered, as I
looked at these small horses of the sea, if it was from them that the
old myth of the existence of mermaids arose. "Half fish, half women"
were the mermaids, but "half fish, half horses" are these fish.
They were lively little creatures, and swam in and out of the tiny
forest as if they were playing a game of "tag." What a beautiful
little forest it was to play in! The trees had brown trunks about the
size of one's finger, and from the top a graceful, palmlike foliage
branched out, but the foliage was not in greens, but deep, translucent
reds, or coral pinks, or warm browns.
While I was admiring one of the little coral pink trees, one of the
sea horses swam straight into its foliage, when, to my amazement, and
evidently to the amazement of the sea horse also, the foliage
instantly disappeared down into the tree trunk, leaving only the brown
stem standing.
Aghast with surprise at the sudden revelation that this charming
foliage, like the petals of the flowers in the last tank, was also a
cluster of living suckers, I asked what name they were called by, and
heard with disgust the answer "worms." These beautiful, curious
creatures only the things we know by the loathsome word "worms!"
These sea worms, or annelids, as the scientific scholars call them,
build up for themselves the brown tubes that resemble the rough stems
of pines or palms, and from the top they send out their worm-like
bodies in clusters, where they wave back and forth in the water, to
sweep in any food that may be near, always holding themselves in
readiness to withdraw into their holes at danger.
Whether the brilliant foliage of each tree was but the many tentacles
of a single animal emerging from the tube, or whether it was a whole
family of worms come up to the top of their home to gaze from the
chimney, so to speak, we could not discover. But, strange to say, the
grotesque little sea horse seemed to be trying to decide that question
for himself, for, after swimming away a moment in fright at this
sudden disappearance, he returned and appeared to be peeping down into
the tube.
The next tank revealed even greater surprise than we had yet seen.
Here in the water long white gauze ribbons were waving, as if hung
from above, and so transparent that we could see quite through them,
almost as if they were composed of the white of an egg. It was only by
looking closely that up near the top we could see a tiny black dot,
like a pinhead, in each fleecy scarf. This was the head of the animal,
or its eye, or mouth, or whatever such a delicate dot might be called.
These are of the jellyfish family, and have only lately been added to
the aquarium. Owing to the difficulty of procuring such pulplike
masses, they are extremely rare specimens, and can be seen nowhere
else. Surely nothing more frail, more delicately lovely exists on land
or sea, in plant or animal life, than these gauzy living sashes of the
sea.
But not all the denizens of the tanks are beautiful to look upon.
There is a tank near the door of entrance filled with objects so
hideous that one starts away from them with horror. These are the
octopi, or devilfish. Imagine the ugliest, biggest black spider that
you ever saw, and enlarge it to the size of the largest turtle you
ever saw, and on the end of each of the spider's legs fasten a
wicked-looking mouth, and you can form some idea of how frightful an
octopus can be.
Several of these monsters were writhing near the glass wall,
stretching out their long, boneless arms, and sometimes fastening
their suckers upon the glass in the search for food, thus
unconsciously showing off the ugliness of their mouths. It was now
time for the keeper to come to them in his round of feeding. He put
into the tank from above a number of crabs, when suddenly the whole
tank seemed filled with octopi. They had been sleeping among the dark
rocks, of which they were so much the color that we had not before
observed them. The poor little crabs had probably been stunned, or
perhaps killed, by the keeper, for they made no resistance when the
octopi fastened upon them their long suckers in a death-grasp. The
octopi fought with each other over the possession of the crabs, and
for some moments there was a terrible waving to and fro of black
suckers fully two yards in length.
Beside this tank was another of clear water in which were some
peaceful cuttlefish. The keeper, for a few coins, stirred these out of
their quiet by moving his long stick after them. They swam about in
fright for a moment or two, and then we saw them no more, for the
clear water had suddenly become a thick black fluid. The cuttlefish
had discharged their bags of ink to escape the pursuing enemy.
The upper floors of the zoölogical station are seldom shown to
visitors, but these are almost more interesting than the tank room
below. Here the great scholars who make a life study of these strange
inhabitants of the deep have their tables; here the dredgings of the
sea are brought by fishermen and divers for them to assort; here sea
animals are developed by them from the egg, and even from invisible
germs.
Each investigator into the strange lower world is furnished with his
own aquaria, suited to the special branch he may be studying, for
nearly all are interested in a special branch of zoölogy. One man has
come a long distance to pursue the study of sponges, and he is
furnished with a perfect garden of them, for they are brought up from
this part of the Mediterranean in infinite variety.
Another student is studying the habits of mollusks, and basins and
jars of these and their eggs are near him. There are divers' costumes
hanging on the walls in which the _savants_ may themselves descend to
the bottom of the sea and study the inhabitants in their native
houses.
There are laboratories and libraries here, adapted to the most
exhaustive study, and a fleet of small boats is also kept exclusively
for the use of the zoölogical station.
Fishermen constantly bring in baskets filled with what seems to be
only wet rubbish, heaps of stones, and worthless bits of pulp. This
is examined and assorted by trained eyes, and placed in tanks of water
where siphons are constantly pouring fresh sea water, after which the
rubbish is quietly left until accustomed to its new quarters. Then
cautiously this rubbish begins to move, the stones stir, and the pulp
opens into the beautiful colors, the plants, the gauzy scarfs, and the
numerous other strange things afterward shown to the public in the
aquarium below.
Along the walls of these upper rooms are jars wherein are preserved
many curious denizens of the sea that have been killed by powerful
chemicals, which have surprised the delicate animals before their
sensitive tentacles have had time to close, thus preserving to science
many rare creatures impossible to keep long in captivity.
The great cost of this establishment is maintained in several ways--by
the issuing of publications and scientific papers in several
languages, by the rents from the desks or tables used by the
investigators, and by the unusually large price of admission demanded
from the public at the aquarium entrance. In addition to this are the
fees from the students who come from afar to study here. A payment of
four hundred dollars each gives students the right to study in the
Naples zoölogical station for ten months of the year.
SCIENCE IN EDUCATION.[40]
BY SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, D. C. L., F. R. S.
When the history of education during the nineteenth century comes to
be written, one of its most striking features will be presented by the
rise and growth of science in the general educational arrangements of
every civilized country. At the beginning of the century our schools
and colleges were still following, with comparatively little change,
the methods and subjects of tuition that had been in use from the time
of the middle ages. But the extraordinary development of the physical
and natural sciences, which has done so much to alter the ordinary
conditions of life, has powerfully affected also our system of public
instruction. The mediæval circle of studies has been widely recognized
not to supply all the mental training needed in the ampler range of
modern requirement. Science has, step by step, gained a footing in the
strongholds of the older learning. Not without vehement struggle,
however, has she been able to intrench herself there. Even now,
although her ultimate victory is assured, the warfare is by no means
at an end. The jealousy of the older _régime_ and the strenuous, if
sometimes blatant, belligerency of the reformers have not yet been
pacified; and, from time to time, within our public schools and
universities, there may still be heard the growls of opposition and
the shouts of conflict. But these sounds are growing fainter. Even the
most conservative don hardly ventures nowadays openly to denounce
Science and all her works. Grudgingly, it may be, but yet perforce, he
has to admit the teaching of modern science to a place among the
subjects which the university embraces, and in which it grants
degrees. In our public schools a "modern side" has been introduced,
and even on the classical side an increasing share of the curriculum
is devoted to oral and practical teaching in science. New colleges
have been founded in the more important centers of population, for the
purpose, more particularly, of enabling the community to obtain a
thorough education in modern science.
The mainspring of this remarkable educational revolution has,
doubtless, been the earnest conviction that the older learning was no
longer adequate in the changed and changing conditions of our time;
that vast new fields of knowledge, opened up by the increased study of
Nature, ought to be included in any scheme of instruction intended to
fit men for the struggle of modern life, and that in this newer
knowledge much might be found to minister to the highest ends of
education. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that utilitarian
considerations have not been wholly absent from the minds of the
reformers. Science has many and far-reaching practical applications.
It has called into existence many new trades and professions, and has
greatly modified many of those of older date. In a thousand varied
ways it has come into the ordinary affairs of everyday life. Its
cultivation has brought innumerable material benefits; its neglect
would obviously entail many serious industrial disadvantages, and
could not fail to leave us behind in the commercial progress of the
nations of the globe.
So much have these considerations pressed upon the attention of the
public in recent years that, besides all the other educational
machinery to which I have referred, technical schools have been
established in many towns for the purpose of teaching the theory as
well as the practice of various arts and industries, and making
artisans understand the nature of the processes with which their
trades are concerned.
That this educational transformation, which has been advancing during
the century, has resulted in great benefit to the community at large
can hardly be denied. Besides the obvious material gains, there has
been a widening of the whole range and method of our teaching; the old
subjects are better, because more scientifically taught, and the new
subjects enlist the attention and sympathy of large classes of pupils
whom the earlier studies only languidly interested. Nevertheless, it
is incumbent on those who have advocated and carried out this change
to ask themselves whether it has brought with it no drawbacks. They
may be sure that no such extensive reform could possibly be
accomplished without defects appearing somewhere. And it is well to
look these defects in the face and, as far as may be possible, remove
them. In considering how I might best discharge the duty with which I
have been honored of addressing the students of Mason College this
evening, I have thought that it might not be inappropriate if, as a
representative of science, I were to venture to point out some of the
drawbacks as well as the advantages of the position which science has
attained in our educational system.
At the outset no impartial onlooker can fail to notice that the
natural reaction against the dominance of the older learning has
tended to induce an undervaluing of the benefits which that learning
afforded and can still bestow. In this college, indeed, and in other
institutions more specially designed for instruction in science,
provision has also been made for the teaching of Latin, Greek, and the
more important modern languages and literatures. But in such
institutions these subjects usually hold only a subordinate place. It
can hardly be denied that generally throughout the country, even
although the literary side of education still maintains its
pre-eminence in our public schools and universities, it is losing
ground, and that every year it occupies less of the attention of
students of science. The range of studies which the science
examinations demand is always widening, while the academic period
within which these studies must be crowded undergoes no extension.
Those students, therefore, who, whether from necessity or choice, have
taken their college education in science, naturally experience no
little difficulty in finding time for the absolutely essential
subjects required for their degrees. Well may they declare that it is
hopeless for them to attempt to engage in anything more, and
especially in anything that will not tell directly on their places in
the final class lists. With the best will in the world, and with even,
sometimes, a bent for literary pursuits, they may believe themselves
compelled to devote their whole time and energies to the multifarious
exactions of their science curriculum.
Such a result of our latest reformation in education may be
unavoidable, but it is surely matter for regret. A training in science
and scientific methods, admirable as it is in so many ways, fails to
supply those humanizing influences which the older learning can so
well impart. For the moral stimulus that comes from an association
with all that is noblest and best in the literatures of the past, for
the culture and taste that spring from prolonged contact with the
highest models of literary expression, for the widening of our
sympathies and the vivifying of our imagination by the study of
history, the teaching of science has no equivalents.
Men who have completed their formal education with little or no help
from the older learning may be pardoned should they be apt to despise
such help and to believe that they can very well dispense with it in
the race of life. My first earnest advice to the science students of
this college is, not to entertain this belief and to refuse to act on
it. Be assured that, in your future career, whatever it may be, you
will find in literature a source of solace and refreshment, of
strength and encouragement, such as no department of science can give
you. There will come times, even to the most enthusiastic among you,
when scientific work, in spite of its absorbing interest, grows to be
a weariness. At such times as these you will appreciate the value of
the literary culture you may have received at school or college.
Cherish the literary tastes you have acquired, and devote yourselves
sedulously to the further cultivation of them during such intervals of
leisure as you may be able to secure.
Over and above the pleasure which communion with the best books will
bring with it, two reasons of a more utilitarian kind may be given to
science students why they should seek this communion. Men who have
been too exclusively trained in science, or are too much absorbed in
its pursuit, are not always the most agreeable members of society.
They are apt to be somewhat angular and professional, contributing
little that is interesting to general conversation, save when they get
a chance of introducing their own science and its doings. Perhaps the
greatest bore I ever met was a man of science, whose mind and training
were so wholly mathematical and physical that he seemed unable to look
at the simplest subject save in its physical relations, about which he
would discourse till he had long exhausted the patience of the auditor
whom he detained. There is no more efficacious remedy for this
tendency to what is popularly known as "shop" than the breadth and
culture of mind that spring from wide reading in ancient and modern
literature.
The other reason for the advice I offer you is one of which you will
hardly, perhaps, appreciate the full force in the present stage of
your career. One result of the comparative neglect of the literary
side of education by many men of science is conspicuously seen in
their literary style. It is true that in our time we have had some
eminent scientific workers, who have also been masters of nervous and
eloquent English. But it is not less true that the literature of
science is burdened with a vast mass of slipshod, ungrammatical, and
clumsy writing, wherein sometimes even the meaning of the authors is
left in doubt. Let me impress upon you the obvious duty of not
increasing this unwieldy burden. Study the best masters of style, and
when once you have made up your minds what you want to say, try to
express it in the simplest, clearest, and most graceful language you
can find.
Remember that, while education is the drawing out and cultivation of
all the powers of the mind, no system has yet been devised that will
by itself develop with equal success every one of these powers. The
system under which we have been trained may have done as much for us
as it can do. Each of us is thereafter left to supplement its
deficiencies by self-culture. And in the ordinary science instruction
of the time one of the most obvious of these inevitable deficiencies
is the undue limitation or neglect of the literary side of education.
But in the science instruction itself there are dangers regarding
which we can not be too watchful. In this college and in all the other
well-organized scientific institutions of the country the principles
of science are taught orally and experimentally. Every branch of
knowledge is expounded in its bearings on other branches. Its theory
is held up as the first great aim of instruction, and its practical
applications are made subsequent and subordinate. Divisions of science
are taught here which may have few practical applications, but which
are necessary for a comprehensive survey of the whole circle of
scientific truth. Now, you may possibly have heard, and in the midst
of a busy industrial community you are not unlikely to hear, remarks
made in criticism of this system or method of tuition. The importance
of scientific training will be frankly acknowledged and even insisted
upon, but you will sometimes hear this admission coupled with the
proviso that the science must be of a practical kind; must, in short,
be just such and no other as will fit young men to turn it to
practical use in the manufactures or industries to which they may be
summoned. The critics who make this limitation boast that they are
practical men, and that in their opinion theory is useless or worse
for the main purposes for which they would encourage and support a
great scientific school.
Now I am quite sure that those science students who have passed even a
single session in Mason College can see for themselves the utter
fallacy of such statements and the injury that would be done to the
practical usefulness of this institution and to the general progress
of the industrial applications of science if such short-sighted views
were ever carried into effect. There can be no thorough, adequate, and
effective training in science unless it be based on a comprehensive
study of facts and principles, altogether apart from any economic
uses to which they may be put. Science must be pursued for her own
sake, in the first instance, and without reference to any pecuniary
benefits she may be able to confer. We never can tell when the most
theoretical part of pure science may be capable of being turned to the
most important practical uses. Who could have surmised, for instance,
that in the early tentative experiments of Volta, Galvani, and others
last century lay the germ of the modern world-grasping electric
telegraph? Or when Wedgwood, at the beginning of this century, copied
paintings by the agency of light upon nitrate of silver, who could
have foretold that he was laying the foundations of the marvelous art
of photography?
There can be no more pernicious doctrine than that which would measure
the commercial value of science by its immediate practical usefulness,
and would restrict its place in education to those only of its
subdivisions which may be of service to the industries of the present
time. Such a curtailed method of instruction is not education in the
true sense of the term. It is only a kind of cramming for a specific
purpose, and the knowledge which it imparts, being one-sided and
imperfect, is of little value beyond its own limited range. I by no
means wish to undervalue the importance of technical instruction. By
all means let our artisans know as much as can be taught them
regarding the nature and laws of the scientific processes in which
they are engaged. But it is not by mere technical instruction that we
shall maintain and extend the industrial and commercial greatness of
the country. If we are not only to hold our own, but to widen the
boundaries of applied science, to perfect our manufactures, and to
bring new departments of Nature into the service of man, it is by
broad, thorough, untrammeled scientific research that our success must
be achieved.
When, therefore, you are asked to explain of what practical use are
some of the branches of science in which you have been trained, do not
lose patience with your questioner, and answer him as you think such a
Philistine deserves to be answered. Give him a few illustrations of
the thousands of ways in which science, that might have been
stigmatized by him as merely abstract and theoretical, has yet been
made to minister to the practical needs of humanity. Above all, urge
him to attend some of the classes of Mason College, where he will
learn, in the most effectual manner, the intimate connection between
theory and practice. If he chances to be wealthy, the experiment may
possibly open his eyes to the more urgent needs of the institution,
and induce him to contribute liberally toward their satisfaction.
