THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

TH R

JU,

POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY

EDITED BY

J. MCKEEN CATTELL

VOLUME LXXXII

JANUARY TO JUNE, 1915

NEW YORK

THE SCIENCE PRESS
1913

Copyright, 1912
The Science Press

PRESS OF

The New Era Printing compact
Lancaster, pa

THE
POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY.

JANUARY, 1913

4 9Yi

GOING THEOUGH ELLIS ISLAND

By DR. ALFRED C. REED
U. S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, ELLIS ISLAND

IT is at least a question whether the visitor to Ellis Island looks at
the newly landed immigrant with eyes any more curious than
those with which the immigrant looks at the visitor. The one sees the
timidity, the surprise, the fear and the expectation of the new-comer.
The other sees what is to him a wonderful model of all that is American.

Main Immigration Building.

It is a husy island. Yet in all the rushing hurry and seeming con-
fusion of a full day, in all the babel of language, the excitement and
fright and wonder of the thousands of newly-landed, and in all the
manifold and endless details that make up the immigration plant, there

6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

is system, silent, watchful, swift, efficient. Five thousand immigrants
in a day is no uncommon figure. Five thousand six hundred passed
through last Easter Sunday. Five hundred and twenty-five persons
are employed on the island exclusive of the score of medical officers and
the hundred or more attendants of the Public Health Service.

It is an island crowded full of pathos and tragedy, of startling con-
trasts and unexpected humor. A burly, laughing giant of a man came

The Immigrant -Hospital at Ellis Island.

down the line one afternoon, elated to have reached the land of his life-
long hope. The next morning he lay stricken with meningitis and that
evening was dead. A young mother was separated from her two-year-
old baby because the baby had diphtheria. In a few days the baby died,
and the mother went on alone to the father waiting in the west. The
reunion of broken families, and the old folks coming to live in the home
prepared by the pioneer children, constantly afford views of human
nature unmasked and unrestrained.

All races and conditions of men come together here and adjust
themselves more or less amicably to each other. Children with no com-
mon bond of race, language or religion, play together perhaps more
happily for that very reason. Some have been here for months. In the
New York room, a Flemish couple have waited seven long months for a
little girl who is still sick in the hospital. Every morning on his
rounds they ask the doctor how soon she can come to them, and thrice
a week they visit her bedside. Perhaps by now their long waiting is

GOING THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND 7

finished, and she has gone on with them happily to the new home in
America.

America is the land of the alien, and even now his mark is plain on
all our institutions. But while the principal increase in population
has been by immigration, the character of that immigration has changed
markedly in the past thirty years. Previous to 1883, western and
northern Europe sent a stalwart stock, 95' per cent, of all who came.
They sought new homes and were settlers. Scandinavians, Danes,
Dutch, Germans, French, Swiss and the English islanders, they were
the best of Europe's blood. They were industrious, patriotic and far-
sighted. They were productive and constructive workers. Where noth-
ing had been, they planted, and mined, and built, and toiled with their
hands, while yet finding time to educate their children and train them
to love the new mother-country and appreciate the blessings she fur-
nished.

But for three decades the immigrant tide has flowed more and more
from eastern and southern Europe. The others still come, but they
are far outnumbered by the Jews, Slavs, the Balkan and Austrian

A Polish Mother holding her Baby up to see the Doctor.

races, and those from the Mediterranean countries. In contrast with
the earlier immigration, these peoples are less inclined to transplant
their homes and affections. They come to make what they can in a
few years of arduous unremitting labor, and then return to their
homes to spend it in comparative comfort and ease. It has been well

8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Examining Eyes on the Line at Ellis Island.

said that America. is their workshop, Europe their home. Thirty per
cent, of them return to their former homes.

As a class, they contribute little of lasting value but the work of
therr-'hands for which they are well paid. And from what they earn
tifeyVskad home no small part. In 1907 they sent $275,000,000 out of
the country. True, this money was earned, but its greater value in in-
vestment and development was lost. In contrast to their predecessors,
the immigrants since 1883 tend to form a floating population. They
do not amalgamate. They are here in no small degree for what they
can get. It is not always true that they come to supply a real demand.
The periodical advertisement of a national demand for cheap labor does
not spring from a true economic need, even though the influx of cheap
labor might put more money in the employer's pocket.

Such is the type of the newer immigration, and its changing and
deteriorating character makes restriction justifiable and necessary. No
one can stand at Ellis Island and see the physical and mental wrecks

GOING THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND 9

who are stopped there, or realize that if the bars were lowered ever so
little the infirm and mentally unsound would come literally in hordes,
without becoming a firm believer in restriction and admission of only
the best. The average citizen does not realize the enormous numbers
of mentally disordered and morally delinquent persons in the United
States nor to how great an extent these classes are recruited from
aliens, and their children. Restriction is vitally necessary if our truly
American ideals and institutions are to persist, and if our inherited
stock of good American manhood is not to be depreciated.

This restriction can be made operative at various points, but the
key to the whole situation is the medical requirement. No alien is de-
sirable as an immigrant if he be mentally or physically unsound, while,
on the other hand, mental and physical health in the wide sense carries
with it moral, social and economic fitness. The present United States
immigration law (legislation of 1907) is very definite in its statement
of medical requirements for admission. The law divides physically
and mentally defective aliens into three classes. Class A includes those
whose exclusion is mandatory under the law because of a specified de-
fect or disease. In this class are idiots, imbeciles, epileptics, the feeble-
minded, insane and those subject to tuberculosis, or a dangerous or
loathsome contagious disease. When a medical diagnosis has been made

Russian Girls.

IO

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of these conditions, that person is
automatically excluded. In Class
B are conditions which are not
mentioned in Class A, but which
make the person affected liable to
become a public charge or affect
his ability to earn a living. Class
C includes defective and diseased
conditions not included under A
or B but which must nevertheless
be certified for the information of
the immigration officials.

The medical inspection of all
immigrant aliens is performed by
officers of the United States Pub-
lic Health Service. This service
dates from an act of congress in

A Chinese Girl in the
Dentition Quarters.

A Russian Jewish Boy, just landed.

1798 creating the original Marine
Hospital Service, which conducted
hospitals at all large ports and in-
land waterway cities for seamen of
the American merchant marine.
The duties of the service have since
been enlarged to include all fea-
tures of national health protection.
Its officers rank equal with those of
the army and navy medical corps,
and are found in all parts of the
world pursuing their investigations
and carrying out measures to pro-
tect the public health of the United
States. The medical inspection of
immigrants is not the least impor-
tant of their functions. The Bu-
reau of Immigration is under the

GOING THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND n

Department of Commerce and Labor, while the Public Health Service is
under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury.

There are 82 immigration stations embracing the entire coastline
and frontiers of the United States as well as the entry of aliens into
the Philippines, Porto Eico and Hawaii. During the fiscal year of
1911, the total number of immigrants examined was 1,093,809. Of
these 27,412 were certified for some mental or physical defect. By far
the most important point of entry is Ellis Island, where 749,642 aliens
were examined. Nearly 17,000 medical certificates were issued here,
and more than 5,000 of these were deported.

The Ellis Island station of the Public Health Service has 25 med-
ical officers attached, including 6 specially trained in the diagnosis and
observation of mental disorders. Their work is divided into three sec-
tions, the boarding division, the hospital and the line. The boarding
division has its offices at Battery Park, N. Y. By means of a fast and
powerful cutter, The Immigrant, these men meet all incoming liners
as they leave the New York Quarantine Station and start up the bay.
Their inspection is limited to aliens in the first and second cabins.
Such as require a more careful and detailed examination are sent to
Ellis Island. The others are discharged at the dock, after having
passed the additional inspection of the Department of Commerce and
Labor. At the dock, all third and fourth class aliens are transferred to
barges, carrying about 700 each, and taken to Ellis Island.

Ellis Island lies close to the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island,
about a mile from Battery Park. It is the most commanding location
in New York Harbor. It consists of one small natural island and two
additional artificial ones, connected with the first by a covered passage-
way across the intervening strip of water. On the first island is the
main immigration station. The other two are occupied by the hos-
pital division of the medical service. On one of these is the general
hospital and on the further one the contagious hospital, consisting of
separate pavilions, connected with open covered passageways. Each
hospital can accommodate close to 200 patients at once, and is usually
fairly full. The service is limited strictly to aliens, and the expense of
each immigrant receiving hospital care is charged to the steamship
company which brought him. This hospital is excellently conducted
and every method of most approved diagnostic, surgical and medical
technique is practised. A rare variety of diseases is seen. Patients
literally from the farthest corners of the earth come together here.
Pare tropical diseases, unusual internal disorders, strange skin lesions,
as well as the more frequent cases of a busy general city hospital pre-
sent themselves. The variety of contagious diseases is unusual and ex-
treme diagnostic skill is required of the physicians in charge. In the
fiscal year 1911, over 6,000 cases were treated in the hospital, exclusive

12

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The Matron and some of her Charges on the Roof.

of 720 cases transferred to the Quarantine Hospital at the Harbor en-
trance before the completion of the present contagious hospital on Ellis
Island.

The third division of the medical inspection is " the line " or pri-
mary inspection. This is the part that the visitor to the island sees,
and has been often described. Suffice it to say that as the immigrants
leave the barges they pass in single file before the medical officers who
pick out all who present evidence of any mental or physical defect.
They are turned aside into the medical examining rooms for more care-
ful observation. Each defect or disease receives a medical certificate
signed by three physicians, which places the bearer in one of the three
classes already mentioned. Those who require immediate medical or
surgical care for any reason are transferred to the hospital, as are also
certain cases in which longer observation and more detailed examina-
tion are necessary for diagnosis. Examples of this are tuberculosis,
parasitic scalp diseases, mental disorders and trachoma.

Having been certified or passed clear in the medical division, the
immigrant goes together with those from the barge who have not been
turned aside, to the upper or registry floor, for the inspection of the
immigration authorities. These inspectors ask the same questions that
the immigrant was required to answer when the ship's manifest was
filled out before embarkation. This covers such information as name,
age, destination, race, nativity, last residence, occupation, condition of
health, nearest relative or friend in the old country, who paid his pas-

GOING THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND

13

sage, whether in United States before, whether ever in prison, whether
a polygamist or anarchist, whether coming under any contract labor
scheme, and personal marks of identification such as height, and color
of eyes and hair. Any discrepancies in the answers are noted. The
immigrant is also required to show what money he has. All who do not
meet these questions satisfactorily or who hold medical certificates of
classes A or B, are held for a rigid examination before a Board of
Special Inquiry, which decides whether or not they shall be admitted.
Each of these boards consists of three members, the decision of two
members being final. The hearings of the boards are private, but a
complete copy of the proceedings is made and filed in Washington.

Those who are to be deported are held on the island until the vessel
on which they came is ready for its return voyage. In the event of de-
portation being ordered, the alien may appeal from the decision of the
board to the commissioner of the port, from him to the commissioner-
general of immigration, and then to the Secretary of Commerce and
Labor.

Those immigrants who have passed satisfactorily and are bound for
New York City are sent to the " New York room " to await friends or
responsible parties who come for them. This is one of the most dra-
matic and thrilling spots on the island, for it is the reunion place of
friends, relatives and lovers. The Irish girl who came two years ago
meets the sister and the old mother. The one is pale, nervous, and clad
in New York garb: the others have never seen the ocean until their

Theib first Photograph.

14

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

good ship sailed, and their bril-
liant cheeks and country dress are
in keeping with their dense igno-
rance and shyness. They know
the price of shoes and what spuds
are worth at market, but it is
beyond them to recall the date of
their birthday, or what the pres-
ent month may be.

Those immigrants who are
destined for points other than
N"ew York City are sent to the rail-
road room. Here they change
their money for United States coin,
and buy their railroad tickets
under careful supervision. Their
baggage is checked, they have a
telegraph, cable and post office of

A Servian Woman.

A Genuine Harem Skirt.

rhotograph, taken at Ellis Island,
of a woman from Hindustan.

their own, and may buy lunches
whose contents are exhibited to all
in glass cases. Special agents see
that each one buys a lunch propor-
tioned to the size of his family and
the length of his journey. Cigars,
cakes and fruits are also to be had.
One day a stolid and emotionless
Slavish woman opened her card-
board lunch box at the bottom and
extraced a piece of bologna cut on
the bias, smelled it carefully from
different sides, licked it, finally
tasted it, and then broke into a flood
of smiles as she pressed it forcibly
into the mouth of her equally stolid
two-year-old baby. And the baby
sucked and munched on the new

GOING THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND 15

world dainty in undiscerning pleasure ! But the greatest mystery
in the lunch box is usually the small round fruit pie. Some carefully
raise the crust and extract the contents with a much-used finger.
Another whittles it off in slices with a murderous knife a foot in
length, while another will carefully eat off all the crust and discard the
interior. A bearded Cossack with great care and patience chewed a
hole through one corner of a tin of sardines. Then with praiseworthy
perseverance, he sucked out the oil ! From the railroad room, the immi-
grants are taken in barges to the depot of the railroad on which their
journey is to be made.

Those immigrants Avho are to be deported, or who for any reason
must be kept on the island some time, are placed in the detention quar-
ters. These are not open to visitors. Tiers of beds are provided, ac-
commodating 1,800 persons, but often this number is exceeded by 500.
These quarters are among the most interesting points on the island.
The women and children of all races and tongues are in one large room,
and the men in another. In mild weather they are all sent on to the
fine broad roof of the building. Not long ago a Danish woman who
could speak no English and whose baby was in the hospital with diph-
theria, became a second mother to a coal-black pickaninny, who had
come up from Trinidad on a coffee-ship and whose mother was also in
the hospital. Again race wars occur among the children, and Turks
and Armenians will battle ferociously with Italians. Mention should
be made of the large immigrant dining-room which seats 1,100, where
the missionary societies hold a polyglot Christmas entertainment each
year.

But the observer at Ellis Island sees only the immigrant stream
flowing in. He does not see what results when it has been distributed
over the country. No graver questions are before the American nation
to-day than those associated with immigration, and none whose correct
solution demands more imperative attention. One of these vital ques-
tions which is in special prominence just now, is the relation of immi-
gration to mental disorders. This question concerns New York state
more acutely than other states only because New York has the largest
number of alien defectives.

In February, 1912, there were 33,311 committed insane cases in
New York state institutions. It is estimated that more than 8,000 of
these or, roughly, 25 per cent., are aliens, and this is exclusive of those
conditions of mental defectiveness listed under idiocy, imbecility and
feeblemindedness. In the New York schools there are about 7,000
distinctly feeble-minded children, or about 1 per cent, of the school pop-
ulation. Again this does not include idiots and imbeciles to an equal
number, not attending school, nor border-line cases and morally defec-
tive children. The total number of feeble-minded children in New

i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

A Pair op African Arabs, awaiting the Medical, Examination.

York is about 10,000. According to the figures of the last census, 30
per cent, of the feeble-minded children in the general population
throughout the country are the progeny of aliens or naturalized citizens.
Thus the presence of 3,000 of New York's feeble-minded children can
safely be laid to immigration. These figures show the extreme neces-,
sity of careful medical inspection of immigrants. But there are many
complicating factors. It is very difficult to recognize many types of
insanity. It is almost impossible to detect feeble-mindedness in infants
and young children. Yet in spite of this, the medical officers at Ellis
Island are doing thorough and effective work, and do not at all deserve
the ignorant criticism of those unfamiliar with the difficulties of that
work.

A point where criticism is unfortunately valid is in the matter of
the deportation of aliens who within three years after landing show
themselves subject to any of those conditions which the law excludes,
or who become public charges from any cause, said condition or cause

GOING THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND

17

having existed prior to landing. If the present entrance inspection was
reinforced by a determined administration of these deportation laws,
and if all cases whose exclusion the law makes mandatory, and which
are now certified by the medical officers, were actually excluded, there
would be little cause for complaint. But such a condition does not ob-
tain. The medical officers have nothing whatever to do in passing judg-
ment on whether an immigrant shall be admitted or not. Their prov-
ince alone is to certify to his physical and mental status. The question
of admission, as well as of deportation, rests with the officials of the
Department of Commerce and Labor.

Much easier is the control of organic physical diseases, as, for ex-
ample, hookworm infection. A survey of the prevalence of hookworm
disease throughout the world, made by the Eockefeller Sanitary Com-
mission, shows that this infection belts the world in a zone 66° wide
with the equator near its middle, and that practically every country in
this zone is heavily infected. It is evident how grave a danger lurks in
immigration from any country where the hookworm is prevalent.
Among the worst afflicted countries is India, where it is estimated that
from 60 to 80 per cent, of the population of 300,000,000 harbor this
parasite. This leads peculiar interest to the movement of Hindu coo-
lies into the United States in the last few years. A shipload of these
coolies landing recently in San Francisco were found by the health au-
thorities of that port to have 90 per cent, infected with hookworm.

Berbers from Algeria, coming to fill an Engagement at a New York Theater.
VOL. LXXXII. — 2.

i8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

An Italian Family.

Every colony and camp of Hindus in California to-day is a dangerous
source of infection to all the country around. A rigid quarantine has
been established against further importation of this class of aliens.

There are numerous other questions besides those which have been
touched on here. Immigration presents one of the most serious prob-
lems facing this country. Ellis Island is where the needs and dangers
of the country in this regard are focused. Its ever-changing stream
of humanity furnishes a fascinating realm for the student of human
nature, as well as for study of the great question of economics and
eugenics which are involved.

THE FLORA OF GUIANA AND TRINIDAD 19

SOME IMPRESSIONS OF THE FLORA OF GUIANA

AND TRINIDAD

BY Pkofessob DOUGLASS HOUGHTON CAMPBELL

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

f MO most botanists in America a visit to the tropics is supposed to
-*- be a difficult and expensive undertaking, involving much special
preparation and also a good many risks. The fact is, a trip to the West
Indies is a very simple matter, and even a few weeks are sufficient to
give one an excellent idea of the main features of a most interesting
and characteristic tropical flora, and is no more expensive than a
journey of equal duration in Europe. If one extends the trip to
include the Isthmus of Panama and Trinidad, one sees to great advan-
tage the rich and beautiful flora characteristic of equatorial South
America, one of the most individual floral regions of the world.

There are various ways of reaching the West Indies and northern
South America, especially since the great development of the fruit
industiy, which employs many vessels plying constantly between the
different ports of the Atlantic and Gulf States, and various ports of
the West Indies and Central America. In addition, the Royal Mail
(English), and the Dutch Royal Mail have steamers plying between
New York and Europe via the West Indies and South America.

It may be mentioned, also, that a trip to the tropics in summer is
not at all the trying experience that many persons suppose. Of course,
it is hot, and in most parts of the West Indies rainy in summer; but
the heat never equals that sometimes experienced along our own
Atlantic coast, and, moreover, there are none of the sudden changes
that are so trying. The same clothing that is suitable for hot weather
in New York will be found quite appropriate for the tropics.

With the great improvements in sanitation of late years there is
very little danger from the fevers which formerly gave this region such
a bad name. With ordinary precautions, there need be little appre-
hension on this score.

Having a few weeks at his disposal, the writer decided to go to
Europe via the West Indies, instead of by the shorter, but infinitely less
interesting, route across the northern Atlantic.

Wishing to see something of the South American mainland, it was
decided to go first to Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam (Dutch
Guiana), as it is possible to go there directly from New York, in about

2o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ten days. From Paramaribo it is two or three days to Trinidad, where
one can catch the Eoyal Mail for England.

The route from New York to the Guianas lies to the eastward of
the larger West Indian Islands — the Greater Antilles — and passes close
to the line of smaller islands, the Lesser Antilles. These are for the
most part extremely mountainous, and the larger ones, like Dominica
and Martinique, are exceedingly beautiful, and are also said to be most
interesting botanically. Dominica, especially, with mountains rising
some 5,000 feet above the sea, and evidently presenting great variety
of conditions, made one wish that the ship would stop long enough to
enable one to explore the luxuriant forest clothing the steep mountains
to their summits.

Passing close to Martinique the sinister bulk of Mt. Pelee domi-
nated the view, and the ruins of St. Pierre could be plainly seen — now
after ten years largely overgrown by the rank tropical vegetation which
is rapidly covering up the evidences of the great catastrophe.

No stop was made until Barbados was reached. This densely
populated island is mainly devoted to the cultivation of sugar, and
there is very little forest left. Moreover, unlike most of the West
Indian islands, the elevations are comparatively slight, and the condi-
tions much more uniform than in the other islands. To a newcomer
in the tropics, however, no doubt the many striking cultivated plants
will be a novelty. Some of the showiest flowering trees and shrubs,
like the gorgeous flamboyant Poinciana regia and the beautiful frangi-
pani (Plumiera), come to special perfection in the gardens of Barbados.
Here one sees also the very striking mixture of races found in the West
Indies — negroes form a large majority of the population, but there are
many East Indian coolies ; and a considerable number of Chinese. The
white population is insignificant compared with the various colored
races.

The next stop was made at Georgetown, the capital of British
Guiana, or Demerara. The ship remained all day in port, and there
was an opportunity to go on shore and visit the pretty botanical gar-
dens. The town itself is attractively laid out, and the gardens full of
luxuriant tropical growths testify to the thoroughly tropical climate.
Fine avenues of tall palms are a striking feature of the town. These
were apparently mostly the royal palm (Oreodoxa regia), but it is not
always easy to distinguish this from the even finer cabbage palm
(0. oleracea).

The botanical garden is really an attractive park rather than a
scientifically laid out botanical garden. It contains, however, many
fine specimens of palms and other tropical plants which will interest
the botanist. Perhaps the finest features of the garden are the extensive

THE FLORA OF GUIANA AND TRINIDAD 21

lily ponds, where one can see growing with wonderful luxuriance the
Victoria regia and other tropical water lilies. A pond full of lotus
(Nelumbo) with thousands of white, pink and crimson flowers, was a
truly magnificent sight.

Unfortunately, practically none of the original forest has been left
in the immediate vicinity of the city, and one must go a long way
before one can see the untouched native vegetation.

A day's sail from Demerara brings the traveler to Paramaribo, the
capital of Surinam (Dutch Guiana). Paramaribo is a picturesque
town, the high-gabled houses with their quaint stoops and doorways
looking curiously alien under the shade of great mahogany trees and
royal palms. Some of the houses, the former residences of wealthy
Dutch merchants, are fine examples of their kind, and recall the
flourishing days of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the
trade of Surinam was much more important than it is to-day.

The streets are lined with rows of palms and other tropical trees,
among which the finest are the gigantic old mahogany trees.

The botanical gardens lie on the edge of the town, and are devoted
principally to the cultivation of various economic plants — cocoa, iubber
of various kinds, oranges, mangoes, bananas, coffee — and other less
known tropical products.

To the botanist, undoubtedly the most interesting feature of the
garden is a tract of untouched forest immediately adjoining it. This
is an excellent sample of the predominant forest of the region. The
greater part of this forest is more or less submerged for much of the
time, but at intervals in this swamp are low ridges of more sandy soil,
and in these drier areas grow the largest trees, two of which, the silk-
cotton (Ceiba pentandra) and the sand-box (Hura crepitans) are
veritable giants. The trunks and branches of these great trees were
covered with numerous epiphytes, among which the Bromeliaceae take
first place. Several species of Tillandsia, including the familiar T.
usneoides, the " Spanish moss " of our own Gulf States, were con-
spicuous. Clinging to the giant trunks, or festooned from tree to tree,
were many lianas, some of great size. Convolvulaceas, Bignoniacese,
and especially the giant scandent Aroids — Philodendron, Monstera,
Syngonium, and others — were noticeable among the tangle of creepers.

An undergrowth of dwarf palms and many showy Scitamineae,
especially species of Canna and Heliconia, gave the finishing touch to
this truly tropical picture.

Almost no ferns were to be seen, and bryophytes — especially liver-
worts — were few and inconspicuous. Of the latter, only a few small
leafy Jungermanniacea?, growing on the tree trunks, were noted. In
the town, and about the garden, a few epiphytic ferns were common.

22

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 1. Forest adjoining the Botanical Garden, Paramaribo.

THE FLORA OF GUIANA AND TRINIDAD 23

These included species of Polypodium and Vittaria. This poverty of
the fern flora is quite in accord with the account given by Spruce of
the forests of the lower Amazon.

Through the kindness of Dr. Cramer, the director of agriculture,
and other members of the scientific staff, an opportunity was afforded
of visiting a number of the most characteristic regions within reach of
Paramaribo, and an excellent idea was thus obtained of the more salient
features of the flora of this region. Excursions were made up the
Surinam Eiver and some of its tributaries, as well as to one of the
characteristic " savannas " occasionally met with in lower Surinam.

Except in the immediate vicinity of Paramaribo there are no roads,
and communication (except for one line of railway) is almost entirely
by means of boats, which ply along the rivers, creeks and canals with
which the whole country is intersected.

Owing to the flatness of the country, the tide extends for a long
way up the larger streams, and these rivers are everywhere bordered by
an impenetrable mangrove swamp, in the lower reaches of the rivers
composed almost exclusively of Rhizophora mangle, but higher up, where
the salinity of the water is less, the Ehizophora is gradually replaced by
Avicennia nitida, which sometimes becomes a large tree, whose aerial
roots often develop from the upper branches and reach an enormous
length. Back of the mangrove belt there sometimes occur slightly
elevated ridges upon which the largest trees grow.

Nearly all of the cultivated land in lower Surinam has been re-
claimed by building dykes, and the old sluice gates, two or three
hundred years old, in some cases, are a characteristic feature in the
landscape.

Two of the large plantations were visited, and an opportunity was
thus given of seeing the methods in use in the cultivation of the various
tropical productions of Surinam — cocoa, coffee, oranges, bananas, cas-
sava, rubber, etc. On one estate there were extensive plantations of
Para rubber (Hevea b raziliensis) , and the somewhat primitive, but
apparently satisfactory, preparation of the sheets of merchantable rubber
could be seen in all stages.

In these large plantations the canals intersecting them in various
directions were the principal means of communication, although along
the dykes were usually footpaths, which were not always, however, in
the best of condition — especially when the clay was slippery after one
of the frequently recurring showers.

As the salinity of the water decreases in the upper reaches of the
rivers, the mangrove formation is gradually replaced by other trees
and shrubs. Several Leguminosas, especially species of Inga, are com-
mon, and great numbers of a big Arum (Montrichardia arborescens) ,

2 4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 2. Edge of a Forest on the Surinam River.
The tall palms are Euterpe oleracea.

THE FLORA OF GUIANA AND TRINIDAD 25

a constant feature of the brackish and fresh-water swamps, form dense
thickets, the crowded bare stems forming a close palisade fringing the
margins of the rivers. With the decrease in the salinity of the water,
also, palms of various kinds begin to appear, and these constitute quite
the most striking growths of the forest along the fresh-water streams.
They occur in immense numbers and great variety, and some of them
are extremely beautiful. First in abundance — and perhaps also in
beauty — is Euterpe oleracea, whose slender stems and graceful crowns
of feathery leaves occur by thousands. Other conspicuous palms are
species of Attalea, Maximiliana, Astrocaryum, Manicaria, and others.
Several small palms, especially species of Bactris, occur in great num-
bers as an undergrowth in these swampy forests. Another striking
palm is a Desmoncos, whose flexible thorny stems and graceful pinnate
leaves, armed with savage hooked thorns, were festooned from tree to
tree. This palm closely resembles the rattan palms of the old world.
Its large clusters of scarlet berries were conspicuous, and often attracted
attention as the boat skirted the dense mass of vegetation along the
shore.

In addition to the many native palms, a number of exotic species
are cultivated. Among these are the African oil-palm (Elceis gui-
nensis), the royal palm and the cocoanut. The last, however, does
not thrive, due perhaps to the excessive moisture in the soil.

A very common and wide-spread member of the tropical American
flora is the genus Cecropia, whose slender branches and big palmate
leaves occur everywhere.

As might be expected, the development of climbing plants is
extremely luxuriant in these wet forests, and in many cases the lower
trees and bushes were almost smothered by the dense curtain of creepers
of various kinds with which they were draped. These creepers belong
to very diverse families — Convolvulacese, Passifloracege, Apocynacese,
Melastomaceas, etc., and many of them have flowers of extraordinary
beauty, which add much to the attractiveness of these rich forests.

Very different from the wet forests are the " savannas," one of
which was visited. These savannas are in many respects like the moor-
lands of more northern regions. The soil of the one visited was a
coarse sand covered with a sparse growth of coarse grasses and sedges,
with scattered clumps of low shrubs, among which were growing a
number of orchids. Only one of these, a Catasetum with large
greenish flowers, was found in bloom. There were here and there
shallow pools, in which were growing tiny yellow Utrieularias and
minute Eriocaulacese and Xyridacese. Under the clumps of shrubs
were noticed small patches of Sphagnum, and a small species of
Drosera closely resembling in form the common D. rotundifolia of

26

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 3. Grove of Mauritia Palms in a Savanna. Surinam.

THE FLORA OF GUIANA AND TRINIDAD 27

northern bogs. A very beautiful blue bell-gentian was common. This
does not belong to the genus Gentiana, but to a related one, Chilon-
anthus. A few ferns were noted, among them the ubiquitous Ptcris
aquilina. The shrubby plants belonged mostly to the distinctly trop-
ical families Malpighiaceae, Melastomacese, Bubiacese and others.

Among the showiest flowers collected near the savanna, but at the
margin of the forest, was an extremely beautiful rubiaceous shrub,
which was not determined. Its large rose-colored bell-shaped flowers
were produced in great profusion, and were most ornamental. A large
purple Clitoria, an extremely showy papilionaceous creeper, was also
common.

Much the most striking plant of the savanna, however, is a mag-
nificent fan-palm, Mauritia fiexuosa, which occurs in groves of con-
siderable size, making a very imposing sight.

Adjoining the savanna was a fairly dense forest, with compara-
tively dry soil, although there were numerous clear streams, deep
amber brown in color, and in places it was decidedly boggy. As in all
the forests, the palms formed the most conspicuous feature of the
undergrowth. Ferns and liverworts were more abundant than in the
forests near Paramaribo, and at the base of some of the trees a small
Trichomanes was not uncommon, the only Hymenophvllacege that were
collected. An interesting tree of this forest was the " Balata," a species
of Mimusops which yields rubber of fair quality, which is collected in
considerable quantities by the natives. There also occurs a species of
Hevea, which, however, is much inferior in its product to the Para
rubber tree. A not uncommon plant of this forest — and also seen
repeatedly elsewhere — is Ravenala Guianensis, much resembling the
well-known " traveller's palm," R. Madagascariensis. There was also
the usual profusion of other Scitaminese.

The flora of Surinam is remarkable for the abundance of showy
flowers — not a usual condition of things in the wet tropics. Among
the most conspicuous of these are many splendid climbing plants —
especially various Bignoniacese, Apocynacese, Convolvulacea? and Passi-
floraceae. Some of these, like the golden yellow Allamandas and crim-
son and rose-colored passion flowers, were truly magnificent. There
were also many showy shrubs, especially various Bubiaceas, Malpighi-
aceae and Melastomaceae.

Of the herbaceous plants probably the showiest are the very abun-
dant Heliconias. These look much like Cannas — or the larger ones
like bananas — and their scarlet and yellow inflorescences are extremely
brilliant. There were also great masses of red and yellow Cannas, and
other showy Scitaminese — e. g., Costus, Maranta, Thalia, etc. These
brilliant flowers occurred in great masses along the margins of the
forest, and the railway embankment was a veritable botanical garden.

28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Associated with these distinctly tropical plants were a number of
more familiar aspect. The well-known red and yellow Asclepias curas-
savica was extremely common, and several species of Verbenacese and
Composite were quite like northern forms.

Next to the palms, perhaps the most characteristic plants are the
Aracea?, which occur in great number and variety. Besides those
already referred to, perhaps the most noticeable were species of Calad-
ium, whose brightly colored leaves were a common feature of low
ground everywhere.

Of the epiphytic plants, the Bromeliacese take first place. There
are also many species which grow upon the ground and closely resemble
pineapples in their general appearance.

Surinam is not specially rich in orchids, and of these very few were
in flower when the writer visited the country. The most interesting
form encountered was a species of Catasetum (C. fuliginosum) , already
referred to.

As might be expected, aquatic plants are very numerous. Owing to
an abnormally dry season prevailing during the early part of the year
which dried up many bodies of water, comparatively few of these were
in flower. Azolla was abundant in the ditches and canals, and also a
species of Salvinia. The leaves of water lilies were abundant, but no
flowers were seen. About the margins of ponds were sometimes seen
the big white flowers of Hymenocallis oMusata, looking like white lilies.

Although Trinidad is reckoned with the West Indies, its flora is
very different from that of the Antilles, and is essentially South
American in type. Trinidad is separated from the mainland of
Venezuela by only a few miles and the plants are largely the same as
those in the adjoining regions of Venezuela and have much in common
with those of the Guianas.

During a stay of two weeks the writer visited only the northern part
of the island. This is, however, the most interesting portion of Trini-
dad, as not only are the highest mountains here, but there is also a fine
development of lowland forest, and a savanna formation much like that
seen in Surinam.

Port of Spain is perhaps the most attractive of the West Indian
towns, and offers much of interest to the botanist — both in the town
itself and in the environs. The botanical garden in Trinidad is the
best in the West Indies, and in addition to the many fine examples of
tropical plants cultivated in the garden there is adjoining it a consid-
erable tract of practically untouched jungle, which is easily accessible
and is full of interest to the visiting botanist. The garden is now
under the direction of Mr. W. Freeman, to whom the writer is under
obligations for much kind assistance during his stay in Trinidad.

Close to the old botanical garden is the more recently laid out

THE FLORA OF GUIANA AND TRINIDAD 29

agricultural experiment station, where are to be seen many varieties of
the principal tropical fruits, especially oranges and mangoes. The
latter are especially fine in Trinidad.

Among the most striking features of the botanical garden are the
palms, of which there are many magnificent specimens, both native and
exotic. In the town itself palms are planted in great numbers, espe-
cially the stately cabbage palm " palmiste " of the French Creoles, prob-
ably the finest of all palms. It is a common sight to see clumps of
epiphytic orchids attached to the trunks of trees in the gardens of
Port of Spain. These are said to be very beautiful during the early
winter, but in July only a very few were in blossom.

In Port of Spain there are magnificent trees in the parks and gar-
dens and along the roads. These are often of enormous size, and their
branches are frequently covered with epiphytes of various kinds, among
which the most conspicuous are the Bromeliads, and the curious Rhip-
salis Cassytha, a member of the Cactacese, but very different from most
of the family. This plant grows in immense pendent masses, some-
times ten feet or more in length, and is exceedingly common in Trini-
dad. Of the numerous large trees, the silk-cotton (Ceiba), the West
Indian cedar (Cedrcla odorata), and the sand-box {Hum crepitans)
were the commonest of the native species; but mahogany trees of large
size, and gigantic specimens of Pithecolobium Saman, are frequently
seen. A very curious native tree, Couropita guianensis, is sometimes
seen planted. This produces many short branches from the main
trunk, upon which the large red flowers are borne in great numbers.
These are followed by enormous globular fruits of such size as to fairly
entitle the tree to its popular name, " cannon-ball " tree. Space will
not permit of any further enumeration of the beautiful and curious
plants with which the gardens are filled.

Much of the country about Port of Spain is still but little disturbed,
and even where it has been cleared, the neglected land soon reverts to
jungle. The wetter lowlands abound in palms, Aroids, Scitaminea?,
etc., much the same types that occur in the Guiana forest. The drier
hillsides, however, show a good many forms different from those of the
lower levels. A very common palm of the dry hillsides is Acrocomia
sclerocarpa, a species common to the Antilles also, and very common
in Jamaica. A very showy shrub of this region is a rubiaceous plant,
Warscewiczia coccinea. In this plant, as in the related Mussaenda of
the eastern tropics, one of the calyx lobes is much enlarged and petal-
like in color and texture. In Mussaenda this is white, but in War-
scewiczia it is a vivid carmine red, and the whole inflorescence strongly
suggests the familiar poinsettia— indeed the plant is locally known as
wild poinsettia.

Ferns are much commoner in Trinidad than in Guiana, although

30 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

at the lower levels they are not especially notable. Two species of
Schiza?acea3 were common near Port of Spain— a Lygodium sp. and
Anemia phyllitidis.

A visit to a small waterfall a few miles away yielded a considerable
number of ferns, including some small Hymenophyllaceae and a Dancea,
and also several interesting liverworts. In the botanical garden were
also found two interesting liverworts, a large Eiccia and a Notothylas ( ?) .

While driving to the waterfall a fine white arum (Spathiphyllum
canncejolium) was seen in great numbers along the river, and the trail
to the falls led through a fine forest with tall trees and a luxuriant
undergrowth of large ferns, some of which were small tree-ferns. There
were also many Aroids, some of great size — Montrichardia sp., Philo-
dendron, Anthurium, etc. Some very showy Bromeliads, with fine
scarlet bracts, were common as epiphytes, and also a good many orchids ;
but some of the latter were in flower. These, with the gorgeous
Warsczewiczia and masses of the fine Heliconia Bihce, made a magnifi-
cent picture of tropical vegetation in its most luxuriant aspect.

Small tree ferns (species of Alsophila and Hemitelia) were fairly
abundant, and several young specimens of a Danaea were found on a wet
bank, where there was also found a luxuriant growth of several inter-
esting liverworts. The latter included species of Aneura, Metzgeria,
Symphyogyna ( ?), Fossombronia and Dumortiera.

In company with Mr. Freeman, assistant director of agriculture, a
very interesting excursion was made to the Aripa savanna, some 25
miles from Port of Spain. This savanna was in many respects like the
one visited in Surinam, but the vegetation was more luxuriant. There
were similar groves of Mauritia, but even a finer species (M. setigera).
A number of beautiful ground orchids were found in flower, and a
small Drosera, different from that found in Surinam, was common.
Tiny Utricularias with yellow and purple flowers were abundant, and
as in the Surinam savannas, there were clumps of low bushes, largely
Melastomaceas and Malpighiaceae, in the shelter of which was found a
very interesting fern, Schizcea pennula, as well as several other ferns.
Two species of Lycopodium., L. cernuum and L. Carolinianum, weie
common.