Among the advantages and privileges of your life at college there is
one, the full significance and value of which you will better
appreciate in later years. You have here an opportunity of acquiring
a wide general view of the whole range of scientific thought and
method. If you proceed to a science degree you are required to lay a
broad foundation of acquaintance with the physical and biological
sciences. You are thus brought into contact with the subjects of each
great department of natural knowledge, and you learn enough regarding
them to enable you to understand their scope and to sympathize with
the workers who are engaged upon them. But when your academical career
is ended, no such chance of wide general training is ever likely to be
yours again. You will be dragged into the whirl of life, where you
will probably find little time or opportunity to travel much beyond
the sphere of employment to which you may have been called. Make the
most, therefore, of the advantages which in this respect you meet with
here. Try to insure that your acquaintance with each branch of science
embraced in your circle of studies shall be as full and accurate as
lies in your power to make it. Even in departments outside the bounds
of your own tastes and ultimate requirements, do not neglect the means
provided for your gaining some knowledge of them. I urge this duty,
not because its diligent discharge will obviously tell in your
examinations, but because it will give you that scientific culture
which, while enabling you to appreciate and enjoy the successive
advances of other sciences than that which you may select for special
cultivation, will at the same time increase your general usefulness
and aid you in your own researches.
The days of Admirable Crichtons are long since past. So rapid and
general is the onward march of science that not only can no man keep
pace with it in every direction, but it has become almost hopelessly
impossible to remain abreast of the progress in each of the several
subdivisions of even a single science. We are entering more and more
upon the age of specialists. It grows increasingly difficult for the
specialists, even in kindred sciences, to remain in touch with each
other. When you find yourselves fairly launched into the vortex of
life you will look back with infinite satisfaction to the time when
you were enabled to lay a broad and solid platform of general
acquirement within the walls of this college.
Perhaps the most remarkable defect in the older or literary methods of
education was the neglect of the faculty of observation. For the
training of the other mental faculties ample provision was made, but
for this, one of the most important of the whole, no care was taken.
If a boy was naturally observant, he was left to cultivate the use of
his eyes as he best might; if he was not observant, nothing was done
to improve him in this respect, unless it were, here and there, by the
influence of such an intelligent teacher as is described in Mrs.
Barbauld's famous story of Eyes and No Eyes. Even when science began
to be introduced into our schools, it was still taught in the old or
literary fashion. Lectures and lessons were given by masters who got
up their information from books, but had no practical knowledge of the
subjects they taught. Class-books were written by men equally
destitute of a personal acquaintance with any department of science.
The lessons were learned by rote, and not infrequently afforded
opportunities rather for frolic than for instruction. Happily, this
state of things, though not quite extinct, is rapidly passing away.
Practical instruction is everywhere coming into use, while the
old-fashioned cut-and-dry lesson-book is giving way to the laboratory,
the field excursion, and the school museum.
It is mainly through the eyes that we gain our knowledge and
appreciation of the world in which we live. But we are not all equally
endowed with the gift of intelligent vision. On the contrary, in no
respect, perhaps, do we differ more from each other than in our powers
of observation. Obviously, a man who has a quick eye to note what
passes around him must, in the ordinary affairs of life, stand at a
considerable advantage over another man who moves unobservantly on his
course. We can not create an observing faculty any more than we can
create a memory, but we may do much to develop both. This is a feature
in education of much more practical and national importance than might
be supposed. I suspect that it lies closer than might be imagined to
the success of our commercial relations abroad. Our prevalent system
of instruction has for generations past done nothing to cultivate the
habit of observation, and has thus undoubtedly left us at a
disadvantage in comparison with nations that have adopted methods of
tuition wherein the observing faculty is regularly trained. With our
world-wide commerce we have gone on supplying to foreign countries the
same manufactured goods for which our fathers found markets in all
quarters of the globe. Our traders, however, now find themselves in
competition with traders from other nations who have been trained to
better use of their powers of observation, and who, taking careful
note of the gradually changing tastes and requirements of the races
which they visit, have been quick to report these changes and to take
means for meeting them. Thus, in our own centers of trade, we find
ourselves in danger of being displaced by rivals with sharper eyes and
greater powers of adaptation.
It is the special function of science to cultivate this faculty of
observation. Here in Mason College, from the very beginning of your
scientific studies you have been taught to use your eyes, to watch the
phenomena that appear and disappear around you, to note the sequence
and relation of these phenomena, and thus, as it were, to enter
beneath the surface into the very soul of things. You can not,
however, have failed to remark among your fellow-students great
inequalities in their powers of observation, and great differences in
the development of these powers under the very same system of
instruction. And you may have noticed that, speaking generally, those
classmates who have shown the best observing faculty have taken
foremost places among their fellows. It is not a question of mere
brain power. A man may possess a colossal intellect, while his faculty
of observation may be of the feeblest kind. One of the greatest
mathematicians of this century who, full of honors, recently passed
away from us, had so little cognizance of his surroundings that many
ludicrous stories are told of his childlike mistakes as to place and
time.
The continued development of the faculty of prompt and accurate
observation is a task on which you can not bestow too much attention.
Your education here must already have taught you its value. In your
future career the use you make of this faculty may determine your
success or your failure. But not only have your studies in this
college trained your observing powers, they have at the same time
greatly widened the range of your mental vision by the variety of
objects which you have been compelled to look at and examine. The same
methods which have been so full of benefit to you here can be
continued by you in after life. And be assured that in maintaining
them in active use you will take effective means for securing success
in the careers you may choose to follow.
But above and beyond the prospect of any material success there is a
higher motive which will doubtless impel you. The education of your
observing faculty has been carried on during your introduction to new
realms of knowledge. The whole domain of Nature has been spread out
before you. You have been taught to observe thousands of objects and
processes of which, common though they may be, you had previously
taken no note. Henceforth, wherever you may go, you can not wander
with ignorant or unobservant eyes. Land and sea and sky, bird and
beast and flower now awaken in you a new interest, for you have
learned lessons from them that have profoundly impressed you, and you
have discovered meanings in them of which you had never dreamed. You
have been permitted to pass within the veil of Nature, and to perceive
some of the inner mechanism of this world.
Thus, your training in science has not only taught you to use your
eyes, but to use them intelligently, and in such a way as to see much
more in the world around you than is visible to the uninstructed man.
This widened perception might be illustrated from any department of
natural science. Let me take, by way of example, the relation of the
student of science toward the features and charms of landscape. It
may be said that no training is needed to comprehend these beauties;
that the man in the street, the holiday maker from town, is just as
competent as the man of science to appreciate them, and may get quite
as much pleasure out of them. We need not stop to discuss the relative
amounts of enjoyment which different orders of spectators may derive
from scenery; but obviously the student of science has one great
advantage in this matter. Not only can he enjoy to the full all the
outward charms which appeal to the ordinary eye, but he sees in the
features of the landscape new charms and interests which the ordinary
untrained eye can not see. Your accomplished professor of geology has
taught you the significance of the outer lineaments of the land. While
under his guidance you have traced with delight the varied features of
the lovely landscapes of the Midlands, your eyes have been trained to
mark their connection with each other, and their respective places in
the ordered symmetry of the whole scene. You perceive why there is
here a height and there a hollow; you note what has given the ridges
and vales their dominant forms and directions; you detect the causes
that have spread out a meadow in one place and raised up a hill in
another.
Above and beyond all questions as to the connection and origin of its
several parts, the landscape appeals vividly to your imagination. You
know that it has not always worn the aspect which it presents to-day.
You have observed in these ridges proofs that the sea once covered
their site. You have seen the remains of long-extinct shells, fishes,
and reptiles that have been disinterred from the mud and silt left
behind by the vanished waters. You have found evidence that not once
only, but again and again, after vast lapses of time and many
successive revolutions, the land has sunk beneath the ocean and has
once more emerged. You have been shown traces of underground
commotion, and you can point to places where, over central England,
volcanoes were once active. You have learned that the various elements
of the landscape have thus been gradually put together during
successive ages, and that the slow processes, whereby the
characteristic forms of the ground have been carved out, are still in
progress under your eye.
While, therefore, you are keenly alive to the present beauty of the
scene, it speaks to you, at every turn, of the past. Each feature
recalls some incident in the strange primeval history that has been
transacted here. The succession of contrasts between what is now and
what has been fills you with wonder and delight. You feel as if a new
sense had been given to you, and that with its aid your appreciation
of scenery has been enlarged and deepened to a marvelous degree.
And so, too, is it with your relation to all the other departments of
Nature. The movements of the clouds, the fall of rain, the flow of
brook and river, the changes of the seasons, the succession of calm
and storm, do not pass before your eyes now as they once did. While
they minister to the joy of life, they speak to you of that
all-embracing system of process and law that governs the world. The
wayside flower is no longer to your eyes merely a thing of beauty. You
have found it to be that and far more--an exquisite organism in which
the several parts are admirably designed to promote the growth of the
plant and to perpetuate the life of the species. Every insect and bird
is now to you an embodiment of the mystery of life. The forces of
Nature, once so dark and so dreaded, are now seen by you to be
intelligible, orderly, and capable of adaptation to the purposes of
man. In the physical and chemical laboratories you have been brought
into personal contact with these forces, and have learned to direct
their operations, as you have watched the manifold effects of energy
on the infinite varieties of matter.
When you have completed your course of study and leave this college,
crowned, I hope, with academic distinction, there will be your future
career in life to choose and follow. A small number among you may,
perhaps, be so circumstanced as to be able to devote yourselves
entirely to original scientific research, selecting such branches of
inquiry as may have specially interested you here, and giving up your
whole time and energy to investigation. A much larger number will, no
doubt, enter professions where a scientific training can be turned to
practical account, and you may become engineers, chemists, or medical
men. But in the struggle for existence, which every year grows keener
among us, these professions are more and more crowded, so that a large
proportion of your ranks may not succeed in finding places there, and
may in the end be pushed into walks in life where there may be little
or no opportunity for making much practical use of the knowledge in
science which you have gained here. To those who may ultimately be
thus situated it will always be of advantage to have had the mental
training given in this institution, and it will probably be your own
fault if, even under unfavorable conditions, you do not find, from
time to time, chances of turning your scientific acquirements to
account. Your indebtedness to your professors demands that you shall
make the effort, and, for the credit of the college, you are bound to
do your best.
Among the mental habits which your education in science has helped to
foster, there are a few which I would specially commend to your
attention as worthy of your most sedulous care all through life.
In the first place, I would put accuracy. You have learned in the
laboratory how absolutely essential this condition is for scientific
investigation. We are all supposed to make the ascertainment of the
truth our chief aim, but we do not all take the same trouble to attain
it. Accuracy involves labor, and every man is not gifted with an
infinite capacity for taking pains. Inexactness of observation is sure
sooner or later to be detected, and to be visited on the head of the
man who commits it. If his observations are incorrect, the conclusions
he has drawn from them may be vitiated. Thus all the toil he has
endured in a research may be rendered of no avail, and the reputation
he might have gained is not only lost but replaced by discredit. It is
quite true that absolute accuracy is often unattainable; you can only
approach it. But the greater the exertion you make to reach it, the
greater will be the success of your investigations. The effort after
accuracy will be transferred from your scientific work to your
everyday life and become a habit of mind, advantageous both to
yourselves and to society at large.
In the next place, I would set thoroughness, which is closely akin to
accuracy. Again, your training here has shown you how needful it is in
scientific research to adopt thorough and exhaustive methods of
procedure. The conditions to be taken into account are so numerous and
complex, the possible combinations so manifold, before a satisfactory
conclusion can be reached. A laborious collection of facts must be
made. Each supposed fact must be sifted out and weighed. The evidence
must be gone over again and yet again, each link in its chain being
scrupulously tested. The deduction to which the evidence may seem to
point must be closely and impartially scrutinized, every other
conceivable explanation of the facts being frankly and fully
considered. Obviously the man whose education has inured him to the
cultivation of a mental habit of this kind is admirably equipped for
success in any walk in life which he may be called upon to enter. The
accuracy and thoroughness which you have learned to appreciate and
practice at college must never be dropped in later years. Carry them
with you as watchwords, and make them characteristic of all your
undertakings.
In the third place, we may take breadth. At the outset of your
scientific education you were doubtless profoundly impressed by the
multiplicity of detail which met your eye in every department of
natural knowledge. When you entered upon the study of one of these
departments, you felt, perhaps, almost overpowered and bewildered by
the vast mass of facts with which you had to make acquaintance. And
yet as your training advanced, you gradually came to see that the
infinite variety of phenomena could all be marshaled, according to
definite laws, into groups and series. You were led to look beyond the
details to the great principles that underlie them and bind them into
a harmonious and organic whole. With the help of a guiding system of
classification, you were able to see the connection between the
separate facts, to arrange them according to their mutual relations,
and thus to ascend to the great general laws under which the material
world has been constructed. With all attainable thoroughness in the
mastery of detail, you have been taught to combine a breadth of
treatment which enables you to find and keep a leading clew even
through the midst of what might seem a tangled web of confusion. There
are some men who can not see the wood for the trees, and who
consequently can never attain great success in scientific
investigation. Let it be your aim to master fully the details of the
tree, and yet to maintain such a breadth of vision as will enable you
to embrace the whole forest within your ken. I need not enlarge on the
practical value of this mental habit in everyday life, nor point out
the excellent manner in which a scientific education tends to develop
it.
In the fourth place, I would inculcate the habit of wide reading in
scientific literature. Although the progress of science is now too
rapid for any man to keep pace with the advance of all its
departments, you should try to hold yourselves in touch with at least
the main results arrived at in other branches than your own; while, in
that branch itself, it should be your constant aim to watch every
onward step that is taken by others, and not to fall behind the van.
This task you will find to be no light one. Even were it confined to a
survey of the march of science in your own country, it would be
arduous enough to engage much of your time. But science belongs to no
country, and continues its onward advance all over the globe. If you
would keep yourselves informed regarding this progress in other
countries, as you are bound to do if you would not willingly be left
behind, you will need to follow the scientific literature of those
countries. You must be able to read at least French and German. You
will find in these languages a vast amount of scientific work relating
to your own department, and to this accumulated pile of published
material the journals of every month continue to add. In many ways it
is a misfortune that the literature of science increases so fast; but
we must take the evil with the good. Practice will eventually enable
you to form a shrewd judgment as to which authors or papers you may
skip without serious danger of losing any valuable fact or useful
suggestion.
In the fifth place, let me plead for the virtue of patience. In a
scientific career we encounter two dangers, for the avoidance of which
patience is our best support and guide. When life is young and
enthusiasm is boundless; when from the details which we may have
laboriously gathered together we seem to catch sight of some new fact
or principle, some addition of more or less importance to the sum of
human knowledge, there may come upon us the eager desire to make our
discovery known. We may long to be allowed to add our own little stone
to the growing temple of science. We may think of the pride with which
we should see our names enrolled among those of the illustrious
builders by whom this temple has been slowly reared since the infancy
of mankind. So we commit our observations to writing, and send them
for publication. Eventually we obtain the deep gratification of
appearing in print among well-known authors in science. Far be it from
me to condemn this natural desire for publicity. But, as your
experience grows, you will probably come to agree with me that if the
desire were more frequently and energetically curbed, scientific
literature would gain much thereby. There is among us far too much
hurry in publication. We are so afraid lest our observations or
deductions should be forestalled--so anxious not to lose our claim to
priority, that we rush before the world, often with a half-finished
performance, which must be corrected, supplemented, or canceled by
some later communication. It is this feverish haste which is largely
answerable for the mass of jejune, ill-digested, and erroneous matter
that cumbers the pages of modern scientific journals. Here it is that
you specially need patience. Before you venture to publish anything,
take the utmost pains to satisfy yourselves that it is true, that it
is new, and that it is worth putting into print. And be assured that
this reticence, while it is a kindness to the literature of science,
will most certainly bring with it its own reward to yourselves. It
will increase your confidence, and make your ultimate contributions
more exact in their facts as well as more accurate and convincing in
their argument.
The other danger to which I referred as demanding patience is of an
opposite kind. As we advance in our career, and the facts of our
investigations accumulate around us, there will come times of
depression when we seem lost in a labyrinth of detail out of which no
path appears to be discoverable. We have, perhaps, groped our way
through this maze, following now one clew, now another, that seemed to
promise some outlet to the light. But the darkness has only closed
around us the deeper, and we feel inclined to abandon the research as
one in which success is, for us at least, unattainable. When this
blankness of despair shall come upon you, take courage under it, by
remembering that a patient study of any department of Nature is never
labor thrown away. Every accurate observation you have made, every new
fact you have established, is a gain to science. You may not for a
time see the meaning of these observations, nor the connection of
these facts. But their meaning and connection are sure in the end to
be made out. You have gone through the labor necessary for the
ascertainment of truth, and if you patiently and watchfully bide your
time, the discovery of the truth itself may reward your endurance and
your toil.
It is by failures as well as by successes that the true ideal of the
man of science is reached. The task allotted to him in life is one of
the noblest that can be undertaken. It is his to penetrate into the
secrets of Nature, to push back the circumference of darkness that
surrounds us, to disclose ever more and more of the limitless beauty,
harmonious order, and imperious law that extend throughout the
universe. And while he thus enlarges our knowledge, he shows us also
how Nature may be made to minister in an ever-augmenting multiplicity
of ways to the service of humanity. It is to him and his conquests
that the material progress of our race is mainly due. If he were
content merely to look back over the realms which he has subdued, he
might well indulge in jubilant feelings, for his peaceful victories
have done more for the enlightenment and progress of mankind than were
ever achieved by the triumphs of war. But his eye is turned rather to
the future than to the past. In front of him rises the wall of
darkness that shrouds from him the still unknown. What he has
painfully accomplished seems to him but little in comparison with the
infinite possibilities that lie beyond. And so he presses onward, not
self-satisfied and exultant, but rather humbled and reverential, yet
full of hope and courage for the work of further conquest that lies
before him.--_Nature._
FOOTNOTE:
[40] An address to the students of Mason University College,
Birmingham, at the opening of the session, October 4, 1898.