The forest adjoining the savanna was very beautiful, with fine
palms — Euterpe, Bactris, Attalea, Maximiliana, and others. A Com-
melynaceous plant with yellow flowers was very abundant (the same
species was also seen in Surinam) and there were the usual abundant
epiphytic orchids and Bromeliads, as well as a number of small
Hymenophyllaceae.

In these woods were many specimens of a Clusia, growing first as
an epiphyte, and sending down aerial roots, which finally completely
strangle the tree upon which the Clusia has fastened itself. These

THE FLORA OF GUIANA AND TRINIDAD 31

parasitic trees, with their glossy magnolia-like leaves are extremely
handsome, and much resemble in general appearance the species of
Ficus, so common in the eastern tropics, which have the same habit of
strangling the tree which gives them support.

Trinidad has no very lofty mountains, the highest peak, Tucuche,
being very little over 3,000 feet. The most interesting excursion made
was to this mountain. In company with Mr. Freeman, Mr. Urich, the
government entomologist, and Mr. Chandler, an English botanist visit-
ing Trinidad, the writer made the ascent of the mountain which offers
no difficulties, and many interesting plants not found in the lower
country were seen.

The route at first lay through extensive cocoa plantations, which
occupy much of the lower forest lands in Trinidad. Along the mar-
gins of the streams the showy Aroid, Spathiphyllum canncefolium, made
a fine show, and another conspicuous and interesting plant was the
curious Cyclanthus bipartitus, a member of the small family Cyclan-
thacea?, whose systematic position is something of a puzzle to the
systematist.

Lygodium sp. and Anemia phyllitidis, characteristic ferns of the
lower country, were abundant, and a number of other ferns were noted
as well as a few liverworts. These, however, are much better developed
at higher elevations where there are a number of species of tree ferns
belonging to the genera Alsophila, Cyathea and Hemitelia. None of
these attain large proportions, and neither in the number of species nor
in the size of individuals can Trinidad compare with Jamaica.

At an elevation of about 1,500 feet the primitive forest begins —
characterized by magnificent tall trees, whose species in most cases
could not be determined. The dense undergrowth comprised large
ferns, palms, Heliconia, Aracese of various kinds, and many shrubs and
lianas, the whole forming a magnificent example of a wet tropical for-
est. That it was a "rain forest" we thoroughly appreciated, as we
passed through it in a veritable tropical downpour which soon made
every little ravine and gulley the bed of a torrent, and much of the
time we had to wade through these small cascades when they crossed
the trail.

However, although thoroughly drenched, we finally reached the
summit where there is a shelter hut in which we were to pass the night.
The rain ceased for the time being, and after a change into dry clothes
the afternoon was spent exploring the upper part of the mountain.

Among the most noticeable plants of the summit were many
Bromeiiacea?, mostly epiphytes, but some of them growing on the
ground. The scarlet and yellow bracts of some of these were extremely
showy. Several species of palms were abundant, and especially
Geonoma sp. confined to the higher elevations. One of the most beauti-

32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ful plants met with was a species of Utricularia, U. montana, some-
times seen in cultivation. Unlike most of the genus, this is an epiphyte,
and the drooping racemes of big white flowers might very well be mis-
taken for an orchid.

As is usual at the higher elevations in the tropics, the lower plants
are relatively more abundant than at lower elevations. Besides, the
tree ferns there were many others, including several HymenophyllaceEe
and two species of Danasa, which were growing abundantly upon the
wet banks, and whose large liverwort-like prothallia were found in
quantity. The wet banks also yielded a fair number of liverworts, and
at the very summit the ubiquitous Lycopodium cernuum was abundant.
Mosses and lichens also abounded, but no notes were made of the
species.

To the botanist visiting this region for the first time, the abundance
and variety of the palms will first attract attention. Many of them are
exceptionally beautiful, and they often grow in large masses giving a
characteristic stamp to the forest vegetation. Palms are a far more
conspicuous feature in the South American tropical forest than in any
part of the eastern tropics with which the writer is acquainted. The
Aracese, also, are more numerous and varied than in the tropics of the
old world, and none of the old-world forms can rival the giant scandent
genera, like Philodendron and Monstera, which are so characteristic of
the American tropical forests.

Of the numerous Scitaminese the common Heliconias with their
gorgeous inflorescences will first attract attention, and of course the
peculiarly American family, Bromeliaceae, will be of special interest to
the European visitor.

The prevalence of showy flowers in Surinam was noteworthy, as this
is not a common feature in the wet tropics, a fact frequently com-
mented on by scientific travelers. Whether or not the two go together,
it may be mentioned that in Surinam there is also an extraordinary
abundance of brilliant butterflies, some of them of wonderful beauty.

In Trinidad the prevalence of showy flowers was much less marked
than in Surinam, although it is by no means deficient in striking flow-
ers. As has already been stated, Trinidad in the main features of its
flora belongs rather with the continental region of South America
than with the other islands of the West Indies.

A GRAIN OF WHEAT

A GRAIN OF WHEAT 1

By R. CHODAT

PROFESSOR OP BOTANY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

PEOPLES truly rich are those who cultivate cereals on a large scale.
Scores of investigators in all civilized countries devote themselves
unceasingly to a problem of great social significance, viz., the increase of
the national wealth through progress in agriculture. The least dis-
covery in this field, whatever the political journals may say, is more im-
portant for a country than a change of the party in power. For it is
the history of discoveries and inventions — in the domain of nature, as
well as in the intellectual field — that constitutes the real history of
civilizations.

Thus the modern improvements in the industry of milling in con-
nection with better transportation facilities have helped to provide
better bread for all classes and have rendered famine impossible in the
Europe of to-day.

Is it then any wonder that since the most remote antiquity germi-
nating wheat has been the symbol of mysterious and hidden life, that in
their religious ceremonies the ancients attached so much importance to
cereals offered on the altar, that our modern artists, putting aside the
petty themes of political events, have glorified the beauty and nobility
of harvests, the poetry and mystery of sowing, in justly renowned
paintings? Eoty's admirable sower on the French coins, who symbol-
izes the value of this idea, shows us the highest art seeking its inspira-
tion at the very source of civilization — the culture of wheat.

I do not wish to overtax your attention or indulge overmuch in
scientific pedantry by enumerating to you, together with their botanical
characteristics, the different kinds of wheat which have been and are still
cultivated. I shall merely give you as much as is essential for my pur-
pose. The most competent botanists in this field agree in recognizing
at least three species of wheat:

1. Einkorn (Triticum monococcum).

2. Polish wheat (Triticum polonicum).

3. Wheat (Triticum sativum).

These distinctions are based not only on morphological characters,
but also on a character which is accepted on good grounds as usually

1 Presented before the General Meeting of the Soci^te" des Arts, Geneva,
Switzerland. Translated from the French by Maude Kellerman.

VOL. LXXXII.— 3.

34 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

separating species from varieties, that is, their sterility when crossed
among themselves, or their failure to produce fertile offspring. At-
tempts to cross these types have never given results.

Ordinary wheat may be divided into numerous varieties or sub-
species, reciprocally fertile, which are grouped about the following sub-
species :

Emmer (T. dicoccum).

Spelt (T. spelta).

Wheat proper (T. tenax).

The first two subspecies differ from the third in that the ear has a
fragile rachis and the grains remain covered by glumes which must be
removed by a somewhat complicated process, whereas in the third spe-
cies the grains on ripening fall from the ear the rachis of which is not
articulated. I shall give here only what is most essential for the under-
standing of what is to follow. Now, it is evident that emmer and spelt
are inferior to true wheat because of the fragility of the rachis of the ear
and because of their enclosed grains. Whenever it is possible wheat is
grown instead of emmer or spelt.

Not to prolong the discussion of these classifications, let us say at
once that wheat proper is represented in cultivation in various parts
of the world by a considerable number of varieties, but it is difficult
even for the specialist to distinguish them. One of these varieties,
having a non-articulated rachis (Triticum durum), the hard wheat of
the Mediterranean countries, is so closely related to emmer that the
systematic affinity of the wheats with an articulated rachis and those
with a non-articulated rachis can not be questioned. 2 Each year, in
agricultural experiment stations organized according to the principles
of Vilmorin, Eimpau or Svalof, new races are brought to light and are
tested out in suitable soils and climates. I do not wish to tire you by
a dry enumeration of all these forms; even had I the time for it I
should not be competent to perform this task.

Which of all these varieties of cereals first appeared in cultivation ?
To this question we may reply that it is certain to-day that emmer was
cultivated by the Egyptians from the time of the first dynasty, or
about 6,000 years ago. The glumes preserved in the tombs show that
the grain was already at that time freed from its envelopes by the use
of special machines ; it was not simply flailed or tramped out by cattle.
Einkorn and emmer have also been found among the debris of the
granaries of the lake-dwellers of Switzerland. Hard wheat, which of
all the kinds of wheat proper most nearly resembles emmer, has also
been cultivated in Egypt since very ancient times. If we regard the

2 Aaronsohn, Aaron, "Agricultural and Botanical Explorations in Pales-
tine," Bulletin No. 180, United States Department of Agriculture, 1910, Bureau
of Plant Industry, 64 pp., 9 pis., 12 text figures.

A GRAIN OF WHEAT 35

matter from an evolutionary standpoint, according to which related
races, varieties and species had a common origin, we can arrive logically
at but one conclusion, namely, that the most ancient wheats were those
with a fragile rachis. One arrives at the same conclusion on com-
paring the cultivated barley, having an articulated rachis, with the wild
barley which has a fragile rachis.

The well-preserved emmer glumes in this bottle which I am going
to have passed around were found at Abusir in the tomb of the king
Newoser-re (Dyn. v. 2400 B.C.). This material was very kindly sent
me by the Oriental Society of Berlin.

If, on the other hand, we look to Europe and Asia to see in which
countries these ancient cereals are still cultivated, we shall find them
in the northern Jura, in the countries of the Basques, the Servians,
the Swabians and the Bactrians of Persia. "We see that these cereals
have maintained themselves only in mountainous countries or among
the peoples most remote from the centers of civilization. The culti-
vation of emmer has long since disappeared from the fertile plains of
Egypt, where it was superseded by that of hard wheat.

Knowing, therefore, that the wheats cultivated in most ancient
times were those with a fragile rachis, we are confronted by a second
question : Where is the home of this type of wheat ? In what country
did our first parents, our prehistoric ancestors, find this plant, most
precious of all plants?

As for the einkorn, we know its home since the botanist Balansa
found it in Asia Minor. It is true that Balansa's wild plant differs
from the cultivated einkorn in certain characters and it has been named
Triticum monococcum, var. cegilipoides. But it has already been noted
that this species is too distinct from wheats to allow it to be considered
as their prototype.

For more than a century botanists and historians of civilization
have sought for the home of wheat. In vain have all the resources of
comparative morphology been employed, as well as those of history and
philology. The origin of wheat remains shrouded in mystery. The
ancients attributed its introduction into the world of men to some
beneficent goddess, thus putting the mystery of its first cultivation
back of all written history.

A botanist of great merit, Count Solms Laubach, weary of this dis-
cussion, finally advocated the idea that the wheat of the present day,
with its numerous varieties, might be the descendant of plants which
have to-day disappeared, either because their home was submerged by
the sea or because they were the result of a convergence of several
species deviating in the same direction or mixed in cultivation, which
would make the determination of their origin almost impossible.

In the universities the view has generally been held that the home

36 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of the wheat would always remain unknown and that our cultivated
species had been so greatly modified by cultivation that they scarcely
resembled the wild species which served our prehistoric parents in their
conscious or unconscious attempts at artificial selection. This trans-
formation, it was said, had required ages of time, and it was not over-
looked that it had also required extraordinary perspicacity on the part
of these half savages who succeeded in producing from an insignificant
grass the vigorous and precious cereal of to-day. It was admitted,
thus, that prehistoric man was endowed with a divining sense more
remarkable than that of the scientists of the present time, who, in the
domain of agriculture, have never achieved results equal to this. To
support this idea it might be maintained that the more primitive the
people the more acute is its sense of observation. Book science very
often sterilizes the excellent mentality natural to youth and also limits
the imagination.

However, I remember that when for the first time I found wild
cabbage growing on rocks at the seashore remote from all cultivated
fields, I was struck by the fact that even with my limitations of an
educated man and with all the mental deformation attendant on scien-
tific specialization which leads one away, they say, from common sense,
I should nevertheless, it seemed to me, not have hesitated, in case of
need, to try this plant as food, so inviting was its appearance. Last
year, in my botanical trip along the coast of Portugal, I was able to
see that the Portuguese peasant, who has kept so many vestiges of the
past in his dress, his domestic animals (long-horned cattle), his cart
and his customs, still uses the cabbage (Covo-gallego) as primitive
peoples would; the flower tops are simply boiled. There is a far cry
from this cabbage still so near its primitive state to the numerous
varieties which the agriculturists have introduced into our European
cultivation.

There is, then, reason to believe that primitive man found the
plants suitable for cultivation already showing the principal attributes
which make them useful ; he found the cereals, he did not create them.
In other words, cereals are the cause of civilization, not civilization the
cause of cereals.

Alphonse de Candolle, the illustrious father of the president of the
Societe des Arts, in his classic work on the origin of cultivated plants,
in 1883, says:

The Euphrates region, lying about in the middle of the zone of cultivation
[of wheat] which formerly extended from China to the Canary Islands, was very
probably the principal habitat of the species in very early prehistoric times.
Perhaps it extended towards Syria, as the climate is very similar, but to the
east and to the west of western Asia wheat has never existed except in a culti-
vated state, antedating, it is true, any known civilization.

A GRAIN OF WHEAT 37

This brings us to the main issue of the question which I wish to
study with you.

About 1902 two German botanists, well known in Geneva, Ascherson
and Schweinfurth, called the attention of a young agronomist, Mr.
Aaron Aaronsohn, who was destined in later years to become director
of the Haifa Agricultural Station in Palestine, to the scientific and his-
toric interest of determining the truth of a suggestion made by Kotschy.
This collector brought back from Syria a fragment of a wild plant
which Kornicke, an authority on cereals, recognized as a form of Triti-
cum dicoccum and which he made a variety under the name of T.
dicoccum dicoccoides.

From this mere indication Kornicke drew the same conclusions as
those A. de Candolle had reached by another road, i. e., that wheat
must be indigenous to Syria. In the course of a geognostic expedition
in Upper Galilee to the north of Lake Tiberias, Mr. Aaronsohn gave
his attention to this question, although he was very dubious about being
able to answer it.

As a matter of fact, modern botanists who have studied the flora
of Syria, such as Dr. Post, have not confirmed Kotschy's doubtful
indication. On the first expedition Mr. Aaronsohn found nothing, but
urged by his friends in Berlin he went to this same region again, and
this time his efforts were crowned with success. In June, 1906, being
at the north of Lake Tiberias at Rosh Pinah, he found a single speci-
men of the wild emmer (Triticum dicoccum dicoccoides) growing
in a rocky fissure. Complete success came, however, only on leaving
Easheya, where wild wheat abounded in uncultivated ground. Having
climbed Mt. Hermon, he descended on the opposite side, and towards
the village of Amy wild wheat was also very common and showed
here an extraordinary variety of forms; black glumes or only partly
black, black or colorless heads, smooth or hirsute glumes, glumes some-
times resembling those of Triticum monococcum (einkorn) or Trit-
icum durum (hard wheat), heads of the type of T. polonicum, etc.
Among these plants there was also the wild einkorn (T. monococcum
cegilipoides. This excessive variation, the abundance of these plants,
their distribution on the slopes of Mt. Hermon from an altitude of
1,500-2,000 m., all show that the plant is certainly indigenous.
It is a known fact that our cereals do not spread beyond cultiva-
tion in any country and that however extended their cultivation may
be they never become subspontaneous. In order to establish itself
in any locality a plant must hold its own against competitors which,
masters of the soil from time immemorial, have been selected to fit the
soil and climate. Moreover, emmer is not cultivated anywhere in
Palestine. This wild wheat is furthermore a different plant from any
known in cultivation, a polymorphous race, no doubt, but a distinct

38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

one, to which Kornicke had already given the varietal name dicoccoides.
No intermediate form between this wild plant and those cultivated in
Palestine has been found. Thus everything tends to show that wheat
is indigenous to Mt. Hermon. Somewhat later, Mr. Aaronsohn dis-
covered Secale montanum, the wild rye, in Antiliban. For philological
reasons it had formerly been thought that this was indigenous to
Europe. From now on we must bear in mind that this cereal also has
its center of distribution somewhere in Asia Minor.

That wheat was indigenous to Palestine was to be confirmed some-
what later by the same explorer. In 1908, while on a mission for the
Turkish government, Mr. Aaronsohn discovered wild barley, already
known at other stations, in the Moab country on the left bank of the
Dead Sea, above El Mazra-a; towards Wady Wahleh monoliths occur
in large numbers and round about are many chipped flint implements.
The Jewish savant could not keep his fancy from roaming. He went
back in spirit to that far-away epoch, more ancient than all written
history, when urged by hunger while crossing these steppes, primitive
man first tried these savory grains and discovered cereals.

A little later in this same region of the Dead Sea, while on a second
expedition, Mr. Aaronsohn found emmer in great abundance, towards
Tel Nimrim, in the valley of the Jordan, at Ain-Hummar, on the
plateau of Es-Salt.

"When one considers the fact that the grains of wild wheat are not
inferior either in weight or size to those of the best cultivated species
it would be impossible not to arrive at the conclusion that primitive
man did not create cereals, he found them.

One can imagine the nomads of the hills and mountains of Pales-
tine, giving these precious seeds to the inhabitants of Mesopotamia,
who were better situated than themselves for the testing of crops and
who succeeded with them in their rich alluvial plains. Glancing at the
Assyrian bas-relief, we are struck by the great importance given by this
people in their ceremonies to the mystery of the seed which contains
within itself the essence of life and, in consequence, the intense interest
which they manifested in all agriculture.

One of the most striking things in economic history is the rapidity
with which a new food or useful plant spreads even to little-civilized
countries. Schweinfurth, in his famous voyages to the heart of Africa,
found tobacco grown by the most primitive peoples. Hooker, exploring
the high valleys of the Himalayas, found the potato cultivated by the
Lepchas and the people of Nepaul, scarcely half a century after its
introduction into Europe as an important cultivated plant.

I have told in detail of the important discovery of Aaronsohn.
Let us see now what practical and scientific results can come from it.

A GRAIN OF WHEAT 39

In order to do so it is necessary to explain to you as briefly as possible
the present state of biological science and the modern way of consid-
ering the problems relating to species.

Modern botany, abandoning the ancient methods which depend
more on metaphysics and speculation than on experiments, has given
up the idea of discovering the origin of species by the prevalent method
of comparison and reasoning. The separation of forms, of varieties
and of species, as it is made by systematists, the herbarium specialists,
is based on judgment; it depends essentially on the degree of intuition
of the botanist who compares and draws conclusions. I do not mean
to say here that the methods of this science are conjectural, but I may
be permitted to say that it is only an outline of a science, that it is
provisional knowledge, a first attempt at classification. More precise
methods are necessary in order to resolve serious biological questions.
The best representatives of contemporary biological science are much
less hurried than their predecessors; they have acquired the conviction
that there is no short cut to truth. The scientific highway is paved
with difficulties. In this explanation, then, I shall not touch upon
the evolutionary speculations of Darwin or others, but shall give my
time exclusively to exact data.

Contemporary biology accepts the constancy of types as a well-
established fact. It has discovered that this constancy is experi-
mentally demonstrable if the following facts, not known to Darwin
and his followers, be taken into account.

Every species in its natural state, and often even in cultivation,
includes a large number of forms which were formerly considered
variations, but which, analyzed by modern methods, appear to be con-
stant types, all of which taken together form the Linnean species. In
order to discover these small constant species which ordinarily live
mixed together, it is necessary to segregate them. Vilmorin had
already recognized that unequivocal results could not be obtained in
the study of variation if one starts with an isolated plant or even with
a single seed. A single grain of wheat may be the ancestor of innu-
merable generations. If these isolated grains, carefully catalogued, be
sown separately, it is seen that they give birth to constant races or
lines which are called pure, because they are without mixture. To
evaluate these lines and differentiate them from other lines, we must
not consider the isolated individual, but rather note the character of
the descendants as a whole by means of experimental pure cultures.
The individuals of the same race, of the same line, may differ very
much according to their age, nutrition, position during the embryonic
or ontogenic development, but their descendants taken as a whole are
identical. In a pure race, the dwarfs as well as the giants give birth

40 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

to a mediocre line having the same average size (and other values
which I can not cite here). In other words, the sum of the descendants
is identical with the sum of the ascendants.

Each race differs from the others in form, stature, hardiness and
chemical composition. The name population has been given to the
mixtures of races, such as nature gives us in a meadow or such as we
have in cultivation when segregation has not been carried far enough,
that is to say, when pure lines which can be distinguished have not
been separated grain by grain. This practise of selection, according
to Vilmorin, has already been tested not only in the vast field of theo-
retical botany, but also in that of applied botany. At Svalof, Sweden,
cereals are selected according to this principle by evaluating the differ-
ences by numerical methods. All agricultural Europe follows with
special attention the classic experiments of Nilson and his collaborators.
Except for the very rare phenomenon of spontaneous variation
(mutation) we can by beginning with these pure lines operate in a
practical way, with almost mathematical certainty, the probable error
being minimal. In cereals, and especially in wheat, the characters to
be studied which will be constant for a given race are : stooling, regu-
larity of growth (that is, greater or less individual variation), average
weight of the grains, resistance of the straw to lodging, length of the
straw, form and length of the heads, composition of the grain (starch,
sugar, nitrogen, fat, etc.), disease-resistance. In the short time at my
disposal I can not explain to you the ingenious methods used to deter-
mine with precision these different characters. I wish to add only
one thing. Each of these characters or their combination in pairs or
groups determines the probability of success and good harvest in a
given locality, and, in consequence, the more constant forms, the more
pure lines there are, the more prepared will scientific agriculture be
to furnish to cultivators races which will suit their soils. Now if you
consider that these problems are among those that chiefly interest
mankind, which demands each day its daily bread, you will understand
that the slightest discovery which makes for the betterment of cereals
means a noticeable increase in the wealth of a nation. If France is
one of the richest countries of the world it is because her wheat
production is superior, in respect to her territory, to that of all her
competitors.

Now, modern agriculture, given new life by botany, has obtained
in France, Germany and other civilized countries, a considerable num-
ber of these varieties, starting from cereals introduced into our country
in the course of the long history of civilization; that is, from times
more ancient than any documents written on parchment or carved in
stone.

A GRAIN OF WHEAT 41

But let us remember the important results of Aaronsohn's discov-
eries : Primitive man, even he who chipped the flints abounding about
the menhirs of the Moab country, as he sought his food in the steppes,
found fields of cereals waving in the breeze just as the graceful heads
of Stipa sway in the breeze of our fields of our canton of Valais. The
wild wheat, Triticum dicoccoides, with its large grains, must have
immediately caught the attention of a primitive people, interested in
nature as are all peoples whose eyes have not been closed and whose
sense of observation has not been dulled by too much book learning.

Is it not a singular coincidence that this young Jew, Mr. Aaron-
sohn, should rediscover in Judea the origin of our cereals, of our
civilization ? There is material in that for a philosopher or a historian
to write a moving page. I have the pleasure of counting Mr. Aaron-
sohn among my botanical friends, and I may say to you that rarely
has an important discovery been made by a more genial and charming
man. Those who say that man is master of his fate may well cite him
as an example. But let us rather listen to him :

Jewish Agricultural Experiment Station
Haifa, Palestine

26 Jan., 1911
Monsieur Chodat,

Professeur a la Faculty des Sciences, Geneve.

Dear Sir: I have just received your kind letter of the 3d inst., which recalled
to me our agreeable and interesting conversations during the Congress at Brussels.
I am very much flattered to learn of the subject that you have chosen for the
annual meeting of the Societe" des Arts.

I shall be glad to send you the ' ' corps du d£lit ' ' which you wish ; I shall
also take the liberty of sending some photographs taken last June which will
give you an idea of the appearance of the fields where my Triticum flourishes.
You will doubtless be glad to learn that we have this year sown more than an
acre of Triticum dicoccoides. "We intend to study the value of this plant for
forage, etc. I had the good fortune to discover in Upper Galilee this year a
spontaneous hybrid of Triticum and Mgilops, and there also exists already a
wheat with a non-articulate rachis, arising from a cross of my Triticum and a
cultivated wheat. Thus you see that we are rapidly advancing towards the
realization of our dream. In the different experimental fields where my
Triticum has been grown it has resisted rust very well, and this for three or
four successive years while many check varieties succumbed to this disease.
In these times of ' ' unit characters ' ' it should not be difficult to fix this special
property of disease-resistance, and you will at once realize the practical signifi-
cance and the economic value of this character.

As for the problem of the origin of civilization or the origin of wheat
culture, I have resolved upon a new method of attack. I had first taken up the
study of adventitious plants accompanying our cereals. Thus the discovery of
Lolium temulentum, quite spontaneous in a given region, far from all cultiva
tion, would be a sufficient reason, in my opinion, for inaugurating a search in
this neighborhood for the cradle of our cereals. Now, I am on another trail.

42 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

I wish to study the cryptogamic diseases of my wild wheat in order to try to
discover if among them there are any peculiar to wheat in other regions and
which here would attack other plants. We could then say this or that cryptogam
was carried by cereals and would be found in the same situation in relation to
wheat, as certain phanerogamic satellites such as Lolium temulentum, Githago
segetum, etc., etc.

I am sending with this letter a small photograph showing our workmen
sowing Triticum dicoccoides with a drill. I shall not conceal from you that I am
very proud that when for the first time since prehistoric times man has again
tried sowing the prototype of wheat, this work has fallen to Jews (escaped from
the ignoble massacres of Russia), Jewish teams working on Jewish ground, the
historic cradle of the race.

Yours sincerely,

A. Aaeonsohn

You perceive - the wide field which this discovery has opened up.
The utilization for new needs of new races of wheat to be segregated
from this wild material, that is, from the polymorphic plant popula-
tions of the hills of Judea, the extension of the cultivation of cereals
to arid regions or mountainous zones, where it has hitherto not been
possible.

But there is more than that. We possess now, and Mr. Aaronsohn
alludes to it in his letter, a second method of improving wheat by the
method of selection, growing pure races from single seeds.

We can, by crossing, create new races and in this domain modern
methods have a startling precision. They say that the man who sud-
denly had a new world revealed to him by the microscope lost his
reason. To-day, placed in the presence of the facts brought to light
by modern biological analysis, we can see in our minds an infinite line
of discoveries which were not even suspected by the generations pre-
ceding us.

Here, in a few words, are the results already obtained:

They lead us to suppose the existence of essential representative
particles within the germ cells of plants. These particles may be com-
pared to the atoms which chemists suppose to exist in the inanimate
world. These are the biological elements, the " organic corpuscles "
as Buffon would have called them. We call them " gens." The body
of the plant with its diverse characters is then only the exterior mani-
festation of these " determinants." We suppose, then, that each char-
acter manifested is determined by a " gen," a " determinant." To
constitute an organism with its characters there must be an association
of gens.

For the sake of similarity in studies on heredity plants belonging to
the same systematic grouping, the same genus or the same species, are
usually compared. Only the characters in which these two plants
differ are taken into account. For example, a race X will differ from

A GRAIN OF WHEAT 43

a race Y by three characters, i. e., by the gens ABC (for example,
A ■= long head; B = a,wne& glumes; (7 = rust resistance), to which
the race Y opposes ab c. These are antagonistic characters (a = short
head; b = awnless glumes; c = capacity for rust infection). A is the
antagonist of a, B of b, etc. But A is not antagonistic to b or c, nor
B to a and c.

As long as the plant is self-fertilized, the mosaic of its characters is
maintained. But if it is fertilized by a distinct race several cases can
arise in the course of successive generations. The product called a
hybrid (F x = films 1) is evidently the sum of the two parents
(X -f- Y) ; if forms not closely related to each other are crossed, the
hybrid generally takes a form intermediate between the two parents.
We shall not speak of these hybrids here, for they are generally sterile
and practically useless for cereal culture. If, on the other hand,
closely related forms are fused in the hybrid (F x ) the characters of the
father or the mother exclude those of the other parent; one of the
parents seems to have been absorbed by the other. Then we say that
the character of the father or of the mother dominates or vice versa.
Let us take two parents X and Y , differing in the antagonistic char-
acters A B C for X and a b c for Y. The hybrid (¥ 1 = X + Y) will
have the appearance A, B, C, if the total gens of X dominate those of
Y , or the appearance a, b, c in the contrary case. In other words, one
of the parents may seem to be absorbed by the other. But it often
happens that if A dominates a, b dominates B, c dominates C.

But if this hybrid (F x ) is allowed to fertilize itself, its direct
descendants, i. e., the second generation (F 2 ), show that the character
or characters which had disappeared reappear in a proportion which
can be predicted with almost mathematical certainty. I can not take
the time to explain to you the details of this phenomenon. But the
most astonishing thing is that among the descendants of the second
generation (F 2 ) (that is, the descendants of the hybrid by self-fertiliza-
tion) there are (1) those resembling the father exclusively (X), or
the mother (Y) ; (2) new forms, i. e., those in which a part of the
paternal and maternal characters are combined in a new mosaic.

To choose a very simple example, if the two parents differed by
their two pairs of characters A B and a b, the hybrid of the first gen-
eration (F x ) would bear the apparent characters A B or a b, that is,
it would resemble the father or the mother exclusively, according to
the predominance; that of the generation (F 2 ) would comprise indi-
viduals of different sorts : AB, Ab, Ba, ab. The two combinations Ab
and Ba are new.

If, in a second case, the antagonistic gens are ABC for (X) and
ab c for (F), the first generation might be A B C, but in the second

44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

we should have a larger number of categories of types; now, of these
types there would be eight categories which would be constant. These
would be ABC, A B c, A~b C, aB C, Ah c, aB c, ab C, ale; two of
these types repeat the primitive parents, the others are new. If these
latter are not allowed to fertilize each other or to be ferilized by other
forms, but are self-fertilized, they will be constant in their descendance,
which will behave like a new stable species.

From this we see that the mosaics of gens, which constitute the
hereditary capital of species and varieties, are dissociable and that the
gens, in the phenomena preceding or accompanying fecundation,
execute a sort of chasse-croise, the final result of which is determined
by the laws of probability.

The number of types and new forms increases rapidly with the
number of antagonistic characters. For 2 antagonistic gens there will
be 4 types; for 3 gens, 8 types; for 4 gens, 16 types; for 5 gens, 32
types; for 6 gens, 64 types; for 7 gens, 128 types — and these types are
constant from the second generation (in which they appeared) on.

Here we have infinite perspectives which appear on our new scien-
tific horizon.

But to obtain these remarkable results with the desired mathe-
matical certainty we must start with biological unity, with a pure line,
with a single grain of wheat, the parent of a whole line similar to it.
From this we see the importance of Aaronsohn's discovery; it will
allow us to do methodically in a few years all that 6,000 years of culti-
vation and unconscious selection have gained for us and perhaps also
to combine and associate characters which escaped the intuitive observa-
tions of primitive peoples.

For example, we can associate the hardiness of the wild wheat with
the vigor of growth of a cultivated wheat, the rust resistance of a wild
variety with the seed quality of a cultivated variety, etc. 3

But wheat is not for agriculture, wheat is to make bread. This
making of bread is almost as old as the cultivation of wheat, and yet
the conditions of fermentation necessary to raise the dough under the
influence of leaven are still insufficiently known. We know that in
this sour dough, the natural leaven, there are lactic bacteria which
secrete an acid and give off a gas as well as alcohol. By means of this
fermentation the dough, permeated by the gas which raises it, gives a
lighter, more digestible bread. We are far from knowing all of the
details of the process of bread fermentation. However that may be,
for ages beer yeast has been introduced into the leaven, or, as in the
time of the Eomans, the "must of fermenting wine." These yeasts

3 Bateson, ' < Mendelism, " Cambridge, 1909. See "Mendelism," Punnet, E.
C, ed. 7, Cambridge, 1909, p. 58.

A GRAIN OF WHEAT 45

are minute fungi invisible to the naked eye which attack the sugar of
the bread and transform it into carbonic-acid gas and alcohol. The
course of this fermentation is controlled by the presence of lactic bac-
teria which prevent the growth of putrefactive organisms. But here
again there are lactic bacteria and lactic bacteria, yeasts and yeasts.
These yeasts are again populations, mixtures of different races from
which the microbiologist can select pure lines. Here Vilmorin's
method must be used, i. e., filiation from a single isolated germ.
Thanks to this process, Hansen and others have selected a large number
of strains of yeasts, each with its particular character. For science
of to-day beer yeast no longer exists, but in its place there are many
distinct and constant species just as there are many distinct and con-
stant species of lactic bacteria. The problem of the future will be,
then, to regulate bread fermentation by means of these selected
microorganisms.

But certain flours do not rise well. Suitable ferments must be
found for them. Others, like maize flour, do not rise at all. It is
therefore impossible to make bread from maize alone. In 1900, at
the time of the World's Exposition at Paris, I was asked this question :
" How can we find a ferment to raise dough made from maize ? " No
yeast tried up to that time had been able to accomplish this. I then
thought of using ferment from India which I had procured through
Colonel Prain, director of the Kew Botanic Garden. In applying these
selection methods the late Mr. A. Netchich and I obtained from these
ferments, which are employed in Sikkim and the Khasia Mountains for
the alcoholic fermentation of rice and Eleusine, a leaven, which alone
or associated with other yeast causes maize dough to rise and thus
allows bread to be made from it. We dedicated this species to Dr.
Prain {Amylomyces Prainii = Mucor Prainii). I take this oppor-
tunity of announcing this discovery and putting it in reach of all those
who wish to profit by it.

46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

THE INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS

By LELAND GRIGGS, Ph.D.

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

THE variability of animal bodies is a very evident fact. The indi-
viduals of every species show variety in color, form and size.
Three types of variability have been discovered; fluctuating variation
obeying the laws of chance, mutation appearing as sudden loss or gain
of a color or other feature, and acquired characters gained by an indi-
vidual in relation to its surroundings. Among these three types are
sought the great factors of evolution. It is a singular fact that no
great biologist has attempted to use all three of these factors as the
basis of his system, but each author has sought to build his hypothesis
upon some one all-important factor.

Fluctuating variation is undoubtedly the greatest of these factors
in the part it has played in the history of evolution. It was made by
Darwin the corner-stone of his theory when he claimed that natural
and artificial selection could produce almost unlimited effects by the
elimination of all but the most favorable among thousands of variants
in a species. In the debates over the general theory of evolution there
has been no argument more often used than the plausibility of Darwin's
theory of the survival of the fittest. The public, in accepting the truth
of the theory of descent, has come to look upon this factor of fluctuating
variation as a necessary part of evolution. In fact, to many profes-
sional biologists Darwinism has become synonymous with the survival
of the fittest variations.

The theory of mutation is the most serious opponent of the Dar-
winian theory of selection of variations. Based at first on the evidence
gathered by De Vries, it has grown in popularity with the growth of
the knowledge of the inheritance of unit characters, and with the dis-
covery of pure line inheritance. In the minds of many biologists it has
the advantage of showing a method of rapid evolution more or less
independent of the guidance of natural selection. The more ardent
supporters of the theory have claimed for it the position formerly held
by the theory of fluctuating variations, trying to show that all evolu-
tion must be in the nature of loss or gain of unit characters.

That the familiar acquired characters of animals should be inherited
was once taken for granted, and, in fact, is still a general belief in the
world at large. This theory was held by Lamarck to be a great law of
evolution. It was defended by Spencer, and assumed occasionally even

INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS 47

by Darwin. In the light of careful experiment, however, it has been
largely discredited. The verdict of "not proven" has been pro-
nounced against it, and many biologists would go even further and
claim with T. H. Morgan that the theory was " unnecessary." Yet,
not content with such a verdict, a small number of workers have per-
sisted in their attempts to establish the theory of acquired characters
as one of the essential factors of evolution.

Eecently the discussions of evolution have begun to take a new turn.
The old attempt to find one single all-important factor is being aban-
doned for a broader point of view that allows the possibility of many
factors, some of them perhaps still unknown. V. L. Kellogg has
pointed out the smallness of the number of observed mutations on which
to base a comprehensive theory. Castle, a strong believer in mutation
and unit characters, has affirmed his belief in the efficacy of selection in
the production of new forms. Nowhere in the literature of the last
year or two can be found any very dogmatic claim for a single all-
important factor which will serve as the basis for all kinds of evolution.

In this new atmosphere Lamarck's theory again receives serious
attention, but not in its old form. To-day no one ventures to cite such
examples as Spencer's famous illustration of the puppy that inherited
from its mother the trick of begging for food. Such experiments as
breeding away the wings of flies in small tubes, or breeding away the
eyes of flies in dark chambers, attract but little attention. No great
biologist is giving much time to experiments testing the inheritance of
mutilations. On the other hand, there are many experiments to test
the inherited effect of starvation, to test the effect of the application of
chemicals directly to the germ plasm, and to test the effect of the appli-
cation of extremes of temperature to animals with ripe germ cells.
Several investigators have shrewdly seen the value of working with
plastic types of animals like the amphibians, which present striking
examples of dimorphism such as are found in axolotyl, Diemyctylus
and various frog tadpoles. In this field a prominent worker is Kam-
merer, a representative of a school of experimental evolution in Vienna.

A short summary will be given of his researches on toads, tree frogs
and salamanders. A few selected experiments will show very well the
nature of the most recent work on the inheritance of acquired characters.

Kammerer in his work on the toad, Alytes, tried to prolong the
tadpole stage until sexual maturity. He exposed the young tadpoles
to a number of conditions such as darkness, cold, perfectly still water,
each of which acting by itself tended to prolong the larval period. By
exposing tadpoles to all of these conditions acting at the same time, he
succeeded in producing one sexually mature female with the usual
form of a tadpole but with mouth, legs and sexual organs of an adult
toad. This one example was mated to a normal male. The progeny

48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

at the time the report was made, while not yet sexually mature, had been
living in normal surroundings for six months longer than the usual
larval period. Evidently the prolongation of the larval period had an
inherited effect, and the new character was apparently a dominant
factor. Strangely enough no inherited effect was seen in the offspring
of those tadpoles which left the water before sexual maturity. Evi-
dently the stimulus, whatever it may be, must act on the mature germ
cells to produce an effect.

Other experiments were tried on this same toad with the object
of changing its peculiar instinct of caring for its young. The male,
under normal conditions, plants the fertilized eggs on his back and
carries them there until the embryos have reached a stage just prior to
the appearance of the fore-limb buds. The tadpoles are then liberated
in the water. This peculiar instinct was found to be easily modified
by change of surroundings.

The combined action of heat, dryness and darkness produced an
egg called by Kammerer " a giant egg.'" The embryo from such an
egg at the time of liberation was much larger than the normal type,
fully twice as large, with well-developed hind limbs. Upon leaving the
water the larva produced a small adult, a change in size due apparently
to lack of water in the tissues. The new form of adult laid fewer eggs,
which were larger and richer in yolk. Such eggs under normal condi-
tions produced tadpoles which, in size and form at the time of hatching,
were about half way between the old type and the derived type. The
new character, then, was partly inherited. The stimulus in this case
clearly did not act directly on the mature germ cells, but, if the dwarf
form of the adult was due to lack of water in the tissues, there may
have been an indirect action on the germ cells. The effect of keeping
the eggs enclosed in their envelopes on moist earth for a considerable
period of time produced a type of larva called by Kammerer " a land
larva." This new type when placed in the water in its usual environ-
ment appeared superficially like a water larva of the same age, but a
closer examination showed that the new conditions of development on
land had accelerated the growth of the lungs. The land larva had
lungs with well-developed air cells, while the water larva had simple
sac-like lungs. The inheritance of the newly acquired character was
evident, in that the embryos of the second generation could be kept on
land for a much longer period before they began to show any ill effects
from their unusual environment. Thus there was, according to the
author, a progressive adaptation to land life through the inherited
effects of environment.

In the presence of a relatively high temperature, the mature toads
were constantly in and about the water, and in the breeding season
mated in the water. The egg envelopes at once swelled up, and it was

INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS 49

impossible for the male to plant these " water eggs," as the author calls
them, on its back. Therefore the early stages developed in the water
as is the case with other amphibians. The habit of mating in the
water became fixed, and persisted after the removal of the artificial
conditions of temperature. The eggs, meantime, at each successive
laying became smaller and smaller through the loss of yolk. The larvae
hatched at a much younger stage than the larvae from normal eggs.
The adults reared from the water eggs mated in the water at the first
breeding season, even under normal conditions of temperature. Suc-
ceeding generations showed intensification of the new characters in the
decrease of yolk, and also in the development of more gills, which
changed in number from one pair to three pairs. There was, therefore,
as in the preceding case, an apparently progressive adaptation to
environment through the inheritance of acquired characters.

The effect of this change on the germ plasm was tested by a cross
between the old type and the derived type. The new character, as
judged by the instinct for mating in the water, behaved like a dominant
Mendelian factor. Dominance, however, was of an unusual kind. The
male, whether of the old or the new form, impressed its character on
all the offspring of the first generation, but the second filial generation
showed the usual kind of segregation of characters in the ratio of three
individuals of the dominant form to one of the recessive. Clearly the
unexpected feature in the behavior of the factors in this crossing lies in
the peculiarity of the sex-limited potency, not in the isegregation of fac-
tors. The most interesting fact in the experiment is the attempt to
prove a change in the germ plasm by the modern method of applying
the test of cross breeding.

Another series of experiments was tried on the tree frog, Hyla.
This frog lays its eggs in the water in bunches of 800-1,000, enveloped
by the usual coats of gelatine. A number of frogs were kept away
from the water, but were allowed to crawl about on a water plant which
held small amounts of moisture in the bases of its leaves. During the
mating season the frogs deposited their eggs in the moisture on the
leaves, according to a habit which is common among some of the tropical
representatives of the genus. The young remained in their envelopes
until the gills had become enclosed, whereas the young under normal
conditions begin a free swimming life before the gills appear. A new
type of adult was produced marked by its small size. These dwarfs
when reaching maturity laid their eggs in water after the usual manner.
The new habit was not inherited. The offspring of the dwarf frogs,
however, had external gills at the time of hatching, a stage half way
between the old and the derived type, and, moreover, they grew into
adults of a size half way between the two types. This experiment,
therefore, showed results very similar to those shown by the experiment
on Alytes.

VOL. LXXXII. — 4.

5o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

A third series of experiments was tried on two European sala-
manders, Salamandra ater and Salamandra maculosa. The former is a
black mountain salamander which has the peculiar habit of bringing
forth its young alive, always a brood of two with lungs already func-
tional. The embryos pass through their early development in the body
of the mother, nourished by the yolk of eggs that fail to develop.
Salamandra maculosa is a yellow-spotted salamander of the lowlands
which lays its eggs in running brooks. When kept away from the
water the female of the spotted salamander at first dropped her eggs
on the ground directly after fertilization. Such eggs failed to develop.
In the course of two years, however, this salamander gradually ac-
quired the habit of holding the eggs in the body for several weeks.
The eggs became fewer in number and larger in size until the young
were brought forth alive in a condition like that of the black sala-
mander. Females of the latter were treated in an exactly opposite
way. They were kept in or near the water until they acquired the
habits of the spotted salamander. Inheritance was imperfect in each
case. The new type of spotted salamander, under the usual normal
conditions, deposited in the water a brood of five fairly well developed
young. The new type of black salamander, under normal conditions,
deposited in the water a brood of three young in a stage of develop-
ment more advanced than that of the spotted salamander. When the
artificial conditions of the experiments were continued through two
generations the effect was greater. The author claims that his experi-
ments show the inheritance of acquired characters influencing structure
and instinct.

A second experiment was tried on Salamandra maculosa to test the
inheritance of acquired color due to change of background. A brood of
young salamanders was divided into two lots, one of which was kept for
six years on a background of yellow, the other on a background of
black. The former showed a decided increase in yellow markings, the
latter an increase in black markings. The young of the yellow type
were allowed to begin their development on a background of neutral
tint, but before reaching maturity the brood was divided as before into
two parts and placed, one part on a yellow background, the other on a
black background. The set on yellow, after two years, showed a great
increase of the yellow markings as compared with their parents, in
fact the yellow pigment nearly covered the body. The set on the black
background showed more black than their parents, but less black than
the previous set similarly treated but of normal parents. These experi-
ments, according to the author, show the progressive effect of environ-
ment in the inheritance of acquired colors.

The evidence presented by these experiments, which have been
briefly described in the preceding paragraphs, should be considered in

INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS 51

the light of the most recently discovered principles of heredity. A very
important conception in this connection is the continuity of the germ
plasm, another is the variability of the potency of unit characters.

Admitting, then, that certain acquired characters have actually
appeared in later generations, we should consider, first, whether or not
the germ plasm has been changed by the stimulus which has produced
the changes in the body. It has been shown that starvation in the larval
stages of insects will produce dwarfs in later generations, but here it is
assumed that the unfavorable conditions surrounding the germ plasm
persist and that there is no real change in the composition of the germ
plasm. Can Kammerer's results be explained in the same way? Of
course a Lamarckian can not be asked to produce a form which will
not revert. The only test that can be readily applied is that of Men-
delian inheritance. It has been shown by the author that in one case
at least the new factor behaved like a Mendelian factor. Tower also
found this true in crossing a pale potato beetle, which he derived ex-
perimentally, with a beetle of the normal color. Such a test to discover
a change in the composition of the germ plasm is certainly very
significant.

Granted, then, that the germ plasm has been changed, we should
next consider whether it has been changed directly or indirectly. The
experiment of keeping tadpoles in water for an abnormally long time
showed that in order to affect the next generation the stimulus must
continue to act until the sex cells are mature. Tower also came to the
same conclusion in his experiments on the potato beetle where heat was
the stimulus. The changes, then, are probably due to the direct action
of chemical and physical stimuli on the germ plasm contained in the
ripe germ cells, exactly as MacDougal produces mutations, as he claims,
by injecting chemicals into the ovary of a plant. But why should the
stimuli not effect the germ plasm of the embryo as well, since, accord-
ing to the theory of continuity, the same plasm is always present even
in the youngest stages? It may possibly be claimed that, if any such
effect is produced in the embryo, the change is repaired before repro-
duction takes place.

Granted, then, that the germ plasm in these cases is more or less
directly affected by the environment, we should consider whether the
change is more than a change of potency of a factor already present.
According to Castle such potency may be increased by selection. Per-
haps the new environment may increase in some way the potency of a
factor which is present in a weak condition. For example, in the case
of the spotted salamander, the potency of the factor represented by the
yellow pigment may possibly be changed by the action of the yellow
light, which actually increases the amount of the pigment in the body
of the adult until perhaps the nature of the fluids of the body cavity

52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

are affected and hence the germ cells themselves. Certainly such inter-
pretations, while the merest speculations, are hard to deny from the
known facts.

In such theoretical discussions of the nature of germ plasm and the
potency of factors biologists are very apt to lose sight of the true his-
torical purpose of the hypothesis of the inheritance of acquired char-
acters. The real question to be answered first is whether or not ac-
quired characters actually appear in following generations to such an
extent as to make real contributions to the course of evolution. Even
if the so-called inheritance is really a change in potency due to the
direct action of stimuli on the germ plasm, nevertheless, the Lamarckian
factor may be a real factor. "We have not explained away any process by
showing the method of its operation. The real question to be decided
should be stated broadly. Do new habits and new environment produce
changes in form which are of importance in organic evolution ? "While
a final answer can not at present be given to the question, it may safely
be stated that a renewal of interest in Lamarck's factor is justified by
the results of recent research.

A MIND DISEASED 53

CANST THOU NOT MINISTER TO A MIND DISEASED?

By Dr. SMITH BAKER

UTICA, N. T.

WITH respect to this most pathetic question of the sick-room, the
good Doctor in " Macbeth " seems to have exhausted the med-
ical possibilities of his time, in his answer, " Therein the patient must
minister to himself." Moreover, had he tried, though never so de-
votedly, to remove from Lady Macbeth's mind the "thick-coming fan-
cies that kept her from her rest," he would have almost ignominiously
failed, not only to " cure her of that," but equally to

Pluck from memory a rooted sorrow,
Eaze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff 'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart;

and all this, in spite of the dangerous gravity of the case, and his royal
employer's urgent need.

Indeed, not only then but always, even until now, has the skill requi-
site "to purge to sound and pristine health" the mind thus seriously
troubled been so generally wanting, that it does not now seem amiss to
point out once more some of the difficulties which lie in the way, and
likewise to indicate wherein, to some extent at least, surer and more
permanent means of success than those heretofore used may be looked
for, if not just now, then in the near future.

In this worthy undertaking, even Macbeth himself, by his remark-
able diagnosis, may help us to make a more promising beginning than
his contemporary physician could possibly make, at that time, and with-
out necessarily becoming involved in so many of the mistakes which
otherwise might seriously obstruct vision and paralyze action as well.
To the king, stunned, remorseful, apprehensive as he was, the case pre-
sented, notwithstanding, certain very definite characteristics, which, in
his rather picturesque classification, may be noted as "thick-coming
fancies," " rooted sorrow," " written troubles," and the " stuff'd bosom "
that "weighs upon the heart." Looked at in the light of modern
knowledge, this list of insistent ideation, deep grief, visual hallucina-
tions, morbid apprehensions and fears, guilty conscience and depressed
emotions, are seen to make up still a very large percentage indeed of the
sufferings of those who are looked upon as having either potentially or

54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

actually a " mind diseased/' and who have imperative need to be cured,
if possible.

Yet, frequent as this kind of disease is, great as is the suffering, so
often prolonged indefinitely, and so often full of hindrance and atrophy
and danger, it yet remains a matter of very common observation, that
anything like a full understanding and appreciation of its real signifi-
cance, or a desirable possession of efficient skill in its management and
relief, is almost as unusual now as it was when Lady Macbeth's
"amazed" physician so fumbled in his answer to Macbeth's demand,
"Well, well, well. . . . This disease is beyond my practise. . . . More
needs she the divine than the physician," but consoled himself so com-
placently by adding, with by no means unfamiliar unction, " God, God
forgive us all ! " and thus justified Macbeth's, " Throw physic to the
dogs ; I'll none of it," with an unsuspected completeness !

Nevertheless, no matter how incompetent Macbeth's physician felt
himself seriously to be, one now feels, especially in the presence of
actual cases, that the acknowledged darkness respecting the more com-
mon conceptions of a "mind diseased," or more definitely, "mental
pain," and all its invaliding consequences should not continue indefi-
nitely to prevail ; and also, with equal warmth, that with more accurate
knowledge there ought to come a better and still better practical skill
in dealing with it, both by way of cure and prevention. Much promise
of this there certainly now is, especially in the rapidly accumulating
reports of those who have recently devoted themselves to careful investi-
gations of the varied substrata of consciousness, through certain in-
genious yet well-considered processes known as "psycho-analysis";
through careful study of the effects of fright, whether experienced dur-
ing waking hours or in natural dreams, and as recited by those who re-
member and are competent to give them form ; through studies of auto-
hypnosis, and various induced "hypnoidal" conditions and the records
of what is thus revealed ; to which may be added a like study of the con-
tents of certain waking trance-like or semi-hypnotic dreamy states ; the
coming and going of " tunes in the head," and all the other distressing
trains of "imperative" ideas and impulses ("obsessions") ; as well as,
possibly, an entirely new series of results to be obtained through photo-
graphic records of changes in facial expression — i. c, through accurate
observation and interpretation of the "physiognomical (phiz) reflex"
through all these, together with much other probable investigation along
lines yet to be uncovered — all of which must before very long certainly
add almost beyond calculation to our present knowledge of a "mind
diseased " in itself, as well as of our means for its successful alleviation.

In connection with this, there undoubtedly appears something like an
imperative duty on the part of all to help on these investigations and thus
serviceably pave the way for practical application of what may thus be

A MIND DISEASED 55

gleaned as rapidly and as fully as possible ; while to any one who has per-
sonally reached the point where he can carefully differentiate the essen-
tial features of the more frequent cases of a mind diseased, as these ap-
pear in different communities or families, and especially to one who has
come more or less to fully appreciate some or all of its discouraging
perplexities, depressions, fears and apprehensions; or its disappoint-
ments, emotional perversions and interferences; or the accompanying
loss of confidence and hope, inordinate sense of dependence, seemingly
irrevocable detachment from human and divine fellowship; and per-
haps something of the shame and degradation, the general unfitness for
planning work, and the conscious inadequacy of power to do it, inci-
dent thereto ; — who has in fact rightly comprehended what goes to make
up dire mental pain, and the inevitable " sickness of soul " that centers
in and clusters about the innermost selfhood in all these distressing
cases — to such an one a prompting to further study and to more skilful
practise, as well as to enthusiastic hope regarding it all, becomes so
irresistible that any suggestion of apology for even intrusive interest and
propaganda is not to be thought of.

With respect to the manner in which this kind of suffering comes to
be, it may be said that almost every unusual experience has in it one or
more elements of causation of subsequent mental pain and derangement.
Most certainly, even such experiences as broken bones may lead to it;
likewise, post-infections as well as certain endogenous poisonings are
sources not to be neglected; also, too many children, too heavy financial
burdens, too prolonged hours of arduous labor, physical or mental; too
overweening or unrealized ambitions ; or poorly cooked food and noxious
air; disappointed love or social aspiration; financial reverses and other
forms of "ill-luck"; as well as unsatisfied deeply implanted longings
of every sort; weak will or over-emotionalism; gluttony and laziness;
early impressive childish experiences, especially terrorizing dreams,
frightful shocks, prolonged perversions of development; gloomy or in-
adequate education; unpropitious parenthood; vicious or disturbing
neighborhood — all these may contribute, in incalculable proportion, yet
never except by their due share, either to the genesis of a mind pain-
fully diseased, or to its prolongation and deepening, or worse still, in
many instances, to most serious interference with cure.

Thus, by way of particularizing in respect to our present purpose,
let us consider an instance where the mental pain has developed in the
course of recovery from some kind of not unusual physical injury, or of
ordinary infection from without.

In a certain proportion of such cases, it is to be noted, especially in
the more impressionable constitutions, that long before the physical
trouble or infection can be recovered from, even though most prompt
and efficient measures have been resorted to, the tendency to the de'-

56 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

velopment of mental pain has become so marked and the results so
deeply registered, that it is with great difficulty and only after much
time that it can in turn be recovered from, if ever at all. Could we
ever have accurate data or skilled experience enough to enable us truly
and properly to differentiate the readily impressionable and weakly re-
sisting, from the less impressionable and fully resisting, constitution,
the problem of what to expect and consequently what to do by way of
prevention in these cases would be much simplified. But here as else-
where our knowledge respecting inherited traits and tendencies is so
vague that practically it is not to be relied upon, at any rate very abso-
lutely or very generally. Hence, it follows, beyond question, that the
universally better way is to secure complete recovery from every sort of
physical trouble, no matter of what nature or how severe or otherwise,
as quickly as possible, and likewise during all the time required for this
to sedulously guard against the invasion of mental invalidism with as
much determination and skill as against renewal of the injury, or
against contagious diseases or other purely physical complication ; and
if, perchance, mental pain does appear, then promptly to apply such
corrective measures as will prevent, so far as possible, its further de-
velopment into a permanent after condition. Nipped thus at its in-
ception mental disease as a concomitant and resultant of physical
trauma or infection can often most surely be; and the outcome to the
sufferer is of the nature of a benefit that is simply incalculable.

Important, however, as this theoretically must appear to every one,
how frequently, notwithstanding, is exactly the opposite seen. During
the process of recovery from physical injury, not only is there incredibly
often little or no thought given to the possibility of an original simul-
taneous psychical " insult," or to subsequent consequences which may be
owing to necessarily prolonged distress and confinement and weakening ;
on the contrary, how often likewise does it seem as if everything un-
toward was most unwittingly allowed, or made, day by day, to conspire
to deepen the impressions of the original experience and whatever
immediately follows, as well as to make doubly sure that what was at
first but truly accidental and comparatively harmless, shall almost
designedly be made to develop into something which in the end must
prove to be as permanent and blasting as it was unexpected. Into this
conspiracy, not only do the immediate friends and acquaintances of the
sufferer often most thoughtlessly enter, but, and it is strange so fre-
quently to note, do those higher in authority and responsibility likewise
as unwittingly enter and remain, with a resulting summation of con-
sequences to the sufferer, which in the given case simply defies antici-
pation or even estimation. Nor in this connection should the rather
too frequent untoward outcome of ordinary operative procedures and
post-operative care be thoughtlessly passed by. Sometimes, even on the

A MIND DISEASED 57

operating table, or more frequently during the period of recovery from
anesthesia, or, in fact, at any time later, the sensitive mind may thus
receive impressions which may persist permanently and prove to be
sources of painful invaliding beyond all expectation. In fact, it is
beyond question true that the real importance of psychical insult as
a close fellow of physical injury, or the danger from the stresses and
other conditions following, should in every case receive a much more
thoughtful consideration from all those who have to do with it, than
ever has been or is now the rule. We blame and punish those who do
not provide against the consequences of the physical injury itself, or
against the invasion and development of endangering infectious dis-
eases. But often these, bad as they are, are of little consequence, com-
pared with the results of inadequate or bungling care of the psychical
insults, and subsequent untoward impressions and tensions, which so
often accompany or follow physical conditions, whether accidental or
designed. Certainly, it were better to have a pitted face or a crooked
leg than to go through the remainder of life with irrecoverable mental
imperfections and distresses. Better a weak back than a weak will ; the
loss of a member than the loss of normal ambition and hope; better
physical pain with the mind free than mental pain with the body useless
because of it !

Everything that may be said about prevening the anticipation and
prevention of mental invalidism in conditions that are naturally but
incidental to physical trauma, may be said, also, and with even greater
emphasis, with respect to its connection with the beginning or course
of a large number of cases of ordinary illness, including, as these
usually do, noticeable weakness, certain depressing autointoxications,
incidental effects of use or abuse of various drugs, and more or less
prolonged and nearly absolute isolation — favoring conditions that are
almost always more or less necessarily experienced. Here the laity,
especially if not checked, are liable as a rule to as unhesitatingly as
unwittingly convert any sick-room into a fateful " gossip-room " of
such a horrifying and dangerous character, that even a well person may
wisely shun it for safety if not from choice ; while those in authoritative
command likewise seem somewhat too frequently not to realize with
anything like becoming fullness the deep and abiding injury which
inexcusable thoughtlessness, as well as all manner of unwholesome
speech and conduct, may so frequently lead to. More than once has
life-long soul-sickness been traced to this kind of impression received
during an illness, wherein the hapless victim was made to receive
impressions of such a deeply searching and staying character, that for-
ever after dire consequences have remained, to either primarily or sec-
ondarily afflict with untold and irrecoverable mental pain. Undoubt-
edly, it not infrequently happens, also, that certain chance speculative

58 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

remarks of physicians and nurses have altogether more to do in ini-
tiating certain painful mental and emotional currents, which after-
wards develop untowardly out of all proportion to their importance,
than is commonly recognized. The chance remark of a doctor once
caused a really well man to go about with his hand over his supposedly
diseased heart in such constant painful fear and apprehension, that he
almost "went insane," and this for fourteen years, until, in fact, he
was relieved by practical demonstrations that he had no such heart-
crippling whatever.

Into no sick-room whatever, therefore, should any sort of lugubrious
tale-bearer, conceited self-exhibitor, maudlin selfish sympathizer, or self-
sufficient or careless professional poseur ever be admitted or allowed to
remain, even when the sickness itself is of minor importance, and of
inconsiderable duration, and the sufferer as yet appears to be normally
minded. When ill, suggestibility is often much heightened or warped ;
and it frequently does not take long for the sanest invalid to become so
profoundly impressed — so stung, or probed, or strained, or painfully
awakened — that this may prove, because of the lessened resistance at
the time, to be the source of troubles which may develop literally and
last forever. Of course the danger varies greatly with different people,
as well as with the kind and duration of the shock and stress suffered.
Some people are naturally too " thick-skinned " to be easily or much
affected by any such thing ; but much more frequently than is suspected
is it otherwise; so frequently, in fact, that it is by far safer always to
keep the atmosphere of every sick-room, from beginning to end, so pure
and bracing that the sufferer's mind, as never elsewhere, shall be quite
exclusively impressed by what alone is of good report, and consequently
uplifting and fortifying. As to the common practise, especially during
the most susceptible period of all, that of convalescence, with a view
chiefly to mental diversion, of reading or hearing read the common
newspapers with all their tales of undermining horrors and wrong, or
the " latest " novels which are so af ten but mere travesties of the higher
human longings and thoughts and modes of living, scarcely too severe
condemnation can be urged. One can never anticipate what untoward
atavistic reminiscence may thus be called up, even in the strongest
minded, or what former harmful personal experience may thus be made
once again distinctively to renew its life ; nor can one in either case very
probably estimate the permanent vitiation of mental strength and ease
which may follow. Better by far most certainly to encourage, instead,
the perusal of that literature only which is at once clean, strong,
inspiring and rightly awakening, and thus to get the untold benefit of
such a veritable " soul-bath " as can certainly be relied upon in so doing.
Indeed, there is no question that, when such simple, strong, wholesome
sentiments only are thus allowed regularly each day or hour to influence

A MIND DISEASED 59

the susceptible mind, it may eventually prove to be more useful in obvi-
ating and relieving the " mind diseased/' than almost any other simple
measure that can be thought of.

Third, let us now consider another different yet quite as prolific
source of mental pain and its resulting invalidism, namely, that which
is to be found in the ever-insistent consciousness of misfit into the ever-
growing complexity and demands of the life of to-day, the necessarily
consequent failure to realize what has been legitimately expected and
striven for, and all the mental wear and tear which so necessarily fol-
lows or accrues.

For instance, when a sensitive man actually finds himself buffeted
about in this world, with little or no ability to get anything like a sure
foothold, and can think of no definite prospect of final prosperity for
his encouragement, he naturally enough wears out his will-power as
well as his sense of well-being long before his time, and consequently
becomes the unresisting if not fully assenting prey to every depressing
and perplexing influence about him. Or, when a woman finds that all
her unique wealth of natural instincts and endowments promises to be
of little demand in this conventional world, and so must go from day
to day to tasks from which she derives little profit and no inspiration,
she also rapidly develops a mental and emotional pain and weakness —
a veritable soul-sickness — so deep and abiding, often, that the wonder
is that either she or so many of her sisters ever have the courage
requisite to go on and achieve so successfully as they do. Of course it
were easy to say that the needed refitting in many of these cases is prac-
tically impossible; or that, even ideally, it is altogether too elevated,
in any case, to be within ordinary application. Of course, too, every
step on the way to securing the necessary changes of attitude in the
individual's mind toward the real possibilities of his unusued or
wrongly used powers and toward full acceptation of suggested ideals,
or toward the determined devotion that sees success from the beginning,
no matter how far from the purposed end — every step of this long way
may only too generally prove, not only very arduous, but quite too dis-
couraging for weak and wavering humanity to progress therein, or to
succeed in the end. Yet could everybody as well as the sufferer him-
self once be led to see how such inappropriate fittings and placings and
consequent failures necessarily contribute to the development of mental
suffering and invalidism, and especially if they could once get an in-
formed, vivid view of the interfering, destroying character of every
such experience in its bearing upon ultimate success and happiness, not
alone of the individual sufferer, but of the entire community, in every
vital respect, there would undoubtedly result not only a prompt but
effectual uprising against the common ineptitude and neglect in this
respect. That such a true vision is widely needed is confirmed by the

6o TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTE LY

fact that misfit, inadequacy and failure cause so many people to suffer
from an inhibition of the powers of right perspective, and to such an
extent that they necessarily come, in time, if slowly yet most surely, to
the point where they can not see the comparative virtue of the strength
they still have, and the work they still can do, even as they think upon
and especially feel upon so uncomfortably, what they originally ex-
pected of themselves in the great battle of life.

From these and many another supporting observation, easily and
everywhere to be had, it is perfectly legitimate to conclude, beyond
reasonable doubt, that mental pain and its resulting invalidism is quite
naturally the necessary outcome of a great variety of causes, which may
be contributed to, usually, by almost every influence that either bad
heredity, accident, disease, wrong education, personal over-stress, or
failure, or future uncertainty, may happen to afford. Besides, in many
instances, we may unhesitatingly believe that these causes may be
almost viciously, if never so unwittingly, supplemented by parents,
children, relatives far and near, neighbors and friends, clergymen and
physicians, gossips, fools and scandal-mongers, and all others who may
as potently as unwittingly conspire to produce and prolong it. More-
over, we may note that there often exists constitutionally, or that there
has been developed through disease or accident, certain definite phases
of an imperative tendency toward an abnormal sensitiveness to every
painful or unusual impression, so much so that when this comes to be
actually coupled with an over-developed fear of consequences, it may
most unexpectedly make the sufferer all too ready to fall in with almost
every possible kind of trend toward this form of invalidism, and to
gradually become most thoroughly a coward, or even quite panic-
stricken, from the very first suggestion of subsequent trouble. That
with such a constitution and with such a " push " from untoward influ-
ences of so many kinds, every temporary attack of mental pain, from
no matter how insignificant a cause, may help the sufferer eventually to
slide into the chronic state of mental disease, especially when day by
day serious measures for relief are unsuccessful, is plainly beyond ques-
tion. Thus, a pain in the back, not overcome by sufficiently strenuous
or prolonged measures, may quite as easily become evidence of " spinal
disease," as pain nearer the front may become a surety of " ovarian
cyst " ; or higher up, of " cancer of the stomach " ; or at the back of
the head, of " disease of the brain." And once let such a wrong notion
become fixed in the mind, especially of both patient and attendants, as
it often does, and then be reinforced by reference to it, or by any set of
persistent untoward circumstances, as all too often is the case, tem-
porary or permanent disease of mind may follow, in the natural course
of events, as surely as night the day, and with scarcely ever a bright
morning in prospect.

A MIND DISEASED 61

Such considerations as these, consequently, make the question as to
what may be done to prevent the development of such a condition, or to
successfully minister to it eventually, an altogether most serious matter,
especially in cases where not only the sufferer's own conditions and
tendencies, but those of the entire environment, have to be considered.

In the first place, there can be no question that every case of a
mind diseased should be as carefully investigated and as thoroughly
understood as possible, and this from the very beginning. No sort of
off-hand, " intuitive " pseudo-diagnosis should ever be relied upon as a
basis either of prevention or remedy ; the " case " is always really too
complex to admit of any such guess-work whatever. Yet it is owing
to just such a want of adequate investigation and accurate diagnosis
that many a sufferer from mental pain has not only not received needed
prevention or relief from his would-be ministrant, but has adversely
most ignorantly or presumptuously been given abundant time to sink
deeper and more permanently into his misery — so deep, in fact, so over-
whelmingly, many times, that afterwards the utmost skill can be but
partially successful — every really opportune moment having thus been
allowed to pass forever by ! Altogether and always, mental pain is too
serious and dangerous a matter ever to be thus looked upon indiffer-
ently or ignorantly, or to be foolishly and fatally experimented with by
not fully prepared remedialists.

In many instances, also, it seems to be altogether too readily assumed
that what are called " imaginary " forms of this affection may be sim-
ilarly slighted and mismanged — in fact, trifled with — without much
thought as to what may be the consequence in the end. Indeed, it
seems often to be considered as evidence of some kind of superior wis-
dom, to pronounce the sufferings of a given case as " purely imaginary,"
and so not to be " encouraged " by any sort of attention whatever. As
a rule, however, it may be absolutely taken for granted that sick people,
including the uncounted number of but-half-sick people, and those too
who are said to " imagine " their illness, do not repeatedly or persist-
ently make complaints without reasons that, when once understood, are
seen to be really good and sufficient ; and that every complaint of seem-
ingly imaginary suffering has always something very real beneath it,
which should at least be accurately ascertained and properly considered,
before the sufferer is either condemned or ignored. Recent investi-
gations into the true nature of the inner life, especially as this has been
unsuspectedly determined by accidental shock and stress while yet in
the plasticity of its very early stages, have thrown much light upon
many of these perplexing types of mental invalidism in older people;
and it is more than probable that further scientifically directed research
will make still clearer much that is now so obscure and inexplicable.
Hence, it must legitimately follow that every sort of shallow conception

62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of mental pain will in time give way to conceptions that will be much
more nearly correct, as they will be less cruel and dangerous.

However this may be, one need not hesitate to affirm to-day that
we already know enough to make it absolutely unjustifiable in any case
to make a " snap " diagnosis in favor of some " imaginary " disease
which may be ignored or crudely managed, as ignorance, or whim, or
presumption may dictate. If it be criminal to misinterpret or neglect
physical ailments, it certainly is no less so thus to seriously neglect or
bungle the more delicate matters of the diseased mind.

At the outset, then, every sufferer from mental distress has one
inalienable right as well as the greatest need, namely, that his trouble
shall be thoroughly understood, and that this understanding shall be
based upon adequate investigation of all the facts involved in its origin
and development. This, for one very important thing, will reveal
unmistakably that every one of these poor sufferers from dire inade-
quacy, apprehension or discouragement, and from slowing and shallow-
ing of faculties, and glooming of every outlook, are really experiencing
a kind of suffering whose original and persisting causes are not less
real than are those of physical suffering, although such causes may
often, if not always, lie altogether too deep in the personality to be
either self-discovered, or " intuitively divined," or superficially or too
promptly judged. Again it will soon appear, even not less con-
vincingly, that if such sufferers presume to rely upon self-investigation
or self-treatment alone, or upon the offers of even the shrewdest igno-
ramus or most devoted " curest," they will most likely find themselves
from the first but painfully misled and thwarted at every step, and even-
tually becoming more and more deeply sickened and more thoroughly
discouraged than ever. It must be remembered that this kind of pain,
the pain of mental disease, is always so indissolubly a part of the inner-
most self and bound up with its every impulse and movement; is withal
so unexpectable and incalculable, so dominant and threatening, so
undermining and degrading, and positively intrusive ; in fact, so devilish
and selfishly excluding; so monopolizing in all its tendencies and
demands, that the sufferer must necessarily find himself, no matter how
skilful in even his most resolute attempts at self-relief, much more fre-
quently in the position of one who would lift himself by tugging at his
boot-straps, than otherwise, and eventually not thus to be especially
helped, no matter how much he tries; while as to the outcome of the
hit-or-miss remedies and practises of every sort of unqualified remedi-
alist, whether " regular " or otherwise, to which the discouraged invalid
so often goes, it must be said that ultimate failure applies equally often,
and with even more force. Practically speaking, it quite regularly
occurs in these cases that there develops eventually the firm, almost
immovable conviction of the futility of everything which might other-

A MIND DISEASED 63

wise promise relief — a conviction that correspondingly adds to the
peculiar kind of dejection and endangering, which, in turn, develops
into a chronicity that may evade every attempt at remedy, later on.

From what we have discovered as to the origin and development
and character of mental invalidism, then, it must again be readily
recognized that it does not help this sort of individual much, if any
better, simply or most elaborately to have said to him, even by the best
qualified, " Oh, brace up ; be a man ! " or anything else of like senten-
tious order ; except, perhaps, as a " starter," when it is often undoubt-
edly invaluable, as is also the temporary good influence of many another
similar command, or prayer, or treatment. In respect of this acknowl-
edged initial good, however, it must always be remembered that the
sufferer from a mind diseased does not, can not, thrive for very long on
any sort of " starter " alone, even when it is given with best intention
and high emphasis, and by those otherwise skillful; indeed, it fre-
quently appears that the very effort to " brace up " or otherwise yield to
the dominating spirit serves not to secure anything like the promised
relief, but simply more firmly than ever to glue attention to the
insistent distress, and to contribute immeasurably to its vividness and
persistency. Nor does the heartiest promise of " better times " in the
future often do much more; for in such cases the sufferer himself sees
altogether too clearly how near to pretense or fabrication such a promise
probably is, to be able even deceptively to draw comfort or strength or
other kind of remedy from it. The fact is, this species of even most
authoritative remedial platitudes do not so often touch the real " spot "
as is supposed ; and usually for the simple reason that the real " spot "
is not even suspected by either the remedialist or the sufferer; while
the reaction from ever so shrewd remedial adventuring, when it seems to
promise the impossible or proves to be fallacious in the end, almost
always contributes to a measurable increase of the original distress, or
else to the development of some new form — " the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune " having been thus but refurbished and resharpened,
rather than effectually blunted and broken, by the insufficiency of
remedies and promises, which, being not properly supplemented by
others appropriate to the subsequent needs, soon lose even their initial
value.

Practically, it is also found in many cases, that it is just a similar
kind of wrong management on the part of even those who have hereto-
fore been the most intelligently and skillfully concerned, which has led
sufferers from mental invalidism to respond so very frequently, and
often so very satisfyingly to themselves, for a time, at any rate, to the
offerings and importunities of " irregular " practitioners, and of irregu-
lar sects of almost every description. The " mind diseased," not getting
expected, and perhaps promised, light through "instruments of pre-

64 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

cision," and not getting much-needed relief from remedies directed even
legitimately to organs and functions of the body alone, often grasps
naturally enough at shrewdly proffered " cures " or " healings " which
promise satisfaction beyond doubt from no matter what irresponsible
source, and with an avidity which, if "foolish," is certainly excusable,
if nothing more. Nor can anything else be expected when such a suf-
ferer so painfully remembers that in his great and anxious need he has
been time after time to a " regular " physician, only to have the real
significance of his mental distress misapprehended, or to have it char-
acterized as " silly," or " imaginary," or " not for me," or of " no con-
sequence whatever," or, as was the case with Lady Macbeth's physician,
to hear him affirm that therein the sufferer " must cure herself " ; or,
perhaps worse still, to be treated by heartless "bluff," placebos, or pos-
sibly by hints of a normal defection that needs a priest rather than a
physician ! Nor, again, can anything better be expected, when possibly
in obedience to this same distracting hint, such a sufferer has sought his
church, only, as it has seemed to him, to be fed with stones, to be
treated with indifference, or to be poisoned with doubts and insincerity,
to say nothing of the chill that so naturally comes from sham brotherli-
ness, untrustworthy sisterliness, and all the pain that these mean to the
hungry distressed soul. If in such a case the " unorthodox " either in
medicine or religion can " make good " where the " orthodox " fails, let
there not be unseemly surprise, or charges of foolishness or worse,
against those who in spite of such neglect and misunderstanding actu-
ally do need relief and must seek relief, even until they find it. Instead,
let there prevail everywhere the full measure of righteous humility
which is so often really due in the premises. The great " irregular "
of all time, it must be remembered, was Jesus of Nazareth ; and it was
He who is said to have healed the people up and down the whole land,
in spite of the " regular " doctors, medical and ecclesiastical, of the
time. Of course, this is no tribute to quackery as such, either within
or without the " professions " ; it simply teaches that any one who
would really do right in this important field must by every possible
endowment and preparation be first and fully possessed, not only of
the proper spirit, the needed sympathy, the untiring determination to
understand the actual need and provide the real remedy, but addition-
ally, of the most perfect knowledge of human nature and all its woes
that can be obtained by patient, skillful investigation, and by most
rational induction from well-authenticated facts. Mere one-sided, in-
competent, or vain " irregularity " does not by itself suffice, any more
than mere self-sufficient or negligent " regularity." In either case, the
deeper the insight, the wider the comprehension, the truer the knowl-
edge, the more direct the skill, the better the results achieved.