SHALL WE TEACH OUR DAUGHTERS THE VALUE OF MONEY?
BY ALEXANDRA L. B. IDE.
I am induced to write a few lines on this subject by a remark recently
made to me by a widow of large property. In speaking about the
management of her money she said: "As to myself, I leave everything to
my business man or agent. I would not know if my tax bills were
correct. He gives me plenty of money to spend on my charities; why
should I trouble myself about the details?" Evidently it had never
occurred to her that she might be spending her principal; that some
day she might wake up to the fact that her fortune had been
dissipated. Another rich woman, to whom I made the remark that certain
bonds were bought at par, inquired, "Is that the same thing as buying
them on a margin?" Now here were representative women of New York
society, both belonging to excellent families, and to all appearances
well educated. It is amazing that such profound ignorance on ordinary
business matters exists. In conversation with many other wealthy women
I discovered that it was very much the exception to find a woman who
possessed the slightest knowledge of money matters.
Now, why should these things be? The time has passed for a young girl
to be brought up a "perfect fool." Let her not waste the beautiful
morning of her life in profitless and frivolous occupations. The
reason often given as excuse for the ignorance of many women is, so
few comparatively have any money to keep, therefore it is useless to
teach them.
True, it is unusual to find a young girl with an independent fortune;
but she may marry rich, and what a help she would be to a sensible man
if she were capable of aiding him in his business affairs! Again, she
might be left a widow, and have the entire direction of her husband's
property. No knowledge is ever lost. The more one knows, the more one
realizes how little one does know. I maintain that a woman's intellect
is perfectly capable of coping with and understanding business
affairs. In some matters she is far shrewder than the average man, and
in many cases her quick insight sees at a glance that which man
requires time to penetrate. Only give her half a chance. I do not wish
for a moment to be understood as advocating women becoming
stockbrokers or lawyers; nothing could be more unnatural or
unsuitable. It seems to me only in accordance with the wishes of a
reasonable woman to participate with her brothers in such rudimentary
knowledge as will enable her to oversee or take the entire charge of
her own property. Take, for example, a well-to-do New York business
man. He has acquired through his own industry and shrewdness a large
fortune. He maps out the education for his children. His sons are sent
to the best schools, and afterward to college. He determines that no
expense shall be spared to fit them for their future career.
For his daughters expensive foreign governesses are engaged, who teach
them the languages, music, and other accomplishments. Or the daughters
are sent to some high-priced fashionable school, where they are put
through a course of training to enable them to "shine in society."
Having reached the age of eighteen, the daughter returns to the
parental roof.
What does she know in exchange for the large sum of money her
education has cost? Usually her penmanship is bad and illegible. Her
knowledge of arithmetic very slight. These two essentials of education
are not her forte.
But she is a good dancer, and perhaps at the assembly or some such
function the father's heart has swelled with pride as he noticed how
eagerly she was sought as a partner. She can sing French songs,
probably those which are rather _risqué_. She can converse, perhaps,
in two or three different modern languages. As a general rule her
French can scarcely be understood by the foreign _attachés_ at
Newport. The girl is absolutely unequipped for _real_ life, and the
man of sense, who has passed the boyish age and is looking for a
partner for life, knows _this_. Possibly this is one cause why there
are comparatively few marriages in our best society. What man is less
likely to seek as wife a woman who knows something about the care and
value of money? It is strange that a father should be so blinded to
the best interests of his daughter. Is it because he considers her
intellect so far below that of his son that he makes no effort to
instruct her in regard to the care of money? The only thing she knows
about money is how to spend it--generally on herself, for clothes and
jewels. Perhaps on the first of the month, when the bills for his
daughter's extravagance pour in on him, he is vexed; but if his
fortune is large, and it is no inconvenience for him to pay them, he
generally does so without a murmur. "Let her have a good time while
she is young," he soliloquizes.
But stop a moment and consider. What you sow you reap is as true in
this material concern as in the world of agriculture. The fond parent
by his indulgence and neglect is sowing the seeds of extravagance,
perhaps those of want. Years hence she may reap the fruit of his
ill-judged kindness in fostering habits of reckless expenditure.
In a few years the father dies; his property is divided; the daughter
receives her share. If she is married to a good business man who has
time to take charge of her fortune, possibly, during her husband's
lifetime, the difficulty is bridged over. But the chances are she may
not be married, or again the man she has selected as husband may be
worthless as a business man. It is not to be expected that a brother
(even if she is fortunate enough to possess one), however kind, will
overburden himself with the manifold details of looking after the
property of a sister. He has his own interests, which demand his
attention. He thinks his duty accomplished when he has chosen a man to
look after his sister's affairs whom he _believes_ to be reliable. The
person whom he has appointed as guardian over his sister's interests
may have an honest and high character, but that is no guarantee that
in a moment of weakness he may not yield to the temptation of abusing
the trust. He knows the woman is absolutely ignorant of how her
affairs are being conducted, and in all probability would not be the
wiser if he appropriated some of her fortune to his own uses. Her very
ignorance is his security. Who can not recall several such cases? If
each day for half an hour the father had instructed his child in the
essentials of business--how to calculate interest quickly, the manner
of filling out a lease in renting property, explaining about
mortgages, and giving her a lesson as to what were the best
investments--she would know enough to steer clear of the many sharks
and vultures which usually find her a ready prey. The woman who does
not know the difference between a registered and coupon bond should be
ashamed to acknowledge such ignorance. A parent's neglect in teaching
his child about monetary affairs is culpable, almost amounting to a
crime. There is nothing so costly as ignorance. This very fortune
which you have taken infinite pains to accumulate will be perhaps
dissipated, owing to your want of forethought in imparting the
requisite knowledge to your child. This information she will in after
years buy for herself at a heavy premium. If knowledge is power in
other matters, it is more than ever true in monetary affairs. Power to
keep your fortune is a power worth having, and more difficult to
acquire than to make a fortune. Let a girl but try to earn five
dollars, and she will see the task is not an easy one. Then, unless
she be a fool, she will realize that what is so difficult to obtain
should not be wasted.
I recall the case of a fashionable woman in New York society which
came under my own observation. Her husband told me he had deposited in
a bank a large sum of money for his wife to draw on, given her a bank
and check book, explained and showed her how to draw checks. He very
sensibly thought that it would be a far better plan for her to pay her
bills herself, instead of coming to him every time she needed money.
His relief from being her almoner was of short duration, for in less
than a month she came to him, and, throwing the check and bank books
on his library table, told him it was too much trouble--she could not
make head or tail of it; she wished to return to the old system! He
could pay her bills in future. This woman had been married twenty
years. Too much trouble, is it? Yes, I believe this is the keynote why
women are so ignorant. They are lazy, pure and simple. The details of
business are too dry and uninteresting. It is so much easier to have
some one else do the work for you. So much less exertion to read a
novel, or ride the wheel with some attractive man. "How prosaic," you
say, "to add up account books, balance check books, and calculate
whether your tax bill is correct when your property is assessed at the
rate of 2.01!"
I believe, if the truth were told, half the divorces in which the
reason given is incompatibility of temper arise from the fact that
women know nothing of the value of money. I am not speaking entirely
of women who have their own property, but also of those who are
dependent on a husband's income. The wife has a vague idea that there
is an inexhaustible supply of cash somewhere! What man can not tell
you how worried and harassed he felt when his wife came to him for
money to spend on nonessentials, and which he could ill afford? If he
attempted to remonstrate with her he probably received a rude or angry
reply! The wife, perhaps, had been used to an indulgent father, who
gratified her every whim. She overlooks the fact that a father and
husband are two vastly different beings, and require different
treatment. To some women a husband's value decreases when he can no
longer supply them with finery. Their alleged love soon wanes, and a
divorce is sought on any pretext.
It is easy to see that by a knowledge of business affairs a woman can
dispense with the services of an agent or trust company, whose salary
thus being saved is added to her income. In case a woman is fitted by
a proper education for so doing, who could attend to her own interests
better than herself, as she is the party interested? The phrase, "If
you wish anything well done, do it yourself," is never better
exemplified than in this case. Lastly, but not least, in saving our
money it need not be from a miserly spirit; but the more we have, the
more we can profitably give away. What pleasure equals that of
relieving real distress, and of helping others? Did not our Saviour
himself set the example of saving when, after performing the miracle
where he fed the multitude with the loaves and fishes, he said:
"Gather up the fragments that remain. Let nothing be lost."
SKETCH OF CLÉMENCE ROYER.
BY M. JACQUES BOYER.
Madame Clémence Augustine Royer was born at Nantes, France, April 21,
1830, of an old Catholic family. When she reached a suitable age she
was sent to school at the Sacré Coeur, where she received the most of
her education. Very shortly after coming out of the convent she
abandoned the religious doctrines they had tried to inculcate in her
there, and, like so many young persons, was attracted to poetry. But
her literary efforts as a whole received very little attention, and
she would never have been successful if she had only teased the Muse.
Happily, she applied herself, about 1850, to more serious studies, and
went to England, where she spent several years and acquired a thorough
knowledge of the language of Shakespeare. She removed thence to
Switzerland, and there found her definite vocation. The natural
sciences, philosophy, and political economy from that time engaged her
attention.
The opening of Madame Royer's course of lectures to women on logic at
Lausanne in the winter of 1859 and 1860 attracted much notice. The
first lecture was published under the title of an Introduction to
Philosophy, and brought most flattering praise to the author from
contemporary students. In an animated style the disciple of Jean
Jacques Rousseau, the apostle of bold and ingenious ideas, was already
beginning to declare herself. In the meantime she collaborated on the
journal The New Economist, which the historian and sociologist Pascal
Duprat had just founded.[41]
At the close of 1860, the Canton of Vaud having opened a competition
on the Principles of Taxation, "the little lady with a straw hat," as
her neighbors familiarly called her, handled the subject so thoroughly
that her memoir, entitled _Théorie de l'Impôt et Dime sociale_ (Theory
of the Impost and Social Tithe, 1862), won her the honor of dividing
the prize with Proudhon. While not all the ideas set forth in this
work were new, she took care at least to co-ordinate the systems of
her predecessors, to select from the one and the other of them what
was good in them, and to condense into a homogeneous whole works which
were scattered hither and thither. But we will pass over these books
of her youth to dwell more at large on that part of her work which
will assure Madame Royer an honorable place among the most zealous
promoters and ablest defenders of the Darwinian theories.
Her first effort in this line was to translate into French, in 1862,
the Origin of Species of the great English naturalist, preceding the
work with a preface which in itself alone constituted an excellent
summary of the doctrine of evolution. She pointed out the results
which logically follow from the transformist theory. She did not
conceal from herself that in doing thus she would be the object of
attacks from the immobilist and ecclesiastical parties still so
numerous thirty years ago in all civilized countries; but she
flattered herself, too, and with just reason, that she would furnish
the liberals and progressives of France with a powerful weapon. In
this introductory chapter she characterized the original and strong
personality of Darwin in appropriate terms, saying: "While he has not
the brilliant qualities of a Cuvier as a writer or a professor, he is
at least a worthy heir of the profoundly philosophical science of the
two Geoffroys Saint-Hilaire ... one of those workmen who cut their
stone with an indefatigable courage. But there are also thicker and
heavier stones, without beauty or apparent grace, which are designed
to be hidden at the base of an immense edifice, like the massive
columns with which the architects of the middle ages decorated the
crypts of their Gothic cathedrals. It is truth in the rough. He does
not impose his condition, but communicates it and proves it. If it is
certain, he affirms it; when he supposes, he says so; when he doubts,
he acknowledges it." She then passes to the exposition of Darwinism as
responding to one of the noblest aspirations of the mind, the
preliminary step to the accounting for the world of organized beings,
as astronomy, physics, and geology have explained the origin of
inanimate substances. In effect, the illustrious Englishman,
connecting the domain of botany and zoölogy with the action of second
causes, sought first to comprehend the genesis, and then the
evolution, in the same way that astronomers and geologists teach us
concerning the origin of our globe and the successive phases through
which its surface has passed.
Not only did Madame Clémence Royer initiate us into transformism. In
her masterly introduction she went still further. Carrying the
exposition to its final consequences, she provoked a useful revolution
in the ideas then current. She dared to say what many men of science
would only have left to be inferred. Her translation, revealing the
name of Darwin to the French public, who hardly knew of it at that
period, gave the occasion for a very active conflict between the
partisans of "creationism" and the Nantese philosophy. The success of
this work was so great as to induce her to complete her preface by
publishing a few years afterward a work wholly her own, _Origine de
l'Homme et des Sociétés_ (Origin of Man and Societies, 1870), which,
being her best production, deserves a special analysis. With the
assistance of documents collected by the most famous anthropologists,
Madame Royer reconstitutes the history of the primitive ages of
mankind, and after studying its origins and development she seeks for
the bonds that connect the great human family with the rest of living
Nature; and finally forecasts its future from its past.
In the first part she takes up the question of the origin of life and
of its transformations upon the earth. The living species are grouped
around man, who is the topmost shoot of the gigantic "tree of life."
Two laws regulate the transmission of life--the law of heredity and
the law of variability. The former assures the continuation of the
type, and the latter variety in its modifications. The organic kingdom
as a whole oscillates between these two contrary rules which fix
limits each upon the other and which suffice to explain the successive
appearance through the ages of different forms of life. The organic
individual is thus the solution of a problem in algebra set to
Nature. Atavism is the constant quantity, and the force of variation
is the perpetually changing unknown factor. The problem is therefore
complex, but the principles to which the variable is subject resolve
themselves into a series of partial laws which are deduced from an
aggregate of observations, and which, according to our author, one may
summarize as he goes.
Most of the variations reveal themselves in the embryo during the
fætal period. But after its birth the young product is affected not
only by the ambient medium, but also by the consequences of the
reproductive act. The latter, in fact, having impressed the initial
movement upon its organism, reacts incessantly against the modifying
influences of the ambient, and atavism prevails as always the
resultant unless important accidents come in to change the course.
It is only necessary to add a few experimental considerations to
complete a rapid sketch of the laws of variability. First, correlation
of growth: Homologous organs tend to vary in the same direction, and
together. Are the fingers joined or divided? The hand follows similar
variations. Then there is a compensation of growth which prevents the
excess of the preceding rule; when one organ is developed, another is
atrophied. Also vital competition. Every organized being must be in
harmony with the conditions of its existence or it will not subsist;
the monster may appear, but will not live. Lastly, by virtue of
natural selection, the individual must likewise possess the means of
perpetuating its species. Otherwise, a series of transformations will
come to pass in the course of successive generations, improving the
organism and adapting it more and more to the exigencies of its
habitat. The least prolific species of to-day fulfill these conditions
so well that they of themselves alone would cover the surface of the
earth if their multiplication was not checked by that of other
species. But as only a limited quantity of life is possible on our
planet, the less well-adapted organisms perish. The struggle therefore
produces a selection. It is hence presumed that in the same species
only varieties manifesting tendencies in most complete harmony with
the method of their existence will be preserved, all the intermediate
varieties being destroyed. Consequently, if we push the doctrine of
Darwin to its extreme limits, we arrive at the idea, now rejected,
that in the beginning only a single germ arose at one point on the
globe. All the analogies, on the other hand, lead us to suppose that
the earth was fruitful over its entire surface.
This leads us to inquire how life appeared on the earth. The debate
between the heterogenists and the panspermists has been long vain,
because the question has been laid before them in insoluble terms. In
order to resolve it, therefore, we must take ourselves back in thought
thousands of thousands of centuries in the past. A thin crust of
red-hot lava, hardly solidified, extended over the incandescent
nucleus of our globe. An eternity then passed before the fiery sphere
was forever confined within its coffin of granite. The metalloids
dominant in this chaos of affinities and repulsions were then floating
in an irrespirable atmosphere along with a mass of aqueous vapors. At
the end of many millions of years, the waters definitely took their
place around the globe. But who can ever tell what useless abortions,
to be destroyed as soon as they were created, arose in these oceans
saturated with anomalous substances? The first germs of life doubtless
arose from the thick proliferous stratum which was developed under the
pressure of a dense atmosphere in contact with liquids still warm,
incessantly traversed by electric currents of unimaginable intensity.
It was a sprout that arose everywhere at once. But in those
innumerable spontaneous efforts, continued during the enormous length
of time required to purify the atmosphere from its acrid vapors and
the seas from their foreign matters, only a small number of these
germs achieved a beginning of vegetation. This, according to Madame
Royer's theory, was the way life began on the globe.
The author next examines the complete series of the phases of
evolution gone through by the species, and then the development of the
mental faculties, the chief feature of difference which in the view of
some thinkers creates a gap between man and the rest of the animal
kingdom. She demonstrates that the primary qualities of mind are
identical in all living creatures, even in those of least development.
The intelligence of man is simply superior to the mental organism of
the animal. This is, however, only a relative superiority, not
differing in nature from the animal's intelligence, but only in form
and intensity.