When the rightly endowed, fully prepared ministrant to a mind

A MIND DISEASED 65

diseased has once been given a case of mental suffering in hand — one
whose investigations have led him as accurately as possible to differ-
entiate it from the truly alienated cases that can only be cared for in
protective institutions — he is at once often confronted with conditions
that tax his insight perseverance and skill, not only to an almost
unwonted degree, but far beyond the comprehension and consequently
the sympathy of his employers. Frequently, also, he has to contend
with varied and numerous and unexpected misleadings and coverings
up of facts which may be mostly owing to a previous false diagnosis ; or,
he finds the patient's normal ideation more or less in a state of irre-
coverable atrophy or decay; or, that there is perverted emotionalism
quite beyond understanding and of a continuously disastrous nature;
or that the will power has been so frequently strained and wrongly
directed that it can be relied upon for scarcely any good effort at all;
or, so frequently, all these in most perplexing combination. In fact,
the case is always one where the whole organism is more or less under
the spell of the mental distress, and consequently has a minimum of
recuperative forces at command. Even almost every physical function
is apt to be so lowered and perverted that, in turn, they may contribute
to the disease of mind and to the resistance to be overcome. In fact,
the case is one of " sickness all through " ; and the remedy and manage-
ment must be based upon this comprehensive vision, or failure will
almost inevitably result.

Hence the wise remedialist will never neglect to at once institute
every sort of hygienic, sanitary and therapeutic measure, which may be
rationally indicated. Failure here is folly unmitigated; and no as-
sumed " special " or " exceptional " ability that presumes to get along
without due attention to the physical as well as mental functioning can
make it otherwise, try and promise as one may.

Having first, then, given due consideration to the conditions and
needs of the entire case, the wise ministrant to the mind diseased will
next, and at once, seek to understand in detail the changes from the
normal psychology which are the immediate sources of the distress.
Here, again, ability to investigate with a penetration and thoroughness
that only the trained scientist can comprehend is the next great duty
which he owes both to his patient and to himself. To accomplish this, he
will bring all that his life, his reading, his special training and expert
ence have taught him; will exercise all the mental and moral qualities
of which he is possessed; will devote himself in every manner prac-
ticable, not only to relieving the present distress, but to arousing such
latent and stifled mental functions as will in due season contribute of
themselves to help to overcome that which is abnormal, and substitute
normal thoughts and feelings in its stead. In all this he will need and
should have the full confidence and intelligent help of those who are

VOL. LXXXII. — 5.

66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

related to or responsible for the one afflicted. On the contrary, every
attempt on the part of these latter to assume or restrict his proper
functions, or to cover up that which should be told, or to interpose
with their own cross purposes and perverting schemes, will only serve
to embarrass him, and to hinder his patient's recovery. This needs to
be said everywhere and repeatedly ; for it has not even yet come to pass
that such a necessary harmony of opinion and action is always to be
relied upon. In general, it should always be remembered that the
problem presented by instances of a mind diseased is really so complex,
and often so unresolvable at best, that the intuitions, the careful watch-
ing, the knowledge and the devoted skill of every one concerned, are none
too much for obtaining the best possible results.

With respect to all the " newer " and promisingly better methods

of management of a mind diseased, with respect to its own especial

needs — those that have been devised by more recent investigators — it

may be said, in a word, that they all seek to be based upon strictly

scientific methods, and so to become more and more reliable and

eventually trustworthy to an extent heretofore unknown. The first

thing one notes is that it seems settled beyond question that in all these

cases there shall be secured at once a most complete and searching, yet

of course judicious, " scientific confession," or more properly scientific

riddance through confession, of all the deeply hidden harmful feelings,

thoughts and habits, that so often are really the basis of the painful

mental superstructure which has supervened. In almost all this class

of sufferers some such kind of revealing of the underlying sinful, or

shocking, or stressful life, is found to be the best method of preparing

the way for the subsequent, constructive measures which may then seem

necessary. Hence, for this purpose, much attention is now given, for

instance, to invoking the recollection of all the startling and harassing

dreams which so often give darkness and pain to the easily impressed

mind, and then to their true interpretation as affecting the waking life.

Likewise, even though it be through hypnotic and allied means, it is

often sought thoroughly to recall and expunge from the uttermost

depths of being any and every other sort of earlier experience, whether

these may have been sinful, accidentally shocking, or freighted with

some kind of awful stress, in order that the sufferer shall no longer

remain the unconscious victim of these " subliminal," most vicious

enemies, as sorely as before. In fact, the " new method " implies that

most of these cases have, to begin with, profound need of what may

well be termed a " drastic psychical catharsis " ; and considerable

experience shows that, once having secured this, such people are, at

least for the time being, very apt to be relieved from their pain, begin

to be noticeably ambitious and vigorous, beget new hopes and enter-

A MIND DISEASED 67

prises, and otherwise to astonish both their friends and themselves with
unexpectedly rapid, at least temporary, improvement.

But it must always be remembered that even the most intelligent
use of even this most scientific initiatory method does not often serve
other than as a very serviceable prerequisite to imperatively needed
subsequent measures, whose main object should be, not only as thor-
oughly to fill the vacancy thus made by evulsion of the destructive evil
as possible, but also to put something more constructive and permanent
in its place. Closely investigated, the human mental activities seem
largely to be built upon a system of self -mimicries ("auto-mimesis"),
which fact may often be very wisely taken advantage of in dealing with
its abnormalities, especially of the curable order. If through some un-
toward experience or constitutional "predisposition," a painful and
dangerous " copy " has some time been deeply set in the mind, and sub-
sequently this has got into the vicious habit of being reproduced in
endless repetition, and so beyond self-correction, not only has this im-
portant fact a most imperative need to be duly noted, and considered,
and acted upon, from first to last, but also has the equally important
fact, that almost every remediable instance of a mind diseased actually
has this peculiarity, and attention to this may often reveal the right
clue as to what will eventually do the most good and do it most
promptly and permanently.

Remembering these facts, then, it is soon found that in very many
cases indeed the most practical thing to do, after the preliminary men-
tal cleansing has been effected, is at once almost obtrusively to proceed
to introduce into the sufferer's mind a greater or less number of most
definite, clear, interest-laden, moving, and if possible unusual ideas,
which, being by the sufferer supposed to emanate from the mind of
some one whom he looks upon as more of an authority than he is ca-
pable of being by and for himself, will be allowed to make their way
unhindered, so deeply as to become an efficient counter-effecting force,
and thus bring about the thoroughly neutralizing and substitutive effect
required. In this way, a new copy, which is at once characterized, both
by fresh interest and constructive imagery, may be so powerfully and
timely, and likewise so aptly, repeated, that duly the mind will almost
unconsciously begin to imitate this instead of the old copy, and thus in
time will become both successfully refurnished and reinvigorated, and
consequently relieved, as well. Undoubtedly such a course, especially
if unremittingly enlarged upon and enriched by all such determined,
luxurious effort on the part of the sufferers themselves, as will per-
petuate the original effect, even until such time as their dried-up mental
soil shall be made once more to teem as it should with spring-like re-
juvenescence of every old activity, as well as with the germination and
growth of as many new interests as possible — undoubtedly such a course

68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

will succeed where many another may fail. In this there will often be
surprisingly exemplified the fact that it is the inner, emotional and in-
tellectual life, rather than the outer physical life, which pulls men and
women down, as well as keeps them up; and that in connection with a
decided change in the character and direction of these there may al-
ways he expected, whenever possible, a corresponding constructive re-
sponse to whatever change in environmental conditions may be con-
sidered useful, in addition.

Having thus made a right beginning and got well on the road to
practical success, it is simply wonderful what a capable, intelligent,
wholesome " minister to a mind diseased " can thus do, for many of
these cases, where there is such a malign and persisting interference
with the life of all the affective as well as effective faculties of the sick-
soul, as is here to be found. Like the gentle dew from heaven is his
mere coming and presence often; often, too, like a strong tower of de-
fense and offense, is the "presence" he leaves behind; like a veritable
"new birth," does it soon amount to; like a complete regeneration in
the end, in many instances.

Of course, it might be naturally supposed that the first and surest
step toward securing recovery, especially from the woes peculiar to the
misfit, would be simply to get them out of their inappropriate environ-
ment and wrong calling into a place and work more suitable for their
endowment and preparation. And so it would be and is, in a compara-
tively few or perhaps many cases. But with the rest it is almost uni-
versally the fact that for so long a time have they been bred and
trained in the midst of unrealization and unsatisfaction and conse-
quently of rebellion and despair, and not less important in the direc-
tion of atrophy and negation of powers, that even when their outward
circumstances have once been most wisely mended they do not respond
nearly so constructively as might naturally be expected. Mostly, such
people need a change of life within before they can satisfactorily ap-
preciate and constructively respond to a change of life without. Until
this change is accomplished — until the intellect and emotions and ex-
pectancies have been given at least a new direction — outer changes are
much more likely, particularly in adults, to result in some or all of the
unexpected disappointments which every other kind of unwise experi-
mentation is everywhere so apt to see.

Having, then, as thoroughly cleared the sufferer's mind of every
affecting and destructive idea and feeling as possible, and skillfully
filled it with certain other ideas and feelings, which should be selected
entirely for their own constructive, curative and inspiring qualities, it
follows with equal necessity that the good work should not stop here,
by any means, but rather should be supplemented unremittingly by
most persistent use of every such well-selected, strong, wholesome, com-

A MIND DISEASED 69

prehensive measure, such as change of environment, work, study, read-
ing, etc., as will naturally effect, step by step, the completion and fixity
of the mental and emotional reorganization so obviously needed. For,
no matter how effective the initial catharsis and substitution may be, if
the remedialist does not know enough or has not spirit enough to follow
up this concededly important ministry by subsequent adaptive effort,
persisted in until the end is attained, his labor will be mostly in vain.
Here it is, undoubtedly, that so many of the "practitioners" of the
various systems of "transcendental medicine," pseudo-science, rampant
humbuggery, "queer" theology, and vicious imposition generally, are
not able to secure the permanent results predicted of them from their
temporary success. Many of these can give and often do give a good
enough start toward relief to warrant the confidence which such a course
engenders ; but they break down entirely as soon as anything additional
is required, and so, either lose their influence at once, or else are forced,
by maintaining a series of illusions which in time fatefully show them-
selves to be such, to continue to doggedly sustain some other sort of
equally temporary measure, if not base imposition, which deservedly
brings its dire reward upon their heads in the end. In these cases a
single measure or practise of any kind, no matter how good or true,
when persistently inculcated or exercised without timely and appropri-
ate variation or addition, soon comes to the end of its chief usefulness;
for the nature of the human mental and nervous organization prede-
termines that atrophy and decay in the realm of feeling and willing just
as surely follow closely upon the over-exercise which produces an initial
hypertrophy, as it does similarly in the physical realm. But the igno-
rant or indifferent practitioner does not consider this ; and so pushes on
unvaryingly with his initiatory measures only, or with others of simi-
lar or greater misleading import, and consequently finds that the orig-
inal condition of his patient often comes to have duly added thereto,
certain other abnormalities, which, although newly acquired, may yet
prove to be not less distressing or less persistent than the original ones.
So trite an injunction, then, as " Overcome evil with good " when ap-
plied to the needs of a mind diseased, is thus seen to necessitate a right
kind of persistent overcoming, wherein the void repeatedly secured by
eliminating the evil is continuously filled with restorative "good," the
strength gained from time to time is constructively exercised, and all
the psychic pathological conditions are thus led or made to give way
eventually to normal states and activities.

Perhaps this is quite sufficient to enable us to conclude, finally, that
permanent satisfactory results in this important field of remedial min-
istry can seldom be secured, unless due attention be given, first, to get-
ting at the real sources of the sufferer's breakdown; second, to correct-
ing, contributing and hindering physical diseases; third, to purging

70 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

offending mental imagery, and eliminating the deeper origins of patho-
logical fears and distrusts and consequent exhaustion and pain; fourth,
to making, and from time to time, remaking, as profoundly construc-
tive impressions as possible; and, fifth, to reeducating and repractising
every mental and emotional factor in such a sure way that eventually
comprehensive reorganization is permanently effected, and the deeper,
truer self is made to regain its normal attitude towards the world in
which it finds itself, as well as the strength and habitual new activities
which will enable it to maintain itself against subsequent insult and
stress — in fact until the mind is once more as full of ease, as it was at
the beginning full of dis-e&se.

THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN CHINA 7 1

THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN CHINA

By Dr. L. PEARL BOGGS

URBANA, ILLINOIS

SOME sage has said "A nation stands as high as its women." In
making up an estimate of China at a time when she is earnestly
desiring recognition as a republic, it may not be out of place to consider
the position of women with a view to judging the chances which the
new government has for stability.

Every one is familiar with the story and the personality of the late
Empress Dowager, who, for nearly half a century, swayed the destiny
of China's 400,000,000 people at perhaps the most critical times in
their country's history. It was during the first years of her regency
that the formidable Taiping rebellion was finally put down, thus
insuring the integrity of the empire from within. It was also during
her term of power that China suffered many humiliating experiences
at the hands of foreign countries, including Japan, but nevertheless
China as an empire was left practically intact. During her last term
of regency, the government committed itself to modern western educa-
tion and to constitutional government. It was a powerful personality
that could hold the empire to the old way when a vigorous young
party was striving to uproot old customs and law, and in turn could
bring the old conservative party to heel when the change to new ways
was finally determined upon. This could not have happened where
women have no rights, honor or privileges.

What the empress did in her exalted station, any strong woman
can do in whatever station she may be born. We hear, therefore, of
women occasionally becoming the head of a family or clan, for some-
thing of the old-style patriarchal family is the prevalent form in China
and is composed of grandparents, married sons and their families, and
perhaps also younger brothers or cousins. The three submissions of
which one hears so much in the orient, means that a woman must
submit to the authority of the head of the family, be he her father,
husband or son. A woman does not usually become the head of a
family unless she is the widow of the former head and she rises to this
position only if she is the strongest personality by far in the group.
The writer does happen to know a forceful young Chinese woman who
is known all over the country side as " the Christian girl who runs a
farm alone and is the head of a family." Before her, the grandmother
had been the ruler of the clan and had been honored by the erection
of a " pailow," or three stone arches, by order of the emperor.

But in the main it is due to her position as the mother and grand-
mother of sons that she is honored, and every Chinese woman prays

72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

for the gift of male offspring as Hannah of old must have prayed for
Samuel. In reading the legends, biographies and anecdotes of Chinese
life, one is struck with the respect paid to the mother as well as with
the love rendered her by her children. In the works of the two great
sages, Confucius and Mencius, love, reverence and obedience are en-
joined as the due of both parents. The funeral rights of both parents
are to be duly celebrated, and the ancestral tablet of the mother is
always placed by that of the father and reverence is given to both.

In the history of China we read of several great empresses and
empress dowagers who added to the luster of the renowned people of
Han. In the ancient Book of Poetry, which is one of the great classics
of the world, many women are celebrated in song for their piety and
virtue, their wifely devotion, or motherly tenderness. There is a book
of memoirs of distinguished women written about 125 B.C. and I know
of no other book in any language at that time dealing with the great-
ness and goodness of women. Likewise the first book on the education
of women is said to have been written in this language about two cen-
turies later by a celebrated poetess and historian, Pan Chao, who for
her learning and piety was appointed preceptress of the empress and
honored by the emperor with the title of the Great Lady Tsao. Thus
we see that in olden times the women of this country held a relatively
high position, perhaps as high as the women in any pre-Christian
civilization ever held.

But there is a somewhat darker side to be shown, when we come to
speak of the modern Chinese woman as other than a mother. The
childless wife of a rich man, or one who has borne him no sons, lives
in fear lest he will take other wives. The presence of secondary wives,
for according to law it is impossible for a man to have more than one
legal wife, does not make for harmony in the household, especially if
they succeed in alienating the affections of the husband. Divorce of
the first wife is almost unheard of, and as the greatest crime a man can
commit is to bear no sons, the practise of polygamy is defended on
the highest ethical and religious grounds. The secondary wife is said
to have no legal standing, but her children are considered just as
legitimate as those of the first wife, to whom indeed they are said to
belong. "We have to picture to ourselves conditions somewhat as
shown in the Biblical story of the patriarch Jacob and his wives and
their handmaidens.

If the lot of the first wife is not always enviable, one can imagine
that the concubines are not exactly happy. They are expected to be
obedient to the headwife who rules the inner apartments, or women's
quarters. In some cases they are little more than high-class servants
and are often drawn from a class of society lower than the husband.
Sometimes they are secured at brothels where they have captured the
fancy of a rich man by their beauty and accomplishments. In some

THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN CHINA 73

families, however, the wives are said to live in happiness and harmony,
and it has been the writer's privilege to know a Chinese Christian lady
who showed the greatest kindness to the wives whom her Confucian
husband had brought home, although his conduct had almost broken
her heart.

On the whole, Chinese women are raising their voices against
polygamy, as are the modern educated young men. It is difficult to
see how a radical change can be effected very rapidly without entailing
great suffering on helpless women, for the organization of a govern-
ment may be changed quickly, but not that of domestic life. With the
greater education of women which will make them to a certain extent
economically independent, and with the example of western life, which
every year is making more impression on the people, we may confi-
dently expect the ultimate decision of this oriental people will be in
favor of monogamy. It is needless to say that Christianity will teach
this, as the missionaries are committed to an uncompromising opposi-
tion to all secondary marriages.

As everywhere, perhaps, the great middle class are the happiest in
their domestic relations. The husband is too poor to buy other wives
and maintain them, so that a male child is often adopted, from the clan
if possible, to carry on the ancestor worship and perpetuate the name.
The wife among the very poor may be sold as a slave and the money
taken to buy another wife. If left a widow without grown sons, she
may be sold as a wife again by her husband's relatives before the grass
has grown green on his grave. Nowadays, there is a law to prevent a
woman's being sold against her will, but often among the poor there is
no alternative.

But the burden of all China's poverty seems to me to rest most
heavily on the young girl. As an infant, if there are too many mouths
to feed, her life is snuffed out in its first hours. In times of poverty
and stress of famine, the first resort is to sell the little girls. If not
as a wife, then as a slave or concubine. It does not require much
imagination to picture what a little slave girl may suffer if her owners
are unkind and she is sold about from one to another. On the other
hand, she may come into a good family and occupy a useful and hon-
orable position. There is a law that no maid slave shall be denied the
right of marriage, and if she is attractive it may be to one of the men
of the family. If the little girl is sold as a child wife, her lot may be
very unhappy, for her mother-in-law is likely to make her the drudge
of the family, and her husband, if he feels any affection, is never sup-
posed to interfere in her behalf, as that only makes matters worse.
The birth of a son is the great alleviating factor, for then a woman has
performed the chief function in life.

One is not to suppose that the evils here mentioned, such as infanti-
cide and girl slavery, denote any particular cruelty of nature on the

74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

part of the Chinese people. Nearly all nations at some time in their
history have practised infanticide, and slavery has not long been ban-
ished from our midst. The factors which have combined to keep up
these practises may be traced back perhaps to the religion of the country
which is that of ancestor worship. To this is due the over-population
of the country in part; to this is due the marked preference for male
rather than female offspring, as it is only through the former that the
ancestor worship may be maintained; to this is due the early child
marriages and secondary marriages, both of which tend to crush the
young girl. It is knowing these facts, which impell the thinking
people of Christian lands to feel the burden of sending to non-Christian
countries those apostles who shall preach a religion of the spirit which
knows no distinction of sex, or class, or race. To the teaching of a
spiritual religion must be added the teaching of modern science and
economics, for the practical mind of the Chinese can sometimes be
reached by scientific laws and cold statistics where prayer and preach-
ing fail.

The life of the daughter of the rich is not so bad, aside from the
suffering of that ridiculous and antiquated practise of footbinding.
So far as I know, no explanation has ever been found of this cruel
custom and, besides the real suffering which the child undergoes, the
individual is maimed for life and suffers not only the inconvenience of
crippled feet, but also in general health from lack of exercise. In
some families the daughters are given a little education in books as
well as music and embroidery and, since the desire for the modern
learning is spreading, it is said that every palace and official residence
in Peking is filled with girls and women anxious to learn and who are
studying as best they can.

It is certainly true that the educated women of China are making
a name and a place for themselves and are working hard to better the
condition of women as a whole. A visitor to that country to-day will
find Chinese women as the heads of hospitals and in some cases also
conducting nurses' training schools. They are principals of large gov-
ernment or private schools for girls, and many of them are doing
excellent work. A few young women have graduated from American
colleges, but the majority of principals and teachers are the products
of mission or government schools. The very wealthy of course have
private tutors and some of the most zealous women in founding schools
for girls have been from princely families.

The ladies in their homes are also working for reforms and thou-
sands signed petitions sent to England protesting against the opium
trade which that country forces on China. They are forming anti-
cigarette leagues and holding meetings at which some of them preside
and speak with great intelligence and dignity. They are zealous in the
anti-footbinding societies and take an active part in church and phil-

THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN CHINA 75

anthropic work if they are Christians. Nor should one forget to speak
of the women in the church who go about as teachers of the Bible or on
errands of mercy to the poor and suffering. Some of these are ladies
of fine families and great learning, while others are poor country
women, whose chief qualifications are a tender heart and a sympathetic
mind rather than literary attainments.

During the late revolution the women bore no inconsiderable part.
They were active in plotting and many women dedicated their fortunes
and their lives to the dangerous work of propagating revolutionary
doctrines or smuggling in arms from foreign countries. Young women
everywhere were determined to enlist as soldiers, and in a few places
" Amazon corps " were formed. Many others offered their services as
nurses and the trained nurses and Bible women are said to have done
effective work. Public meetings were held in all the large cities at
which women spoke in behalf of the revolution, and wealthy women
pledged their jewels to raise the much needed funds.

One of the most hopeful signs of all is the fact that the government
promises to provide educational advantages for all girls in the same
schools with the little boys until the age of ten, and afterwards by a
separate system which is to end for the present in a higher normal
school for girls. There seems to be a really awakened conscience on
the matter of the education of women and there is something pathetic
in the pleas which the educated young men of China are making that
their wives and sisters may be educated. With their modern educa-
tion, they are beginning to realize what it means to a man to have an
uneducated woman for a wife or as the mother of their children. They
are not ambitious therefore for an education which shall fit women for
public positions so much as for good home makers. They realize that
in China's present condition woman's greatest work lies in establishing
new ideals of home life.

China has always been a moral rather than a religious nation, which
means that the family rather than the individual sense has been devel-
oped. This may militate against the rapid growth of freedom for
women in public life, but in the end will give her a secure and honored
position. Perhaps the greatest problem in that country at present is
the struggle which is on between family loyalty and individualism.
It is hoped that this agitation will not so shake the moral foundations
of the people that it will bring on a demoralization before it has had
time to adjust itself to that broad socialism which is founded on indi-
vidualism rather than is opposed to it. In the trying time that is
coming, we believe that the women may hold the power to regulate the
pace of the change which is inevitable. For the women of China are
strongly moral, and the power of women in moral things has been
recognized by the Chinese. One writer says : " Purification of morals,
from the time of creation until now, has always come from woman."

76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE COLLEGE

By Pkofessob WALTER LIBBY

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

THE expression socialization of the college is here used not to indi-
cate a process to be set going at some time in the future, but to
denote a development which can be observed in the history of institu-
tions of higher learning and which educational leaders as the conscious
guides of evolution may now further, direct, and render consistent with
itself. A comparison of the Oxford clerk of the fourteenth century,
ascetic, other-worldly, sententious, immersed in scholastic logic, with
some of the alert, yet philosophical, public men produced by the English
universities of to-day, shows the line that academic evolution has fol-
lowed during the intervening centuries. On this continent these con-
trasted types of university man find their analogies in the Harvard man
of the middle of the seventeenth century, a clergyman trained by the
clergy for the clergy, and the Harvard man of the twentieth century,
educated under more democratic and less clerical influences.

The tendency of colleges to change in adapting themselves to
changed social conditions is obvious enough. At the same time it is
generally admitted that through economic and other changes society is
marked by greater and greater complexity. How must we shape the
college curriculum, methods, administration, etc., in order that our
graduates may prove themselves efficient in the complex social condi-
tions of the present day? This is the problem whose solution we and
all interested in the progress of higher education have to discover. To
the settlement of this question as it presents itself at this time I wish
to offer a slight contribution from the standpoint of the college pro-
fessor of pedagogy.

In the first place, for an American college to -adopt at this time the
narrow curriculum that two centuries ago introduced the student to
professional studies would be a reversion dictated by despair. Funda-
mental as Latin, Greek and mathematics are to our civilization, our
culture, our science, they do not of themselves afford an adequate prepa-
ration for life under modern conditions. Helpful as Latin and Greek
are to our esthetic appreciation and sense of ethical values, filled with
illumination and bristling with suggestions as are the ancient litera-
tures, they could not mean so much for us had our minds not been
formed and informed by other studies. Even as a step toward the dif-

THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE COLLEGE 77

ferentiation of colleges the adoption of the old curriculum would seem
unwise, for the preparation needed for professional study to-day is quite
other than it was in the seventeenth century.

One change entailed in the college curriculum by the growing com-
plexity of modern social conditions is some recognition in the courses
of instruction of those conditions themselves. In a democratic country
we should all know how the other half lives. Social problems and needs
must be learned. I wish to emphasize the truth that if they are to be
known they must be taught. People who appear callous and cruel,
indifferent to private needs and public welfare, are often merely unin-
formed. That the undergraduate years offer the opportunity for the
presentation of such matter there is sufficient evidence.

During the last few years my department has taken up with the
students in pedagogy the educational aspects of the university settle-
ment, child-labor legislation, juvenile crime, the home, defectives,
primitive peoples, eugenics, morals and hygiene, the immigrant, the
new schools, open-air schools, etc. The work is conducted in seminar
style, each student choosing a topic for intensive treatment. The
response to these subjects from juniors, seniors and graduates is very
cordial and very immediate. They cover, if you like, the romantic and
sentimental phases of social activity, and the appeal is no less powerful
on that account. On the other hand, there is no attempt on my part
to suppress a discussion of the futility of some forms of philanthropy.
I think the ultimate effect of such a course is to give content to the idea
of good citizenship, to check latent snobbishness, and to increase a sense
of the sanity and worth of the ordinary daily activities, especially the
activities of the teaching profession.

There are other approaches to this same end, of which our professors
are availing themselves. Courses in ethics are being given in many of
the American colleges with excellent effects, and in these courses par-
ticular pains are taken to study the relation of the college to the com-
plex social conditions in which we live. The teacher of ethics has the
advantage that he can treat with authority the question of moral stand-
ards, such as the relative claims of benevolence and justice, trained,
hard-headed thinking on which is one of the present needs of the
democracy. But from what particular department the advocacy of the
social claim comes, is a matter of indifference so long as it comes with
conviction and force. History, sociology, economics, ethics, pedagogy,
English, other modern languages, Latin and Greek in a marked degree,
as I have implied, offer the mature mind an opportunity of broadening
the social sympathy and deepening the moral consciousness of the stu-
dents. It is impossible, without going into the details of class work, to
indicate fully the intimate, subjective value to character of the quiet
presentation of social facts. We are enlisting the interest, the thought,

78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the sympathy and ultimately the activity of the students in the cause of
social progress and public welfare. That the students recognize and
cordially respond to the changing tone of college instruction many
gratifying signs indicate. The excellent article in the number of The
Atlantic Monthly for November, 1911, on "The College: an Undergrad-
uate View " saves me from the need of bearing further testimony on this
point. If I might state the educational problem of the college in-
structor as it here presents itself to my mind, I should say: How can
the esthetic appreciations of adolescents be transformed into the ethical
judgments of the manly and womanly mind ?

Naturally, in a really educational process such as I am briefly out-
lining the personality and ideals of the instructor must play a large
part, and the change in the social efficiency of the college toward which
some of us are groping our way seems to imply a shifting in the con-
ception of academic culture. It is difficult to arraign any type of cul-
ture, and almost ungrateful to imply that the eighteenth-century idea
that the finest type was secured by reading a little good poetry, hearing
some good music and speaking just a few words of sense daily is from
our present point of view untenable. A comparison of two Oxford men
of the nineteenth century, Lewis Carroll and T. H. Green, will help
me in my statement. Lewis Carroll was a thoroughly cultured gentle-
man, presentable in the best society, a delightful companion, an in-
genious writer, whose pages have delighted thousands in need of inno-
cent entertainment. In addition he was for long years a college
instructor and a contributor to the literature of mathematics. Green
was a man of different stamp. He lacked something of the grace and
charm of Lewis Carroll. He was less popularly known, but no less
socially important. His contributions to the literature of philosophy
were weighty. He was the leader of a great movement in the history
of the thought of our race. He exerted an immense influence on the
minds and conduct of the college men with whom he came in contact.
Through Mrs. Humphry Ward's presentation of him as the Mr. Grey
of " Robert Elsmere," he gained recognition with the reading public as
one of the great forces in modern social progress. Lewis Carroll was
extremely conservative, opposed to the rights of women, complacent
about children's acting on the stage, hostile to the advance of science
study at the university. Green succeeded in the conciliation of town
and gown, became a member of the municipal council, was instrumental
in establishing a local secondary school, and had his university duties
permitted it, might have become representative of the city in the coun-
cils of the nation. He extended his sympathy to the cause of human
liberty beyond the sea, and received the news of Gettysburg and Vicks-
burg with the enthusiasm becoming a large man. Can we not say that
he represents a type of culture as worthy as any, and increasingly de-

THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE COLLEGE 79

sirable in the colleges of a democratic country and race ? The changed
conception of culture I have tried here to indicate as increasingly char-
acteristic of the academic mind must impress college students with the
reality, the robustness, of our ethical aims, and make of great educa-
tional value any instructor, no matter in what department, who holds
and embodies it.

When young people leave college halls with dreams of the betterment
of the human race, they should in the first place make sure that they
do not prove a burden to their own families. An up-to-date, democratic
culture should not interfere with their earning their own living. In
fact, if properly educated, they will see in the choice of a calling a ques-
tion of the greatest moral moment. To fit oneself for a vocation, to
adapt oneself in a business way to society, is not hostile to true culture.
It is in recognizing the real bearings of our daily task, and taking satis-
faction in it that we grow into the only culture that seems worth while
to the adult mind. Is it too much to say that one of the dangers of our
age is the dilettante pursuit of scraps of the arts, and crumbs of the
foreign languages? In the years of maturity the cultivation of these
interests has something of the pathos of arrested development recurring
to the styles and ideals of the teens.

The change in the attitude of professors and students towards the
needs of the people and the welfare and progress of society, so intimately
educational in its nature, seems to me the most promising factor in the
movement for college and university reform. As a professor of peda-
gogy I would here lay the chief emphasis ; but this change in the con-
ception of academic culture implies further changes to which I must
hasten.

Space does not permit me to speak of all that American colleges are
doing, all that is still left them to do, in laying the cultural foundation,
as I understand the term, for the learned and other professions. If our
doctors were all true guardians of the public health, if all our engineers
were bent on furthering hygienic conditions, if all lawyers were zealous
in the cause of social justice, if all clergymen appreciated the larger
aspects of the people's needs, the cause of human welfare would be
secure. I must pause a moment, however, to say something concern-
ing the relation of the college to the schools.

In the American college that I know most intimately about four
hundred students are received annually from the secondary schools and
other colleges. About one hundred and fifty are graduated every June.
Of the graduates, seventy or seventy-five return as teachers to the
schools. The secondary school affords the college, therefore, one of its
most important points of social contact. It is largely through the high
schools and academies, which in turn influence the grades, that the col-
lege makes its culture tell on the lives of the poor and common people,

8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

from whom the majority of us are sprung. If we seek an aim, and
are not blinded by academic pride, here is one right at hand. You will
not be surprised to hear that the policy of the modern department of
pedagogy is to help, not to exploit, the high school. The social point
of view is capable, perhaps to a greater degree than one might at first
expect, of modifying our procedure in dealing with the lower schools.
The chief function of a college department of pedagogy is to turn out
well-prepared teachers, enthusiastic, and with the right attitude toward
their work. It should not, in my judgment, lend itself to cheap adver-
tising, or drumming up students, or making a hit with the high schools
and academies. Those imbued with the social spirit will find the hun-
dred problems of adjustment of the college to the secondary schools too
vital to be dealt with in a narrow or commercial spirit.

The relation of the college to the rich is no less important than the
question just discussed, if the college is to preserve the right tone
towards the social needs and aspirations of the whole people. The
history of European universities shows that these institutions have
been used to further the political views of their founders. In Prance
and Germany, for example, universities have been used almost like fort-
resses to hold territory gained in war, as can be shown by reference to
Breslau, Strasburg, Bonn, Bordeaux, Caen and Poitiers. The numerous
universities organized by Napoleon were designed to carry out his policy
of government. In view of this background afforded by history one can
not be indifferent to the influence of founders and patrons upon their
universities. Just how the millionaire founder or the millionaire
trustee affects the social relations of the college calls for more extended
statement than space here permits. In a few glaring instances in this
country there have been serious infringements by the wealthy sup-
porters of a university upon the spirt of academic freedom. But the
predominance of the rich in the councils of the college has acted more
insidiously in the social ideals that they perhaps unconsciously put upon
the institution. One might mention briefly the expenditure of money
from the business standpoint of the advertiser rather than from the
educational standpoint of the professor ; the treatment of the instructors
as employees rather than as a body of self-respecting gentlemen working
in a great social cause ; and finally, the character of the officers likely to
be chosen by trustees filled with a commercial rather than an academic
spirit. A glance at the constitutions and administration of the uni-
versities in monarchical Europe as compared with these features of
American universities causes no small wonder that in this country insti-
tutions of higher learning are comparatively aristocratic, not to say
autocratic. The University of Oxford, for example, is governed by
three bodies, council, congregation and convocation. The first, council,
is made up of six heads of colleges, six leading professors, and six

THE SOCIALIZATION OF TEE COLLEGE 81

representatives of the alumni. This is the cabinet of the academic
state. The second, congregation, consists ideally of the teaching force
of the university. It has important legislative powers. Convocation
is made up of the M.A. alumni who have maintained close relations
with their alma mater. This body chooses the chancellor of the uni-
versity, exercises the right of veto, elects members of Parliament. Even
this scheme is now undergoing reform along even more democratic lines.
How far behind we are, with many of our colleges and universities
governed by a secret conclave of wealthy men and a president not
responsible to the teaching force or to the alumni !

To prepare citizens for a democracy the organization of the college
itself must be democratic. If it be true that we learn to do by doing,
the student should learn at college to be a citizen of a free state, not
alone by precepts or academic instruction, but by the experience of
membership in a free college community. Wherever there is an absence
of social aim and organization on the part of college officers it is little
wonder that the student body is lacking in purpose and does not rise
above a community consciousness of a very primitive sort. With the
colleges filled with the right social spirit the students feel themselves
the members of a great republic of letters, or rather, of a democracy of
science, possessed of a truth too vital to be merely individual and aca-
demic. The utilization of the ethical and social life of the school as a
means of moral education, which, since Arnold's day, has been a recog-
nized feature of the great English public schools, where, as Haklane
remarks, English boys are permitted and encouraged to govern one
another, is still almost unknown in some of the American colleges. If
the president and the professors take the students into their confidence
in the discussion of general aims as regards the welfare and progress of
the people, then the corporate life of the school can be organized on a
higher basis, discipline becomes more and more self-discipline, and
anti-social types feel themselves condemned by the judgment of their
peers in academic standing.

A measure of the change for want of which many American insti-
tutions of higher learning are suffering to-day was wrought out in the
German universities by Fichte and others over one hundred years ago.
It can be described briefly as a greater measure of freedom, spontaneity,
self-activity. One should not, however, forget that increased freedom
must mean an increased sense of responsibility and that self-activity
must be activity of social import under social stimulation. When the
members of the college understand their true social end and aim,
athletics will occupy a more subsidiary place, and our institutions of
higher learning will be more than mere clubs for wealthy young men.
It is only in the absence of the enunciation of serious purposes that the
college shows the tendency to triviality and puerility of which some

vol. lxxxii. — 6

8 2 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

complain. The youngest freshman knows that success on the athletic
field is not the chief end of man, and he is quick to note the falsetto in
the football enthusiasm of the middle-aged and elderly professors when
they pretend that the scores of the teams are the chief topic of academic
interest.

Lack of appreciation of the educational value of college organization
has blinded some educators to the merits of college fraternities. These
organizations have a long and interesting history which can be traced
back to the medieval nations at Bologna, Paris and the other early
European universities. At present the college officer is likely to regard
them rather as an administrative danger than as an educational oppor-
tunity. In our present system the fraternities are in effect if not in
fact the vestigial remains of a university constitution in which the
student body and the alumni played a vastly more important part than
they do with us. A revival of academic freedom would restore the
fraternities to their healthy functions. Now, as Birdseye and others
too plainly show, a college fraternity, like other rudimentary organs, is
liable under unfavorable conditions to deterioration and disease.

Again, if the students and the college in general with a fuller
measure of academic freedom and an increased sense of their social
responsibility would reconsider the curriculum and methods of instruc-
tion in the light of democratic principles, many wholesome changes
could be brought about.

Besides instruction in sociology and the social aspects of pedagogy,
economics, history, English and foreign literature already spoken of,
I wish to mention here only one other subject, namely, physiology.
Recent developments in natural science, above all, progress in bacteri-
ology, have made the pursuit of this subject in college a pressing need.
In addition to courses in scientific physiology we should have in every
college popular courses on applied physiology for all the students, deal-
ing with the vital questions of hygiene. Such courses are necessary for
the guidance of the undergraduates in reference to diet, sleep, habits of
study and of personal health in general. For, keeping our social pur-
pose in view, it is not hard to see that one of the chief endeavors of the
college should be to disseminate through the schools and in the homes
the knowledge of hygienic science that is so necessary for the comfort
and welfare of the people.

The social test of college culture would suggest many changes in the
content and method of other college courses. The spirit of pedantry,
to which all academic life is liable at times to fall victim, would be recti-
fied by the challenge : " What is the social value and import of this ? "
If every college course were in its content socially important, then the
students taking part would work more spontaneously, and the present
methods of dictation and exact prescription would give way to greater

THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE COLLEGE 83

activity and initiative on the part of the student and greater freshness
of response and cooperation in general.

The best methods, however, and the best results from college work
can only be obtained when all college students and professors are
engaged on some real, useful work instead of busying themselves with
mere exercises. The tragedy of college life as seen by the up-to-date
educator is that we in many cases are attempting to train for life
activity by a series of exercises that can be regarded only as remote
approximations to actual activities. This fault shows not merely in
the college of liberal arts, but, where one would least expect it, in pro-
fessional, and in spite of the rapid introduction of practical work, even
in many engineering schools. In four or five years the engineering
school as a rule does not undertake to teach engineering, but only to
give preliminary exercise work to form in the future the basis for
acquiring the profession of engineer. The remoteness of academic
training from the real goal to be attained is naturally more marked in
the other departments. One phase of this weakness is found in the
endless theme work produced by students in compulsory English com-
position. As has been wittily said, there is a great difference between
having something to say and having to say something, and in the work of
composition the student is, indeed, placed in a notoriously artificial
attitude. This serves here, however, merely as an illustration of a
general defect observed in college work, which in the opinion of the
writer results from our failure to demand for our work a social aim
and purpose. How to provide real work and real activities for a thou-
sand students on the college campus is a matter calling for some exercise
of ingenuity. I must content myself with a single illustration of the
work that might engage the scholarly activities of our undergraduates.
The need of good translations of French, German, Italian, Spanish and
other scientific works, our college and university men will readily join
with me in recognizing. With, let us say, five hundred students in
French, six hundred in German and a proportionate number in the
other foreign languages, something of social value could surely be done
in this matter under the direction of capable instructors. The transla-
tion last semester by eleven students in one of my classes of a complete
French book of over three hundred pages opens up a vista of possibili-
ties of real cooperative work of public importance.

If we held consistently to a distinct social purpose, most of the
valid criticisms one hears of the college would be met. One of the
severest critics of higher schooling of all sorts complains especially of
the lack of effort at moral improvement. He emphasizes the futility of
the college in helping the young man of limited means in the funda-
mental social matter of earning his own living. Others join him in
pointing out the tendency of some of the colleges to become mere play-

84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

grounds for the leisure classes. Many critics within and without the
college comment on the lack of serious purpose among the students, the
failure of the heads of colleges to formulate for their institutions a
definite aim and program. Others concentrate their attention on
administrative questions, the lack of responsibility of the trustees, the
helplessness of the faculties, the autocracy of the president. Finally,
it is admitted by an eminent educational authority that a fair equivalent
of a college training can be gained through correspondence or even a
brief course of reading. Such pessimistic comment falls away from a
college or university animated by such social spirit as I have sought
here to indicate and advocate. Such a spirit will entail not a narrow,
but a broad curriculum to answer the needs of an increasingly complex
civilization, and a more liberal discipline with more guidance, and less
repression, more freedom and an increased sense of responsibility, in
order to fit for citizenship in an enlightened and self-disciplined democ-
racy. Great changes in administration are inevitable, an autocratic
university is incompatible in a free democracy, but the essential change
needed is an educational rather than an administrative one.

The typical American college has been necesarily denominational to
maintain the doctrines and faith that to its constituency seemed vital.
In the present great diversity of belief many of the colleges show little
or no sectarian bias. Unless these institutions are, with increased
liberalism, to be marked by laxity of principle, and flabbiness of moral
purpose, they must gain a new motivation worthy of the times, they
must work under the inspiration that a hope and faith in human prog-
ress gives. To show how the minds of students can be affected educa-
tionally so that the college may be touched with this spirit of modern
democratic culture is the main purpose of these pages.

In conclusion we may say that the change we seek to further in
harmony with an evolution already under way is designed to make the
college responsive to the social need of the present, to render it more
publicly significant, possibly less denominational, certainly not less
religious. In a word, one might say, more democratic and less sectarian.

MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 85

MODEKN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT AND ITS INFLUENCE

ON PHILOSOPHY

By Professor HARRY BBAL TORREY

REED COLLEGE

TO enter upon a discussion of the influence of modern scientific
thought upon philosophy is to find one's self beset by temptations
to a discursiveness not possible within the given conditions of time and
space. Under such pressure, one might be led easily into a considera-
tion of relative values — efficacy of methods, seriousness of limitations,
ultimate soundness of criteria, the final significance of present tend-
encies. As I write, however, these problems seem so turgid with poten-
tial misunderstanding as to embarrass rather than facilitate the dis-
cussion that, as a student of biology, I had planned. To avoid such
embarrassments, attention will be focused on the general theme through
an examination into the nature of scientific truth. This procedure not
only will put into my hands an instrument whose uses are relatively
familiar to me, but will serve, I believe, to illuminate some of the most
significant phases of modern philosophic thought.
• Poincare has somewhere made a suggestive comparison between the
Gallic and Anglo-Saxon genius. Characteristic of the one is a feeling
for form, for symmetry, for logical completeness, for finality; charac-
teristic of the other is a feeling for substance, development, function,
change. For the one, truth lies in the result; for the other, in the
process. One is represented by a deductive, the other by an inductive
type of mind.

I have no desire to raise here a national issue. Whatever the merit
of this characterization of these ethnic groups, it will serve my purpose
if it give vividness to the statement that the same general differences
distinguish certain philosophers and scientific investigators. Wherever
one finds a faith in final causes, a hope in the revelation of ultimate
truth, there one finds a philosopher who, like the Frenchman of Poincare,
has drawn the essential elements of his inspiration from the philosophy
characteristic of ancient Greece. Modern science may have supplied
his convenience with the telephone and the electric light, the automobile
and the thoroughbred, aniline dyes and serum therapy ; but it has done
little more. Until he views the truth as nothing final, as existing in

86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the process rather than in the result, as a growing, expanding, changing
vision, blooming with youth as long as human life can use it, it can
hardly be said that his eyes have felt the touch of the spirit of modern
science.

Wherever modern science has affected characteristic changes in the
trend of philosophic thought, the result has been achieved by lessening
the influence of that ancient legacy which may be conveniently referred
to as the doctrine of final causes.

It must not be inferred, however, that the influence of this doctrine
has been confined to philosophy alone. It has been felt in every field of
human inquiry that presents a speculative aspect, an opportunity to
reach by means of the imagination into the unknown. The history of
science is one long record of struggle between just those types of mind
that Poincare has sketched. In none of the sciences, however, has the
conflict been more prolonged and bitter than in biology. There the
fight has been waged about the four great problems of evolution, indi-
vidual development, vitalism and adaptation. None more than these
offer speculative opportunity — abundantly accepted. None more con-
vincingly than these show the inexorable incompatibility of faith in
final causes and scientific progress.

I present them, therefore, as my chief aids in developing, if I
may, a fruitful conception of the nature of scientific truth. Having
reached such a conception, we will proceed to discuss its relation to the
philosophic thought of the day.

II

Faith in final causes is not a necessary product of a particular
civilization, of civilization at all. Though it may persist in the midst
of sophistication, it is born of inexperience. Under one form or another,
it has existed among peoples of all sorts, wherever they have possessed
sufficient intelligence to hazard an interpretation of their universe of
experience. Of these peoples, the Greeks and Hebrews claim our especial
attention, since it is from them that the main streams of our philosophy
and science and religion flow.

Compared with the sophistication of Aristotle's theories of life, the
cosmology of the Mosaic record is strikingly anthropomorphic and
naive. In spite of this naivete, however, there is no question of its
astounding control over the history of scientific thought; the more so,
since it is to the second and far cruder story of the creation, in fact,
in the second chapter of Genesis that the church chiefly pinned its faith
in its long struggle with the doctrine of evolution. The struggle has
been at times debased with bitterness and violence. One grows heart-
sick at the sad spectacle of a Galileo swearing away his scientific
probity as he groveled in fear of torture before the Inquisition.

MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 87

But it has not been through such violence alone that the influence
of the Hebrew tradition has been felt. More subtly did it discourage
the great anatomist, Vesalius, who, in the flower of his young manhood,
filled with the spirit of the pioneer, linked his fortunes to the throne
of Charles and Philip. It is significant that, while he idly fretted out
his life on Spanish soil, Suarez, the Spanish Jesuit, was born, destined
to create the doctrine of special creation in its modern form by reaffirm-
ing in detail the Mosaic account of the creation — even the episode of
the rib. The fact carries a suggestion of the reason why the productive
years of that great progressive in biological science were limited to five,
and ended with his thirtieth anniversary.

It was against this anachronistic doctrine of special creation, crystal-
lized out of the civilization of the seventeenth century, that Darwin
launched his great argument in the shape of the " Origin of Species."
But, in doing so, he found in his opponents Hebrew tradition mixed with
Greek. Evolution was not a conception hostile to the mind of Aristotle,
though what we now recognize as phenomena of evolution did not espe-
cially engage his attention. The two rather ambiguous passages in which
he arranges living creation in a series of closely intergrading types might
be interpreted in terms of evolution without doing essential violence to
his general conception of life. The origin of species of organic beings
was not with him an issue. He was unaffected by the Mosaic record.
Historical problems were to him of less moment than essential relations
of structure and function. His especial interest in the ultimate analysis
of truth was not, however, incompatible with an admission of the trans-
formation of organic types. Indeed, under the influence of Aristotelian
philosophy, St. Augustine himself sought to interpret the Mosaic cos-
mology with its conception of an external Creator, in naturalistic terms
that should harmonize with the Greek conception of forces and poten-
tialities inherent in the universe itself. It is this mixed derivation
that complicates to some extent attempts to trace to their origins the
ideas of the modern world.

There was no fundamental incompatibility then, between Greek
tradition and the doctrine of descent with modification. As an evolu-
tionist, Aristotle was at least as modern as Charles Bonnet. "Were he
alive to-day, I should confidently look for him in the foremost ranks of
biological thinkers. His biological contributions, however, have been
largely obscured by his versatility of interest in final causes. This
interest I am disposed to believe was a product of his time, of the age
into which he was born, of his education, his companionships, rather
than a fundamental tendency of his mind. However it may be inter-
preted, there is no doubt that his ideas on transformism in organic
nature were definitely limited thereby. If he was an evolutionist, he
was also a teleologist. Adaptation in nature spelled for him design.

88 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Organic types might change, but in accordance with a perfecting prin-
ciple that should lead finally to the crowning glory of the evolutionary
series, the human species. Perfecting principles are not unknown —
witness Lamarck and Nageli — in the speculative biology of the last
century. In the hands of no one, however, have they proved to be in-
struments by means of which discoveries are made. Their influence has
been conspicuously negative.

It was essentially Aristotle's teleology that Darwin, as late as 1859,
overmastered with the doctrine of natural selection. It was Aristotle's
evolutionary series, ending with man, that, fashioned into the semblance
of a pine tree by Lamarck, was finally displaced by Darwin's conception
of a genealogical tree without a central axial trunk flowering at the tip
in man, but branching polychotomously in all directions from a common
center. This modern conception harmonizes with the fact that there is
no evidence that man has been fashioned, whether by special act of an
external creator as in the old Hebrew account, or by the less direct
process of evolution under the guidance of a final principle inherent in
nature, as in the Aristotelian tradition, to be the lord and highest
product of organic creation.

The Hebrew tradition embodies too naive a conception of final causes
for the philosophic as for the scientific minds of to-day, although it still
lingers in various forms of religious doctrines that typically compose
themselves, as President Jordan has somewhere aptly remarked, out of
the debris of our grandfathers' science. Aristotelian evolution still
lingers, though negative and barren on the fertile soil of modern ex-
perience, in the minds of those who admit with Aristotle the evolution
of the physical man, but view, with him, the mind as a thing apart. It
is characteristic of a faith in final causes that it permits distinctions of
this sort. To the average biologist, however, to admit the validity of the
distinction would be to question the validity of organic evolution itself.
For the evolution of the body is neither more nor less certain than the
evolution of consciousness. Both, for the student of objective science,
rest upon evidence of the same order.

It was to be expected that Aristotle, a pioneer in science, would over-
estimate the simplicity of his problem of creating order where order had
not reigned before, that he would seek for final causes with a suggestion
of the simple confidence of the woodsman who traces smoke to fire or
hunts his quarry to its lair. He was, scientifically, of necessity unsophis-
ticated.

It is on other grounds that we must seek an interpretation of the
persistence of this phase of his influence in contemporary thought; a
phase which I suspect he would now agree was the portion of his legacy
least worthy of our regard. There is something foreign to the spirit of
Aristotle, something savoring of a sophistication born of conflict he

MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 89

could not have known, in the following passionate challenge of a modern
defender of the faith in final causes :

"Let not science contrive its own destruction by venturing to lay
profane hands, vain for explanation, on that sacred human nature which
is its very spring and authorizing source." Modern developments in
philosophy itself indicate that the challenger need have no fear. What-
ever the inevitable expansion of human knowledge may accomplish
for human nature will not be by means of violent or profane hands.
Conceptions of human nature, like all other conceptions of the human
mind, adapt themselves quietly, impersonally, without anguish, to suc-
cessive discoveries of truth.

Ill

Passing now to the problem of development, one is struck by the
modern aspect of Aristotle's contribution.

Have you ever seen an egg grow? Have you perhaps followed the
frog's egg, as it splits up into a group of segments ; seen a cleavage fur-
row spread across it, new furrows succeeding each other with every half
hour; observed the segments rhythmically swell and flatten with each
cleavage; felt the mystery of this marvelous plastic process of develop-
ment? Here is life; here is activity. And the juxtaposition of these
phrases is not accidental.

Aristotle knew nothing of the cleavage of the frog's egg. He had no
knowledge of the segments thus formed — which are now called cells.
He did not know that the egg, is a cell also, comparable with the cells
that make up, as fundamental structural units, the various organs and
tissues of the body ; that the egg like these other cells, possesses a char-
acteristic body called the nucleus, which, as in all nuclei, contains a
substance (chromatin) now generally understood to be most intimately
concerned with the phenomena of differentiation and heredity. He was
ignorant, also, of the nature of the male sex element, vastly smaller than
the egg and differing from it remarkably in form, being adapted to a
life of great activity. Otherwise, he would have known that the sperm,
like the egg, is, in spite of its size and form, a cell, furnished with a
nucleus and chromatic substance. And had he lived as late as 1875, he
might have known that the essential facts of fertilization consist not
only in the stimulation, the activation of the egg by the single sperm
which penetrates its substance, but in the fusion of the egg and sperm
nuclei and the mixture of the chromatin thus derived from the two
sexes.

Nothing of this Aristotle knew. But he had observed the develop-
ment of the chick. Without the microscope he had failed to note the
early stages one sees so readily in the frog. But he had seen the embryo
gradually appear on the upper side of the inert yolk, and he had seen

9o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the heart begin to beat on the third day of incubation. It all impressed
him to an extent that led to a treatise on generation.

To account for what he saw, he conceived the egg — the female con-
tribution — to be essentially passive, containing elements that could be
wakened into life by the active principle of the male. This he con-
ceived to be a sort of enzyme, a ferment, which acted upon the female
germinal substance like rennet upon milk. From this simple beginning
he believed the development to progress, organ following organ; and
since the spermatic fluid, the active principle, was itself unorganized, he
rejected the possibility that parts should preexist.

Crude as all this is, it was an approximation to the truth, based on
the facts as Aristotle had observed them. To this extent, his theory of
development has a modern look. On a second glance, however, one dis-
covers signs of the same eagerness for final explanations that we have
already observed in our discussion of the problem of evolution. How,
from so simple a beginning, was the remarkable complexity of the adult
structure to be differentiated? And how was the fact to be explained
that chick eggs, when they develop, always produce chicks, turtle eggs
turtles ; that animals reproduce after their kind ? These were problems
that at once engaged his attention, and were answered with character-
istic promptness and confidence. Though the germ may be substantially
simple, it is subject to two transcendental potentialities that constrain
its development with reference to species and form.

And here Aristotle lapses out of the company of objective scientists.
To say that an egg reaches a certain form because it possesses the poten-
tiality to reach that form, is like defining a word in terms of itself. It
is hardly the type of interpretation to commend itself to modern inves-
tigators. Yet it has been the refuge of many minds throughout the
ages, and in a more refined and subtle form is used to-day by the dis-
tinguished author of " The Science and Philosophy of the Organism,"
to mask the hopelessness in his retreat from the firing line of experi-
mental biology.

It is the ugly function of final explanations, causes, elements, prin-
ciples, in biology, to call a halt. Trust them and, like the genii of old,
they whisk one swiftly out of the current of scientific thought. One
ceases to ask questions that are amenable to objective tests. And
science itself stagnates until such questions germinate again in the
minds of men.

From Aristotle to Caspar Friedrich Wolff extend two thousand years
barren of inspiration. Harvey, the famous author of the " Exercitation
on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals " ; Malpighi, his great
Italian contemporary; and the indefatigable Dutchman, Swammerdam,
had each made serviceable observations on the development of mam-
mals, birds and insects, but had contributed no new ideas. By the

MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 91

middle of the eighteenth century, there had still been no advance upon
Aristotle, but there had developed a sharp contrast between two theories
of development. On the one hand, Wolff supported the Aristotelian
theory — now dubbed, since Harvey, epigenesis. On the other, Charles
Bonnet, Albrecht von Haller and others elaborated its direct opposite in
their theory of preformation.

Again, in Wolff's restatement of it, epigenesis takes on a modern
aspect. The parts follow each other in development, and each part is
primarily an effect of another preceding part and thereupon becomes the
cause of another part that succeeds it. This is essentially the modern
doctrine that one stage of development is conditioned by the stage pre-
ceding it as it conditions the stage that follows. It is crowded with
suggestions ; that bear no fruit, however, for lack of knowledge, in Wolff's
imagination. Just as Aristotle endowed the simple germ with control-
ling potentialities that had no objective existence, Wolff achieved the
same differentiation of the homogeneous germ by means of a vis essen-
tialis, that sent him sailing also through the airy altitudes of final
causation.

Contrary to the belief of Wolff, Bonnet and Haller found it impos-
sible, on philosophical grounds, to conceive the beginning of the parts
of an individual. For them, the germ contained the whole preformed
in every part. While Bonnet insisted that man's body was not made
like a watch, of added parts, but existed from the beginning as a whole,
Haller was emphasizing the absurdity of believing that such a compli-
cated apparatus as the eye could be formed as the epigenesis of the day
demanded, out of crude materials by mechanical forces. Malebranche
brought forward the clever device of infinite divisibility to overcome the
patent objection that ordinarily the parts, whether present or not in the
germ, could not at first be seen. And Bonnet admitted the obvious
qualification that the parts need not exist in just the same form in the
germ as they possessed in the adult. For him they belonged in the
germ to a sort of invisible meshwork.

To this theory of development which sought to substitute for Aris-
totelian entelechies and Wolffian essential forces the conception that
differentiation merely consisted in the expansion, with a push here and
a pull there, of a structurally preexisting whole, numerous objections
arose both in logic and in objective fact. If an individual were pre-
formed in the germ, all the offspring of that individual must be pre-
formed in it also. Which meant that, encased in the body of Mother
Eve, one within the other, were all the germs of all the individuals of
possible future generations — a sufficiently grotesque result. Wolff him-
self contributed one of the most telling facts against it when he
described the formation of the tubular gut of the chick by the folding

92 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

up of a flat layer of tissue on the yolk. Obviously in this case the gut
did not exist as such in the germ.

It is unnecessary to multiply objections to this interesting bit of
metaphysic. Both the epigenetic and the preformationist theories of
the eighteenth century are dead and buried under the relentless logic of
events. Essential forces and preformed miniatures, alike in their
finality, were unable long to withhold the attention of naturalists from
the more potent suggestions of a rapidly growing body of new obser-
vations.

With the discoveries that organisms are built up of morphologically
equivalent protoplasmic units, or cells; that both egg and sperm are
cells, also; that the nucleus, especially the chromatic substance, is the
part of the cell chiefly if not wholly concerned with the inheritance of
the individual and specific characters and their distribution in the
developing organism; more than all, with the discovery of the essential
nature of fertilization, new theories were devised to interpret the still
puzzling problem of individual and specific differentiation. These, like
their prototypes of the previous century, fall into two contrasting
classes.

Both of these classes of theories recognize that individual differentia-
tion can not be interpreted without regard to race development. The
germ from which the individual springs has history behind it, is com-
posed, indeed, of two fragments of two preexisting individuals, the
parents, who, in turn, sprang similarly from a previous generation.
It is at once apparent that all modern theories of development must
reckon with these facts ; which means that, however simple we may con-
ceive a given germ to be, the probabilities are overwhelmingly opposed
to the conception that it is homogeneous ; and they are equally in favor
of the conception that it possesses from the start, in view of its relation
to a preexisting parent, some degree of differentiation.

In perfect accord with these requirements, modern epigenesis and
modern preformation nevertheless exhibit characteristic differences. On
the one hand, is the preformationist theory of determinants devised
especially to explain the persistence, through many generations, of very
trifling characters, such, for instance, as a small pit on a human ear,
recognized as a family trait, or a spot on one surface of a butterfly's wing,
or a lock of white hair on a particular area of an otherwise dark-haired
head. Such characters appear to come and go without effecting in any
way the other characters of the organism. TJiis independent variability
is interpreted on the assumption of fundamental living units in the
chromatin of the germ nucleus that represent and determine all the
various characters of every individual. The germ chromatin is accord-
ingly conceived to contain the determinants of all the heritable charac-
ters; and these are further conceived to be so associated, that in the

MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 93

course of development the determinants are parceled and reparceled by
the repeated divisions of the nuclear chromatin, an element in the cleav-
age process that, we have seen, is so striking a phenomenon in develop-
ment. Differentiation thus depends not upon the literal expansion of
a preexisting whole, but upon the distribution of the preformed deter-
minants in the germ that have been inherited from preexisting indi-
viduals. And this distribution takes place, by nuclear division, in such
a way that the right determinant always finds itself ultimately in the
right place, that is, in the same relative position that that sort of deter-
minant occupied in the parent.

The germ, then, is not only the abiding place of an enormous and
complex assemblage of determinants, but these determinants are living
morphological units. Not only that. They struggle for existence,
according to the conception, just as organisms do. The basis of this
struggle lies in inequalities in the food distribution in the germ, whereby
some determinants will obtain less nourishment and weaken correspond-
ingly, while others will obtain more nourishment and correspondingly
strengthen. As the determinants in the germ, so the organs, the char-
acters which they determine, vary.

By means of this ingenious application of the theory of natural
selection to the vital units of which living substance is composed, the
determinant hypothesis obtains a theory of variation which at once dis-
tinguishes it from the preformation theory of Bonnet. It goes still
farther. Even the biophors vary — those ultimate vital units of which
the determinants are the first aggregates.

With this liberal provision for variation, the determinant hypothesis
would appear to have approached very close to modern conceptions of
epigenesis. Certain fundamental differences, however, still persist.
Whatever the provision for variation in the germ, differentiation pro-
ceeds, according to the determinant hypothesis, by the segregation of
determinants already present in the germ; and these determinants are
vital morphological units. According to the most advanced epigenetic
theory, differentiation proceeds from a relatively simple germinal organi-
zation, not by the segregation of hypothetical vital units, but by means
of progressive changes of a physico-chemical nature.

Just here appears the characteristic of the determinant hypothesis
most significant for us. While the great inventor of the determinants
finds it fundamentally necessary to assume a structure for living sub-
stance that is based upon ultimate vital units that have individuality,
grow and reproduce, various investigators are discovering no such neces-
sity in the facts. What is necessary is a hypothesis that will work.
One of the strongest objections to the determinant hypothesis is, that,
paradoxically enough, the chief researches it has stimulated are those
which have been guided by the assumption that it would not work.

94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

One need not fail to appreciate its logical completeness, its symmetry,
and the skill with which it has been defended, and yet one need not be
blind to the fact that it has not been a stimulating guide for its friends.
It has been conservative rather than progressive. Founded on a definite
morphological conception of the ultimate constitution of living sub-
stance, it has not adapted itself plastically to the rapidly changing con-
ditions in biological science. The considerable amendment it has
received in the last eighteen years has only made it so cumbersome and
complex that it is now little more than a mere formulation of the facts
it attempts to explain.

Time will not permit us to explore thoroughly the mass of evidence
on which this criticism has been based. While differentiation according
to the determinant hypothesis assumes qualitative divisions of the chro-
matin in the nucleus, numerous investigations have shown that at least
five divisions of the egg in some animals may occur before there is any
recognizable difference between the cells thus formed. Each of the
first sixteen is competent to develop the entire adult structure. The
only way to account for such a result in terms of morphological determi-
nants is to assume that a complete outfit passes to each cell with each
division of the nucleus, obviously a serious burden for the determinant
hypothesis to bear. Further, among these phenomena of development
which are conveniently investigated under the head of regeneration,
similar difficulties have so constantly recurred, requiring similar as-
sumptions of reserve determinants, that the theory has long since ceased
to interest investigators in this field. It follows, rather than leads,
investigation. Finally, in the field of heredity, just that characteristic
of Mendelian inheritance — namely, the segregation of parental charac-
ters in second generation bjbrids — which at first seemed to give the
strongest support to the conception of a germ plasm composed of mor-
phological determinants, has now been resolved far more satisfactorily,
because more simply and workably, in terms of chemical substances.

These cases lay emphasis upon the distinction between morphological
and physiological conceptions that defines the essential difference be-
tween modern preformation and modern epigenesis. Instead of a con-
geries of morphological determinants, the epigenesist finds in the germ
a problem in physical and chemical relations. He is interested in the
dynamic aspects of development, in the energy transformations. He
does not seek to construct a scheme of the ultimate organization of
living substance, but he does seek to control its operations, to predict
its behavior.

In this new form, the problem of differentiation presents many
interesting aspects and is being encouragingly developed. By way of
illustration, recent investigations indicate that color differentiation is
based essentially on a well-known chemical process, the oxidation,

MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 95

namely, of a chromo-gen or color base in the presence of an oxidizing
enzyme or oxidase. Tyrosin, for instance, a colorless chemical com-
pound and a product of the decomposition of tissue proteids, can be
oxidized, in the presence of the enzyme tyrosinase, through a series of
colors : pink, red, deep brown to black, the color depending, other things
equal, on the concentration of the enzyme and the duration of its activ-
ity. Tyrosinase has been isolated from many organisms, and has been
definitely connected with pigment formation in many cases. We are
dealing here with known substances, not hypothetical vital units; with
chemical processes that can be followed in the laboratory test tube.
That an organism may develop a color characteristic of its parents, in
the light of these facts which are representative of a considerable num-
ber, it is only necessary that in the course of its development tyrosinase
be formed under conditions that make a reaction with the tyrosin in
the tissues possible. Local production of tyrosinase would lead to local
coloration, to spotting or characteristic marking. The amount of tyro-
sinase — that is, its concentration — in connection with local conditions
that might favor or inhibit the reaction in varying degrees, would deter-
mine the characteristic shade of color.

It is impossible in the brief time at my disposal to consider the
various complications of this type of problem. The difficulties are very
great in the way of investigations which as yet have hardly begun.
Enough may have been said, however, to indicate the direction of some
of the most recent and most promising work. If color characters are
dependent upon chemical reactions, other characters probably are also.
In fact, recent work upon the old problem of the heritability of acquired
characters has brought to light interesting chemical possibilities in
inheritance, and lifted the incubus of presumption laid by Weismann
upon the whole subject in the shape of the determinant hypothesis
almost twenty years ago.

Modern epigenesis recognizes an organized germ, more or less dif-
ferentiated, but vastly simple in comparison with the preformed germ.
That color may be produced at a given stage in the development of an
organism, it is not necessary that the tyrosinase, upon which the forma-
tion of the color may depend, should be present as such in the fertilized
ovum. It is only necessary that the conditions for its ultimate produc-
tion be present — relatively simple conditions, that bring about a series
of reactions of the type known in physiological chemistry as autocatal-
yses, in which one phase in the reaction determines the succeeding
phase. Not only is this sort of conception more simple than the deter-
minant hypothesis, but it is stimulating. It is workable. It leads to
results that are sympathetic with the most advanced scientific work of
the day. It is not a final explanation. It is an implement of research.

96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

IV

The problem of vitalism need be very briefly examined. Vitalism,
if it means anything in biology, interprets life in terms of forces or
agencies or processes that are not found in inorganic nature. Accord-
ing to this definition, Aristotle was a vitalist when he conceived the
development of the germ to be guided by the entelechies that determined
specific and individual form in organisms. Wolff was a vitalist when
he accounted for the differentiation of a homogeneous germ by the aid
of a vis essentialis. Vital forces have long since lost their grip. They
began to weaken when Wohler, in 1828, produced in the laboratory the
compound urea, till then supposed to be formed only in the bodies of
organisms. They broke into full retreat under the fire of calorimetric
researches of the last century which demonstrated that oxidation was
oxidation, whether it took place within or without the body, and that
vital heat was as surely due to chemical reaction as the heat generated
by the reaction between sulphuric acid and zinc.

So Wolff's vitalism is dead. The Aristotelian vitalism, however, has
a representative at the present day in the neo-vitalism of Driesch. The
Aristotelian entelechy has been revamped and applied to the unex-
plained residuum that has escaped Driesch's experimental analysis. It
is interesting that Driesch was a metaphysician first, an experimental
biologist second; and that after about fifteen years of unusual activity
in this second role, he returned to his first love. In these fifteen years
he developed what he has called three proofs of vitalism. But he has
not succeeded in persuading many biologists to accept his criteria of
demonstration. It is difficult to take seriously his conception of en-
telechy, a non-substantial, non-energetic principle which yet is com-
petent to control the developmental energies of the organism. It is but
another final cause, an ultimate term in the analysis of the activities
of organisms. And it has weakened Driesch's interest in biological
research just as the formulation of final explanations has led to stagna-
tion wherever we have met them along the line of biological inquiry.

In contrast with Driesch, there is a large and eager group of experi-
mental biologists who unite in deprecating his interest in entelechies
and, undaunted by its enormous complexity, in investigating the organic
mechanism in the hope of reducing more of it than he was able, to
terms of physics and chemistry. How far they may go is not, from the
standpoint of modern biology, a pertinent question. How they may
keep moving is more to the point. To this end the Drieschian entelechy
offers not the slightest suggestion of encouragement.

V

Three of the four problems to which attention was invited at the
beginning of this paper have now been considered. If I have succeeded

MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 97

in presenting intelligibly the actual development of modern ideas, it
has been shown that science lias progressed, with respect to these prob-
lems, by abandoning a faith in final causes for a faith in the hypotbesis
that works, by draining off every stagnant suspicion of ultimateness in
explanation, in the light of the conviction — the product of experience —
that the ideas that serve us change with our knowledge of objective
fact. I shall now attempt to show that this statement applies with equal
force to the development of modern conceptions of adaptation in nature.

The problem of adaption possesses a peculiar fascination for the
imaginations of men. It inheres in every mechanism that meets a
human end. Watches, beehives, steamships, reciprocating engines, foci-
balls, blackboards, fountain pens and yellow paper — all are obviously
fashioned toward ends. Why not that all-inclusive mechanism, the
universe itself, and all that in it is?

When Darwin came upon the field in 18-50, the widespread opposi-
tion which evolution theories had already experienced lay intrenched
behind an affirmative answer to this question. These were the works,
first of all, that Darwin stormed with his "Origin of Species." The
struggle did not center about the problem of species, though one may
well gather a contrary impression from the familiar abbreviation of the
title of that epoch-making book. It is in the sub-title — "the preserva-
tion of favored races in the struggle for life" — that one discovers his
real objective — a mechanical theory of adaptation in organic nature.
It was just because the supporters of organic evolution had lacked such
a theory that they had failed to impress, not only the thinking public;
but most of their biological brethren. Darwin was not reviled as an
atheist because he believed in evolution ; nor for that reason did he revo-
lutionize the whole course of modern thought, it was because his;
doctrine of natural selection menaced the traditional Hebraic concep-
tion of the creation that he was anathematized by the standpatters of
his generation. It was because he raised such a powerful presumption
against all doctrines of design in organic nature that he was able effect-
ively to substitute for doctrines of fixity and finality the fruitful con-
ception of change, lie did destroy the doctrine of fixity of species.
He did establish the doctrine of evolution in its place. But he did so
by eliminating teleological theories from the list of useful hypotheses
in science.

The solution of the problem of adaptation is being sought with
diminishing faith in teleological formularies. These are going the way
of the other final explanations that have failed to fulfill in modern
science the one prime requisite — active leadership. Since Darwin's
time the attention of biologists has been shifting from those secondary
adaptations which provide the material for natural selection, to the
direct or primary adaptive responses of the organism to given condi-

VOL LXXXU. — 7.

98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

tions. The phenomena of immunity, especially to bacterial poisons
that are so conspicuous in modern medicine, are adaptations of this
type. It is still too early to state with any certainty the exact nature
of the processes involved in such cases. That they are physico-chemical
processes of great complexity seems to be clear. In this respect they
ally themselves with the well-known equilibrium reactions in chemistry,
and the form changes that certain crystals undergo in response to
changes in temperature. Here, in the inorganic world, are relatively
simple analogues, at least, of the physiological processes that are asso-
ciated with adaptation in organisms. It is significant of the present
attitude toward problems of adaptation, that suggestions for their solu-
tion are being thus eagerly sought among the facts of physics and chem-
istry.

VI

Scientific truth, then, is not concerned with final solutions. Nothing
perhaps has been more conspicuously characteristic of it, in this dis-
cussion, than its incompleteness, than its plasticity, than its capacity
for indefinite expansion, than its stimulating power. To my mind, this
last is its crowning glory. We dwell in a world of hypotheses, and we
estimate them according as they are more or less workable. To those
hypotheses that approximate most closely to the demands of wide
ranges of fact, we give the name of laws. It is obvious, however, that
such laws nave varying degrees of certainty. Scientific truth is never
absolutely certain, but there are always ways of determining what it
may do.

For one who seeks a basis of criticism for a contribution to science,
three obvious tests may be applied. (1) It may contribute new facts;
(2) it may contribute a formulation of old facts; (3) it may contribute
a new idea that, in the presence of facts, may lead to a new point of
departure for explorations into the unknown.

If one were to apply these tests to what seem to me to be the two
most significant developments in the philosophic thought of to-day, they
might be said to fall, very roughly speaking, under the second and third
categories. In the former might be placed the synthetic philosophy of
Spencer, an avowedly scientific philosophy, whose essential problem was
to formulate the known facts of science in term of principles of evolu-
tion. This stupendous project, remarkable alike for the powers of its
author and the wide range of his interests, ended in a system of philoso-
phy, into which just enough metaphysics succeeded in creeping to
justify the criticism that, in spite of all good intentions, he had not been
able completely to disentangle himself from the habits of thought to
which his critics were happily accustomed.

In the third category may be placed that interesting application of

MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 99

the scientific method to problems of conduct which is known as prag-
matism.

Pragmatism distinguishes itself at once from the synthetic philoso-
phy in that it is non-systematic. Instead of an interest in a formulated
body of knowledge it appears to possess an insatiable desire to determine
practical choices. Given a problem of conduct, the solution unknown;
what shall be the line of action ? Here one perceives a strictly scientific
situation that emphasizes the practical value of the hypothesis. The
problem is to find a satisfactory path into a new region. And the an-
swer that pragmatism gives is, trust to luck and your past experience.
The truth, says James, is the hypothesis that will work. The truth,
says Dewey, if I rightly apprehend him, is the hypothesis that you can
work with. There is a suggestion of permanency, of stability, of future
significance in the latter phrase that makes it, to my mind, more felici-
tous. But I do not care to dwell upon that point. What comes closer
to my purpose is to point out that here is no faith in final causes, here
is no suspicion even of that innocuous phantom, the unknowable. Here
is no. distinction between science and philosophy — if indeed pragmatists
are philosophers, in spite of the fact that, in one form or other, they fill
several of the chairs of philosophy now in our universities. Here is a
faith that facts will tell their tale — will inevitably condition the move-
ment of ideas, that one's imagination content is derivable from one's
effective experience. Here is a philosophy that is working a transfor-
mation on the thought of the day. How? By abandoning the search
for lofty peaks of final causation, from which to triangulate the uni-
verse according to logical necessity ; by emphasizing ideas that shall not
only square with the facts as we find them, but shall create others.

Such I conceive to be the most significant effects of modern scientific
thought upon philosophy. They are characteristic tendencies of the
present day. How one may evaluate them, however, is a problem which,
for the purposes of this discussion, I have already promised to avoid.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

IOI

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

THE CLEVELAND MEETING OF

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION

FOB THE ADVANCEMENT

OF SCIENCE

The sixty-fourth meeting of the
American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, and the eleventh of
the "convocation week" meetings, will
be held in Cleveland from December 30
to January 4. Between twenty -five and
thirty national scientific societies meet
during the same week in affiliation with
the association. These include the
American Society of Naturalists and
the societies devoted to anatomy, an-
thropology, astronomy, biological chem-

istry, botany, entomology, horticulture,
mathematics, physics, physiology, psy-
chology and zoology. There will conse-
quently be a large gathering of scien-
tific men at Cleveland and the tradition
of convocation week will be worthily
maintained.

The geologists meet at New Haven
and the bacteriologists in New York,
and the chemists have decided to meet
hereafter in the spring and autumn
instead of in the summer and winter.
This change has been made by the
chemists owing to the fact that those
engaged in industrial work find the end
of the year an inconvenient period and

interiok of the aliasa stone memorial c'hapel of
Western Reserve University.

102

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

are besides not concerned with academic
holidays. Similar conditions have led
the engineers to meet apart from the
American Association, and the societies
devoted to economics, history, philology
and other sciences which have been
called "unnatural" and "inexact"
meet separately. The convocation week
meetings have consequently never fully
represented the whole weight of science
in America, and it is probably unde-
sirable that they should attempt to do
so every year. Such a gathering can
only be held in one of the great cities,
and there are advantages in small meet-
ings as well as in a large congress. It
would, however, be an admirable plan
if once in five years all organizations
concerned with research, higher educa-
tion and the applications of knowledge
could come together in order to demon-
strate to themselves and to the world
the great part that science plays in
modern civilization.