After relating the history of man in prehistoric times, our
philosopher gives, in the second part of her work, the present picture
of the races as their physical characteristics and their social orders
differentiate them so profoundly: At the top, the white race, the last
flower of the genealogical tree, to which all the great nationalities
belong. By the side of it, its two diverging branches, the Turanians
(Hungarians, Finns, and Turks) and the Aramæans or Semites (Jews,
Arabs, and Syrians). Then come the three--Hyperborean, Mongolian, and
Sinitic--branches of the yellow stock, who inhabit eastern and
northern Asia. We find also the Malays covering the surface of the two
southern peninsulas of Asia and Oceania. They constitute a lateral
ramification, which, together with the red or copper-colored race of
North America, may have had the same point of departure as the
Mongols. Lastly comes the negro race, which has been separated a much
longer time from the common stock from which man has diverged.
Further on, Madame Royer discusses the anatomical relations of man and
the ape, with the conclusion deduced as resulting from phenomena of
observation that the human family is only a term in a series of which
the different primates are the other steps. In short, the further we
go back in the past of primitive man, the more we meet manifestations
of passions as ferocious as base. This is, moreover, easily
conceivable. The savage, at war with Nature and his like, and placed
in conditions of life common to the animal world, has in the beginning
all its bad instincts.
The end of the second part of _L'Origine de l'Homme et des Sociétés_
is devoted to the most complex problem of anthropology--that of the
beginning of speech and the origin of language. Man, in the view of
the author, first makes his wants and feelings known to other beings
by a series of signs. The three primordial faculties--feeling,
thinking, and wishing--were the point of departure, the cause and the
rule of all languages that man has created in his entire progress. As
his mind has shaped a new idea, it has found a new sign to express it;
but the process varying with the race, time and the environment have
produced the diversity of tongues which we observe. In the beginning a
more or less complicated cry suffices to express the thought in its
original syncretism. Then, under the influence of reflection continued
through ages, from generation to generation, it becomes transformed
and decomposed into various elements. Every noun was primarily an
adjective-substantive. For example, thunder was designated by
imitating it; the horse, by its neighing and the sound of galloping.
The relations of place, possession, and those of many other kinds were
probably expressed by the look, the attitude, a motion with the hand,
etc. Ideas of number were developed slowly. The earliest languages
contained only about a hundred words, and these sufficed for centuries
for the needs of human thought, confined within the narrow experience
of a generation. It results from these facts that in every sense the
formation of languages is a consequence of social relations. But here
rises a question as important as difficult to answer: When did man
begin to speak? From the harmony between the anthropological
classifications deduced from philological research and those drawn
from the labors of the physiologists it appears evident that the
spontaneous and primitive constitution of the first elements of
language was, among all known human races, posterior to their
geographical and ethnical separation. In other words, local varieties
had already been formed, and men had acquired the anatomical
differences that distinguish them to-day before they conquered the
faculty of speech. However it may be with these hypotheses, we may
assent fully to the conclusion of the chapter that man will never
deserve the name of the reasoning animal till he shall possess a
logical and single language for all the members of the great human
association. May this dream be realized by the destruction of the
barriers which now divide so many peoples!
In the third part of the work, Madame Royer treats of the development
of human society. Everything permits the supposition that from a very
remote period the anthropoid primate that served as the root stock of
man became omnivorous, with a predominance of carnivorous tastes.
These conditions of life therefore invoked an at least rudimentary
social instinct--that is, animals lived in troops collected under
chiefs, with a tactics for mutual defense. The most ancient documents,
in fact, show the human species living in rival or allied tribes.
Hunting and fishing were the principal business of these primitive
races, which relied for assistance at first on their agility, muscular
strength, and arms of stone of a workmanship still in its infancy.
Flint was then very roughly cut. But now a great advance was achieved
for man, a step toward industry and civilization. This second stage
was the discovery of fire, an immediate consequence of the cutting of
flints, when sparks would fly out at each blow. Yet a later epoch
probably had to be reached for the real employment of fire in cooking
food. Previous to that it could serve man only for warming himself, or
for protecting himself at night against wild beasts.
Next came the earliest industries--the potter's art, the making of
rude clothing, and the construction of habitations; and about this
time the instinct of property begins to develop. For a long time there
are no other securities than force. On the other hand, the diversities
of the faculties, which are very unequally distributed among the
various races, and even among the different individuals of each of
them, create social inequalities, the chief cause of the crime, wars,
and misery with which every page of the history of man is soiled, and
from which the original organization of civil society sprang.
At the close of her treatise the eminent anthropologist states the
formula of the highest social prosperity: she believes that it resides
in an equal liberty for each member of a national collectivity and in
the free play of individual initiatives. Man will work in as large a
sphere of action as the right of another leaves him, striving to
broaden his place at the feast of life. Each one will climb the social
ladder in his own way and will fix himself on the step on which his
aptitudes will meet the best reward. Each individual will therefore
gain a large sum of well-being, and the species will possess a total
maximum of enjoyment.
Such, in broad outline, is the substance of this book, which
naturalists and philosophers have consulted now for many years. It is
not within the province of our sketch to dwell upon any of the bold
assertions and hypotheses in it that have been invalidated by later
geological discoveries; and, notwithstanding a few errors in detail,
almost inevitable in a book of the kind, the _Origine de l'Homme_ is,
as a whole, a work as vigorously thought out as clearly and generously
written.
Madame Clémence Royer has further occupied herself with special
researches on subjects of the same nature. Their results have been
published in the highly esteemed review, the Bulletin of the Société
d'Anthropologie. The most important of these memoirs relate to the
Craniology of the Quaternary Period, the Celts, the Origin of the
Different Human Races (1873), and the Domestication of Monkeys (1887).
The last work was published at the time of the appearance of a book by
M. Victor Meunier,[42] a believer in the possibility of domesticating
the simian race. His proposition, received in France as a kind of a
joke, taxed the genius of the Parisian caricaturists, because the
author had suggested that newborn children be nursed by monkeys, whose
milk was most like that of the human mother. Of course it was an easy
subject to joke about. Madame Royer showed how little originality
there was in this book. We might, she said, undoubtedly succeed in
educating monkeys, and they would at the end of many generations be in
certain cases superior to the dog and the horse. Unfortunately, the
struggle for existence opposed the adoption of the Utopian idea. The
place for each human recruit at the social table is now too narrow for
any part of it to be left for "our lower brethren."
Anthropological sciences were not the only ones to which the
encyclopedic mind of our learned philosopher was attracted. A few
years ago she returned to her earlier studies, and collaborated on the
_Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Économie Politique_ of Léon Say (1891-'92).
The most profound article she wrote for this work was that on the word
positivism. According to it, the Positive Philosophy dates, not from
Auguste Comte, who is believed to have introduced it, but from Bacon;
for its essential features may be found in the _Novum Organum_ and the
_Scientia nuova_. Furthermore, Madame Royer found that Comte
"emasculated" the doctrine of the famous chancellor. The principal
dogma of the system is the impossibility of knowledge of first causes
by our reason. This is an error, says Madame Royer. Two distinct ideas
have been confounded in the term first causes: first, the permanent
cause of phenomena, their essential "substratum," the discovery of
which man may perhaps some day reach; and, second, the supposed
primary term of each phenomenal law. But if the world is eternal, this
last does not exist, since "the eternity of the substantial involves
the eternity of its effects." Yet, while she attacks Comte's errors in
the sphere of sociology, she renders full justice to his Course of
Positive Philosophy, which was often in advance of its time in respect
to the exact sciences. Among other of Madame Royer's publications we
may cite _Zoroastre, son Epoque et sa Doctrine_ (Zoroaster, his Epoch
and his Doctrine, two volumes, 1875); _Les Ages Préhistoriques_ (The
Prehistoric Ages, 1876); _La Terre et ses Anciens Habitants_ (The
Earth and its Ancient Inhabitants, 1891), a sort of summary of recent
progress in paleontology, and of facts that may be derived from the
study of living beings; and _Les Variations Séculaires des Saisons_
(Secular Variation of the Seasons, 1892), a little work in which the
author endeavors to confirm by observation a theory that climatic
variations are dependent, in the meteorological sense, on planetary
movements. She showed, for example, that in the cold winter of
1879-'80 the distribution of the planets around the sun was precisely
that which should give the greatest degree of cold for our hemisphere.
We notice also her occasional contributions to different periodicals:
to _Le Temps_, the _Revue des Revues_, the _Journal des Économistes_,
etc. Her last two treatises were published in 1895: _La Matière_ (or
Matter), and _L'Inconnaissable_ (or The Unknowable).
So great intellectual activity has given Madame Royer a first place
among women as students of science. Hence, on March 10, 1897, her
numerous admirers and friends offered her a jubilee banquet, under the
chairmanship of M. Levasseur, member of the Institute of France. The
toasts spoken to on this occasion retraced the brilliant career of the
heroine of the feast; and, as the chairman justly declared, the
occasion was "the glorification of woman's knowledge." Madame Clémence
Royer is at present living a very retired life in the _Maison de
Retraite_ founded by the Duchess Galigani at Neuilly, near Paris,
where she enjoys the rest earned by a half century of persevering
labor. Her body is feeble, but her ample brow and her yet lively eyes
seem still to have preserved the recollections of the struggles of
other days.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] Pascal Duprat, born at Hagetman (Department of the Landes), March
24, 1816, was professor of history at Algiers and at Paris. He took
the direction of the _Revue independante_ in 1847; founded with
Lamennais the journal _Le Peuple constituant_, and was an ardent
promoter of the Revolution of 1848. Having became a member of the
National Assembly, he opposed the _coup d'état_ of Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte. Being obliged in consequence of this act to exile himself,
he retired to Belgium and afterward to Lausanne. He did not return to
France till after the war of 1870, and died in August, 1885. The most
interesting of his works is the Historical Essay on the Races of
Africa (_Essai historique sur les Races de l'Afrique_, 1845).
[42] Les Singes domestiques. Paris, 1886.
* * * * *
DR. SHELDON JACKSON, superintendent of Government schools in
Alaska, corrects a report that has been published, that his
experiment in naturalizing reindeer in that Territory has
failed. Three hundred and twelve of the five hundred and
twelve head imported died, it is true, at Seattle and
Haines, "because of a combination of circumstances and
Government red tape," but the two hundred and twenty-eight
deer that were allowed to reach the moss, fifty miles from
the coast, are doing well, and will be used next winter in
carrying the mails. Instead of scarcity of moss, the
pasturage is more abundant than in Lapland or Siberia, and
the reindeer thrive better than they did in their native
habitat.
Editor's Table.
_WORDS OF A MASTER._
The address, which we print elsewhere, delivered by Sir Archibald
Geikie to the students of Mason College, Birmingham, is one to which
we feel it a duty to draw special attention. It would be difficult, we
think, to state more lucidly than the eminent author has done the
advantages to be derived from a course of scientific study, and the
principles which must be kept in view, not only during the period of
study, but through life, if a training in science is to have its best
results.
The address begins with a few words of caution as to the drawbacks
which are apt to attend on the exclusive, or nearly exclusive, pursuit
of science. In the reaction which the present age has witnessed
against the old literary and linguistic curriculum of studies, a
tendency is manifesting itself to undervalue the older learning. This
Sir Archibald considers to be a matter for serious regret. He
recognizes the impossibility of combining any large amount of literary
or philological study with the requirements of an extensive scientific
course; but he advises those who make choice of the latter to "cherish
the literary tastes they have acquired, and to devote themselves
sedulously to the further cultivation of them during such intervals of
leisure as they may be able to secure." A training in science, he
observes, "admirable as it is in many ways, fails to supply those
humanizing influences which the older learning can so well impart."
Times will therefore come, even to the most enthusiastic student, when
"scientific work, in spite of its absorbing interest, grows to be a
weariness"; and it is then that the value of any literary culture
which may have been received at school or college will be appreciated.
It is a quite true remark that "men who have been too exclusively
trained in science, or are too much absorbed in its pursuit, are not
always the most agreeable members of society." It is also true that
"one result of the comparative neglect of the literary side of
education by many men of science is conspicuously seen in their
literary style," which is not infrequently so "slipshod,
ungrammatical, and clumsy that even the meaning of the authors is left
in doubt." This is a great evil under the sun: a man goes through a
vast amount of labor to ascertain facts and discover their meaning;
and when he is ready to transfer the knowledge that he has gained to
other minds he lacks the skill to do it in any satisfactory manner.
Yet so far is it from being the case that there is any necessary
incompatibility between scientific and literary cultivation, that
several of the most distinguished scientific investigators have ranked
among the best writers of the day. We need only cite such names as Sir
John Herschel, Lyell, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Clifford, and Sir
Archibald Geikie himself: to read any of these is a pleasure from a
literary no less than from a scientific point of view. No very
satisfactory excuse can therefore be made for those scientific writers
who can not compass a style of reasonable perspicuity and elegance. We
can only think of them as having fallen victims to the hurtful error
that literary style is of no advantage to a scientific man.
The caution which the address contains against taking too utilitarian
a view of science is timely and judicious. We do not believe the
intention of the author is to encourage the prosecution of alleged
scientific researches independently of all assignable human motive;
but he would have all the main lines of scientific inquiry pursued in
a liberal and disinterested spirit, in the belief that the enlargement
of knowledge can not but subserve in some way or another, and sooner
or later, the interests of the human race. He feels that the true
scientific spirit is not one that makes pecuniary gain its chief
object. True types of the scientific worker are to be found in Michael
Faraday and the elder Agassiz, who was "too busy to make money"; and
the student of science who can not to some extent work in the spirit
of these men may as well recognize that it is not scientific truth he
is after but money. The greatest advances in Science, it is almost
needless to say, have been made by those who were serving her not for
the lust of gain, but for the love of discovery--that is to say, by
men like Copernicus, Galileo, Harvey, Cavendish, Newton, Franklin,
Jenner, Watt, Darwin, and Pasteur; and if we would know what science
is, it is the lives, characters, and labors of such men as these that
we should study, and not the achievements of merely successful
patentees.
Another danger to which the student of science is exposed is that of
paying little or no attention to any department of science save that
of which he is making a specialty. It is therefore of great importance
that the courses of study laid out in science colleges should at the
outset be sufficiently broad to afford a thorough grounding in the
leading principles of all the sciences and in the application of
scientific method to every field of inquiry. Only in this way can a
true sense of the power and universality of science as a method of
thought and an engine of the human mind be obtained. Why is it that we
are often so little impressed with the intellectual character of this
or that noted specialist? The reason, we take it, is that his mind
lacks breadth; he knows his own field of observation, but seems to
have little sense or appreciation of what lies beyond it. It may have
been some one of this type who suggested to Wordsworth his idea of an
"ever-dwindling soul"; certain it is that a man may, by the too
exclusive pursuit of a narrow line of thought and inquiry, fatally
cramp his mind and dim his spiritual vision.
The foundation of all science is observation, and Sir Archibald
rightly dwells upon the supreme importance of cultivating and
developing the observing faculty to the utmost extent. He states that
a man may possess a colossal intellect while his faculty of
observation may be of the feeblest kind, and gives as an example a
very eminent mathematician, lately deceased, who used to make the most
ludicrous mistakes as to time and place. Upon this point we feel like
venturing a little dissent. We doubt whether there ever was a colossal
intellect apart from a considerable development of the power of
observation; and that a great mathematician should take very little
notice of what was going on in the world about him would only show
that his powers of observation were otherwise engaged. Take him in his
own field, and what a multitude of things he would observe which a man
of inferior intellect, occupied with the same studies, would overlook!
It would be a somewhat rash thing to undertake to cure an Archimedes
or a Newton of that absent-mindedness which, to the world at large,
looks like a deficiency of observation. In such cases as these the
mind that is absent here is present elsewhere; and what it is doing
there the world will in due time find out. It is impossible, we hold,
for any one man to be observant in all directions; if he is, it is
certain he will not have a colossal intellect. Still, the truth which
should be borne in upon every student's mind is that if he would make
independent progress he must be an independent observer. He must take
in once for all the truth that the materials needed for scientific
construction lie afield, and that he must keep his eyes open in order
to see and distinguish them. At every moment the man of science may
say, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of" in
any philosophy yet formulated; and some of those things he should aim
at discovering for himself. Any mind that is once thoroughly
interested in any branch of study will be observant, and conversely a
certain practice in observation may create an interest not before felt
in a certain department of study. It may also be remarked that the
dividing line between observation and deduction is very narrow and
more or less shadowy; and therefore to cultivate the logical faculty
is to create an appetite for observations, or at least for facts. The
logical mind sees where facts are _wanting_, and will not be happy
till it gets them.
As might be expected, Sir Archibald Geikie makes a special application
of what he has to say on the need of observation to his own science of
geology--a study which is a constant challenge to the observing eye
and the constructive intellect. He dwells impressively on the delight
which the rational contemplation of Nature imparts to the student
whose higher faculties have been awakened, and who has been taught
what to see and how to consider it. "The movements of the clouds, the
fall of rain, the flow of brook and river, the changes of the seasons,
the succession of calm and storm, do not pass before your eyes now as
once they did. While they minister to the joy of life, they speak to
you of that all-embracing system of process and law that governs the
world." Certainly this capacity for the higher enjoyment of Nature is
the happiest result of scientific culture; and were it an invariable
or even a very general result, there could never be any question as to
the humanizing and liberalizing effect of devotion to scientific
studies. If the result in question is not always attained, it is
simply because the study of science has not been approached in a right
spirit. It is not science that is at fault.
Sir Archibald dwells finally on the need for _accuracy_,
_thoroughness_, _breadth_, and _patience_ on the part of those who
would worthily pursue a scientific career. If his words were duly
heeded we should have more of generous co-operation and sympathy among
scientific investigators, and less of selfish petty rivalry and
clamorous contention in regard to questions of priority. The eminent
author has nobly conceived the character and function of the man of
science in the present age; and we can not but hope that his sage and
earnest counsels to the rising generation of scientific workers will
bear abundant fruit in days to come.
_FADS AND FRAUDS._
We notice that a magistrate in a Canadian city has inflicted fines,
under a "vagrant" act, upon two individuals who had been practicing
the alleged art of palmistry. Both of these parties were proved to
have told fortunes from the hand for pay; and, though one styled
himself "professor" and the other was a "madame" and not a common
wayside gypsy, they were both held guilty of common juggling and were
punished accordingly. The public prosecutor said that he did not lay
any stress on the fact that pay had been taken; he asked for a
conviction simply on the ground that fortune-telling was against the
law, and he carried his point. The judge observed that similar
proceedings might be taken against young ladies who tell fortunes at
church and charity bazaars; and the prosecutor admitted that such was
very likely the case. These young ladies, he said, would have to look
out for themselves.
We must say that this action on the part of the Canadian authorities
strikes us very favorably, and we should be greatly pleased if we
could see similar proceedings taken nearer home. It is a lamentable
fact that hundreds of persons who ought to know better amuse
themselves by lending their countenance to the practitioners of all
kinds of silly and dishonest arts, and so far assist them in
practicing their frauds upon a more ignorant and helpless class. We
are all familiar with the stories which pass current in private
circles of the extraordinary revelations and predictions made by
ladies and gentlemen who go off in trances and see the past and future
unrolled before their upturned eyes with all the distinctness of an
actual panorama. But there is one thing which these interesting and
highly gifted individuals do not like, and that is to get into the
courts, or anywhere where they can be called upon to give a succinct
and definite account of their doings and pretensions. They are not
ambitious of going into a trance before the magistrate, and giving an
exhibition of the powers to which they lay claim in their
advertisements, much as that might be expected to help their
reputation and their business. For that very reason it would be an
excellent thing to bring them where the light of common day could be
thrown upon their performances; and, if there is no law under which
this could be done, our legislators, who make so many needless laws,
might very well pass one, the general effect of which would be to
enforce the responsibility of all persons publicly pretending to the
possession of any kind of supernatural power. It would tend to cool
the faith of even the most benighted dupes to see their favorite seer
cutting a foolish figure before a judge who simply wanted to know what
it really was for which he charged money. In the Canadian cases both
operators, when they got into court, showed a great disposition to
minimize their claims to any power of foretelling events by palmistry
or otherwise, and so it would be in every similar case. It is one
thing to deal with a gullible maiden who wants to know the color of
her future husband's hair, and quite another to converse with the
officers of the law.
Most of the frauds which have any continued success owe it, in part at
least, to an undue faith in the personal integrity of the
practitioner. It seems a rude as well as an unkind thing to suppose
that So-and-so, whose demeanor is so modest and frank and simple,
whose sentiments are so elevated, whose whole personality seems
calculated to inspire confidence, is really an outrageous deceiver. In
many cases people have said in effect that, if they had to choose
between believing a miracle and doubting the veracity of this or that
engaging individual, they would believe the miracle. Yet time and
again the engaging individual has been proved to be an impostor, and
the miracle has fallen to the ground. One of the most remarkable cases
of the kind is furnished by the history of the Keeley motor, the
absolutely fraudulent character of which has lately been brought to
light. Keeley professed to transcend all the known laws of physics and
mechanics, and he talked a jargon which all acknowledged to be
unintelligible, but the unintelligibility of which was ascribed by his
devotees to the fact that he was really working outside of known laws,
and could not be expected to translate his ideas into the language of
everyday science. In this way what was really an adjunct to the
imposture he was practicing was counted as a proof of the truth of his
ideas and the reality of his work. Yet now we know that the whole
business was a matter of hidden tubes and wires and pulleys and double
axles, one concealed within the other, with a water motor hidden under
the floor. Thus it was that the "ætheric vibrations" and all the other
mysterious phenomena were produced. We remember a sermon that was
preached some years ago by an earnest divine, who professed to see in
the alleged effects produced by Keeley an explanation of the miracle
of the casting down of the walls of Jericho. Keeley would take his
harmonium and, striking a certain chord, would cause his motor to
revolve. In like manner Joshua with his trumpets and pitchers made
precisely the kind of noise required to produce the ætheric vibrations
necessary to level the walls of the beleaguered city--a wonderful case
of the most advanced science coming to the support of a venerable
religious tradition! Unfortunately, the walls of Jericho must now be
got down in some other way, since it is proved that when Keeley worked
the harmonium he also worked the bulb of an air tube placed under his
foot in the floor. But Keeley was so honest a man, so devoted to his
profound researches, so true a type of the indomitable experimenter,
that it was impossible for his friends and admirers to doubt him, even
when he spoke of "the sympathetic negative attraction of the triune
polar stream."
The lesson of it all is--investigate! _investigate!_ INVESTIGATE! The
more honest a man is, the more he will court investigation. It is to
the credit of humanity perhaps that so much reliance is placed upon
estimates of personal character in these extraordinary cases; but
where belief is demanded for anything that is absolutely beyond
comprehension, character should be put out of court altogether, and
the one question should be, What are the facts? In the Keeley case,
unfortunately, men of science as well as others were among the
deluded. They should have suspected fraud; at least they should have
insisted on making such investigations as a suspicion of fraud would
have suggested; and, if they were not allowed to make them, they
should have refused all countenance to the business. As it is, many
ignorant persons who lost money through Keeley's imposture will very
properly cast blame on the presumedly competent mechanicians and
physicists who went through the form of examining Keeley's apparatus
and afterward spoke, however guardedly, of his extraordinary results.
As an object lesson in regard to the need for uncompromising
skepticism when facts which can not be accounted for on understood
principles are presented for acceptance, the history of the Keeley
motor should not soon be forgotten.
Scientific Literature.
SPECIAL BOOKS.
Professor _Bailey_ shows, in his book on the _Evolution of Our Native
Fruits_,[43] that the value of the native American species has not yet
begun to be adequately estimated, and his narrative carries the
conviction that the possibilities to be realized from their
development are totally undreamed of. De Candolle made the astounding
assertion, in his book on The Origin of Cultivated Plants, that the
United States only yields as nutritious plants worth cultivating the
Jerusalem artichoke and the gourds. "They had a few bulbs and edible
berries, but have not tried to cultivate them, having early received
the maize, which was worth far more." "And yet," Professor Bailey
answers, "the American grapes have given rise to eight hundred
domestic varieties, the American plums to more than two hundred, the
raspberries to three hundred, and various other native fruits have a
large progeny." Three motives, the author says, run through his book:
An attempt to expound the progress of evolution in objects which are
familiar and have not yet been greatly modified by man; an effort to
make a simple historical record from unexplored fields; and a desire
to suggest the treasures of experience and narrative which are a part
of the development of agriculture. The studies of which the book is a
fruit were begun more than ten years ago, and were pursued with
original sources where they were accessible, and at the cost of much
labor and travel. The story begins with the grapes. The cultivation of
native grapes, which are singularly abundant and various in the wild
condition, began after several attempts on the large and on the small
scale to make foreign grapes profitable had failed. Nicholas
Longworth, of Cincinnati, who did more than any other one man to
promote it, sought for wine grapes. After several varieties had been
tried with more or less success, the Catawba and the Concord were
introduced, and the cultivation was established and became important,
but no longer with wine-making as its chief object. Now we have a
large variety of grapes--characteristic, finely flavored, and adapted
to numerous uses in wines and desserts. Plums are mentioned in the
early records nearly as frequently as grapes. There are five native
types from which diverse varieties have arisen, the greater part of
them of fortuitous origin. The native cherries have not yet been very
hopeful of promise, except the dwarf species, which seem "destined to
play an important part in the evolution of American fruit." Five types
of native apples are known, from which a number of named and worthy
varieties have arisen, by Nature's propagation, not man's; and the
author anticipates great benefits to be derived from the very gradual
and undemonstrative insinuation of native blood into the domestic
sorts. The story of the cultivation of the raspberries, blackberries,
dewberries, strawberries, gooseberries, currants, and mulberries tells
of much patience and skill applied to the production of results in the
benefits of which all may share, and which have undoubtedly added to
the sum of human well-being. There remain still many fruits, the
improvement of which has hardly begun, and which offer a promising
field for experiment--the persimmon, pawpaw, whortleberry, buffalo
berry, barberry, and nuts. The whole history of the improvement of
American fruit is interpreted by Professor Bailey as showing that in
nearly every case the amelioration has come from the force of
circumstances, and not from the choice or design of man, principally
because foreign species did not do well and something adapted to
American conditions had to be found. Yet much skill has been shown in
recognizing the good qualities of the native species, and in giving
them conditions favorable to improvement. For the future the author
believes that the best results at the amelioration of any species are
to be expected by working with the highly improved forms rather than
with the original wild stock. We need, he says, a greater range of
variation, more divergent and widely unlike varieties, and more
incidental or minor strains of the most popular and cosmopolitan
sorts. Professor Bailey finds the greatest satisfaction in his book in
the record of the men who have been instrumental in introducing the
improved fruits. No men have been greater benefactors to our country
than these, who have done the equivalent of making two blades of grass
grow where only one grew before, and have added to the healthful sum
of pleasure and content.
* * * * *
As Professor Darwin truly says, a mathematical argument is, after all,
only organized common sense; but, unfortunately, it is usually in such
a highly organized form as to be beyond the intelligence of the
average reader. In the present volume,[44] however, the author has
wonderfully simplified a most intricate and difficult mathematical
subject, and really seems to give some justification for the above
generalization.
The first chapter of _The Tides_ is devoted to defining them and
describing methods of observation and study. The curious tidal
movements in lakes, called _seiches_, which were first systematically
studied by Professor Forel on the Lake of Geneva, are taken up in the
second chapter; an account of Forel's work is given, and the statement
made that similar researches are now under way on other lakes, notably
that of Mr. Denison on Lake Huron in this country. Tides in rivers,
including an account of the curious tidal phenomenon known as a
"bore," are next described, the laws governing their variation and the
ways in which they differ from the tides of the open sea being
carefully laid down. A brief historical chapter, containing some
curious extracts from Chinese and Icelandic literature, is rather
instructive anthropologically than tidally. The three following
sections are taken up by a study of tide generating and modifying
forces, and include an interesting account of the experiments made
some years ago by Dr. Darwin and his brother, in an effort to measure
tidal forces by means of the bifilar pendulum, which is now such an
important agent in seismological investigation. Chapters IX and X give
an account of the equilibrium, and the dynamical theories of the
tide-generating forces, and are chiefly accounts of the devices by
which mathematicians have endeavored to bring artificial order out of
the actual chaos. The great complexity of this portion of the subject;
the variety of forces operating to produce the tides, the sun, the
moon, the earth's rotation, etc.; and the number of retarding and
confusing elements, friction, interposed land masses, river currents,
air movements, depth of water, etc., render these theories practically
valueless for use in tidal calculations.
In the following section Dr. Draper shows how, by means of Lord
Kelvin's "harmonic analysis," which separates the tide-generating
forces of each kind into a number of ideal components, results of
practical value are obtained. In Chapter XIII a very ingenious
instrument for tide prediction which has been in use for some time by
the Indian Government is described. The recording part of the machine
is simply a paper-wound drum, on which a pencil point makes a graphic
record. When the tides of a given port are desired, it is only
necessary to set the instrument according to the tidal components,
obtained by harmonic analysis and the time chosen for the beginning of
the tide table, and then start it at the proper moment. It takes about
four hours to run off the tidal curve for a year. This curve is then
measured, and the year's tide table readily made out. Dr. Darwin
informs us that a very similar instrument is now in course of
construction for the United States Government. The remainder of the
work consists of a more detailed discussion of the various disturbing
influences which interfere with the simplicity of tidal
movements--displacement of the earth's axis, earthquakes, etc, a long
discussion of tidal friction, a study of the laws of rotating liquid
masses, the nebular hypothesis, and finally a chapter on Saturn's
rings. The text in many places will be found difficult to understand
by the general reader, despite the author's efforts to fully and
simply explain every point, and it seems questionable whether a
thorough discussion of tidal phenomena can be made simple enough for
the layman's comprehension. The volume can not be read by any one,
however, without instruction, and is much the best general discussion
of tidal phenomena which we have seen.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] Sketch of the Evolution of our Native Fruits. By L. H. Bailey,
New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 472. Price, $2.
[44] The Tides; and Kindred Phenomena in the Solar System. The Lowell
Institute Lectures for 1898. By George Howard Darwin. New York:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 378. $2.
GENERAL NOTICES.
The _Elementary Zoölogy_ of _Frank E. Beddard_[45] contains an account
of a few types selected from the chief groups of the animal kingdom,
followed and accompanied by a consideration of some of the more
general conclusions of biology. A type system has to be used, but the
author has endeavored to obviate the great fault of that method--the
liability of the students conceiving that the characters of the
species selected for description are distinctive of a wider assemblage
of forms--by emphasizing here and there the differences between allied
groups. The question arises whether to begin with the higher forms and
go down to the lower, which some authorities believe to be the course
easier of comprehension by the student, or to follow the inverse
method. The author prefers to begin with the lower forms and gradually
work to the higher as the course having the undoubted advantage of
presenting the facts in a logical sequence. He accordingly begins with
the amoeba and proceeds upward. The treatment is simple and lucid.
Novelty has not been sought in the illustrations, though there are
several new ones, but selections have been made from the best already
drawn.
_An Introductory Logic_[46] grew out of the lectures of the author,
Prof. _J. E. Creighton_, to undergraduate classes in Cornell
University; is intended primarily as a text-book for students, and
aims at being both practical and theoretical. The broad view is taken
in the definition of the subject that logic is the science of thought,
or the science that investigates the process of thinking; and the
author expresses himself convinced that, in spite of some
difficulties, formal logic is one of the most valuable instruments in
modern education for promoting clear thinking and for developing
critical habits of mind. To doubters of the advisability of attempting
to include a theory of thought or a philosophy of mind in an
elementary course in logic, Professor Creighton replies that
psychology having differentiated itself from philosophy and become a
"natural" science, no longer undertakes to describe all that the mind
is and does. "It belongs to logic to investigate intelligence as a
knowing function, just as it is the task of ethics to deal with the
practical or active mental faculties." Logic must first be a science
before it can become an art, but it can not be regarded as an art in
the sense that it furnishes a definite set of rules for thinking
correctly. What it can do is to show the method by which new truths
have been discovered and the general conditions that must always be
fulfilled in reasoning correctly. The treatment in the text follows
the usual order, except that the author, keeping clear of artificial
diction, writes in talking English that is easy to be comprehended.
There are no more vital problems in the evolution of society than
those connected with the point of view, the outlook, of the great
masses of the "working people." These people form the backbone, the
potential energy of society; an acquaintance with their views of
ethics and life, and manner of living, is of the utmost importance,
not only _per se_, but especially because of the efficient direction
which such a knowledge can give the attempts at improving these
latter, and through them society at large. Mr. Walter Wyckoff has,
apparently actuated by some such view as this, in combination perhaps
with a desire for a novel experience, made a two years' trip across
the continent, living chiefly among the lowest and most improvident
class of manual laborers; making his own living by their methods, and,
by means of the close contact, studying them from a vantage point of
unusual value. The account of this expedition[47] is, as it could not
fail to be, no matter who the traveler might have been, of great
interest and value. But in Mr. Wyckoff's hands the story has an added
attraction through the literary ability of the author. There is much
material of practical scientific value in the volume; it should prove
especially suggestive and useful to some of our charity organization
workers who apparently find it so difficult to govern their work by
reason rather than emotion. There are one or two rather unpleasant
lapses, the most marked of which advertises in a Chicago police
station Mr. Wyckoff's great linguistic attainments, but the work is
generally free from this sort of weakness, and is on the whole very
well worth reading for instruction as well as entertainment.
The _Manual of Determinative Mineralogy_ of Professors _George J.
Brush_ and _Samuel L. Penfield_[48] is intended primarily to be used
in the identification of minerals, and that purpose has been kept
prominently in view. The present edition is a complete revision of
Professor Brush's original work, the value of which and the estimation
in which it is held by its constituency are attested by the fact that
fourteen editions of it have been issued since it first appeared in
1874. A revision of the parts devoted to blowpipe analysis and the
chemical reactions of the elements was published in 1896. To the
present edition a chapter is added on the physical properties of
minerals, devoted chiefly to crystallography, in which the endeavor
has been made to present the subject as simply as possible. Importance
has been attached to the description of those forms which are of most
frequent occurrence, and the examples chosen to illustrate the
different systems represent, as a rule, the simple forms that prevail
in specimens of common minerals, while rare and complex forms are
treated very briefly. The introduction of a large number of species
since 1874 has made a complete rearrangement necessary in the
analytical tables; and they have been so developed that tests for
characteristic chemical constituents furnish the chief means of
identification. Stress is laid upon the importance of determining the
chemical constituents as a factor in securing accuracy in
identification.