Cleveland is perhaps the most central
city in the United States for a scientific
meeting. It is north and east of the
center of population, but very close to
the center of scientific population. A
radius of 500 miles may include nine
tenths of the scientific men of the coun-
try. The city has good hotel accommo-
dations and, what is even more impor-
tant, institutions which offer excellent
places for the sessions and themselves
add an attraction to the meeting. The
adjacent main buildings of the West-
ern Reserve University and the Case
School of Applied Science are shown in
the accompanying illustration. West-
ern Reserve College opened in Hudson
in 1827 and removed to Cleveland in
1882. As Western Reserve University
since 1804, it has enjoyed a prosperous
history, to the original Adelbert College
there having been added a college for
women and a graduate school, and in
addition to professional schools of
medicine and law, there are a dental
school, a school of pharmacy and a
library school. The medical school is
one of the strongest in the country.

having ten years ago adopted the re-
quirement of three years of college
work for entrance and having an en-
dowment of one and a half million dol-
lars, two thirds of which has been re-
cently obtained. What is of even more
consequence, it has on its faculty men
of high distinction both in the scien-
tific and clinical departments.

The Case School of Applied Science
in like manner takes a leading position
among our technical schools. It enjoys
an educational affiliation with Western
Reserve University by which students
may complete their course by taking
the first three years at the university
and the last two years at the technical
school. It will be a pleasure to physi-
cists and chemists to meet in the labo-
ratory named in honor of Professor
Edward W. Morley, for many years
professor in the university, a past
president of the American Association
and one of the most active of its sup-
porters. There are other personal asso-
ciations with the meeting in the fact
that the vice-president of the section
of mechanical science and engineering,
Dr. Charles S. Howe, is president of
the Case School, and Professor George
T. Ladd, vice-president for the section
of anthropology and psychology, is a
graduate of Western Reserve Univer-
sity and has been a lecturer there. The
other vice-presidents of the association
and the presidents of the affiliated so-
cieties will give addresses of general
interest, and there will be a number of
discussions and general meetings that
will bring together men of science
working in different departments and
should be attractive to those who are
not professionally engaged in scientific
work. The president of the association,
Professor Charles E. Bessey, of the
University of Nebraska, has chosen as
the subject of his address "Some of
the Next Steps in Botanical Science."
At the opening session he will intro-
duce the president of the meeting, Dr.
Edward C. Pickering, director of Har-
vard College Observatory.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

103

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The Morley Laboratory of Western Reserve University.

T-ff.E S PEE AD OF INFANTILE
PARALYSIS

In an article by Mr. Charles T.
Brues, of the Bussey Institution of
Harvard University, on insects as
agents in the spread of disease, pub-
lished in the last issue of the Monthly,
a footnote was added to the effect that
since the article had been written ex-
periments with monkeys by the author
and Dr. Eosenau showed that infantile
paralysis, poliomyelitis, can be trans-

mitted from one monkey to another by
the stable fly, Stomoxys calcitrans. A
brief account of the experiments was
presented before the International Con-
gress on Hygiene and Demography in
September and has been printed in the
Monthly Bulletin of the Massachusetts
State Board of Health.

Monkeys were infected by injecting
virus from man into the central nervous
system, and large numbers of stable
flies were permitted to bite them.

Tablet in the Morley Laboratory.

io4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Twelve healthy monkeys were then ex-
posed to the bites of the same flies.
Six of them contracted the disease and
of these three died from it. The au-
thors state that they would like to
emphasize the fact that this does not
appear to be simply a mechanical
transference, but rather a biological
one, requiring a period of extrinsic in-
cubation in the intermediate host.
Details are, however, lacking concern
ing the period of incubation and the
precautions used to avoid passive con-
tamination. Dr. Flexner had in one
ease obtained infection by a filtrate
from bedbugs which had fed on the
blood of inoculated monkeys.

The preponderance of infantile pa-
ralysis in August, September and Oc-
tober, its prevalence in rural districts
and its failure to spread in schools,
asylums and the like, suggest an insect
carrier, and the fact that the virus is
a filterable parasite, invisible with the
microscope, suggests an analogy with
yellow fever and dengue known to be
inoculated by mosquitoes. Dr. Flexner
and his fellow workers at the Rocke-
feller Institute have, however, adduced
strong experimental evidence that the
mucous membrane of the nose is the
site both of egress and ingress of the
virus. While the problem in the case
of infantile paralysis is not yet com-
pletely solved we may take satisfaction
in the progress made by experimental
methods in discovering the causes and
preventing the occurrence of many of
the most terrible diseases.

SCIENTIFIC ITEMS

We record with regret the death of
Sir George Howard Darwin, Plumian
professor of astronomy and experi-
mental philosophy at Cambridge Uni-
versity; of Dr. Elie de Cyon, formerly
professor at the Academy of Sciences
of St. Petersburg and the author of
important contributions to physiology;
of Dr. Oliver Clinton Wendell, assistant
professor of astronomy in Harvard

University; of Eben Jeuks Loomis, for
a half century in the Nautical Almanac
Office; and of Edwin Smith, connected
with the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Sur-
vey since 1870, known especially for his
work on determinations of the force of
gravity.

The Royal Society has awarded its
medals as follows: a Royal medal to
Professor William Mitchinson Hicks,
F.R.S., for his researches in mathemat-
ical physics and investigations on the
theory of spectroscopy; a Royal medal
to Professor Grafton Elliot Smith,
F.R.S., for his researches on the com-
parative anatomy of the brain; the
Copley medal to Professor Felix Klein,
of Gottingen, For.Mem.R.S., for his
researches in mathematics; the Rum-
ford medal to Professor Heike Kamer-
lingh Onnes, of Leyden, for his re-
searches at low temperatures; the Davy
medal to Professor Otto Wallach, of
GOttingen, for his researches on the
chemistry of the essential oils and the
cyclo-olefines; the Darwin medal to
Dr. Francis Darwin, F.R.S., for his
work in conjunction with Charles Dar-
win, and for his researches in vegetable
physiology; the Hughes medal to Mr.
William Duddell, F.R.S., for his in-
vestigations in technical electricity;
the Buchanan medal to Colonel William
C. Gorgas, of the United States Army,
for his sanitary administration of the
works of the Panama Canal.

By the will of the late Morris Loeb, '
formerly professor of chemistry in New
York University, large sums are left to
scientific, educational and charitable
institutions, mainly subject to the life
interest of Mrs. Loeb. Harvard Uni-
versity will receive $500,000 for th:3
advancement of physics and chemistry;
$25,000 is given to the American Chem-
ical Society for a museum and $2,500
to the National Academy of Sciences.
Part of the residuary estate goes to the
Smithsonian Institution and to the
American Museum of Natural History.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY.

FEBRUARY, 1913

THE GEOLOGIC HISTOKY OF CHINA AND ITS INFLUENCE
UPON THE CHINESE PEOPLE

By Professor ELIOT BLACKWELDER

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

THE Chinese empire includes an area larger than the United States
with the addition of Alaska and our insular possessions. A large
part of this vast area, however, is made up of dependencies which are but
loosely joined to China proper, and are not essential to its integrity.
She has lost and regained these dependencies from time to time in the
past, and the same process may continue. The accompanying map will
serve to show the relation of these component parts of the empire to
each other and to surrounding countries.

Divested of its outlying possessions, China consists of eighteen

Fig. 1. Sketch Map of China, showing its outlying dependencies and its

relations to other countries.

io6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

provinces, which may be compared in a general way to our states. The
provinces are, however, generally larger than the states and on the
whole much more populous. There is still greater dissimilarity in gov-
ernment because, whereas our states are representative democracies, the
Chinese provinces were, at least until within a year or two, satrapies
ruled absolutely by imperial governors or viceroys.

Not a few people in America picture China as a vast fertile plain,
perhaps like the upper Mississippi valley, densely populated and in-
tensively cultivated. In fact, however, it is so generally mountainous,
that less than one tenth of its surface is even moderately flat. On the
west, especially, it is ribbed with cordilleras from which its two great
rivers, the Yang-tze-Kiang and the Huang-ho flow eastward to the
Pacific.

south-wcst

NORTH-CAST

PRE-CAflBRIAN

^^^M^mmimimmM

CARBONIFEROUS

CRETACEOUS- EOCENE

MIOCENE

SltCHUAN Air* SltCHUAH BA%IN CLNTAAl RAHGIS

SHAVSI PtfiTEAUS

HUANG-HO PLAIN

SHANTUNG MTS

PRESENT

Fig. 2. Diagrams to illustrate Geological Conditions in China at Different

Periods in its History. The features are necessarily much

generalized and in part hypothetical.

THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF CHINA

107

Fig. 3. Relief Map, showing in the enclosed part how the Yellow River, by its
frequent changes of course, has spread over all parts of its vast alluvial fan.

In addition to this diversity of surface there is also much variety
of climate. In the northwest the conditions are dry and severe like
those of Montana and central Wyoming; while in the southeast they
are humid and sub-tropical, approaching those of the Philippine Is-
lands. Such are the extremes. •

It is a fact well known to geologists that continents, and therefore
countries, have not always existed in their present state, but that they
have been built as a result of successive events and changes of condi-
tions. If we were to dig beneath the surface in any part of China, we
should find first one stratum and then another, and we should see also
that these strata have been bent, cracked and otherwise disturbed. Some
of these structures are old and some young. It would be somewhat like
excavating in an ancient city, where one house or temple has been built
upon the ruins of its predecessor, and each affords a crude record of its
time. The geologic structure of such a country as China has been de-

io8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

J£^~£z~"'% ■ *f-'

Fig. 4. Low Isolated Mountain
Geoup in Northeastern China.

Pig. 5. Two Farmers Raising
Water from the Grand Canal into
the Head of an Irrigating Ditch by
means of a Wicker Basket slung
between them.

Fig. 6. A wide River Plain among
the Mountains of Shan-tung. The
bridge of stone slabs across the sand-
laden river is part of the principal
wheel-barrow road of the valley.

Fig. 7. A Typical City Wall, with
Gate Tower.

termined largely by the rocks of which it consists, partly by the climate
to which it has been subject, but chiefly by the geologic events which
have occurred during its history. Of course the beginnings of that his-
tory are unknown, just as the human history of China shades into
darkness when we attempt to trace it back into the remote ages. But
the present features of the land are chiefly due to the later events in its
life, and these have been partly worked out by the geologists who have
explored its surface.

"We may take as a convenient starting point for our interpretation
a time far back in geologic chronology 1 when China was a land surface
which had been exposed to erosion so long that nearly all the hills and
mountains that may have existed there before had been worn away,
leaving a relatively flat plain with groups of low hills here and there.
The rocks beneath this plain were of various kinds, most of them highly
folded. Eventually this surface was submerged beneath a compara-
tively shallow inland sea, and although the uneasy movements of the
earth's body caused the sea bottom to emerge occasionally, it remained
below the water nearly all through the geologic periods which consti-
tute the Paleozoic era. By the end of that time we may picture China
as a shallow sea bottom rising very gradually to a marshy coastal plain
on the east. During the long intervening ages the accumulation of sedi-
ments upon the sea bottom had formed successive layers of limestone,

1 Just before the Cambrian period.

2 Jurassic period.

THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF CHINA

109

shale, and sandstone, which eventually reached a thickness of 5,000-
10,000 feet.

This condition did not hold without end, for eventually 2 strong
compressive forces, engendered in the underlying body of the earth,
squeezed the superficial rocks into folds, and thus bulged the surface
high above sea level in the region so affected. By the prompt attack of
streams, winds, glaciers, and the other agencies which are incessantly
sculpturing the surface of the earth, these elevated districts were, even
while rising, carved into rugged mountains and deep valleys, so that
the original folds were greatly disfigured even before the compressive
forces ceased to operate.

It is a fact generally recognized among geologists, that in terms of
geologic time such episodes of compression and folding are short-lived.
They are soon followed by much longer periods during which the in-
ternal forces of the earth are quiescent, but in which the erosive agen-
cies have free play. If any land remains indefinitely above sea level,
and is not disturbed by movements from below, the mountains and hills
will eventually be worn away and there will be left only a broad almost
featureless plain. It is believed that China, in consequence of such a
period of quiescence, 3 was reduced to a lowland from which almost all
of the preexisting mountains had been removed. In this condition it
probably remained for more than one geologic period, and the western
part may even have been submerged beneath the sea which at that time

Fig. 8. Heavily Loaded Freight Fig. 10. Freight Wheel-barrows

Wheel-barrows with Mules for Mo- rigged to take Advantage of a Favob-
tive Power. able Wind.

Fig. 9. A Typical Passenger Cart. Fig. 11. A Medium-sized House-

boat USED ON THE YANG-TZE-KIANG AND

its Tributaries.

3 Cretaceous and Eocene periods.

no

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 12. Soil Reservoirs on a Hillside in the Loess Country.

covered northern India and part of Thibet. In that sea were deposited
the thick beds of limestone which are now found in some of the west-
ern mountain ridges.

Again in the Miocene period, the forces of distortion within the
earth accumulated to such strength that they were able to repeat the
mashing and folding, but this time the area affected lay farther to the
west and south. At the same time, or perhaps earlier, the eastern part
of China was cracked in various directions ; and the intervening blocks,
settling somewhat unevenly upon their bases, left a group of escarp-
ments and depressions comparable to those now to be found in western
Nevada and southern Oregon. As before, the work of erosion and the
leveling of the surface was at once accelerated, so that even before the
deformation had spent itself the blocks were deeply scarred. It is un-
certain how far this period of erosion succeeded in reducing China to
base-level. The consummation may have been prevented by gentle
warpings of the surface, rising very slowly here and sinking there.
When compared with the great breadth of the areas affected, these
changes of level seem very slight, but they are nevertheless sufficient to
cause great changes in the aspect of the country.

It is one of the basal principles of physiography that streams tend
to produce in their channels an almost uniform slope from their head-
waters to the sea. If any part of the channel is so flat that the stream is
too sluggish to carry sediment, it is built up until it reaches the re-

THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF CHINA

hi

quired gradient; and on the other hand, if any part has too steep a
declivity, it is gradually worn down to the proper slope. In conse-
quence of this law, the parts of China which were slightly bulged above
their original level were re-attacked by the branching systems of rivers
with renewed vigor. By carving out the softer rocks, these have made
deep valleys with intervening mountain ranges. Some of the larger
rivers, such as the Yang-tze-kiang, maintained their courses in spite of
the slow uplifts directly athwart their courses. A result is the magnifi-
cent series of gorges along the central Yang-tze where the great river
has sawed its way through a slowly rising mass of hard complexly
folded rocks.

On the other hand, the broad areas which were depressed not only
below the general level of stream action, but below sea-level, were rap-
idly filled with sand, loam and clay washed down out of the adjacent
mountains by the streams. The process of filling the depressions is
the exact complement of the process of etching out the highlands. No
doubt the rivers have been able in large measure to keep pace with the
sinking movement of the ground, so that great rivers like the Huang-ho
may have maintained perfectly graded courses across the region of
depression from the mountains to the sea. While thus engaged in
building up its channel, the river in time of flood frequently breaks
through its low banks, shifts its channel, and then begins to fill up a

Fig. 13. Mountain Slopes in Northwestern China, terraced to prevent

the erosion of the loess.

I 12

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

new and hitherto lower part of its surroundings. By the long contin-
uance of this process of repeated shiftings and fillings, the great eastern
plain of China and many smaller plains have been produced. It is
here, where the population is densest and the rivers least confined, that
the devastation by floods and their attendant famines is greatest.

By this succession of events the surface of China is believed to
have reached its modern . condition. We may now consider it piece-
meal and see how the existing geologic conditions, which are the re-
sult of this long series of past changes, influence the habits, occupations
and even mental traits of the people. Because space is limited and also
because I have not seen all the physiographic divisions of China, it will
not be possible for me, even briefly, to describe each of them. A few
are therefore selected to show the range of variety of the whole.

Fig. 14. Cave Houses in the Loess,
faced with stone.

Fig. 15. Men and Donkeys carry-
ing Coal from the Mines in Shansi.

Fig. 16. A Pack Train of Donkeys,
on the Imperial Highway over the
Loess Plateau.

Fig. 17. A Roadside Village and
small Fields at the Bottom of the
Mountain Valley.

The mountains of northeastern China, typified by the province of
Shantung, are unlike those of the rest of the country in several respects.
Although the individual peaks are often sharp and rocky, they are gen-
erally separated by wide, flat-bottomed valleys. The process of erosion
has here gone so far that the rivers have already carried away most of
the land, leaving only isolated groups of low mountains. The broad
valleys accommodate a relatively large number of people, who congre-
gate in the villages dotting the intermontane plains. In contrast with
most mountainous regions, travel between the different valleys is com-
paratively easy here, because many of the passes are but little higher
than the plains themselves and constitute scarcely any obstacle to prog-

THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF CHINA

113

ress. Roads are plentiful, and so the cart and the wheel-barrow are the
principal vehicles for through traffic.

This is one of the few parts of China where boats can be but little
used. The streams are shallow and full of sand bars, and on account
of the pronounced wet and dry seasons many of them are intermittent.
For these reasons the majority of them are not navigable. The deeply
eroded land of Shan-tung has, however, suffered a relatively recent

Fig. 18. A Roadway sunk deep into the Loess by Centuries of Travel.

movement — apparently a sinking of the land — which has allowed the
ocean to penetrate the mouths of many of the coastal valleys. This
marginal drowning has produced some excellent harbors — such as that
of Chee-fu, the great silk port, and Tsing-tau, the German stronghold.
On the west, and encircling the Shantung hills, lies the great plain
of the Huang-ho or Yellow Eiver, which will serve as the type of many
much smaller plains in various parts of China. As explained before,
this vast gently sloping plain has been built by the Yellow River and
some of its tributaries in an effort to preserve a uniform gradient across

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 19. A two-man Wheel-barrow
carrying a merchant and his stock
of Goods.

Fig. 20. A River Junk.

Fig. 21. A Friendly Crowd in an
Inland Town.

Fig. 22. Mongolian Camels in
Northwestern China.

Fig. 23. Irrigating with Water
pumped from a well.

Fig. 24. A Sedan Chair swung be-
tween two Mules.

Fig. 25. Getting his Initiation
into Farming, with Grub-hook and
Basket.

Fig. 26. Coolies Fording a Moun-
tain River.

the sunken portion of eastern China. Like the lower Mississippi and
all other rivers which are building up rather than cutting down their
beds, the Huang-ho is subject to frequent floods and occasional sniff-
ings of its channel. Its course between the mountains and the sea has
thus been changed more than fifteen times in the last 3,000 years.

THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF CHINA 115

In these incessant shiftings, the river has strewn all over an enormous
area, 500 miles from north to south by 300 miles from east to west,
layer after layer of fine yellow loam or silt; the very name "Yellow
Eiver," which is a translation of the Chinese " Hwang-ho," suggests the
close resemblance to our own mud-laden Missouri. Almost every
square foot of this vast alluvial fan is of course underlain by a deep and
fertile soil and is intensively cultivated by the industrious Chinese inhab-
itants. One sees no large fields of grain, such as those on our Dakota
prairies, but instead, thousands of small truck gardens belonging to the
inhabitants of the hundreds of little mud-walled villages with which
the plain is dotted. The ever-present town walls have doubtless been
built because the inhabitants have no natural refuges, as their moun-
tain cousins have, and their very accessibility has made them in the
past the frequent prey of Mongol and Tartar invaders, or of rebels and
rioters from within their own country.

Since the water supply of the plain is not lavish, but little rice is
grown there. The dry-land grains, and such vegetables as cabbages and
potatoes, are the staple crops. The small gardens are sparingly irri-
gated, however, in times of drought, by water taken from the canals or
wells with the help of various types of crude pumps, operated by men
or by donkeys.

In this densely populated alluvial plain there is practically no pas-
turage and no woodland. From the very nature of the plain it could
not yield coal, which is always associated with the solid rocks. To
bring fuel, as we do, from distant parts of the country is impossibly ex-
pensive for the Chinese, without an adequate railroad system, and that
is still a thing of the future. When the harvest has been gathered in
the autumn, the village children are therefore sent out to gather up
every scrap of straw or stubble that can be used either for fodder or for
fuel. The fields thus left perfectly bare in the dry winter season af-
ford an unlimited supply of fine dust to every wind that blows. This
is doubtless the explanation of the disagreeable winter dust-storms with
which every foreigner who has lived in northern China is only too
familiar.

Although carts and wheel-barrows are much used on the Huang-ho
plain, their traffic is chiefly local. That may be due in part to the fact
that the numerous wide and shifty rivers are difficult to bridge, while
ferrying is relatively expensive. Another, and perhaps more important,
reason is that the rivers, and particularly their old abandoned courses,
afford natural waterways which are available nearly everywhere. By
taking advantage of these, or by deepening them, and in some places by
actually digging canals through the soft material of the plain, the
Chinese have put together the wonderful system of interlaced canals
for which they have been renowned since Europeans first visited them.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 27. A Valley in the Tsin-ling Mountains op Central China.
Small cultivated fields may be seen on benches high above the river.

THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF CHINA 117

The thousands of junks which ply these waterways maintain a volume
of inland commerce, which is inferior only to that of the great railroad
countries, such as the United States. The relative freedom of com-
munication in this great plain of the Yellow Eiver has helped to bring
about a greater homogeneity in the people than in any other equally
large part of China. Here we find a single dialect in use over the en-
tire region, whereas in some parts of southern China the natives of
even adjacent valleys speak languages almost unintelligible to each
other. The other common effects of isolation, such as the lack of ac-
quaintance with the customs of outside peoples, the hatred of foreign-
ers, the peculiar local usages, and many other things, are less promi-
nent here than in other parts of the empire. Excepting the coastal
cities, there is no safer part of China for foreigners to travel through.

West and northwest of the Yellow Eiver plain lie the more rugged
plateaus and mountains of northwest China, with their sub-arid climate
presaging the approach to the deserts of Mongolia. Over much of this
region the ancient limestones and sandstones are still horizontal or
are gently folded, with occasional dislocations along faults. On ac-
count of the comparatively recent uplift and differential warping which
this part of China has suffered, the streams have been greatly accel-
erated in their work, so that they have hollowed out canyons in the
raised portions and have filled in the depressed basins with sand and
silt. This is the region celebrated among geologists on account of the
loess, or yellow earth, which lines the basins and mantles the hillsides
everywhere. It is believed that this is very largely a deposit of wind-
blown dust, although it has been worked over considerably by the
streams from time to time. No doubt Baron von Eichthofen, the dis-
tinguished German explorer, was near the truth when he concluded
more than forty years ago, that the " yellow earth " was the dust of the
central Asian deserts carried into China by the northwest winds. The
presence of the loess determines, in large measure, the mode of living
adopted by the inhabitants. Because of its fertility and moisture-con-
serving properties, it is well adapted to dry farming, and there is little
water for irrigation. The Chinese are not content with using the level
bottom lands, but successfully cultivate the hillsides wherever a de-
posit of the loess remains. In order to prevent the soil from washing
off from these steep slopes, they build a series of stone walls, thus form-
ing soil reservoirs or terraces. In this way nearly all of the soil is
utilized.

In such a country rivers are not numerous and those which exist
have many rapids and shoals. Boats are therefore but little used in
northwest China. For both passenger and freight traffic, pack animals
or rude vehicles are the chief reliance. For passengers there are also
the palanquin or sedan-chair and the mule-litter. Where the country
is not too rough, the two-wheeled cart is the usual conveyance for mer-

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 28. Coolies carrying Freight along a Mountain Trail which has been
partly washed out by a turbulent stream.

chandise. Over the mountain passes, however, and in many of the
smaller valleys, roads are so narrow that carts can not be used, and so
here pack animals, particularly horses and mules, are substituted. The
traveler in this part of China is often reminded of his proximity to
Mongolia by the frequent sight of camels. They are nevertheless not
indigenous beasts of burden and the inhabitants themselves do not
use them.

In consequence of the swampy state which prevailed in this part of
China far back in the Carboniferous period, thick deposits of coal were
formed. These are now exposed in the deep valley slopes between beds
of limestone and sandstone, and the circumstance has made Shansi
province the principal coal-producing district of China. The coal is
mined by very primitive methods and as there is still no adequate
system of railroads in this or any other part of the empire, the product
can be transported only in carts or on pack animals. Either of these
modes of carriage is so expensive that it becomes unprofitable to trans-
port the coal more than 60 to 100 miles from the mine, and so the
denizens of a great part of northern China, where fuel is scarce and the
winters are severe, are no more able to obtain it than as if the United
States contained the only coal fields in the world. The advantages that
will accrue from the building of railroads in northern China are many,
but one of the greatest will be the wide distribution of this essential fuel.

THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF CHINA.

119

In going, south by west from the plateau country, one enters a re-
gion of warmer climate and more generous rainfall, which, for want
of a more distinctive name, I have called the Central Ranges. This is the
part of China which was particularly affected by the rock-folding move-
ments of the Jurassic period, and which in a much more recent time
has been reelevated and therefore newly attacked by the streams and
other erosive agencies. Broadly regarded, it is a complex of sharp
mountain ridges and spurs with narrow intervening valleys. The ridges
are not so high, however, but that they are clad with vegetation, and
the scenery is therefore not alpine. The surface is nevertheless very
rugged and its internal relief averages at least 3,000 feet. The rough-
est parts of our Carolinas resemble it in a measure. In such a region
obviously, there is no room for a dense population. Wherever there is
a little widening of the bottom of the valley, there is a farm or oc-
casionally a small village; and even the scattered benches high up the
mountain sides are reached by steep trails and diligently cultivated.
But even when all of these are combined, the total area of land under
settlement is relatively small.

In this region there are no railroads whatever, and although wagon
roads could be built in some places, they would be expensive, and the
Chinese have not yet attempted to make them. All travel and com-

:..«j%r_~ : .- V. --■->-_»;

Fig. 29. River Skiffs in one of the Limestone Gorges of the Central Ranges.

a

V

w

N

m
o

tn

M

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O

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h
a

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o

vx

M

o

w

O

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fa

THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF CHINA 121

merce, therefore, depend on the agency of pack animals or coolies, and
the roads they follow are mere trails winding around the steep moun-
tain sides or threading the bottoms of narrow valleys, where swift
streams must be forded at frequent intervals. Under such circum-
stances it is evident that there can be but little effective traffic. Only
comparatively light and expensive articles can be transported long dis-
tances. Around the edges of the mountain mass where the populous
cities of the adjoining plains can be reached with one or two days' travel,
there has been for centuries an important trade in lumber. The moun-
tains have now been so largely deforested, however, that it is necessary
to go farther and farther back into the heads of the valleys to find large
trees. Hence, only the more expensive kinds of lumber such as coffin
boards — which are absolutely indispensable, even to the poorer classes,
— can profitably be brought out. These are often carried for 20 or 30
miles on the backs of coolies — a costly mode of transportation. The
smaller trees and brush the mountaineers convert into charcoal, which
they carry on their own backs down to the towns along the foothills.

Lack of transportation facilities is doubtless the chief reason why
the opium poppy has in the past been widely cultivated in this part of
China, although the practise has lately been prohibited by the govern-
ment. The advantage in poppy culture was that it could be carried on
in small scattered fields and the product was so valuable for unit of
weight that it would pay for long-distance transportation across the
mountains. The inhabitants of the region themselves were not, how-
ever, generally addicted to the use of the drug.

The rainfall of the central mountain region is sufficient to supply
the many springs and tributary brooks of which the people have
made use in irrigation. The mildness of the climate here permits the
growing of rice, and by terracing the hillsides they are able to make a
succession of narrow curved basins in which the aquatic crop may be
grown. For the cultivation of rice it is necessary that the fields be com-
pletely submerged during part of the season, and so there must be a
plentiful supply of water.

On the larger rivers such as the Han and the Yang-tze, and their
chief tributaries, boats are successfully used. In fact, the Chinese
river boatmen are so skilful in the handling of their high-prowed skiffs,
that they navigate canyons full of rapids which most of us would con-
sider too dangerous to attempt. The descent of one of these rivers is
an easy although exciting experience. The return trip, however, is slow
and laborious, for the boats must be dragged upstream by coolies har-
nessed to a long bamboo rope, which has the advantage of being very
light as well as strong. In the many places where the river banks are so
precipitous that it is impossible to walk along them, it becomes neces-

VOL. LXXXII. — 9.

122

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 31. A Valley in the Central Ranges. In the foreground are a series
of terraced rice fields now filled with water.

sary for the boatmen to pole around the cliff or to zigzag from one side
of the river to the other to take advantage of every foothold.

Through the central part of this mountain uplift, the great Yang-tze
River, which in its lower course readily accommodates large ocean-
going vessels, has carved a succession of superb gorges. In many
places the gray limestone walls rise from 3,000 to 4,000 feet above the
river, and the stream is compressed into less than a tenth of its usual
width. Difficult and dangerous as are these canyons, beset with rapids
and whirlpools, they afford the only ready means of communication
between eastern China and the fertile basin of Sze-chuan, which lies
west of the Central Eanges.

Without the highway of the Yang-tze, this great province, four
times as large as Illinois and with more people than all of our states
east of the Mississippi Eiver, would be unable to export its many rich
products or to enjoy the commerce of outside provinces and nations.
It has been effectually barred off from India and Burma by the succes-
sion of high ranges and deep canyons which appear to be due primarily
to the great epoch of folding in the Miocene period. Sze-chuan is a
broad basin which has never been depressed low enough to force the
streams to level its bottom with alluvial deposits, as in the Yellow
Eiver plain to the east; nor does it seem to have been elevated into a
high plateau which would have been carved by many streams into a

THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF CHINA

123

rugged mountain country. The soft red sandstone beds which underlie
it have therefore been sculptured into a network of valleys with inter-
vening red hills or buttes. With a climate as mild and moist as that
of Alabama, and a diversified topography, there is opportunity for
many industries, and for the cultivation of a great variety of crops.
Sze-chuan leads all the provinces in the exportation of silk. Here
grow the lacquer and oil nut trees and a wide range of field and garden
fruits, grains and vegetables. Ample water for irrigation and espe-
cially for rice-culture is supplied by the many perennial streams which
descend from the encircling mountains. These uplifted and now
mountainous tracts have also served as a barrier to invaders from all
directions, so that this has been less subject to wars than almost any
other part of China, and hence has been more stable in development.
Its inhabitants are among the most substantial and progressive com-
ponents of the Chinese nation.

We now come to the last of the geologic divisions which were laid
out for consideration. From the Sze-chuan basin southwest to the

Fig. 32. One of the great Limestone Gorges through which the
Yang-tze-kiang pierces the Central Ranges.

i2 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

confines of India there extends a series of high mountain ranges sepa-
rated by deep and narrow valleys, all trending in a south or south-
easterly direction. Although not so high above sea-level as the moun-
tains north and south of Thibet, these ranges are an even more effective
barrier to travel because they are so continuous and the relief is so
great. Not only is there no waterway, but there are no wagon roads,
and the building of a railroad would be a stupendous and expensive
engineering task. Such a road would necessarily involve the making
of a succession of long bridges and tunnels. Here, as in the Central
Eanges, settlements are limited to the rare open spots in the bottoms
of valleys, and so the population is sparse indeed. The total commerce
is very small in volume, because goods must be carried almost entirely
on the backs of coolies. The rugged characteristics of the region are
evidently the direct result of the recency of the compressive movement
which produced the tremendous mountain folds, and perhaps are still
more due to the renewed uplifts which have permitted the streams to
continue the carving of their deep gorges. This part of China is geo-
logically very young, and to quote the words of the distinguished old
geologist of California, Joseph LeConte, " the wildness of youth (here)
has not yet been tempered by the mellowness of age."

FRENCH GEODESY 125

FEENCH GEODESY

By the late HENRI POINCARE
Translated by GEORGE BRUCE HALSTED

\j\ VEEY one understands our interest in knowing the form and di-
-L^ mensions of our earth; but some persons will perhaps be sur-
prised at the exactitude sought after. Is this a useless luxury? What
good are the efforts so expended by the geodesist?

Should this question be put to a congressman, I suppose he would
say : "I am led to believe that geodesy is one of the most useful of the
sciences ; because it is one of those costing us most dear." I shall try to
give you an answer a little more precise.

The great works of art, those of peace as well as those of war, are
not to be undertaken without long studies which save much groping,
miscalculation and useless expense. These studies can only be based
upon a good map. But a map will be only a valueless phantasy if con-
structed without basing it upon a solid framework. As well make stand
a human body minus the skeleton.

Now, this framework is given us by geodesic measurements ; so, with-
out geodesy, no good map ; without a good map, no great public works.

These reasons will doubtless suffice to justify much expense; but
these are arguments for practical men. It is not upon these that it is
proper to insist here ; there are others higher and, everything considered,
more important.

So we shall put the question otherwise : can geodesy aid us the better
to know nature? Does it make us understand its unity and harmony?
In reality an isolated fact is of slight value, and the conquests of sci-
ence are precious only if they prepare for new conquests.

If therefore a little hump were discovered on the terrestrial ellipsoid,
this discovery would be by itself of no great interest. On the other
hand, it would become precious if, in seeking the cause of this hump,
we hoped to penetrate new secrets.

Well, when, in the eighteenth century, Maupertuis and La Conda-
mine braved such opposite climates, it was not solely to learn the shape
of our planet, it was a question of the whole world-system.

If the earth was flattened, Newton triumphed and with him the doc-
trine of gravitation and the whole modern celestial mechanics.

And to-day, a century and a half after the victory of the Newton-
ians, think you geodesy has nothing more to teach us?

We know not what is within our globe. The shafts of mines and
borings have let us know a layer of 1 or 2 kilometers thickness, that is
to say, the millionth part of the total mass ; but what is beneath ?

126 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Of all the extraordinary journeys dreamed by Jules Verne, perhaps
that to the center of the earth took us to regions least explored.

But these deep-lying rocks we can not reach exercise from afar
their attraction which operates upon the pendulum and deforms the
terrestrial spheroid. Geodesy can therefore weigh them from afar, so
to speak, and tell us of their distribution. Thus will it make us really
see those mysterious regions which Jules Verne only showed us in imag-
ination.

This is not an empty illusion. M. Faye, comparing all the measure-
ments, has reached a result well calculated to surprise us. Under the
oceans, in the depths, are rocks of very great density ; under the conti-
nents, on the contrary, are empty spaces.

New observations will modify perhaps the details of these conclu-
sions.

In any case, our venerated dean has shown us where to search and
what the geodesist may teach the geologist, desirous of knowing the
interior constitution of the earth, and even the thinker wishing to spec-
ulate upon the past and the origin of this planet.

And now, why have I entitled this chapter French Geodesy? It is
because, in each country, this science has taken, more than all others
perhaps, a national character. It is easy to see why.

There must be rivalry. The scientific rivalries are always courteous,
or at least almost always ; in any case, they are necessary, because they
are always fruitful.

Well, in those enterprises which require such long efforts and so
many collaborators the individual is effaced, in spite of himself, of
course ; no one has the right to say : this is my work. Therefore it is not
between men, but between nations, that rivalries go on.

So we are led to seek what has been the part of France. Her part
I believe we are right to be proud of.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century long discussions arose
between the Newtonians who believed the earth flattened; as the theory
of gravitation requires, and Cassini, who, deceived by inexact measure-
ments, believed our globe elongated. Only direct observation could
settle the question. It was our Academy of Sciences that undertook
this task, gigantic for the epoch.

While Maupertuis and Clairaut measured a degree of meridian under
the polar circle, Bouguer and La Condamine went toward the Andes
Mountains, in regions then under Spain which to-day are the Eepublic
of Ecuador.

Our envoys were exposed to great hardships. Traveling was not as
easy as at present.

Truly, the country where Maupertuis operated was not a desert, and
he even enjoyed, it is said, among the Laplanders those sweet satisfac-

FRENCH GEODESY 127

tions of the heart that real arctic voyagers never know. It was almost
the region where, in our days, comfortable steamers carry, each summer,
hosts of tourists and young English people. But in those days Cook's
agency did not exist and Maupertuis really believed he had made a
polar expedition.

Perhaps he was not altogether wrong. The Eussians and the
Swedes carry out to-day analogous measurements at Spitzbergen, in a
country where there is real ice-cap. But they have quite other resources,
and the difference of time makes up for that of latitude.

The name of Maupertuis has reached us much scratched by the
claws of Doctor Akakia; the scientist had the misfortune to displease
Voltaire, who was then the king of mind. He was first praised beyond
measure; but the flatteries of kings are as much to be dreaded as their
displeasure, because the days after are terrible. Voltaire himself knew
something of this.

Voltaire called Maupertuis, my amiable master in thinking, marquis
of the polar circle, dear flattener out of the world and Cassini, and even,
flattery supreme, Sir Isaac Maupertuis ; he wrote him : " Only the king
of Prussia do I put on a level with you; he only lacks being a geom-
eter." But soon the scene changes, he no longer speaks of deifying
him, as in days of yore the Argonauts, or of calling down from Olympus
the council of the gods to contemplate his works, but of chaining him
up in a madhouse. He speaks no longer of his sublime mind, but of his
despotic pride, plated with very little science and much absurdity.

I care not to relate these comico-heroic combats ; but permit me

some reflections on two of Voltaire's verses. In his " Discourse on

Moderation" (no question of moderation in praise and criticism), the

poet has written:

You have confirmed in regions drear

What Newton discerned without going abroad.

These two verses (which replace the hyperbolic praises of the first
period) are very unjust, and doubtless Voltaire was too enlightened not
to know it.

Then, only those discoveries were esteemed which could be made
without leaving one's house.

To-day, it would rather be theory that one would make light of.

This is to misunderstand the aim of science.

Is nature governed by caprice, or does harmony rule there ? That is
the question. It is when it discloses to us this harmony that science is
beautiful and so worthy to be cultivated. But whence can come to us
this revelation, if not from the accord of a theory with experiment ? To
seek whether this accord exists or if it fails, this therefore is our aim.
Consequently these two terms, which we must compare, are as indispen-
sable the one as the other. To neglect one for the other would be non-

i28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

sense. Isolated, theory would be empty, experiment would be blind;
each would be useless and without interest.

Maupertuis therefore deserves his share of glory. Truly, it will not
equal that of Newton, who had received the spark divine ; nor even that
of his collaborator Clairaut. Yet it is not to be despised, because his
work was necessary, and if France, outstripped by England in the seven-
teenth century, has so well taken her revenge in the century following,
it is not alone to the genius of Clairauts, d'Alemberts, Laplaces that she
owes it; it is also to the long patience of the Maupertuis and the La
Condamines.