Demonstrator _G. S. Newth_ opens his _Manual of Chemical Analysis_[49]
with a protest against the thought of "doing" analysis without
learning more than the minimum amount of chemistry, and against
teaching and practicing it in such a manner as to degrade it to the
level "of a purely mechanical and often unintelligible series of
rule-of-thumb operations." He says he has done his best to make it "as
little of a cram book as possible," and has endeavored "to teach
analytical chemistry as well as analysis"--that is, the theoretical as
well as the practical side of the subject. He begins with emphasizing
the importance of the student making himself _practically_ familiar
with certain simple operations he will have to perform constantly, and
gives clear, concise definitions of such terms as filtration,
solution, evaporation, fusion, precipitation, ignition, etc., which
relate to those operations. He condemns slovenly formulas and
mechanical notes, but commends real notes of the student's own
observations. In his treatment he excludes merely descriptive details
that have no bearing on analysis; and in quantitative analysis,
prefers describing fully a few typical methods and processes to
covering much ground slightly.
The Ingersoll Lectureship at Harvard University is constituted on a
legacy by Miss Caroline H. Ingersoll, carrying out the wishes of her
father, George G. Ingersoll, for the foundation of an annual
lectureship on the "Immortality of Man," to which no conditions as to
doctrine or method of treatment are attached. The purpose of the
lectures, or perhaps their operation, as defined by Prof. _William
James_, is that out of the series may emerge a collective literature
worthy of the theme. Professor James took as the special subject of
his lecture[50] the answer to two objections to the doctrine of
immortality: first, the absolute dependence of our spiritual life, as
we know it here, on the brain; and the second relating to "the
incredible and intolerable number of beings which, with our modern
imagination, we must believe to be immortal, if immortality be true."
To the former objection the author replies that thought is not a
productive but a permissive or transmissive function of the brain;
when the brain decays, the sphere of being that supplied the
consciousness is still intact, and the stream still goes on; to the
second, that spiritual being is not as material being, that each new
mind brings "its own edition of the universe of space" along with it,
that there is no crowding or interference, and that the supply of
individual life in the universe can never possibly exceed the demand.
The first number of _In Lantern Land_, a monthly journal "devoted to
literature, the fine arts, the play, with some discussion of passing
events," _Charles Dexter Allen_ and _William Newnham Carleton_,
editors, gives promise of a literary journal of elevated tone. It
holds its aim to be unprejudiced and independent. (Published at
Hartford, Conn., by Charles Dexter Allen, for one dollar a year.)
Mr. _Henry Carr Pearson_ presents in his _Greek Prose Composition_
(American Book Company, 90 cents) results of his own experience in the
class room. The aim of the book is to combine study of the essentials
of Greek syntax with practice in translating connected English into
Attic Greek, and to afford convenient practice in writing Greek at
sight. The work is in three parts: Part I, containing, in graded
lessons, the principal points of Greek syntax, designed for use at the
beginning of the second year's study of Greek; Part II, short simple
English sentences modeled after sentences in Xenophon's Anabasis, for
daily use in connection with reading of the text; and Part III,
connected English prose, graded, also based on the Anabasis. Review
lessons are introduced, and a Greek-English vocabulary is provided.
Mr. _James W. Crook_, in the introduction to his history of the
development of _German Wage Theories_ (Columbia University Studies in
History, Economics, and Public Law), remarks upon the slowness with
which political economy, and particularly the study of questions
concerning wages, has advanced in Germany. Hardly any original work
on wages is to be found there for half a century after the publication
of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, although numerous text-books
bearing upon the subject were issued--all for the most part only
summarizing or slightly modifying the reasonings and conclusions of
the English master. The conditions of economic life in the two
countries were different, and the "industrial revolution was slow in
developing on the Continent, and in Germany the old industrial order
with its restrictions and conservative methods prevailed long after
England had replaced the old with the new." These differences between
the two countries may adequately account for the great disparity in
theoretic development. And Germany is still largely dependent upon
other countries in its discussions. In the present work, the chief
object being to discover progress of thought on the subject,
chronology had to be sacrificed, in some instances, to a logical
treatment. Those writers are grouped who appear to show the largest
number of points of contact, and this leads to placing all the German
writers treated in two groups, in one of which a real unity of method
and interest prevails, and Hermann is the most important center,
while the other group includes von Thünen, Karl Marx, and
Schulze-Gaevernitz, authors who do not belong together in the sense
that the others do.
Among the articles in the _Columbia University Bulletin_ for June,
1898, are those on the Department of History, the Preparatory Schools
(by G. R. Carpenter), Columbia Non-Graduates (H. G. Paine), the
Teaching of Anatomy (by George S. Huntington), and the second of Mr.
H. A. Cushing's historical papers on King's College in the American
Revolution.
The report of _Filibert Noth_, special agent of the Division of
Forestry, on _Forestry Conditions_ and _Interests of Wisconsin_, and
the _Third Annual Report of the Chief Fire Warden of Minnesota, C. C.
Andrews_, furnish many facts and suggestions of value to persons
interested in the maintenance and protection of our forests.
D. Appleton and Company publish as one of their Home Reading Books
_The Story of Rob Roy_, by _Sir Walter Scott_, condensed for home and
school reading by Edith D. Harris. The editor of the series, Dr. W. T.
Harris, furnishes a preface, pointing out the essential qualities of
Scott's works on which their fame rests, and analyzing the features of
Scottish and English life of the age to which they relate and which
give these stories of the border their interest and charm. In
explanation of the plan and reason of the present condensation, he
says that "it has been found possible to condense the Waverley novels
by omitting all lengthy descriptions of scenery, historical
disquisitions on the times, and a few passages of dialogue and
monologue that do not contribute directly to the progress of the
story, or throw light upon the character of the persons who enter upon
the scene. It is believed that by this method the interest is
preserved intact, and that after a year's interval the story in its
unabridged form may be read with as lively an interest as the youth
will feel in reading this version." Price, 60 cents.
A paper, _Indices Ponderaux de la Crane_ (Weight Indexes of the
Brain), in the Bulletin of the Anthropological Society of Paris,
comprises the results of a study of the weight and capacity of the
brain, the weight of the mandible, and the cranio-mandibular and
cranio-cerebral indices, etc., made upon sixty-four heads of animals
by _George Grant McCurdy_, of New Haven, with the collaboration of M.
_Nicolas Mohyliansky_.
The pamphlet embodying the _Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Session of
the Association of American Anatomists_, held at Cornell University in
December, 1897, contains a portrait and notice, with bibliography of
the late Dr. Harrison Allen, the reports of the majority and the
minority of the committee on anatomical nomenclature, and seventeen
papers contributed by members of the association.
The _University Geological Survey of Kansas_ is conducted under the
authority of the Board of Regents of the State University, and has
issued already several large and elegant volumes recording the
operations and results of its work. The fourth volume, now before us,
embraces the paleontology of the Upper Cretaceous, and is by _Samuel
W. Williston_, paleontologist. Kansas is famous for its fossils, no
equal area in the United States, perhaps, presenting such varied and
remarkable records of this kind. Yet, while the State has furnished
much of interest to the sciences of geology and paleontology, the
published accounts in these departments are confined to scattered and
abstruse papers accessible only to the specialist. The present
publication is an effort to put this knowledge, so far as the
particular formation to which it relates is concerned, within the
reach of students. Professor Williston has been engaged for twelve
years in the study of the geology and paleontology of the State,
having spent more than three years in field exploration, and has been
eight years collecting material for his book, enjoying the advantage
of access to the very important collection of the university. Much of
the information is here published for the first time. The fossils of
the western part of the State only are described in it, for the sole
reason that more preparatory work has been done on them in the
university in recent years; but other departments are in preparation
and will appear in due course. The fossils described are birds,
dinosaurs, crocodiles, mosasaurs, turtles, microscopic organizations,
and invertebrates, all of the Upper Cretaceous.
In a paper on _The Relations of the People of the United States to the
English and the Germans_, read before the Thursday Club of Chicago,
Mr. _William Vocke_ undertakes a defense of the Germans against a
supposition that they are hostile to the United States. This is right,
if the Germans need defense, which we doubt; but to give his thesis
the shape of an attack on England, as is done in the paper, is
unnecessary.
The account of the investigations conducted by Dr. _D. N. Bergey_
under the supervision of Drs. J. S. Billings and S. Weir Mitchell, on
the _Influence upon the Vital Resistance of Animals to the
Micro-organisms of Disease, brought about by a Long Sojourn in Impure
Atmosphere_, already referred to in the Monthly, is published under
the Hodgkins Fund in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Contributions.
The _Report of the United States National Museum_ which we are called
upon to notice is for the year 1895, and bears the signature of _G.
Brown Goode_. It embraces accounts of the origin and development of
the museum, its organization and scope, and its work in public
education; reviews of the special topics in its operations for the
year; synopses of the scientific work in various departments; the
administrative reports; appendixes relating to accessions to the
collections, lectures, meetings, etc.; and a number of special papers
of great value and interest, including an account of the Kwakiutl
Indians, by Franz Boas; The Graphic Art of the Eskimos, by W. J.
Hoffman; The Geology and Natural History of Lower California, by G. P.
Merrill; The Tongues of Birds, by F. A. Lucas; The Ontonagon Copper
Bowlder in the United States Museum, by Charles Moore; The Antiquity
of the Red Race in America, by Thomas Nilsen; and accounts of the
Mineralogical Collections in the Museum, by Wirt Tassin, and of the
Taxidermical Methods in the Leyden Museum, Holland, by Dr. Shufeldt.
_The Dawn of the Twentieth Century_ is a poem, described by the
author, _Charles P. Whaley_, as his first sermon, dedicated to
rationalism. He describes himself as having recovered from "a severe
attack of orthodoxy," which deprived him for the time of the power of
logical reason, and to have at last discerned a theology, "founded
upon absolute, demonstrable scientific facts," which is to prevail in
the next century. His poem presents his view of that theology.
In the September number of the Quarterly Review, _The New World_, an
article by Prof. _Otto Pfleiderer_ on Evolution and Theology, defines
the task of Ecclesiastical Protestantism after having abandoned the
ethical ideals of mediæval Christianity, as being "for a still wider
development, to strike off the dogmatic fetters of ecclesiastical
criticism, and to clothe its religious principle in new forms of
thought, which shall render for our age the same service that the
Greek and Roman dogmas rendered for the earlier time." In an article
on Social and Individual Evolution, Mr. _Henry Jones_ maintains that
the social tendencies of the present day point to a limitation of
individual independence and enterprise.
A contribution to the anthropology of the Jesup North Pacific
Expedition, _Facial Paintings of the Indians of Northern British
Columbia_, by _Franz Boas_, forms the first part of Volume II of the
Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History. The Jesup
expedition has been organized under the patronage of Mr. Morris K.
Jesup, president of the museum, and under the direction of that
institution, to study what relations may exist or may have existed
between the natives of the northwest coasts of America and the peoples
of the neighboring Asiatic coasts. The general likeness, in the midst
of their special minor diversities, of all the Indians of the American
continent points to an ultimately common origin for them, while the
differences indicate that this may not have been precisely identical
in time and place, and seem to have required a very long time for
their development and establishment. The purpose of the expedition is
to collect all the information that can be obtained by its method of
exploration contributing to this end. The present contribution
embodies the fruits of a study of the arts, as applied to facial
decoration, of the Thompson River Indians, the Chilcotin, the Bella
Coola, the Kakiutl, and the Nootka. This art is almost exclusively
based on animal motives, is highly conventionalized, and has the
unique peculiarity of seeking to fit the whole figure of the animal to
the surface on which it is applied; whence it presents some curious
effects. In this effort to illustrate the principles of its
conventionalism Dr. Boas has selected as the most difficult and
complicated surface the human face, of which he gives in six plates
eighty-eight figures of as many different styles of decoration.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Elementary Zoölogy. By Frank E. Beddard. New York: Longmans,
Green & Co. Pp. 208. Price, 90 cents.
[46] An Introductory Logic. By James Edwin Creighton. New York: The
Macmillan Company, pp. 392. $1.10.
[47] The Workers: an Experiment in Reality. The West. By Walter A.
Wyckoff. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 878. $1.50.
[48] Manual of Determinative Mineralogy, with an Introduction on
Blowpipe Analysis. By George J. Brush. Revised and enlarged, with
entirely new tables for the identification of minerals. Fifteenth
edition, first thousand. New York: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 312.
[49] A Manual of Chemical Analysis, Qualitative and Quantitative. By
G. S. Newth. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., pp. 462. $1.75.
[50] Human Immortality. Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine. By
William James. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., pp. 70. $1.
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins and Reports. Cornell
University: No. 154. Tables for Computing Rations for Farm Animals. By
J. L. Stone. Pp. 20; No. 155. The San José Scale. By H. P. Gould. Pp.
12; No. 156. Potato Culture. By I. P. Roberts and L. A. Clinton. Pp.
12; No. 157. The Grapevine Flea Beetle. By M. V. Slingerland. Pp. 24;
No. 158. Bacteria in Cheese Curd. By V. A. Moore and A. R. Ward. Pp.
20. with plate; No. 159. Report on Progress of Work. Pp. 32.--Hatch
Station of Massachusetts Agricultural College: No. 56. Concentrated
Feed Stuffs. Pp. 24.--New Jersey: No. 132. Fertilizer Analyses. Pp.
61.--Ohio: Seventeenth Annual Report for 1898. Pp. 48.--Purdue
University: No. 73. Tests of Strawberries, Raspberries, Blackberries,
and Grapes. Pp. 16; No. 74. A Native White Bedding Plant (Starry
Grasswort). By J. C. Arthur. Pp. 12.--United States Department of
Agriculture: No. 16. The Hessian Fly in the United States. By Herbert
Osborn. Pp. 60, with plates; Miscellaneous Results of the Division of
Entomology. Pp. 102.--University of Wyoming: No. 39. Alkali Studies.
By E. E. Blosson and B. C. Buffum. Pp. 24.
Allen, Alfred H., and Leffmann, Henry. Commercial Organic Analysis.
Third edition. Revised. Vol. II, Part I. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston,
Sons & Co. Pp. 387. $3.50.
American, The, Kitchen Magazine. A Domestic Science Monthly, January,
1899. The Home Science Company, Boston, Mass. Monthly. 10 cents. $1 a
year.
Bailey, L. H., Editor. The Principles of Agriculture. New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 300. $1.25.
Bardeen, C. W. Commissioner Hume. A Story of the New York Schools.
Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 210. $1.25.
Bates, Frank Greene. Rhode Island and the Formation of the Union. New
York: Columbia University (Studies in History, etc.). The Macmillan
Company. Pp. 220.
Brooks, William Keith. The Foundations of Zoölogy. New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 339. $2.50.
Bulletins, Reports, etc. Atlanta University: Some Efforts of American
Negroes for their own Social Betterment (Report of the Third Atlanta
Conference). Pp. 66.--Bruner, Lawrence, University of Nebraska: Some
Notes on Nebraska Birds. Pp. 178.--City of Chicago: Report of the
Educational Commission. Pp. 248.--Connecticut: Fourteenth Annual
Report of the State Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pp. 234.--Harvard
Astrophysical Conference, August, 1898. By M. B. Snyder. Pp.
33.--Harvard College Astronomical Observatory: Annual Report of the
Director to September 30, 1898. By E. C. Pickering. Pp. 14.--Iowa
State University: Bulletin from the Laboratories of Natural History,
Vol. IV, No. 4. Pp. 96, with plates.--Jewish Training School of
Chicago: Ninth Annual Report. Pp. 45.--Michigan: Thirtieth Annual
Report of Registry and Return of Births, Marriages, and Deaths for
1896. By C. L. Wilbur. Pp. 188.--Model, the Gas and Gasoline Engine.
Garrett Works, Indiana. Pp. 22.--New York State Museum: A Guide to the
Geological Collections, By F. J. H. Merrill. Pp. 156, with
plates.--Society of American Authors: Monthly, January, 1899. Pp.
12.--Tokio, Japan, Imperial University Calendar. Pp. 250, with
map.--United States Commissioner of Education: Report for 1896-'97,
Vol. II. Pp. 1260.--United States Fish Commission Bulletin, Vol. XVII,
1897. George M. Bowers, Commissioner. Pp. 436.
Campbell, D. H. Lectures on the Evolution of Plants. New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 319. $1.25.
Clinical Excerpts. Vol. I, No. 10. Pp. 16.
Coming Age, The. A Magazine of Constructive Thought. B. O. Flower and
Mrs. C. K. Reifsinder, Editors. Vol. I, No. 1, January. 1899. Boston:
The Coming Age Company. Pp. 122. 20 cents. $2 a year.
Dabney, Charles W., Jr. University of Tennessee. The Old College and
the New. Pp. 16.--A National Department of Science. Pp. 13.
Elliott, A. G., Editor. Gas and Petroleum Engines. Translated and
adapted from the French of Henry de Graffigny. New York: The Macmillan
Company. 75 cents.
Farrington, E. H., and Wall, F. W. Testing Milk and its Products.
Madison, Wis.: The Mendota Book Company. Pp. 256, $1. Pp. 140, 75
cents.
Haeckel, Ernst. The Last Link in our Present Knowledge of the Descent
of Man. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 156. $1.