We reach what may be called the second heroic period of geodesy.
France is torn within. All Europe is armed against her ; it would seem
that these gigantic combats might absorb all her forces. Far from it;
she still has them for the service of science. The men of that time re-
coiled before no enterprise, they were men of faith.

Delambre and Mechain were commissioned to measure an arc going
from Dunkirk to Barcelona. This time there was no going to Lapland
or to Peru; the hostile squadrons had closed to us the ways thither.
But, though the expeditions are less distant, the epoch is so troubled
that the obstacles, the perils even, are just as great.

In France, Delambre had to fight against the ill will of suspicious
municipalities. One knows that the steeples, which are visible from so
far, and can be aimed at with precision, often serve as signal points to
geodesists. But in the region Delambre traversed there were no longer
any steeples. A certain proconsul had passed there, and boasted of
knocking down all the steeples rising proudly above the humble abode
of the sans-culottes. Pyramids then were built of planks and covered
with white cloth to make them more visible. That was quite another
thing : with white cloth ! What was this rash person who, upon our
heights so recently set free, dared to raise the hateful standard of the
counter-revolution? It was necessary to border the white cloth with
blue and red bands.

Mechain operated in Spain; the difficulties were other; but they
were not less. The Spanish peasants were hostile. There steeples were
not lacking: but to install oneself in them with mysterious and per-
haps diabolic instruments, was it not sacrilege? The revolutionists
were allies of Spain, but allies smelling a little of the stake.

"Without cease," writes Mechain, "they threaten to butcher us."
Fortunately, thanks to the exhortations of the priests, to the pastoral
letters of the bishops, these ferocious Spaniards contented themselves
with threatening.

Some years after, Mechain made a second expedition into Spain : he
proposed to prolong the meridian from Barcelona to the Balearics. This
was the first time it had been attempted to make the triangulations

FRENCH GEODESY 129

overpass a large arm of the sea by observing signals installed upon
some high mountain of a far-away isle. The enterprise was well con-
ceived and well prepared; it failed however.

The French scientist encountered all sorts of difficulties of which
he complains bitterly in his correspondence. "Hell," he writes, per-
haps with some exaggeration, "hell and all the scourges it vomits upon
the earth, tempests, war, the plague and black intrigues, are therefore
unchained against me ! "

The fact is that he encountered among his collaborators more of
proud obstinacy than of good will and that a thousand accidents re-
tarded his work. The plague was nothing, the fear of the plague was
much more redoubtable; all these isles were on their guard against the
neighboring isles and feared lest they should receive the scourge from
them. Mechain obtained permission to disembark only after long weeks
upon the condition of covering all his papers with vinegar ; this was the
antisepsis of that time.

Disgusted and sick, he had just asked to be recalled, when he died.

Arago and Biot it was who had the honor of taking up the unfin-
ished work and carrying it on to completion.

Thanks to the support of the Spanish government, to the protection
of several bishops and, above all, to that of a famous brigand chief, the
operations went rapidly forward. They were successfully completed,
and Biot had returned to France when the storm burst.

It was the moment when all Spain took up arms to defend her inde-
pendence against France. Why did this stranger climb the mountains
to make signals ? It was evidently to call the French army. Arago was
able to escape the populace only by becoming a prisoner. In his prison
his only distraction was reading in the Spanish papers the account of his
own execution. The papers of that time sometimes gave out news pre-
maturely. He had at least the consolation of learning that he died with
courage and like a Christian.

Even the prison was no longer safe; he had to escape and reach
Algiers. There, he embarked for Marseilles on an Algerian vessel. This
ship was captured by a Spanish corsair, and behold Arago carried back
to Spain and dragged from dungeon to dungeon, in the midst of vermin
and in the most shocking wretchedness.

If it had only been a question of his subjects and his guests, the dey
would have said nothing. But there were on board two lions, a present
from the African sovereign to Napoleon. The dey threatened war.

The vessel and the prisoners were released. The port should have
been properly reached, since they had on board an astronomer ; but the
astronomer was seasick, and the Algerian seamen, who wished to make
Marseilles, came out at Bougie. Thence Arago went to Algiers, traver-
sing Kabylia on foot in the midst of a thousand perils. He was long

130 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

detained in Africa and threatened with the convict prison. Finally he
was able to get back to France; his observations, which he had pre-
served and safe-guarded under his shirt, and, what is still more remark-
able, his instruments, had traversed unhurt these terrible adventures.

Up to this point, not only did France hold the foremost place, but she
occupied the stage almost alone.

In the years which follow she has not been inactive and our staff-
office map is a model. However, the new methods of observation and
calculation have come to us above all from Germany and England. It
is only in the last forty years that France has regained her rank. She
owes it to a scientific officer, General Perrier, who has successfully exe-
cuted an enterprise truly audacious, the junction of Spain and Africa.
Stations were installed on four peaks upon the two sides of the Mediter-
ranean. For long months they awaited a calm and limpid atmosphere.
At last was seen the little thread of light which had traversed 300 kilo-
meters over the sea. The undertaking had succeeded.

To-day have been conceived projects still more bold. From a moun-
tain near Nice will be sent signals to Corsica, not now for geodesic
determinations, but to measure the velocity of light. The distance is
only 200 kilometers; but the ray of light is to make the journey there
and return, after reflection by a mirror installed in Corsica. And it
should not wander on the way, for it must return exactly to the point of
departure.

Ever since, the activity of French geodesy has never slackened. We
have no more such astonishing adventures to tell ; but the scientific work
accomplished is immense. The territory of France beyond the sea, like
that of the mother country, is covered by triangles measured with pre-
cision.

We have become more and more exacting and what our fathers ad-
mired does not satisfy us to-day. But in proportion as we seek more
exactitude, the difficulties greatly increase ; we are surrounded by snares
and must be on our guard against a thousand unsuspected causes of
error. It is needful, therefore, to create instruments more and more
faultless.

Here again France has not let herself be distanced. Our appliances
for the measurement of bases and angles leave nothing to desire, and I
may also mention the pendulum of Colonel Defforges, which enables us
to determine gravity with a precision hitherto unknown.

The future of French geodesy is at present in the hands of the Geo-
graphic Service of the army, successively directed by General Bassot
and General Berthaut. We can not sufficiently congratulate ourselves
upon it. For success in geodesy, scientific aptitudes are not enough; it
is necessary to be capable of standing long fatigues in all sorts of cli-
mates; the chief must be able to win obedience from his collaborators

FRENCH GEODESY 131

and to make obedient his native auxiliaries. These are military quali-
ties. Besides, one knows that, in our army, science has always marched
shoulder to shoulder with courage.

I add that a military organization assures the indispensable unity
of action. It would be more difficult to reconcile the rival pretensions
of scientists jealous of their independence, solicitous of what they call
their fame, and who yet must work in concert, though separated by
great distances. Among the geodesists of former times there were
often discussions, of which some aroused long echoes. The Academy
long resounded with the quarrel of Bouguer and La Condamine. I do
not mean to say that soldiers are exempt from passion, but discipline
imposes silence upon a too sensitive self-esteem.

Several foreign governments have called upon our officers to organ-
ize their geodesic service: this is proof that the scientific influence of
France abroad has not declined.

Our hydrographic engineers contribute also to the common achieve-
ment a glorious contingent. The survey of our coasts, of our colonies,
the study of the tides offer them a vast domain of research. FinaHy
I may mention the general leveling of France which is carried out by
the ingenious and precise methods of M. Lallemand.

With such men we are sure of the future. Moreover, work for them
will not be lacking; our colonial empire opens for them immense ex-
panses illy explored. That is not all: the International Geodetic As-
sociation has recognized the necessity of a new measurement of the arc
of Quito, determined in days of yore by La Condamine. It is France
that has been charged with this operation; she had every right to it,
since our ancestors had made, so to speak, the scientific conquest of
the Cordilleras. Besides, these rights have not been contested and our
government has undertaken to exercise them.

Captains Maurain and Lacombe completed a first reconnaissance,
and the rapidity with which they accomplished their mission, crossing
the roughest regions and climbing the most precipitous summits, is
worthy of all praise. It won the admiration of General Alfaro, Presi-
dent of the Eepublic of Ecuador, who called them "los hombres de
hierro," the men of iron.

The final commission then set out under the command of Lieu-
tenant-Colonel (then Major) Bourgeois. The results obtained have
justified the hopes entertained. But our officers have encountered un-
foreseen difficulties due to the climate. More than once, one of them
has been forced to remain several months at an altitude of 4,000 meters,
in the clouds and the snow, without seeing anything of the signals he
had to aim at and which refused to unmask themselves. But thanks to
their perseverance and courage, there resulted from this only a delay
and an increase of expense, without the exactitude of the measurements
suffering therefrom.

132 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

THE EOLE OF MEMBEANES IN CELL-PEO CESSES

Br Professor RALPH S. LILLIE

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

THE importance of membranes in vital processes has long been rec-
ognized. From the earliest times anatomists have been impressed
with the frequency with which thin sheets of solid material occur as
elements of structure in organisms. Even elementary methods of
analysis show that the materials composing the most various organs
often tend to dispose themselves in thin, continuous layers. Thus the
entire body is enclosed in an extremely resistant and impermeable
layer, the skin. Each of the internal organs has its own characteristic
enclosing membrane; the peritoneum lines the body-cavity and invests
the intestine and its associated glands, the heart is enclosed in the peri-
cardium, the lungs in the pleura, the central nervous system in the pia
mater; the muscles are closely surrounded by thin connective tissue
sheaths, or perimysia ; the walls of the blood-vessels and of the intestine
and other hollow viscera consist of several distinct concentric layers.
Various products of animals, like the eggs of birds and reptiles, often
show this tendency. Plants also deposit a great part of their structural
materials in layers; the wood forms concentric circles; leaves and
fruits have thin and often waterproof membranous coverings; the
orange is partitioned by a system of membranes and each smaller por-
tion of pulp has a membrane of its own. The instances, in fact, are in- '
numerable. Evidently the tendency to deposit material in thin con-
tinuous sheaths is highly characteristic of organisms.

This much was clear at a time when anatomists were limited to
direct and unaided vision. When the microscope came into use the ex-
istence of a similar tendency soon became evident in the minutest tissue-
elements. The living substance exhibited itself everywhere as mi-
nutely subdivided by innumerable thin partitions, or membranes, giv-
ing it a characteristic honeycomb-like or cellular structure. These par-
titions isolate the enclosed portions of living substance and render
them at least mechanically separable. Hence the conception that each
of these minute membrane-enclosed masses of gelatinous or viscid " pro-
toplasmic " material is an independently living entity, or elementary
physiological unit, gained ground, and, as all know, has been univer-
sally adopted in biology. The name " cell," originally applied to the
minute spaces themselves, has been transferred to the protoplasmic
mass within, by whose activity the enclosing membrane is itself formed.

Thus it was early recognized that cells tend to separate materials

MEMBRANES AND CELL-PROCESSES 133

from their surfaces and deposit them in the form of definite coherent
layers or membranes. Similar membranes may also be formed in the
cell-interior. Of these, the best known is the nuclear membrane.
Hence, in considering the general organization of the cell, cytoplasm
and nucleus are usually described as bounded by definite structurally
distinct layei:, plasma-membrane and nuclear membrane. Vacuole-
membranes, sphere-membranes and plastid-membranes may also exist
in certain cells. To all of these structures it has been customary to
ascribe a more or less mechanical or simply protective or isolating func-
tion. On the other hand, many cells show no optically distinguishable
membranes, either at their surfaces or in their interior; certain
ameboid cells and the blood-corpuscles of vertebrates are apparently
without membranes and are often described as "naked masses of proto-
plasm." Yet in such cases the nakedness is only apparent, for it can
readily be shown that these cells have membranes which are highly defi-
nite in character, but whose existence can be demonstrated only by cer-
tain forms of physiological experimentation.

The membranes whose physiological role forms the subject of this
article are not to be identified with those more or less conspicuous lay-
ers separated at the surfaces of many animal and plant cells. The
cellulose membranes of plant cells and the various cuticular structures
of animal cells are dead structures, whose function is typically passive
and mechanical. They are to be sharply distinguished from the mem-
branes about to be considered, whose role is a characteristically active
one, and, as I believe, fundamentally important in the life of all cells.
These membranes are present in all living cells without exception,
whether a visible external layer is present or not. Thus red blood cor-
puscles, though typically naked cells, show by their behavior in salt-
solutions of varying concentration that they are bounded by a difficultly
permeable surface-layer which is different in its physical properties
from the internal protoplasm — having in fact the essential properties
of a semi-permeable membrane. Plant cells, like those of Spirogyra,
also behave in such solutions as if the surface-layer of the protoplasm
were semi-permeable; the visible cellulose membrane plays no part
whatever in the osmotic process (plasmolysis) observed under such
conditions, while the invisible surface-film of the protoplasm is all-im-
portant. Hence in the case of plant cells the conceptions of cell-mem-
brane— i. e., the hardened secretion of cellulose — and of plasma-mem-
brane — or semi-permeable surface layer of the living protoplasm — have
to be kept sharply distinct. It is the plasma-membrane, the most ex-
ternal layer of the living protoplasm, with which I shall be chiefly con-
cerned in the present article, and I propose to discuss briefly various
questions which arise in reference to this structure: what is its phys-
ical and chemical nature? what are the conditions of its formation?
and how does it influence the characteristic activities of the cell ?

i 3 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Before dealing with the case of the living plasma-membrane, it will
be necessary briefly to describe some of the methods by which artificial
membranes, similar in many of their osmotic and other physical prop-
erties to plasma-membranes, may be prepared, and to consider some of
the properties of these membranes. The tendency of the living cell (or
living system) to surround itself with a membrane will then be seen to
be in no sense a distinctively vital peculiarity, but one which it ex-
hibits in common with a great many non-living systems. There is little
doubt that the formation of membranes at the surface of small masses
of living protoplasm is a particular instance of the general class of phe-
nomena known collectively as " surface-processes "—processes, that is,
occuring as manifestations of the special form of energy, surface-energ} r ,
which resides at the surface of separation between materials which do
not freely intermix. Consider any material system consisting of various
kinds of matter in various states of aggregation, i. e., what the physical
chemists call a heterogeneous system, or a polyphasic system. Such a
system may be analyzed into a certain number of components, each of
which is physically and chemically homogeneous. Each such compo-
nent is a phase. Oil-drops in a permanent emulsion form one phase,
the water a second phase, the soap films at the surface of each droplet a
third. Living protoplasm is a good instance of such a polyphasic sys-
tem. It is — at least in certain forms, e. g., the protoplasm of egg-cells
— an emulsion-like or foam-like mixture consisting of various fluid
droplets or alveoli (which are supposedly droplets of oil or other fluid
containing dissolved substances), separated by another fluid which is
typically an aqueous colloidal solution of proteins and lipoids with
various additional substances — salts, sugars, amino-acids — in solution.
Each droplet or alveolus is a phase ; so also is each colloidal particle, or
each surface-film, or the interstitial suspension-medium or solvent. At
the surface of contact between any two phases a certain tension exists,
acting tangentially to the surface ; this is the " surface-tension " which
(if positive in value) tends to minimize the area of the surface. Each
surface, or phase-boundary, is thus the seat of a particular form of
energy, surface-energy, of which the intensity-factor is the surface-ten-
sion (T), the capacity-factor the total area of the surface (A). The
total surface-energy (E) resident at any surface thus equals TA. The
tension varies according to the nature of both of the contiguous phases :
for water in contact with air it is ca. 75 dynes per linear centimeter,
i. e., the pull of a ribbon-shaped portion of water-surface one centi-
meter wide is about one twelfth of a gram; for water in contact with
oil it is ca. 23 dynes per centimeter ; for oil in contact with air it is ca.
33 dynes. Now the distribution of the substances present in any such
system is influenced in a remarkable manner by these surface-energies.
Every one is familiar with the fact that oil spreads over the surface of
pure water. This is a case in point : why does the oil not simply float

MEMBRANES AND CELL-PROCESSES 135

in droplets on the surface instead of spreading out in an extremely thin
continuous layer? A consideration of the conditions of surface-tension
at once explains this (Fig. 1). An oil-drop placed on the surface of
water is subjected to the pull of
three tensions, viz. : those at its air

own two surfaces (t ± and t 2 ),
where it touches air and water,
respectively, and which tend to
round it off, and that of the
pure water at its margin (t s ),
which tends to spread it. But
the tensions t x and t 2 are together

less than the tension t z ; the oil is thus rapidly drawn out over the sur-
face by the superior pull of the water-air tension at its margin. Hence
the water-air surface, that with high tension, disappears and is replaced
by a surface with lower tension. The total surface-energy has been di-
minished, part having been transformed into mechanical energy and
heat. If, instead of the case of a floating oil-drop, we take that of some
soluble substance which is produced locally within the water near the
surface — e. g., a soap or a protein, a solution of which has a lower ten-
sion than pure water — we find essentially the same phenomenon; the
substance is spread out over the surface, and this effect will continue so
long as the addition of further quantities of the substance to the sur-
face-layer continues to lower the surface-tension. The end-effect will
be to concentrate the substance at the phase-boundary. This phenom-
enon is the expression of a general law, the law of Willard Gibbs and
J. J. Thomson, which describes the part played by surface-energies in
the distribution of soluble substances in a polyphasic system. In the
present case, the process of surface-concentration will go on until some
equilibrium is reached, c. g., where the loss of substance from the sur-
face by diffusion balances its collection there under the influence of the
surface-energy. But in many cases, as with proteins, soaps and certain
lipoids, the substance separates at the surface as a continuous solid film
before this stage is reached. The formation of solid surface-films is
hence highly characteristic of the solutions of such substances. Casein
films form on warm milk, soap films form about droplets of rancid oil
in the presence of alkali, and protein films about drops of chloroform
or oil suspended in protein solutions. Thin solid membranes formed
in this manner at phase-boundaries are called "haptogen membranes."
In all of these instances we have to do with a surface-condensation,
known under certain conditions as " adsorption," of substances which
lower the surface-tension at the phase-boundary. Among the colloidal
constituents of protoplasm the proteins and the lipoids belong to this
class of substances. Hence it is not surprising that isolated portions of
living protoplasm should delimit themselves by membranes. The vari-

136 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ous cell-membranes are to be regarded as essentially surface-films, or
haptogen membranes. Not only do such thin films form about the re-
constituting nuclei of dividing cells, but they are also deposited about
various cell-inclusions, and even about division-spheres, chromatophores
and other cell structures under certain conditions. It is well known
that portions of protoplasm cut off from living cells — such as egg-cells,
protozoa, root-hairs, etc. — exhibit the same osmotic properties as the
intact cells, showing that new semi-permeable membranes are quickly
formed at the cut-surfaces.

The surface of contact of the living substance with its medium thus
becomes the seat of deposition of certain protoplasmic constituents or
products which form membranes, often of a high degree of impermea-
bility. This impermeability is a property of fundamental physiological
importance. Speculation on the evolutionary origin of living cells
usually leads to little result, but we may at least infer that the early
protoplasmic systems which survived and became the ancestors of liv-
ing organisms must have consisted in part of colloids like proteins and
lipoids which had the property of forming surface-films sufficiently
impermeable to limit or prevent free diffusive interchange with the
surroundings. Only systems thus isolated to a sufficient degree from
the surroundings could preserve the requisite complexity and constancy
of composition, and hence be enabled to develop the properties of so-
called living beings — properties which are so widely different from those
shown by other natural systems. The surface-films, or plasma-mem-
branes, of living cells at the present time are in fact typically charac-
terized by a remarkably high impermeability to simple crystalloid sub-
stances like sugars, neutral salts and amino-acids, all of which are im-
portant constituents of protoplasm. Zangger expresses the situation
concisely when he says that living cells can contain as permanent con-
stituents only such substances as are not free to diffuse into the sur-
rounding medium. The existence of this diffusion-preventing or insu-
lating surface-film, the plasma-membrane, is thus a necessary condition
of the stability of the living system and hence of the continuance of the
life-processes. The living condition is in fact incompatible with
marked and permanent increase in surface-permeability. During life
the semi-permeable condition is retained; on death there is always a
marked increase in the permeability of the plasma-membrane; the cell
then undergoes a ready and rapid dissolution or cytolysis, and the con-
stituents serve as food to bacteria. It is probable that the various
intracellular membranes — nuclear membranes, vacuole-membranes,
sphere-membranes, chromatophore-membranes — subserve a similar
insulating or differentiating function. Hofmeister has indeed con-
ceived of the protoplasm of living cells as subdivided in this manner
into a many-chambered system, which accordingly permits of a high
degree of chemical differentiation. A variety of independent processes

MEMBRANES AND CELL-PROCESSES 137

might coexist side by side in such a system, as appears, for example, to
be the case in liver-cells; in this way a "chemical organization," dis-
tinct from and yet dependent upon a structural organization, becomes
possible.

Haptogen membranes formed thus by deposition of proteins at
phase-boundaries may show considerable density and impermeability.
The protein in such surface-films may undergo an alteration resem-
bling coagulation, assuming a relatively resistant and insoluble form,
Thus Eamsden was able to coagulate protein solutions by prolonged
shaking, and Robertson obtained thin films of coagulated casein, gela-
tine and protamine at the surface of chloroform droplets. Solid films
of albumo.se, saponin, and other substances are formed at the free sur-
faces of their solutions — the readiness with which such solutions are
thrown into foams depends in fact on this condition. The condensed
and insoluble protein films formed on chloroform droplets are strikingly
similar in many respects to those visible at the surfaces of cells like sea-
urchin eggs, and which apparently correspond to the outer layer of the
true plasma-membranes.

To come now to more directly biological considerations : what is the
nature, chemical and physical, of the surface-film of living cells ? There
are few direct chemical analyses bearing on this question. Liebermann
found the vitelline membrane of the hen's egg to consist largely of a
keratin-like albuminoid. There is good reason to believe that modified
proteins belonging to this class enter very generally into the composi-
tion of the surface-films of cells. The tendency to deposit horny or
albuminoid material at the cell-surfaces is in fact remarkably wide-
spread in animals. Cuticular and epidermal structures, to which chem-
ical resistance and impermeability are physiologically essential, consist
typically of proteins belonging to this class; such proteins have re-
cently been called " scleroproteins " on account of their frequent pres-
ence in skeletal or cuticular structures. They are also abundant in the
intercellular materials of bone, cartilage and connective tissue. The
surface-films of many cells apparently have this composition. Thus in
echinoderm eggs the characteristic fertilization-membranes, which Pro-
fessor Jacques Loeb has shown to arise by separation of a surface-film,
consist apparently of modified protein. They are at least non-lipoid in
character and are remarkably resistant to reagents, resembling in these
respects the protein films formed at the surface of chloroform drop-
lets. The fertilization-membrane, after separation from the cell,
proves however to be much more permeable than the true plasma-mem-
brane, or semi-permeable external layer of the unaltered egg, so that it
probably corresponds to only a portion — probably the outer layer — of
this membrane. The presence of protein in the plasma-membrane of , (j
sea-urchin eggs is also indicated by the fact that the cytolytic action of

VOL. LXXXII.— 10. '~S 4 " x

138 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

acids may be lessened or counteracted by neutral salts like sodium or
calcium chloride. Such antagonistic actions between acids and salts,
while not shown by colloids in general, are peculiarly characteristic of
certain proteins. Thus the rate of swelling of gelatine (a typical
selenoprotein) in water is greatly increased by the addition of a little
acid; this effect is prevented by the addition of neutral salts, and the
basis of this form of anti-cytolytic action may possibly lie here — i. e.,
the disruptive action of the acid on the proteins of the membrane is
checked or prevented by the salt. 1 Yet the plasma-membrane undoubt-
edly contains other constituents, and among these the substances be-
longing to the group of lipoids appear to be fundamentally important.
These substances, fat-like in their solubilities and colloidal in their
physico-chemical character, are always present in cells. Much light has
been thrown on their physiological significance by the investigations of
Overton and his successors, which have shown that ready permeability
to lipoid-solvents is highly characteristic of both animal and plant cells.
Alcohols, esters, ethers, hydrocarbons and similar compounds, all of
which are soluble in lipoids, enter living cells rapidly, in contrast to
neutral salts, sugars, amino-acids — the chief crystalloidal constituents
of protoplasm — which diffuse into resting cells (with unmodified
plasma-membrane) either imperceptibly or with extreme slowness.
Overton's results thus indicate that lipoids enter into the composition
of the plasma-membrane. This is to be expected. The structure prob-
ably consists of a mixture of all those protoplasmic constituents which
have marked effect in lowering the surface-tension of the cell-boundary.
Lipoids are conspicuous among this group of substances. That they
form part of the plasma-membrane is also indicated by the readiness
with which the permeability and other properties of this structure may
be altered by lipoid-modifying substances. Lipoid-solvents as a class,
when present in certain concentrations, have a specific action in in-
creasing, often irreversibly, the permeability of the plasma-membrane.
In lower concentrations many appear to decrease this permeability.
Their influence on irritability, which is probably a function of the con-
dition of this membrane, also indicates their importance as membrane-
constituents. Narcotic action is highly characteristic of lipoid-solvents,
and there is good evidence that this action depends on an alteration of
the plasma-membrane. I shall refer to this possibility later, in connec-
tion with the problem of the relation of membranes to stimulation.
All of these facts taken together indicate very clearly that the colloids
composing the semi-permeable surface-film of living cells consist of
1 This consideration, however, is not demonstrative. The precipitation of
lecithin by acid can be prevented by salts in concentrations which in themselves
do not precipitate, as Handowsky and Wagner have recently shown. Lecithin,
which seems always to be present in cells, probably forms an important part of
the plasma membrane, in which case changes in its physical condition would
influence the properties of the latter.

MEMBRANES AND CELL-PROCESSES 139

both lipoids and proteins, which are probably intermixed or combined
in some characteristic manner and vary in their relative proportions in
different cells, according to the specific constitution of the latter.

What are the chief peculiarities in the physical properties of these
membranes, on which their physiological importance depends? Two
properties appear especially significant. One of these is the semi-
permeability which the membranes preserve during life, i. e., the abil-
ity to transmit water freely while holding back dissolved substances.
The other is their ability to undergo reversible changes in their perme-
ability to such .substances, either in the direction of increase or de-
crease. These changes of permeability may in some cells be very rapid ;
and there is evidence that this is especially the case with irritable tis-
sues, and that the power of rapid response to stimuli is directly de-
pendent on this peculiarity. How essential the semi-permeability of
the plasma-membranes is to living organisms may be realized with
especial clearness in the case of plants. In many of these organisms
the rate of growth, the normal form and habit, and the characteristic
movements and reactions are intimately dependent on the peculiar con-
dition known as turgor, which is the expression of the outward pres-
sure of the dissolved molecules of the cell-contents against the mem-
branes which enclose them and which they can not pass. The diffusing
molecules hence press against these membranes, often with the force of
many atmospheres, and keep the cellulose cell-walls stretched and rigid.
It is on this condition that the maintenance of the normal form often
depends. The entrance of the water into the cell in growth is also
largely due to this osmotic pressure. Thus the confinement of the mole-
cules within the cells by membranes impermeable to their outward
diffusion is an indispensable condition of the continuance of normal
life-processes in these organisms. The same is true of animal cells, al-
though here the condition of turgor is usually unimportant in itself.
But, as we have already seen, the preservation of the normal proto-
plasmic composition in the case of any cell involves the prevention or
restriction of any free or unselected diffusive interchange of materials
between the cell and its surroundings. The semi-permeability found
during life is the expression of the all-importance of this condition.
We must therefore ascribe to the insulatory or semi-permeable character
of the plasma membrane, not only the existence of conditions like turgor
in plants, but even the very possibility of the existence of a stable or
permanent chemical organization in any cell.

This being the case, it is not surprising to find that simple modifica-
tion of permeability may profoundly modify many cell-processes. To
take first a relatively simple instance: if the semi-permeability of the
plasma-membrane is a necessary condition for continued life in any cell,
it ought to be impossible to increase this permeability beyond a certain
limited degree for any length of time without inflicting permanent in-

140 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

jury on the cell and eventually causing death. Loss of essential cell-
constituents through the altered membrane would have this effect.
Now there is evidence that a large class of injurious or toxic substances
exert their destructive action by altering the surface-films of cells and
permanently increasing the permeability. When this occurs in such a
cell as a blood-corpuscle or a sea-urchin egg — which is normally in
osmotic equilibrium with its medium — the cell first swells (an effect
showing loss of osmotic equilibrium) and eventually dissolves or dis-
integrates, an effect known as cytolysis. Lipoid-solvents, like chloro-
form or ether, have this effect in concentrations above certain minima :
they disrupt the membrane, presumably by altering the condition of the
lipoids, and disintegration follows. Many toxic alkaloids and gluco-
sides — like saponin, digitalin, aconitin, etc. — and certain bacterial prod-
ucts — cytolysins and hemolysins — have similar effects. Other sub-
stances, as inorganic salts, acids, or alkalis, may cause cytolysis by alter-
ing the state of the colloids of the membrane. In certain typical in-
stances there is direct evidence that the toxic action is primarily due to
a surface-alteration, and consists in a destruction of the semi-perme-
able properties of the membrane. Certain fluorescent substances like
eosin exert a cytolytic action on many cells in the presence of light,
though inactive in the dark (photodynamic action). Harzbecker and
Jodlbauer found that blood-corpuscles so treated began to swell before
there was any perceptible entrance of the dye into the cell, i. e., the
initial stage of cytolysis, involving a loss of osmotic equilibrium, oc-
curred previously to the entrance of the toxic substance. But loss of
osmotic equilibrium, unless soon reversed, involves destruction of the
cell. The essential or critical toxic action in this case is thus super-
ficial, and what is true of eosin is probably true of many other —
possibly most — cytolytic substances.

The peculiar antagonisms existing between the physiological ac-
tions of various substances (e. g., muscarin and atropin, toxin and
antitoxin, etc.) are probably in many cases to be explained on this
basis. The toxic and antitoxic actions of neutral salts form a case in
point. Pure solutions of sodium salts, even sodium chloride, are
strongly toxic to many cells, particularly those of marine organisms, as
the work of J. Loeb and his successors has shown with especial clear-
ness ; but if to the pure solution a little calcium salt is added, this toxic
action is prevented or greatly diminished; the calcium (or other favor-
able salt) counteracts the toxic action of the sodium salt — in other
words, has an antitoxic action. Now it can readily be shown in certain
organisms that the toxic action of the pure sodium salt solution is
associated with a strong permeability-increasing action. As test-ob-
jects or physiological indicators in the investigation of these effects I
have used the pigment-containing eggs of the sea-urchin, Arbacia, and
the larva? of a marine annelid, Arenicola, whose cells contain a water-

MEMBRANES AND CELL-PROCESSES 141

soluble yellow pigment. The eggs or larvae die rapidly in pure isotonic
solutions of sodium salts, and this toxic action is associated with a loss
of pigment (more or less rapid according to the particular salt em-
ployed), i. e., with a marked increase in permeability. But if a calcium
or other antitoxic salt is previously added to the solution, both the per-
meability-increase (as indicated by loss of pigment) and the toxic ac-
tion are prevented or greatly retarded. Apparently, a pronounced and
persistent permeability-increasing action is equivalent to a toxic action ;
the calcium' prevents or retards this destructive action of the sodium
salt on the plasma-membrane, and hence has an anti-cytolytic or anti-
toxic effect. Professor Osterhout's experiments disclose similar con-
ditions in plant cells ; pure solutions of sodium chloride increase perme-
ability — as shown by loss of turgor and increase of electrical conductiv-
ity — and have a well-marked toxic action ; both of these effects may be
prevented by adding a little calcium to the solution. In all of these
cases the antitoxic action apparently consists in protecting the surface-
film against the permeability-increasing action of the pure sodium salt
solution. I have found that not only salts of metals, like calcium and
magnesium, but also various lipoid-solvents or anesthetics may prevent
the cytolytic action of pure solutions of sodium salts in an essentially
similar manner. Evidently certain changes in the state of the lipoids
in the membrane render the latter more resistant to the disruptive ac-
tion of the salt solution. Cytolysis by substances like saponin may also
be checked by neutral salts. It seems probable that the relations be-
tween bacterial cytolysins and anti-cytolysins are of the same essential
nature. The theory of antagonistic salt-actions may thus become of
the greatest importance as a guiding principle in practical therapeutics.
Such surface-actions as those just described constitute only one form of
toxic action, but they are among the most important because of the ex-
ternal position of the plasma-membrane in the cell and its consequent
direct accessibility to modification by changes in the surroundings.

The integrity of the plasma-membrane thus appears to be essential
to the normal living cell. Injury to this membrane thus means toxic
action: prevention of this injury is antitoxic action; restoration of the
normal permeability after injury is therapeutic action. But the plasma-
membrane does not play only the purely passive role so far indicated.
It is intimately concerned in many active cell-processes; and there is
evidence that many of the distinctive energy-manifestations of the cell
are determined or controlled by changes — largely changes of permeabil-
ity — which have their seat in this structure. This appears to be true of
many forms of cell-movement, of cell-division, and of the stimulation-
process in general. Permeability-changes are also concerned in secre-
tion, in the fertilization of the ovum, and probably in the general proc-
ess of intake of food-materials by cells. The stimulation of irritable
tissues is a process which exhibits a peculiarly intimate dependence on

142 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the semi-permeable membranes of the irritable elements. Perhaps more
is known of the relations of membranes to the stimulation-process than
to any other cell-activity, and I shall accordingly consider its condi-
tions in some detail.

There is evidence that a rapid and reversible increase in the general
permeability of the plasma membrane is an accompaniment and indeed
a primary condition of stimulation in irritable tissues. This evidence
comes from many sides and is partly direct and partly indirect. Per-
haps the clearest indications of this kind are afforded by the motile
mechanisms of certain plants, like the sensitive plant {Mimosa pudica)
or the Venus's fly-trap (Dioncea) . In Mimosa the characteristic move-
ment, which consists of a dropping of the leaves and a folding together
of the leaflets, is due to a collapse of certain turgid cells which form the
so-called pulvini, or cushion-like masses of parenchyma at the bases of
the leaves and leaflets. A fluid containing dissolved substances rapidly
leaves these cells on stimulation; evidently the membranes, semi-per-
meable during rest, become suddenly permeable to the osmotically ac-
tive intracellular substances which maintain the turgor. This expla-
nation — first put forward in its essentials by Sachs — is accepted by the
majority of plant physiologists, and there is little doubt of its substan-
tial correctness. We have here, therefore, an instance where stimula-
tion depends directly upon a sudden increase in permeability. Now
in this case the primary or critical change is apparently the same as in
irritable animal tissues; an electrical variation similar to that shown
by an active muscle or nerve accompanies the movement, and the con-
ditions which call forth the response are essentially the same in the
plant as in the animal. In the case of animals the evidence that in-
crease of permeability is a condition of stimulation is, as a rule, less
direct. Yet in certain organisms a sudden increase of permeability
may readily be shown to be the equivalent of stimulation. My own ob-
servations on the pigmented larvae of Arenicola illustrate this very
clearly. When these organisms are suddenly brought from sea-water
into pure isotonic solutions of sodium salts (e. g., m/2NaCl) the
muscles contract with extreme vigor and persistency, causing the larvae
(which are small worm-like trochophores about 0.3 millimeter long) to
shorten to half their normal length; at the same time the yellow pig-
ment contained in the cells of the organism diffuses into the solution
and colors the latter yellow. The exit of pigment is the expression of
a rapid permeability-increasing or cytolytic action ; this is equivalent to
a strong stimulation. If by the addition of any substance to the solu-
tion we check or prevent this permeability-increase, we find that stimu-
lation is checked or prevented at the same time. Thus, if instead of the
pure m/2~Na,Cl we use m/2NaCl to which a little calcium or magnesium
chloride, or other appropriate salt, has been added, the strong stimula-
tion and loss of pigment are no longer seen — both are simultaneously

MEMBRANES AND CELL-PROCESSES 143

prevented. The same effect may be produced by various anesthetics;
these also protect the cells against the permeability-increasing action of
the ra/2NaCl, and at the same time prevent stimulation. Thus, if
Arenicola larvae are exposed for a few minutes to an isotonic solution of
a magnesium salt and are then brought into w/2NaCl, neither stimula-
tion nor loss of pigment follows. The same is true if they are brought
from ether-containing sea-water into ether-containing m/2NaCl; and
other anesthetics in appropriate concentrations show a similar inhibi-
tory and protective action. These and similar experiments point to
the conclusion that a membrane-alteration, in the direction of rapid
increase of permeability, is constantly associated with stimulation. It
is of course apparent that such increase in permeability must in normal
stimulation be perfectly reversible. If the reversibility is incomplete,
permanent injury results; and this is in fact the case when Arenicola
larva? are stimulated by immersion in pure isotonic sodium salt solu-
tions. We have already seen that this injurious action, as well as the
stimulating action, is greatly diminished by the presence of calcium
chloride, or some other antitoxic salt. Anesthetics also show an anti-
toxic as well as an anti-stimulating action.