Huntington, Harwood. The Yearbook for Colorists and Dyers. Vol. I. New
York: The Author. Pp. 309.--Some Notes on Chemical Jurisprudence. 260
West Broadway, New York. Pp. 24. 85 cents.
Index, The. Devoted to the Latest News and Gossip in the Field of Art
and Letters. G. B. Rogers, Editor. Vol. I, No. 10. Cleveland and New
York: The Hellman-Taylor Company. 50 cents a year.
Lee, Sidney, Editor. Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. LVII. Tom
to Tytler. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 461. $3.25.
Luquer, L. M. Minerals in Rock Sections. The Practical Methods of
Identifying Minerals in Rock Sections with the Microscope. New York:
D. Van Nostrand Company. Pp. 117.
Marr, J. E. The Principles of Stratigraphical Geology. New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 304. $1.60.
Martin, H. Newell. The Human Body. Fifth edition. Revised by G. W.
Fitz. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 408. $1.20.
Mervan, Rencelof Ermagine. What is This? Copyrighted by G. Washington
Price. Pp. 272.
Morehouse. G. W. The Wilderness of Worlds. The Evolution of Matter
from Nebula to Man and Return. New York: Peter Eckler. Pp. 246.
Nichols, E. L., and Franklin, W. S. The Elements of Physics, Vol. I.
Mechanics and Heat. New edition, revised, with additions. New York:
The Macmillan Company. Pp. 219. $1.50.
Ober, Frederick A. Puerto Rico and its Resources. New York: D.
Appleton and Company. Pp. 282, with map.
Ratzel, Prof. Friedrich. The History of Mankind. By A. J. Butler.
Introduction by E. B. Tyler. Vol. III. New York: The Macmillan
Company. Pp. 599, with maps. $4.
Reprints. Andrews, General C. C. Utilization of Our Waste Lands for
Forestry Purposes. Pp. 10.--Bailey, Prof. E. H. S., Lawrence,
Kan. The Proof of the Law of Similia (Homoeopathic) from the
Electro-Chemico-Physiological Standpoint. Pp. 8.--Bangs, L. Bolton,
New York. Illustrative Cases of Prostatitis. Pp. 24.--De Courcy, J.
Osborne, East St. Louis, Ill. Diseases of the Alimentary Canal,
Ulcers, Malignant Sore Throat. Pp. 24--Gilbert, G. K., Washington.
Recent Earth Movements in the Great Lakes Region. Pp. 50.--Kakels,
Sara W. Pregnancy in Women with Uterus Duplex.--Mayfield, R. N., New
York. Catheters and Cystitis. Pp. 3.--Rotch, A. Lawrence. The
Exploration of the Free Air by Means of Kites at Blue Hill
Observatory, Massachusetts. Pp. 10.
Sladen, Douglas, Editor. Who's Who? 1899. An Annual Biographical
Dictionary. Fifty-first year. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp.
1014. $1.75.
Smithsonian Institution. Adler, Cyrus, and Casanowicz, I. M. Exhibit
of Biblical Antiquities at the Cotton States Exposition, Atlanta, Ga.,
1895. Pp. 87, with plates.--Clark, Hubert L. The Feather Tracts of
North American Grouse and Quail. Pp. 12, with plates.--Langley, S. P.
Report of the Secretary for the Year ending June 30, 1898. Pp. 89.
Starr, Frederick; American Indians. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 227.
45 cents.
Stewart, Freeman. Shall we Grow the Sugar we Consume? Swarthmore, Pa.:
R. S. Dare. 25 cents.
Thompson, Sylvanus P. Michael Faraday: His Life and Work. New York:
The Macmillan Company. Pp. 308. $1.25.
Whitaker, Herbert C. Elements of Trigonometry, with Tables.
Philadelphia: Eldridge & Brother. Pp. 196.
Wilson, L. L. W. Nature Study in Elementary Schools. First Reader. New
York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 253. 35 cents.
Fragments of Science.
=Pre-Columbian Musical Instruments in America.=--In a recent article
in the Popular Science Monthly (November, 1898), entitled Was Middle
America Peopled from Asia? I insisted that if there had been any
invasion, peaceful or otherwise, sufficient to have affected even in
the slightest degree the arts, customs, and religious beliefs of
middle America, then, associated with these influences, we should find
traces of Asiatic utensils, implements, structures, such as sandals,
weapons, pottery, wheels, plows, roofing tiles, etc.; in other words,
just those objects most intimately associated with man. I especially
considered the absence of stringed musical instruments and coincided
with Dr. Otis T. Mason in the belief that there was no evidence of a
pre-Columbian stringed musical device. This question has been
variously discussed and the following references bear on the subject:
A short note in the American Antiquarian for January, 1897, by Dr. D.
G. Brinton, entitled Native American Stringed Musical Instruments. The
author frankly admits, however, that the cases cited may all have been
borrowed from the whites or negroes. Mr. M. H. Saville in the American
Anthropologist for August, 1897, described A Primitive Maya Musical
Instrument, though he makes no pronounced statement of its
pre-Columbian origin. Dr. Mason, in the American Anthropologist for
November, 1897, discusses the question under the title Geographical
Distribution of the Musical Bow, and in this paper says, "I have come
to the conclusion that stringed musical instruments were not known to
any of the aborigines of the western hemisphere before Columbus." In
my paper I insisted that "had this simple musical device been known
anciently in this country, it would have spread so widely that its
pre-Columbian use would have been beyond any contention." Mr. Saville
finally, in the American Anthropologist for September, 1898, shows
apparently the existence of a pre-Columbian stringed musical device in
a paper entitled The Musical Bow in Ancient Mexico, and presents his
proof in the form of a reproduction from an ancient Mexican codex of
an orchestra of six performers. One of the figures, according to Mr.
Saville's interpretation, is holding a musical bow in his left hand
while with his right hand he is striking the cord with a forked stick.
Claiming no skill in the interpretation of these quaint and
concentrated Jack-of-heart figures, I readily yielded to the authority
of Saville in this matter, and so acknowledged in a footnote in my
paper which I was enabled to insert after the pages were made up.
Within a few days I have received a letter from Mrs. Zelia Nuttall,
the eminent American paleographist, to whom we are indebted for the
most profound researches in connection with these ancient codices. In
this letter Mrs. Nuttall refers to Sahagun's great manuscript, wherein
she says: "The native musical instruments are repeatedly enumerated.
The turtle's shell figures among them, _but there is no trace of a
stringed musical instrument ever having been known or employed in
ancient Mexico_." (The Italics are hers.) Mrs. Nuttall then says that
the object held under the arm of the musician which has been
recognized as a musical bow is undoubtedly a turtle's shell. In
support of this view she sends me a tracing of the figure from the
original manuscript which is now in Vienna, in which the entire object
under the arm of the player as well as the forked stick is colored
blue (Fig. 1). A photograph is also inclosed from another ancient
Mexican manuscript in course of publication by Mrs. Nuttall. In this
(Fig. 2) the player has the turtle's shell and is pounding on it with
a pronged stick, horn, or branch, while in the other hand he holds a
rattle and at the same time sings, the notes being graphically
portrayed as they come from his mouth. It will be observed that it is
the plastron or ventral surface that he is striking, as shown by the
notches in its forward and hinder edges, though the plates are
incorrectly drawn. In the figure given by Mr. Saville the player is
holding the turtle's shell in precisely that position that would
enable him to strike the plastron. Even in Mr. Saville's figure the
marginal plates of the shell are plainly indicated. By holding the
figure face downward the shell is thrown in a normal position with the
back uppermost, and what was mistaken for the string of the instrument
is the outline of the back of the turtle correctly delineated. With
the above figures I give the outline of the left arm and body of a
friend who posed for me while holding a large South American turtle
under his arm. I have drawn the plates of the carapace to more clearly
indicate the position of the turtle's shell. In the original codex,
as before remarked, this portion is colored blue. In this attitude the
flat plastron forms the drumhead, so to speak, the carapace acting as
a resonator. I am sure that Mr. Saville will agree with me that Mrs.
Nuttall's attribution is the correct one.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
EDWARD S. MORSE.
=Rebreathed Air as a Poison.=--The following extracts are taken from
an article by Dr. John Hartley, in the Lancet: "The fresh-air
treatment of consumption" appears to be made up of three essential
factors: (1) the discontinuance of the supply of bacilli from without;
(2) the supply of an abundance of nutritive material to the tissues;
and (3) the supply of an abundance of fresh air uncontaminated by the
products of respiration. This seems to mean that the tissues, if not
too enfeebled, may be trusted to deal with the bacilli already present
if their metabolism is kept going at high pressure. Fresh air is now
the "official" remedy in the treatment of tubercle. Why is it so
ignored in the case of other diseases? Has the pneumonic or bronchitic
no need of special ventilation because his microbe is of a different
breed? The air was intended not only for phthisical patients or
patients suffering from pneumonia but for _all_--diseased and healthy
alike--and it is still the natural medium in which the poisonous
products of tissue metabolism excreted by the lungs are further broken
down and rendered harmless. Dr. A. Ransome has done great service not
only by his onslaught on "air sewage" but also by his coinage of the
term; for a thoroughly good opprobrious epithet resembles a good
wall-poster in its power of arresting and enchaining the attention of
the many. It was long ago pointed out that certain constituents of
expired air are intensely powerful nerve poisons. These considerations
should surely make us look on rebreathed air and sewer gas, not as
mere carriers of accidental poisons, such as influenza and pneumonia
and the like, but as _poisons per se_, and I wish to be allowed to
record a few very imperfect observations made by myself during some
years past chiefly on the subject of rebreathed air, with certain
inferences which I think tend, however feebly and imperfectly, to show
that the poisons we expire have _per se_ very definite effects on
tissue metabolism and need not a mere perfunctory admixture with fresh
air but very large and very continuous dilution before they are
rendered innocuous--that is to say, innocuous to _all_; for while some
persons appear to be almost immune, others seem intensely susceptible.
The first observation I will allude to was made in the autumn of 1896,
in cool weather. I had to take a long night journey by rail after a
long and hard day's work. The train was full and the compartment I
entered was close; so, as I was tired and fagged, I sat in the
corridor by an open window, well rugged up, throughout the journey.
The compartment was completely shut off from the corridor by a glass
door and windows, through which I could freely inspect its occupants.
Two remarkably fresh-complexioned, wholesome-looking young fellows got
into the compartment at York. They formed a remarkable contrast to the
pallid and fagged-looking travelers already there. The windows and
ventilators were carefully closed, and the newcomers, with the rest,
settled off to sleep and slept soundly for nearly four hours, with the
exception of a few minutes' interval at Grantham. When aroused on
nearing London they, like the other occupants of the compartment, were
haggard and leaden-hued, their fresh color was entirely gone, and they
looked and moved as if exhausted. I examined my own face in the
lavatory mirror at the beginning and end of the journey and could see
but little alteration in my color; if anything, it was rather improved
by the end of the journey. The second case occurred early in 1897. I
was asked to see a woman, aged about forty-eight years, who had been
treated in a neighboring town for many weeks for bronchitis and asthma
following influenza. She had relapsed about a week when I first saw
her. She was then sitting up in bed; her face was leaden-colored, her
skin was clammy and sweating, with a feeble, quick pulse, and the
heart sounds were indistinguishable owing to wheezing; there was some
crepitation at the bases. The temperature was about 101° F. The
weather was cold, but after wrapping her up, with a hot bottle to her
feet, the window was well opened. Her color improved in a few minutes
and the sweating ceased soon after. But it and the blueness returned
if the window was shut for any time. It was directed to be kept open
night and day, and I could see from my house that this order was
carried out. Although on one night the thermometer showed 14° F. of
frost the chest was clear of noises and she was convalescent in eight
days. If fresh air needs warming she ought to have died. Why do most
men feel so tired after an afternoon's work in a crowded out-patient
room? Why is a long journey in a full railway carriage, even with a
comfortable seat, so exhausting to many people? Personally an hour or
two in a full carriage with the windows shut will give me numbness in
my feet and legs and knock me up for the day, while a railway journey
in an empty carriage with open windows does not affect me at all. But
most people will be willing to admit that any kind of crowd is tiring.
It is to me difficult to resist the impression than an overdose of
waste products, whether of one's own or other people's, must generally
interfere with the metabolism of nerve tissue. Women as they grow
older are apt to live much indoors. I believe the fat, flabby, paunchy
woman, whether purple or pale, with feeble, irritable heart and
"inadequate" kidneys, is usually the victim of rebreathed air. A
"close" room will infallibly give me an abdominal distention and
borborygmi within half an hour, and I am inclined to think the purity
of the air breathed by the dyspeptic quite as important as his regimen
or his teeth. It must, I think, sooner or later be recognized that
many of the increasing ills which it has been the fashion to charge on
the "hurry and brain fag" incidental to a high state of civilisation
and a large population are in reality due to the greater contamination
of the air we breathe by the waste products of that population, and
that toxines excreted by the lungs will in time take high rank among
these as both potent and insidious. If this should come to pass, the
present ideas anent ventilation must be abandoned as utterly futile,
and the need will be felt, not of letting a little air in, but of
letting waste products out.
=The Utilization of Wave Power.=--The utilization of the energy which
goes to waste in the movement of water, in waves, tides, and
waterfalls, has been a much-studied problem during recent years. The
only one of these three phenomena which has as yet been at all
extensively commercially harnessed is the waterfall. There have,
however, been a number of wave and tide motors constructed. The most
recent and perhaps the most promising of these is the type invented by
Mr. Morley Fletcher, of Westminster, England. He has made a special
study of the problem of motion of the sea, and has already
successfully constructed a hydraulic pump, an electric motor, and a
self contained siren buoy in which the energy is obtained entirely
from wave motion. The great possibilities in this direction for cheap
and efficient power plants have not been appreciated by seacoast
towns, but it is stated in Industries and Iron, from which we have
taken the above particulars, that Mr. Fletcher is at present devoting
his attention to devising schemes and designing apparatus for pumping
sea water for shore purposes, ore washing, driving electric machinery
for town lighting and power plants, buoys for marking harbors with
beacons and fog horns, and the many other purposes to which such a
constant and inexhaustible source of energy is applicable.
=Dispersal of Seeds.=--Having described in the Plant World some of the
provisions of Nature for the dispersal of seeds, Prof. W. J. Beal adds
that these various devices, besides serving to extend and multiply the
species and promote its plantation on favorable soil, enable plants to
flee from too great crowding of their own kind and from their plant
rivals and parasites. "The adventurers among plants often meet with
the best success, not because the seeds are larger or stronger or
better, but because they find for a time more congenial surroundings.
Our weeds, for instance, are carried for long distances by man and by
him are planted in new ground that has been well prepared. Every
horticulturist knows that apples grown in a new country, if suitable
for apples, are fair and healthy, but the scab and codling moth and
bitter rot and bark louse sooner or later arrive, each to begin its
peculiar mode of warfare." So with peach trees and plums and their
enemies. The surest way to grow a few cabbages, radishes, squashes,
cucumbers, and potatoes is to plant them here and there in good soil
at considerable distances from where any have heretofore been grown.
"For a time enemies do not find them." Pear trees planted scatteringly
are more likely to remain healthy than in orchards. "Perhaps one
reason why plants have become extinct or nearly so is their lack of
means of migration. As animals starve out in certain seasons when food
is scarce, or more likely migrate to regions which can afford food, so
plants desert worn-out land and seek fresh fields. As animals retreat
to secluded and isolated spots to escape their enemies, so many plants
accomplish the same thing by finding the best places with some of
their seeds sown in many regions. Frequent rotations seem to be the
rule for many plants when left to themselves in a state of nature.
Confining to a permanent spot invites parasites and other enemies and
a depleted soil, while health and vigor are secured by frequent
migrations."
=Commensals.=--Curious associations are formed among animals for
mutual aid in the struggle for existence. Some of them are societies
of the same species, like those of ants and bees; colonies in which
many individuals--as ascidians and bryozoa--join into a single mass
and act as one; and associations of animals of different species
constituting commensalism where both are benefited, or parasitism,
when the advantage accrues to only one of the parties. The hermit crab
and certain ascidians furnish very fine examples of commensalism. The
hermit crab is known as an inhabitant of shells bereft of their proper
owners. Some sea anemones also fasten themselves on shells, and seem
to prefer those which have been adopted by hermit crabs. The
association is shown by M. Henri Coupan, in _La Nature_, to be one of
mutual benefit. The actinia defends the crab and its home against all
intruders by means of its tentacles--veritable batteries of prickly
stings; while the crab, with its long claws reaching out to catch
whatever is good to eat, brings food within reach of the ascidian. Mr.
Percival Wright, having taken the crab from a shell to which an
ascidian had attached itself, found that the latter abandoned the
shell in a short time. M. L. Faunt reversed the experiment, taking the
ascidian away, when the crab deserted its quarters, found a shell with
the ascidian on it, and occupied it very quickly. He further observed
the maneuvers executed by the crab to secure the attachment of an
ascidian to its shell. Sometimes a large ascidian will wholly cover a
shell; or several smaller ones will spread themselves over the same
shell so as to form a continuous envelope over it. The ascidians
become so attached to their commensals as to seem unable to live
without them, and even to die soon after being separated from them.
=Drift of Ocean Currents.=--Of sixteen hundred and seventy-five floats
bearing requests to the finder to return them which Prince Albert of
Monaco dropped into the Atlantic during three research cruises, with a
view to learning something of the movements of surface currents, two
hundred and twenty-six were returned to him up to the year 1892. By
working the course which each of them had probably been following, the
prince undertook to draw a definite map of the currents. As the
elements employed were always numerous for each region, he thinks his
results were near the truth in its general lines. The floats landed on
almost all the shores of the North Atlantic, from the North Cape to
the south of Morocco, along Central America, and on the islands of
Canaries, Madeira, Azores, Antilles, Bermudas, Shetland, Hebrides,
Orkneys, and Iceland. None appeared as far south as the Cape Verde
Islands. The drifts seem to indicate an immense vortex, beginning
toward the Antilles and Central America with the Gulf Stream and the
equatorial current; passing the Banks of Newfoundland at a tangent, it
turns to the east, approaches the European coasts, and runs southward
from the English Channel to Gibraltar, after having sent a branch
running along the coast of Ireland and the coast of Norway as far as
the North Cape. It then returns to the west, encircling the Canaries.
Its center oscillates somewhere to the southwest of the Azores. The
author's observations enabled him also to establish a very good
average for the speed at which these floats traveled in the different
sections of the vortex, and for every twenty-four hours: Between the
Azores, France, Portugal, and the Canaries, it was 5.18 miles; from
the Canaries to the Antilles, the Bahamas, and as far as the
Bermudas, 10.11 miles; from the Bermudas to the Azores, 6.42 miles.
The mean speed for the North Atlantic was 4.48 miles. The figures are
under rather than above the truth.
=Winds of the Sahara.=--Some interesting meteorological observations,
made in the Sahara during eight excursions between 1883 and 1896, have
been published by M. F. Foureau. The most frequent winds are those
from the northwest and the southeast. Every evening the wind goes down
with the sun, or goes to bed, as the Chaambe express it; except the
northeast wind, which the Arabs call _el chitâne_, or the devil,
because it blows all night. Another wind, called the _chihithi_, has
been mentioned by all travelers, and is the subject of numerous
legends. It is a warm wind from the southwest, charged with
electricity, and often carrying fine sand and darkening the
atmosphere. The compasses are much disturbed by it, because, it has
been suggested, of a special condition produced upon thin glass covers
by the friction caused by the rubbing of the fine wind-carried sand
upon them; but it has been observed that the spare compasses show the
same disturbed condition as soon as they are taken out of their boxes.
The disturbance ceases when the glasses are moistened, and does not
appear again till they have dried. Several hailstorms were noticed,
the hailstones being usually about as large as peas, but larger in the
heavier storms. M. Foureau, not having gone as far as the central
heights, observed no snow in the Sahara, but was informed that snow
falls in the winter on the tops of the _Tassili des Azdjer_, about
five thousand feet above the sea. Similar observations have been made
by other travelers, and falls of temperature to about 21° F. have been
noticed. Very curious mirage phenomena were sometimes observed.
Observations of fulgurites, or instances in which the sand had been
vitrified by lightning strokes, were not infrequent.
=Evolution of Pleasure Gardens.=--A lesson in the evolution of
pleasure resorts is suggested in a book by Mr. Warwick Wroth on the
London pleasure gardens. The history of these places has in some cases
a strong family resemblance. They usually began as tea gardens, with a
bowling green, tea and coffee, hot loaves, and milk "fresh from the
cow," as their chief attractions. If the business prospered, other
amusements were added, such as music and dancing, with perhaps the
exhibition of a giant or a fat woman. Equestrian performances were
given in the more important gardens. The manager of one of them kept
on the grounds a fine collection of rattlesnakes, one having nineteen
rattles and "seven young ones." "Sixteen hundred visitors were present
at another one day in August, 1744, to hear honest 'Jo Baker' beat a
trevally on his side-drum as he did before the great Duke of
Marlborough at the bloody battle of Malplaquet. It was not unusual,
moreover, for the owner of a successful tavern to discover on his
premises a mineral spring, of which a favorable analysis was easily
obtained"--although the spring might be really a bad one. The Spa of
Hampstead Wells enjoyed a delightfully pure and invigorating air on
the open heath, and had a tavern with coffee rooms, a bowling green,
raffling shops, and a chapel, which offered visitors an advantage
possessed by no other gardens in London, as a clergyman was always in
attendance, and a couple on presenting a license could be married at
once on the payment of five shillings. Mr. Wroth suggests that the
license was sometimes dispensed with, and the fee, moreover, was
remitted if the wedded pair gave a dinner in the gardens.
=A Library of Astronomical Photographs.=--The appointment of Mrs. M.
P. Fleming as curator of astronomical photographs in the Harvard
Observatory is noteworthy because hers is the first woman's name to be
placed along with the officers in the university catalogue. It is more
so as a recognition of Mrs. Fleming's proved abilities in certain
lines of astronomical work. The astrophotographic building is not used
for the taking of photographs, but as a peculiar kind of library where
the plates secured by the astronomers at Cambridge and Arequipa are
preserved, arranged, and catalogued, as is done with books. The duties
of the curator are like those of a librarian. But instead of books, of
which many copies exist, each of the treasures in the photographic
collection is unique and can not be duplicated. Prints of them on
paper are of little scientific value, because no paper copy can repeat
all the minute accuracy of the original negative on glass; and prints
are not taken from them for scientific use, but only for illustration.
If one is destroyed it can never be replaced; and it is impossible to
predict what fact one of them may embody of the greatest importance to
the labors of some future astronomer desiring to compare the aspect of
his special object of research at his period and ours. Mrs. Fleming's
name is frequently mentioned in the reports of the observatory, and
she has distinguished herself in several lines of stellar
investigation. She has about a dozen women assistants, some of whom
are computors of long experience, and some are known by the
discoveries they have made.
=Forest Planting on the Plains.=--Mr. Charles A. Keffer, in a report
to the Forestry Division on Experimental Tree Planting in the Plains,
defines the forestless region of America as including all the States
between the Mississippi River north of the Ozark Mountains and eastern
Texas and the Rocky Mountains, together with the plateau west of the
Rocky Mountains. The possibilities of forest growth in this vast area
are yet to be proved. Roughly speaking, any species that thrive in the
adjacent wooded region can be grown in Iowa, the Red River Valley of
Minnesota and North Dakota, the Sioux Valley of South Dakota and the
eastern counties of Nebraska, and in the more southern States. We know
that difficulties of cultivation increase as one goes westward, but we
can not say where the western limit of successful tree culture is. We
can not even define the limits of successful agriculture in the
plains, for with increased facilities for irrigation splendid crops
are now produced where only a few years ago it was thought desert
conditions would forever prevail. It is admitted that forest planting,
as a financial investment, will probably be profitable on the plains
only in a limited degree. Favorable sites may enable the profitable
raising of fence posts and other specialized tree crops, but the
growing of timber on a commercial scale can hardly be expected.
=A Siamese Geological Theory.=--The east coast of Siam as far south as
Champawn is characterized by wide bays, with detached masses of
limestone set on steep-sided islands or high-peaked promontories with
serrated ridges, the most conspicuous of which is Sam Roi Yawt, or the
three hundred peaks. The relations of these various rock masses to one
another, Mr. H. Warington Smyth observed, in an address to the Royal
Geographical Society, have been long ago lucidly set forth by Siamese
geologists, who are unanimously agreed on the subject. "It appears
that one Mong Lai and his wife once inhabited the neighborhood (they
were giants), and each promised their daughter in marriage, unknown to
the other, to a different suitor. At last the day of the nuptials
arrived, and Chao Lai and the Lord of Mieang Chin (China) both arrived
to claim the bride. When the horrified father found how matters
stood--having a regard for the value of a promise, which is not too
common in the East--he cut his daughter in half, so that neither
suitor should be disappointed. Chao Lai, in the meantime, on finding
that he had a rival, committed suicide, and the peak of Chaolai is the
remains of his body. The unfortunate bride is to be found in the
islands off Sam Roi Yawt, the peaks of which are the remains of the
gifts which were to be made to the holy man who was to solemnize the
wedding; while Kaw Chang and Kaw King, on the east side of the gulf,
are the elephant and buffalo cart in which the presents were brought."
="The Hell of War."=--The Cost of a National Crime and The Hell of War
and its Penalties are the appropriate names which Edward Atkinson has
given to two essays bearing upon the craze for expansion in which the
nation has been abruptly plunged. In them an evil which has not yet
received due attention, if any, is presented as sure to be inflicted
upon us if the policy of militarism is persisted in. "How much
increase of taxation," Mr. Atkinson asks, "are you willing to bear,
and how many of your neighbors' sons are you ready to sacrifice by
fever, malaria, and venereal disease, in order to extend the
sovereignty of the United States over the West Indies and the
Philippine Islands?" Another question is put to the missionary
enthusiasts: "It may be well to ask all who are imbued with this
missionary sympathy, How many young men of your own brotherhood are
you willing to sacrifice for each convert? How many of your own sons
will you expose to sure infection and degeneration in the conduct of
your philanthropic purpose? Or will you satisfy your own conscience by
consenting to the necessary conscription of other people's sons when
it presently becomes impossible to maintain our armed forces in those
islands without a draft?" Mr. Atkinson says that his attention has
been called to this phase of the evil attendant upon military
occupation in the course of his social studies. "The greatest and most
unavoidable danger," he writes to the commander in chief of our
armies, "to which these forces will be exposed will be neither fevers
nor malaria; it will be venereal diseases in their worst and most
malignant form."
MINOR PARAGRAPHS.
A new and very ingenious method of space telegraphy is discussed at
length in an article by Karl Zickler in the _Elektrotechnische
Zeitschrift_. It depends on a phenomenon discovered by Hertz in 1887,
viz., the influence of certain short wave-length light rays upon
electrical discharges. The ultra-violet waves, which are obstructed by
glass but transmitted by quartz, are the most effective. The source of
light is an arc lamp. The light is passed through a lens of rock
crystal to the receiver. The receiver is a glass vessel partially
exhausted of air, one end of which consists of a truly parallel plate
of rock crystal. In front of the receiver there is a condensing lens
of rock crystal, and within the exhausted chamber are the two
electrodes, one of which is an inclined disk and the other a small
ball. The electrodes are connected with the secondary portion of an
induction coil, and when the ultra-violet rays fall upon the inclined
disk and are reflected to the ball, a discharge will be produced which
may be read either with a telephone or a coherer. The signals are sent
by alternately interposing a plate of glass in front of the rays
issuing from the transmitter and removing it therefrom. Herr Zickler
has made many experiments to verify his conclusions and appears to
have demonstrated the feasibility of his idea in practice.
Mr. Dawson Williams has announced in Nature the discovery in many
susceptible persons of a periodicity in the effects that follow a
sting. The immediate result, he says, is a small flattened wheal, pale
and surrounded by a zone of pink injection. This is attended by
itching, but both wheal and itching are gone in less than an hour.
About twenty-four hours later the part begins to itch again, and in a
few minutes a hard, rounded, deep-red papule appears, and is quickly
surrounded by an area of oedematous skin. The formication is intense,
and in the affected area, while the ordinary sensations of touch are
dulled, those of temperature and painful feelings are exaggerated. In
two or three hours the itching diminishes and the oedema disappears,
leaving a small, red papule, which itches but little. The phenomena
recur, with diminished intensity, in the course of another twenty-four
hours, and may return in this way, growing fainter all the time, in
four or five daily repetitions. After these returns have ceased, a
small, indolent papule may persist for weeks or months. This
periodicity is not observed in all subjects, but most generally in
those who suffer most.
Among the advantages of Linde's liquid-air process, Prof. J. A. Ewing,
speaking at the English Society of Arts, claimed its giving a means of
separating more or less completely the oxygen of the atmosphere from
its associated nitrogen. After describing a process by which a liquid
consisting largely of oxygen may be produced, the author said that the
most interesting application of the liquid which had hitherto been
tried on a commercial scale was to make an explosive by mixing it with
carbon. When liquid air, enriched by the evaporation of a large part
of the nitrogen, was mixed with powdered charcoal, it formed an
explosive comparable in power to dynamite, and which, like dynamite,
could be made to go off violently by using a detonator. The chief
advantage of the explosive was its cheapness, the cost being only that
of liquefying the air. Even the fact that after a short time the
mixture ceased to be capable of exploding might be urged as a
recommendation, for if a detonator hung fire, there was no danger of
the charge going off accidentally some time after the explosion was
due, nor was there any risk of its being purloined or used for
criminal purposes.
NOTES.
According to the _Tribune de Genève_, twenty new hotels were opened in
Switzerland in 1897, and twenty-five were enlarged, adding two
thousand beds and making the whole number of beds about ninety
thousand. The number of nights' lodgings furnished during the season
is estimated at ten million. Supposing each guest to spend twelve
francs a day, the total revenue from tourists would amount to one
hundred and twenty million francs, or twenty four million dollars.
Classifying the guests according to nationality, it is estimated that
the Swiss constitute eighteen per cent of the whole, Germans
thirty-four per cent, English sixteen per cent, French twelve per
cent, Americans eight per cent, and those of other nations twelve per
cent.
A list of women astronomers, compiled by Herman S. Davis from
Ribiere's _Les Femmes dans la Science_, contains as contemporary
workers in the science the names of seventeen American women who have
taken part in astronomical computations or are teachers of astronomy,
and twelve who are working in the application of photography to
astronomy. Of the women in the later list, Miss Ida C. Martin, Miss
Dr. Dorothea Klumpke (now in the Paris Observatory), and Mrs. M. P.
Fleming have attained distinction for successful original researches.
The object of the Pure Food and Drug Congress, which met in Washington
in March, 1898, with Joseph E. Blackburn, of Columbus, Ohio, as
president, is declared in its resolutions to be to secure suitable
national legislation to prevent the adulteration of food, drink, and
drugs, to secure the enforcement of laws, and secure and promote
uniformity of State legislation looking to that end; to create and
maintain a high public sentiment on these subjects, to sustain public
officers enforcing the laws respecting them; and to promote a more
general intelligence concerning the injury to health and business
interests resulting from food adulteration. In this work all are
invited to join. The congress was in session four days, and several
important papers were read to it.
The large Atlantic coastal plain beginning with southern New Jersey,
Mr. John Gifford affirms, in The Forester, would soon be capable, if
protected from reckless devastation, of producing almost limitless
quantities of the valuable smooth-bark or short leaf pine. In
Northampton and Accomac Counties, Virginia, lying in this plain, the
forests are already properly cared for and propagated without the aid
of forest laws. This is done by insuring their freedom from fire,
which is attended to purely as a matter of present economy. The value
of the woods in holding the loose sandy soil and as windbreaks is
recognized, and the litter of the pine trees is a precious dressing
for the sweet potato fields. This litter, of pine "chats," "needles,"
or "browse," is carefully raked off every year and spread on the
fields, and there is nothing left in which fire can start.
The Lalande prize of the French Academy of Sciences has been conferred
upon Prof. S. C. Chandler, of Cambridge, Mass., in recognition of "the
splendor, the importance, and the variety" of his astronomical work;
the Damoiseau prize upon Dr. George William Hill, of Washington, for
his researches in mathematics and astronomy; and the Henry Wilde prize
on Dr. Charles A. Schott, of Washington, for his researches in
terrestrial magnetism.
Prof. J. Mark Baldwin, of Princeton, author of the books The
Development of the Child and the Race, Handbook of Psychology, and The
Story of the Mind, has been elected a member of the French Institute
of Sociology.
Among the recent deaths of men associated with scientific pursuits we
notice those of Charles Michel Brisse, professor at the Lycée
Condorcet for twenty-five years, and professor at other French
schools, author of papers on the displacement of figures and on the
general theory of surfaces, and of other works in mathematics and
mathematical physics, and a co-worker on the _Journal de Physique_, in
his fifty-sixth year; Prof. H. Alleyn Nicholson, of the University of
Aberdeen, author of books on zoölogy and geology; M. F. Gay, of the
University of Montpellier, a student of the green algæ, aged forty
years; Dr. Dumontpallier, of Paris, author of contributions to the
pathology of the nervous system, aged seventy-four years;
Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Pringle, of the British Army, author of
papers on the hygiene and diseases of India; Pastor Christian Kaurin,
of Norway, a student of Scandinavian mosses, aged sixty-six years; T.
Carnel, professor of botany and director of the Botanic Garden,
Florence; the Rev. Bartholomew Price, author of several elaborate
works in mathematics, and secretary of the Oxford University Press, in
his eighty-first year; Dr. Constantine Vousakis, professor of
physiology in the University of Athens; William Dames, professor of
geology and paleontology in the University of Berlin, and subeditor of
the _Paläontologische Abhandlungen_, in his fifty-second year; and Dr.
Gottlieb Gluge, emeritus professor of physiology and anatomy in the
University of Berlin and author of an atlas of pathological anatomy,
aged eighty-six years.
Transcriber's Notes:
Words surrounded by _ are italicized.
Words surrounded by = are bold.
Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent
spellings have been kept, including inconsistent use of hyphen (e.g.
"newcomers" and "new-comers").
Illustrations were relocated to correspond to their references in the
text.
Caption "Photograph of a _Thelyphonus_" added to the captionless image
on p. 608.
[vc] means letter c with diacritical mark caron (v-shaped symbol)
above it.
['c] means letter c with diacritical mark accute accent above it.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Appletons' Popular Science Monthly,
March 1899, by Various
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