It is impossible within the limits of this article adequately to dis-
cuss the physiology of stimulation. A few of its aspects ought, how-
ever, to be touched on here, since otherwise the above relation between
permeability-increase and stimulation may appear as a merely empirical
or detached observation, without any general or theoretical significance.
The most striking physical peculiarity of irritable tissues is their sensi-
tivity to electrical changes in their surroundings. Most persons are
accustomed to think of electrical currents as laboratory phenomena par
excellence, and as playing little part in nature outside of laboratory
walls. Yet living cells are profoundly influenced by such currents.
We can in fact imitate the normal conditions more closely by using
electrical currents as stimuli, than in any other manner. This precon-
ception is however a completely mistaken one. Not only do irritable
tissues respond to electrical currents, but certain electrical changes in
the tissues themselves are invariably associated with stimulation,
whether normal or artificial, and form perhaps the most constant and
essential feature of the stimulation-process. Such a statement may
sound like a truism to any one versed even slightly in modern physical
chemistry : ions — charged molecules and atoms — are present everywhere
in protoplasm, and it would perhaps be surprising if electrical changes
did not accompany protoplasmic activities. We have, hoAvever, to
inquire more particularly into the nature and conditions of the response
of irritable tissues to the electrical current, and of the electrical proc-
esses originating in the tissues themselves, and to relate these processes,
if possible, to the total effects produced by stimulation.

i44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

These processes again, like some of those already referred to, appear
to be a function of the changing permeability of the plasma-membrane.
When we take a tissue consisting of a parallel bundle of cells, like a
frog's sartorius muscle, cut it across, place one electrode in contact with
the normal uninjured surface of the muscle, and the other with its cut
surface, and connect the two with a galvanometer, we find that an
electrical current passes — the so-called demarcation-current. The ex-
posed interior (or cut surface) of the cells always shows a lower poten-
tial than the exterior; the potential-difference lies usually between a
tenth and a twentieth of a volt. This potential-difference depends on
the living condition of the cells. It is absent or insignificant in dead
muscle. It diminishes when the muscle-surface is treated with cytolytic
substances — i. e., with substances which increase the permeability of the
plasma-membrane. The evidence, in fact, indicates that the existence
of a normal demarcation-current potential is dependent on the semi-
permeability of the plasma-membrane. When the permeability is arti-
ficially increased, the potential-difference is invariably diminished; its
degree thus appears to be dependent on the degree of permeability of
the membrane; hence its increase on death or under the influence of
membranolytic substances. Now during stimulation the demarcation-
current potential always undergoes a marked decrease; this is the
change known as the negative variation or action-current, which is an
inseparable accompaniment of stimulation. Normally, this change is
completely reversible, and when stimulation ceases, the original poten-
tial-difference is regained. What is significant from the present point
of view is that the direction of the electrical variation accompanying
stimulation is the same as in that resulting from death or cytolytic
action and associated with an increase of permeability. The phenom-
enon is thus intelligible on the assumption that during stimulation
there is a sudden and marked increase in the permeability of the plasma
membrane. This permeability increase, with the accompanying electro-
motor variation, differs from that associated with death or cytolysis
chiefly in being rapidly and completely reversible. Stimulation may,
however, be so excessive under some conditions as to lead to irreversible
alterations in the membranes, or even to the death of the cell ; i. e., the
degree of reversibility is limited, and this consideration explains why
excessive stimulation is so injurious — it is in effect equivalent to a
cytolytic action or any other action where permeability is irreversibly
increased.

Why should a change in the permeability of the membrane produce
electrical effects of this kind? The phenomenon becomes intelligible
when we remember that membranes act by limiting or preventing dif-
fusion, and that they may limit the diffusion of ions — the mobile, elec-
trically charged atoms and atomic groups present in salt solutions — just

MEMBRANES AND CELL-PROCESSES

i45

as they do that of uncharged molecules. The ions formed by the dis-
sociation of any electrolyte have as a rule unequal diffusion-velocities,
and presumably unequal solubilities and other physical properties, in
correspondence with their chemical differences ; and hence we may infer
that they possess unequal abilities to pass through membranes. If this
is so, a membrane separating two electrolyte-solutions becomes the seat
of a potential-difference; i. e., a potential-difference, which may be
considerable, will exist between its opposite faces. This suggestion,
first made by Ostwald in 1890, has formed the basis of the chief pre-
vailing view — the so-called " membrane-theory "
of the nature of the bioelectric processes. Ost-
wald's suggestion, modified to suit the conditions
in cells, was essentially as follows. Imagine the
cell enclosed in a plasma-membrane freely per-
meable to the cations (positive ions, e. g., hydro-
gen ions or potassium ions) and impermeable
to the anions (negative ions) of a certain elec-
trolyte (which we may suppose to be lactic or
carbonic acid) contained in the protoplasm (Fig.
2). The cations then pass outward, carrying
their positive charges, while the anions remain
behind; this will proceed until the potential-
difference thus arising is sufficient to compen-
sate the diffusion-tendency (equivalent to the
osmotic pressure) of the cations. A condition
of equilibrium with outer surface positive and
inner negative thus results. The membrane
becomes the seat of an electrical polarization (normal or physi-
ological polarization) which is dependent on its impermeability to
anions. If the permeability of such a membrane were to increase
sufficiently to transmit the anions, a fall of the potential-difference
between the exterior and the interior of the cell would at once follow.
An effect of just this kind is seen in muscle and nerve during stimula-
tion, and is attributed by Bernstein and other upholders of the mem-
brane-theory to the changing ionic permeability of the membrane. The
selective permeability to ions of different sign, on which the potential-
difference between exterior and interior depends, disappears along with
the general increase in permeability accompanying stimulation: hence
a negative electrical variation is always associated with this process.
The precise arrangement imagined by Ostwald has not yet been
satisfactory realized, although, according to Briinings, precipitation-
membranes of copper ferrocyanide show sorre of the properties required
by this theory. But certain natural membranes present a much closer
approach to the theoretical requirements; thus the surface-membranes
of apples, which Beutner and Loeb have recently studied, behave as if

Fig. 2. Illustra-
ting the supposed
conditions of polar-
ization of the plasma
membrane. The elec-
trolytes are lactic
and carbonic acids ;
the membrane is sup-
posed to be perme-
able only to H-ions.

146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

decidedly more freely permeable to cations as a class than to anions,
and it is possible that this condition is typical for the plasma-mem-
branes of cells. The membranes of irritable tissues, however, may
belong to another type; certain membranes (consisting of thin films of
glass) whose electrical polarization depends on the relative hydrogen-
ion concentrations in the solutions which they separate, have recently
been investigated by Haber; and in some respects the phenomena pre-
sented by these membranes appear to correspond more closely to the
conditions in irritable tissues. Hydrogen-ions would be the polarizing
cations in the case of these membranes; and in fact irritable tissues
are as a rule remarkably sensitive to changes in the H-ion concentra-
tion of their medium. We are not yet in a position to decide between
such alternatives. But for the present purpose it is sufficient to recog-
nize that a membrane which interferes unequally with ionic diffusion
may become the seat of a potential-difference when it separates two
solutions; and the evidence that plasma-membranes and other cell-
membranes are of this kind appears very strong, even at the present
time. In general, phase-boundaries are the seat of electrical energies,
and these largely depend on the ionic content of the adjoining media.
Membrane-polarization is a special instance of this general class of
phenomena. The precise conditions of the normal physiological polar-
ization in irritable tissues have to be determined by future investigation.

Membranes in their electrochemical aspect are to be regarded, on
the present theory, as ion-transmitting surfaces, just as the metallic
plates in ordinary electric batteries are ion-forming or ion-combining
surfaces. The electrical properties exhibited by all of these surfaces
are conditioned in essentially the same manner, and Nernst's theory
applies to all. A system composed of solutions separated by mem-
branes may thus, under the proper conditions, show the same essential
properties as a system of batteries connected in series. The potential-
differences of the individual elements may be summed by appropriate
arrangement so that the electric tension between the terminals may be
very large. In the electrical organs of Gymnotus and other fish, sys-
tems of this kind have actually been realized in nature, and have been
applied to defensive or other purposes.

Let us now consider in a little more detail the conditions of stimu-
lation of an irritable tissue by an external electric current. The sur-
face-film of the muscle-cell or the nerve fiber is to be regarded as
electrically polarized in the sense already indicated. Why does the
tissue respond in its characteristic manner to the electric current?
The first fundamental suggestion as to the mode of action of the cur-
rent was made by Nernst in 1899. He pointed out that the current
in passing through a living tissue — a system equivalent to a solution
containing electrolytes and subdivided by semi-permeable membranes —

MEMBRANES AND CELL-PROCESSES

i47

nz

a

cr

cr

can produce decided changes of condition only at the semi-permeable
surfaces, where the movement of ions is blocked; changes of electrical
polarization would be produced at such surfaces; ions of a given sign
would be carried against one face of the membrane by the current
and would concentrate there until the back-diffusion equalled the
current-transport ; the same effect, with the signs of the ions changed,
would result at the other face
(Fig. 3). He conceived that in
electrical stimulation something
of the kind occurs. The essential
or critical change occurs at the
semi-permeable membrane, and
consists in carrying to this mem-
brane sufficient ions to produce a
given ionic concentration-difference
corresponding to a given electrical
polarization. This is the deter-
mining condition of stimulation.
A certain time will be required
for the process, depending on the
strength of the current, and on
the specific diffusion-rate of the
ions. Nernst estimated that on
this hypothesis the stimulating action (S) of a given current ought to
vary directly with its strength {%), and with the square root of its
duration (t) (S = Kiyft, K being a constant characteristic of the
tissue). The experimental data show that a more intense current
requires for stimulation a shorter time than a weaker current, and in
approximately this proportion. The more recent work of Lapicque,
Lucas and Hill has confirmed and amplified Nernst's theory. There
is therefore strong evidence that a current stimulates by producing an
electrical polarization at the membranes.

During life, however, the membranes are apparently already the seat
of a preexistent polarization, as we have seen. The polarization pro-
duced by the external current must, therefore, modify this. Now it
appears that in most, if not all irritable tissues, stimulation results
when the physiological polarization is diminished suddenly, but not
when it is increased. This is the simple inference from the law of
polar stimulation. When a current is passed through a tissue the
external positivity of the irritable elements is lowered on the side
directed toward the cathode and increased on the side directed toward
the anode, as may be seen by reference to Fig. 3. Now it has long
been known that the stimulus originates on the cathodal side of an
irritable tissue when the current is made, and on the anodal side when

Fig. 3. Illustrating the polarization of
the current on a membrane difficultly
permeable to ions. The anions and cations
of the electrolyte, NaCl, move in the di-
rection indicated by the arrows. The cur-
rent, passing from left to right, carries
cations toward and anions away from the
left face of the membrane ; at its right
face the conditions are reversed. The
membrane thus becomes electrically polar-
ized, with its left face at the higher
potential.

148 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the current is broken ; i. e., we obtain stimulation when the preexisting
polarization of the irritable elements is rapidly diminished — in other
words, when there is a depolarization. We may formulate the essen-
tial relations thus: stimulation is equivalent to depolarization, i. e., to
a rapid decrease of the already existing or physiological polarization of
the plasma-membranes.

Stimulation, however, is also connected with a change in the per-
meability of the membrane, as we have seen. We must therefore con-
clude — since a sudden change of polarization stimulates — that simple
alteration of the electrical polarization alters the permeability of the
membrane. Decrease of the potential-difference between the opposite
faces of the membrane — i. e., depolarization — apparently increases per-
meability, and often to a remarkable degree. Irritability seems, in
fact, to be an expression of this peculiar relation. The electric current
thus alters the polarization of the semi-permeable membranes of the
irritable tissue, and in so doing alters the permeability. This change
becomes the condition of the characteristic electrical variation of the
tissue; the latter is self-propagating, and thus the effects of the local
stimulus are transmitted to other regions of the cell. These appear to
be the essential changes in the stimulation-process as such.

According to this point of view we must conceive of the plasma-
membrane of an irritable element as possessing during rest a charac-
teristic impermeability or semi-permeability to which corresponds a
definite polarization, or potential-difference between its outer and inner
surfaces, of the value of (e. g.) one tenth volt. Now the permeability
of the membrane is determined by a number of conditions, some of
which are, its chemical composition, the temperature, the chemical
changes in the protoplasm and the surroundings, and probably the
state of- mechanical tension of the membrane. Another factor is, how-
ever, of fundamental importance : this is the existing state of electrical
polarization of the membrane. Alteration of this polarization alters
the permeability; if we decrease it we increase the permeability and
stimulation may follow; if we increase it we presumably alter the per-
meability in the inverse direction — hence in all probability the lowered
irritability at the anode (anelectro tonus) during the passage of a con-
stant current through a muscle or nerve. Such a view ascribes peculiar
properties to the plasma-membrane, but the facts lead directly to this
interpretation. Girard has shown experimentally that changing the
electrical polarization of a membrane of bladder or parchment alters
the permeability to neutral salts. The electrical state of a membrane
may thus determine its permeability. The plasma-membrane of
irritable tissues has apparently acquired extreme sensitiveness to
changes in its electrical polarization, such that slight electrical dis-

MEMBRANES AND CELL-PROCESSES 149

turbances in the surroundings may lead to a large increase of per-
meability, and hence to marked stimulation. 1

On this hypothesis we can also understand why the state of excita-
tion is transmitted from one region of the irritable element to another.
It is highly probable that the effect of a local stimulation is propagated
over the surface of the muscle-cell or nerve-fiber because of the elec-
trical variation which the permeability-change at the excited region
itself produces. This electrical variation affects the adjacent regions
of the membrane, and alters their permeability, with corresponding
electrical effects, and so the effect spreads. The explanation of the
conduction-process in a nerve or other irritable tissue is on this view
identical with that of the stimulation-process. There is, in fact, good
evidence that the region in a state of excitation simply excites the
adjoining regions electrically by means of its action-current, and that
the effect is transmitted in essentially this manner.

It is possible to change the polarization of the membrane, and
hence its permeability, in other ways than by passing an electrical
current. Or we may alter the permeability directly, by acting on the
cell by chemical substances, or by suddenly changing the temperature,
or by mechanical action. When such treatment produces a sufficient
increase of permeability, we may suppose that all ions become free to
pass the membrane, and that a polarization-change then occurs, with
consequent stimulation which, like other forms of stimulation, is self-
propagating. On such a view the ordinary forms of mechanical and
chemical stimuli are at bottom electrical in their nature. Such stimuli
act by directly altering the permeability of the membrane and hence
its electrical polarization.

On the other hand, the properties of the membrane may be so modi-
fied under certain conditions that it fails to respond to changes of
polarization by changes in its permeability. This occurs, for instance,
in narcosis. I have found that narcotics, in the concentrations at
which they anesthetize the musculature of Arenicola larvae, also check
or prevent the permeability-increasing action of isotonic sodium chlo-

1 The assumption of a permeability-increase at the time of stimulation 1 is
the only hypothesis, so far as I know, that accounts at once for the two charac-
teristic and invariable accompaniments of stimulation, (1) the negative electrical
variation, and (2) the temporary loss of irritability (refractory period) during
the electrical variation. The time-relations of these two outwardly diverse phe-
nomena coincide, as Tait has shown, and both are to be regarded as expressions
or consequences of the same change, namely, a temporary increase in the per-
meability of the limiting membranes. This increase involves a temporary loss of
the semi-permeability which is essential to the maintenance of the normal polar-
ization of the membrane, and also — according to Nernst's theory — essential to
electrical stimulation. I therefore regard the existence of a refractory period
as furnishing strong support to the general theory of stimulation and conduction
outlined above.

IS© THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ride solution on the pigment-containing cells of this organism; at the
same time they decrease or prevent the stimulating action of this solu-
tion. They also protect the organism against its toxic action, as we
have already seen. An anesthetic action is thus the equivalent of both
an anti-stimulating and an anti-cytolytic action. Both effects depend
upon a modification of the plasma-membrane; under the influence of
the anesthetic this structure becomes more resistant than normally to
conditions that otherwise increase its permeability. We may infer in
general that the degree of responsiveness of an irritable tissue is
dependent on the state of its plasma-membranes; and that anesthesia
corresponds to a condition of decreased susceptibility, and hyper-
irritability to one of increased susceptibility, to the action of per-
meability-increasing agencies. Sensitization and desensitization, on
this view, are primarily surface effects, dependent on alteration of the
limiting membranes.

The polarization-changes accompanying stimulation may be ex-
tremely rapid in some cases. During the contraction of a man's vol-
untary muscle under the influence of the will, the existence of a
rhythmical electrical variation with an average rhythm of about fifty
vibrations per second has recently been demonstrated by the thread-gal-
vanometer. The negative variation accompanying a single muscular
twitch occupies from one hundredth to one two-hundredths of a second
in a frog's voluntary muscle at ordinary temperatures ; that accompany-
ing a single nerve impulse lasts about one thousandth of a second ;
while more slowly reacting tissues, like heart-muscle or smooth muscle,
show correspondingly slower electrical variations. On the membrane-
theory the corresponding permeability-changes in the membrane must
occupy similar times; and this consideration indicates the extreme
delicacy of the adjustment between permeability and electrical polariza-
tion that must exist in the membranes of highly irritable tissues.

The electrical phenomena of stimulation are, however, relatively
inconspicuous — if we except the case of the electric eel or torpedo.
The characteristic and biologically important " response " of the tissue
varies with its special nature. A muscle contracts, for instance; a
gland secretes. The relation between the rapid change of polarization,
which is the primary event in stimulation, and the resulting mechanical
and chemical effects remains to be inquired into. The problem is a
difficult one, and insufficiently investigated. The energy of muscular
contraction is derived from the oxidation of energy-yielding compounds,
like sugar. We must conclude that the polarization-changes at the
cell-surface influence the chemical processes in the muscle-cell. Stim-
ulation is known to increase many times the rate of oxidation in muscle-
cells. I have lately attempted to modify the rate of formation of indo-
phenol (a deeply colored organic oxidation-product) in the blood cor-

MEMBRANES AND CELL-PROCESSES 151

puscles of the frog by passing induction-shocks ; and I find that the rate
of formation of this compound through intracellular oxidation can be
greatly accelerated by this means, especially in leucocytes, where the
oxidation-rate is relatively rapid. I am inclined, therefore, to attribute
to the variations in the electrical polarization of the membranes an
important general role in varying the rate and possibly the character
of the energy-yielding intracellular oxidations. On this view, intra-
cellular metabolism would be largely controlled by membrane-processes.
How this is possible may be illustrated by the case of anesthesia just
discussed. The ether-impregnated plasma-membrane is relatively un-
affected, as compared with the normal membrane, by isotonic sodium
chloride solution; and consequently the stimulation, with its resultant
increase in oxidation, is prevented by thus altering the membrane.
The precise nature of the conditions in these and similar phenomena
can be elucidated only by further study.

I had hoped to discuss the role of membrane-processes in other cell-
activities, such as fertilization, cell-division and development, but the
space at my disposal is insufficient. Before closing, however, I wish to
refer briefly to the large class of physiological processes in which a
regular rhythmical repetition of the same change, e. g., contraction, is
the essential characteristic. Such processes include ciliary activity, the
action of contractile vacuoles, the action of the heart and of nerve-cells
like those of the respiratory center or the heart-ganglia of certain ani-
mals. In the division of cells during early development, a definite
though slower rhythm is also seen. Now an electrical rhythm accom-
panies the physiological rhythm in muscle and nerve cells, probably in
cilia, and almost certainly in dividing cells, as indicated by the experi-
ments of Miss Hyde on dividing fish-eggs. The existence of a chem-
ical rhythm — of carbon dioxide production — has been demonstrated in
dividing cells (sea-urchin eggs) by Dr. Lyon, and we may infer its
presence in the other rhythmical processes. The electrical rhythm indi-
cates a rhythm of changing permeability, and of this there is some
direct evidence in dividing egg cells. In all of these cases we have to do
with automatic processes whose rhythm proceeds of its own accord,
provided the external conditions remain normal. Each cycle in the
rhythm furnishes itself the conditions for its own recurrence. The
question arises : from what physico-chemical point of view is it best to
regard this class of phenomena ? In the case of a rhythmical contractile
tissue three interdependent and synchronous rhythms may be distin-
guished — a chemical, a mechanical (presumably the expression of sur-
face-tension changes), and an electrical. An elementary model of
these phenomena is, I believe, furnished by the experiments of Bredig
and his pupils on the rhythmical catalytic decomposition of hydrogen
peroxide in contact with metallic mercury. When a ten per cent, solu-

152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

tion of hydrogen peroxide is poured over the surface of pure mercury,
a film of peroxidate at once forms over the surface of the metal. Its
formation alters the surface-tension of the mercury by changing the po-
tential-difference between the metal and the solution. Consequently,
the form of the mercury-surface changes. Under appropriate conditions
this deformation causes a mechanical rupture of the film at some por-
tion of its surface; there follows on this an electrolytic decomposition
of the peroxidate at the margin of the fissure, an effect which spreads
over the whole surface and involves the dissolution of the film, and its
reduction to metallic mercury, together with the liberation of oxygen.
The film then reforms, and the process is repeated. Thus a regular
rhythm, involving a form-change, a chemical decomposition, and a
change of electrical polarization, is started and continues automatically.
The rate of rhythm may be altered, just as in organic processes, by
altering the chemical character of the medium, e. g., by changing its
alkalinity, or by the addition of various other chemical substances. The
velocity with which the film is laid down and dissolved may thus be in-
fluenced, and the whole rhythm correspondingly affected. Graphic
records showing the variation in the rate of oxygen-liberation present a
marked resemblance to the records of rhythmical organic processes like
the heart-beat. Now the general conditions determining the rhythm in
this phenomenon are strikingly like those which, on the foregoing theory
of stimulation, determine the physiological rhythms. The surface-
film of peroxidate may be compared to the plasma-membrane. Its rup-
ture is equivalent to a local increase of permeability. This change is
the direct condition both of the chemical change and of the electro-
motor change, on which last depends the variation of surface-tension
conditioning the form-change. While the living system is indefi-
nitely more complex than the mercury-peroxide system, yet in its
rhythmical character and in the essential nature of the controlling con-
ditions this automatic rhythmical catalysis bears an undeniable and
striking resemblance to the action of living tissues like the heart, in
which a rhythmical autostimulation is the distinguishing characteristic.
In both cases an alteration of a surface- film is the critical change; and
the rate of this change determines the rate of the other rhythmical
events of the cycle. We may infer that if we could control the condition
of the plasma-membranes of cells we could control the entire range of
cell-processes. But I do not wish to prejudge these questions; I make
the above comparison chiefly in order to suggest possibilities, and to
indicate the desirability of devoting more careful study to the surface-
films of cells. Investigation of the conditions of their formation, their
permeability and their physical and chemical nature is certain to lead
to results of far-reaching importance for biology.

THE EFFICIENCY OF LABOR 153

THE PEOBLEM OF THE EFFICIENCY OF LABOE

By HOWARD T. LEWIS, M.A.

HIEAM COLLEGE, HIRAM, OHIO

IT may truthfully be said that industrial evolution is little else than
the progressive development of economic efficiency, and the vari-
ous stages in the story of the evolution of industrial society have been
largely based upon man's control over nature as indicated by his indus-
trial efficiency. The transition from one stage to the next has ofttimes
been imperceptible; at others it has been very marked. The modern
period, with its great aggregations of capital and its machine-made
products, is so far superior to the handicraft stage that comparisons
are made merely for the sake of measuring that development. Yet even
before we are thoroughly accustomed to the change, significant facts are
presenting themselves which would seem to indicate that we are on the
verge of still another era of industrial expansion. And though it is al-
ways rash to prophesy, yet it may be safe to say that the effect of this
transformation upon society in general and especially upon the relation
of employer to employee, will be far greater than we may at first think.
This much at least seems certain, that tremendous strides are about to
be taken from a purely productive point of view which will at the same
time materially affect the condition of the working classes.

If we eliminate from consideration the element land, and we may
safely do so in the present discussion, the production of wealth is the
result of two factors, labor and capital, both of which are more or less
variable in character. The development of modern power-driven
machinery has in recent times been remarkable, and no one would for a
moment maintain that the end is in sight. Greater care in the con-
struction and location of mechanical devices already invented will
immensely increase their efficiency. Yet it is very questionable if in
the future any such radical changes will occur as were witnessed
between 1750 and 1850. Perhaps, indeed, it was because of that prog-
ress that attention has been in the past chiefly centered upon man's
control over nature through the means of mechanical devices. Be that
as it may, this much can scarcely be contravened, that those engaged
in the active work of production (as well indeed as many theorists)
seemed until very recently to have forgotten that capital in the form
of machines is only one of the factors upon which the production of
wealth depends.

VOL. LXXXII. — 11.

154 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The reason for this undue emphasis is not far to seek. As has been
suggested, the enormous strides which have been taken in the invention
and development of various forms of power and of labor-saving
machinery has in itself, no doubt, been a potent reason why the labor
factor should temporarily be neglected. Moreover, the universal con-
fusion among practical men of affairs between labor and capital un-
doubtedly helped to obscure the importance of the former. Even
to-day the manufacturer is prone to place his labor supply in the same
category as his supply of raw materials, and to think no more about it
than to be sure that there are men enough to run his machines and to
do the work demanded. To the consideration of the relative cost and
efficiency of two machines he will give hours; to the choice of men to
run the machine he will devote scarcely ten minutes. It is these and
similar facts that have lain at the bottom of the failure to appreciate
properly the importance of efficiency of labor as contrasted with the effi-
ciency of machines. Not that labor unions and the backers of progres-
sive labor legislation have been negligent, but their work lies in the
main within the scope of the last half or even quarter century, and
their labors are just beginning to bear full fruit. As one of our great
railroads says to its employees in a recent bulletin:

There are so many things of the past, so many things of the present, to
persuade us to the opinion, if not indeed to the assumption, that man has been
so intent upon improving and developing and helping toward perfection the
things over which he was given dominion in Eden that he has left the matter
of his own intelligently directed evolution until the last.

The result of all this has been that even up to the present, though
to the standardization of nearly everything in the mineral and vegetable
kingdoms and a goodly portion of the lower orders in the animal king-
dom men have worked with earnest and often enthusiastic cooperation,
when it came to standardizing men and developing efficiency in them,
there has existed a confusion and lack of cohesion equal to that of
Babel. Efficiency in machinery has been taken for granted by those
interested in production, efficiency in labor has been largely overlooked
until the modem efficiency engineer appeared upon the scene.

But times are changing, and men generally are slowly coming to
realize the full significance of the term " labor efficiency." Part of this
has been due unquestionably to the influence of labor unions. The
increasing stress given by economists upon the distinction between
labor and capital, as economic concepts, has not been without its effects.
The natural and inevitable failure of mechanical invention to keep
abreast of the pace set at the outset of the industrial revolution has
also served to detract attention from the purely mechanical aspect as
soon as something else arose which demanded attention. To all this
we must add the exhaustion of the frontier and the other influences

THE EFFICIENCY OF LABOR 155

called attention to by Professor John E. Commons, which tend to
strengthen and emphasize the labor problem generally. 1

A moment's reflection will reveal the significance of this modern
movement toward greater efficiency. When we realize that according
to experts only from 20 to 60 per cent, efficiency has up to the present
time been secured in the average industrial plant we are almost stag-
gered when we think, not only of the effect that has been wasted in the
past, but of what will be possible in the future when this energy is
rightly directed in the actual work or production. In fact, it would
seem that, were one half the effort and thought we make to secure
efficiency in things outside of ourselves directed toward the securing
of greater efficiency of human units, there would evolve within a few
generations a race almost of supermen. So with the rise of those
whose business it is to secure efficiency from labor — whose specialty is
the gaining of cooperation, frankness and well-directed efforts through
a study of what has been called " shop psychology " it is wholly pos-
sible, if not indeed probable, that a combination with mechanical effi-
ciency may be affected that may well alter the entire aspect of industry,
and, mayhap, usher in a new stage in industrial evolution. 2

Treatments of industrial efficiency up to the present time have, in
the majority of instances, been lacking for one of two reasons, either
they have overlooked the very human instincts of the employer or they
have assumed an inherent antagonism between the interests of the
laboring class, as typified in unionism, and efficiency systems that
could not be overcome. Let us examine efficiency systems from the
point of view of these facts.

The apathy (or active opposition in some instances) on the part of
many employers to modern systems of industrial efficiency may be
traced to one of two causes. On the one hand, there frequently exists
a confusion between low individual wage cost with low total wage cost.
Or, on the other hand, the difficulty that has hitherto existed of meas-
uring with any degree of accuracy the efficiency of individual workmen
has undoubtedly worked against a more universal adoption of the plan.
Each of these facts will bear some notice beyond mere mention.

The costs of a manufacturing concern may be roughly separated

1 See also the writer's "Economic Basis of the Fight for the Closed Shop,"
Journal of Political Economy, November, 1912, especially p. 952.

2 The truth of this statement will appear when the full intent of the meas-
ures to develop labor efficiency are considered. The efficiency engineer has more
in mind than the mere invention of a new wage system — his work consists equally
in securing good housing, relief from monotony, a fair living wage — in a word,
in what may be termed social, labor legislation. The fact that he is interested
from the point of view of the employer does not alter the significance of his
work. More will be said of this later.

156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

into (1) wages, (2) raw material, (3) operating expenses, (4) overhead
charges. Taking these four items into account, the producer has, log-
ically enough, proceeded on the assumption that the less he has to pay
for any one of them, the selling price remaining constant, the greater will
be his net profit. When in the earlier stages of industry, production was
carried on in small workshops, and hired help was uncommon because
unnecessary, the only direct costs were those for raw material and for
overhead charges. The lower the price per unit the producer had to pay,
the lower were his total costs of production. When he came to need help
in the shop, he assumed, rather than figured it out, that the less he
had to pay an assistant per day, the lower would be his wage cost.
If the thing were true of raw material, obviously, he reasoned, it would
also be true of labor cost. The fact that his help was trained and
worked under his personal supervision and hence was actually more
efficient than would otherwise be the case probably explains why the
fundamental error in his assumption passed unnoticed.

When shops became factories and power-driven machinery replaced
the old hand processes, the question of the competency of labor was
never raised, for reasons already noted, save in unusual cases, and
attention was centered upon capital. With their minds still on the
mechanics of production, competing employers began to unite, and the
modern concentration and integration of industry commenced. With
its development, aided perhaps by those who had the time to analyze
theoretically the costs of production, was evolved the monopoly prin-
ciple of price, namely, that the price should be fixed at that point where
the difference between the total income and the total cost was the
greatest. And it was merely a question of time before some progressive
individuals came to apply the same principle to wages and the labor
cost. The added attention unionism had forced people generally to
give to labor undoubtedly caused the idea to develop sooner than it
would otherwise have done.

It is, however, in some respects a surprising thing that this prin-
ciple has not come to have a more general recognition, since it is
applicable in industries other than monopolies. In theory, it is almost
universally conceded that the efficient man — he who produces most and
best — is always the most profitable, even though he demands a some-
what higher wage. The truth of this statement has always been the
reason ascribed for the successful competition of American industry
with that of Europe, despite lower wage cost per unit on the continent.
But employers have been prone to accept this greater efficiency of the
American workman as a thing in the natural order of events, and so
drew the conclusion that if he could get this greater efficiency at
European rates, his profits would be doubly increased, failing utterly
to see that the efficiency largely depended upon the higher wage, or, in

TEE EFFICIENCY OF LABOR 157

other words, that efficiency and low wage can not, in the very nature of
things, be compatible. In America, the higher wage was for a long
time a thing the employer could not avoid, but in Europe it could be
avoided. The recognition of the principle and its application to prac-
tise has hitherto been left to Germany, who has clearly demonstrated
in her mills that it is " the improved workman who is accountable for
efficient workmanship," and that it is the totality of the effect of this
fundamental economic and educational movement that has brought
Germany to the front in the present industrial competition. Dr. Eliot
has put it :

We now know that the most efficient labor and the cheapest in proportion
to its product is found where the laboring classes live comfortably, are well
housed and fed, develop their intelligence and widen their prospects. The
cheapest labor is no longer considered the most profitable.

Unfortunately, Dr. Eliot's conclusion is, though inevitable, some-
what premature so far as the United States is concerned, for it is still
largely the rule in practise, though not in theory, to confuse low labor
cost per unit with low total cost. Happily, the theory is becoming
more and more the practise, and it is well, unless we are willing to be
hopelessly outclassed by our neighbors in the competition for the world
market.

There is, however, another factor, and one for which the employer
is not so directly responsible, that assists in explaining why modern
efficiency systems are not more universally adopted. This is in the
fact that until quite recently no means has been available by which
the employer could with any degree of accuracy measure the relative
efficiency of men or of various systems of organization. The employer,
of necessity, has paid one scale of wages to one class of workmen,
because, as a rule, he had no means of gauging the amount of work of
each man. It is exceedingly difficult to determine exactly what each
of a number of workmen does each day, and even if he does know, the
difficulty of comparing them is very great unless the work done by each
man was of the same nature and done under the same conditions. The
result has been that the emplo} r er has kept no individual records, and
instead treats all workmen of a class as equals, and pays them the same
wage. There may be 20 per cent, who are more efficient than the rest,
but he has no means of distinguishing them from the others with any
degree of accuracy. The result is that he declines to increase the
wages, or makes such increases so small as to be insignificant as com-
pared with differences in efficiency. In hiring men he offers the wage
for which he can obtain the cheapest man, and if the good man stands
out for a higher wage, he usually gets none at all. If the efficient man
is to get a higher wage, his entire class must get it, and then the
employer is paying the men more than they are worth. If the efficient

158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

workman be a unionist, he must, if he be consistent, slacken his pace
to that of the poorer one's, and hence in such shops the employer
usually gets the efficiency he pays for. The question, therefore, which
must be settled before all others, if the efficiency scheme is to be
adopted, is : how shall differences in efficiency be measured ?

Obviously to base a wage scale upon mere personal judgment as to
the relative efficiency of men working within a shop would be out of
the question, not only because it opens the way for charges of personal
favoritism and consequent labor difficulties, but also because the com-
plexity of modern shops would make such a plan physically impossible.
The introduction of the simple piece-work plan was hailed as a great
advance, as it unquestionably was from certain points of view, but here,
too, failure was inevitable. Pace setting with the regular " trimming
down " of wage scales was certain to produce bad feeling amongst the
men, if no worse evils resulted, which was improbable. The workmen,
too, were held responsible for all errors, which is obviously unfair —
and bad policy for the employer, besides. Moreover, the plan is based
upon a fundamental fallacy, namely, that a just scale of wages based
on piece-work can be made which will at all times and under all condi-
tions be just. The universal objection on the part of labor unions to
simple piece-work has both theoretical and practical justification.

In view of these facts, modifications were suggested, notably in the
Halsey, Eowan, Emerson and Taylor systems. 3 Space does not permit
a discussion of the relative merits of these systems, even though it
might fall within the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that a
scheme had to be devised of accurate, concise individual records that
could be used so as to be fair to the employer, yet that should recognize
and encourage the good workman while it did not discourage the poor
one. This has been done after considerable experimentation by effi-
ciency engineers, and has proven satisfactory. The Holerith Service
Eequisition card 4 is a fair sample of what can be done along this line,
and makes it possible to measure relative efficiency of workmen, not
only with each other, but with whatever standard existing conditions
justify.

We are now in a position to consider the other side of the question.
What is the attitude of the laboring man to these efficiency schemes?
It must be admitted that so far as organized labor, at least, is con-
cerned its opposition is almost universal, and that this opposition has
been the source of much criticism. Two questions naturally present
themselves at this juncture: why does unionism oppose the efforts of
the efficiency engineer, and second, what will be the ultimate outcome
of such opposition ? Let us consider these queries in their logical order.

3 See Bender, "Systems of Wages and their Influence on Efficiency,"
Engineering Magazine, 26: 498.

4 See Engineering Magazine, 36 : 820.

THE EFFICIENCY OF LABOR 159

The opposition of unionism to efficiency schemes is based upon two
facts ; the persistence of bad economic theory and the remembrances of
bitter experiences. The theory that the various methods of restric-
tions of output, such as the refusal to follow pace-setters and the like,
will make more work for other unionists has long been held by the
ardent union followers, and the Bureau of Labor has said that the idea
is almost universal among laboring men, whether members of a union
or not. 5 The fallacy of such a doctrine has long since been exposed,
and needs no repetition here. A more fundamental error, and possibly
the real source of the one just mentioned, is the failure to recognize
that wages are paid from total product and that labor's share in the
national income is proportional to its share in the production of that
income. The old wage fund doctrine still lingers. But unless we do
entertain that abandoned theory it is difficult to escape the conclusion
that increased efficiency results in added product and a consequent
higher wage scale. This much at least is true that, as society is at
present constituted, the laborer can not in the long run get more wages
unless he also produces more.

Doubtless, however, the chief source of difficulty between the
unionist and the efficiency advocate grows out of the experience of
organized labor in the past with piece-work, bonus and premium plans ;
nor can it be said that the unionist is to be greatly blamed for being
suspicious. The practical (and it has sometimes seemed almost in-
evitable) consequences following the institution of these plans in the
past are too well known to be repeated here. The horizontal cut in
the wage scale following what the employer has termed the earning of
" excessive bonuses," time after time has made unionism perhaps
unreasonably wary of all like schemes in the future. Be that as it
may, this fact remains, that after having been trapped into being com-
pelled to work at a killing pace to earn a decent wage, organized labor,
pointing to this experience, objects to the point of desperate struggle
the adoption of any form of " wages on the basis of efficiency " without
giving them the chance even of a trial. Note the attitude of the Metal
Polishers Union at the Rock Island (Illinois) government arsenal
toward the introduction of the Taylor cards.

Unquestionably, the crux of the whole matter is in the relation of
these efficiency schemes to the laborer and their effect upon him. Some
writers have argued that since unionism is primarily interested in high
wages, and the employer in low costs of production, that unionism and
efficiency are inherently antagonistic. Others contend that because of
its persistent fight against it, unionism will eventually compel industry
to adopt " democratic measures " just as the evils of standing armies

5 See Eeport of Bureau of Labor on Restriction of Output (1904).

i6o TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

compel nations to arbitrate their differences. Still others maintain
that the most effective weapon against unionism is the proper reward
of efficiency, since by that means all reasonable discontent is quieted.
Thus H. L. Gantt in an article noted above says :

If you keep an exact record of what each fellow does, surround the men
with conditions under which they can work at high efficiency and compensate
the efficient one liberally, no man will spend his spare time trying to find out
how to raise the wages of the other fellow. Workmen as a rule will do more if
their earnings are increased by so doing, and you will have great difficulty in
getting the efficient ones into the labor unions if they are not benefited by
joining.

In passing judgment upon these criticisms, two facts stand out
preeminently before the thoughtful student of this question. The first
is that some kind of an efficiency system, constructed upon a cost basis,
is to become inevitably an integral part of the industrial organization
of the future. Men may be apathetic about it, mistakes will be made
in its application, labor unions may strive against it, but it is as
inevitable as the industrial revolution. Time was — and traces of the
spirit still linger — when labor organizations struggled against the
introduction of modern labor-saving devices. The Knights of St.
Crispan might unite against the use of pegging and sewing machines
in the shoe industry; printers might protest against the introduction
of the linotype, but it was of no avail — these things were a part of
industrial evolution — they increased man's efficiency in production,
and they could not be stayed. Exactly the same thing is true of
modern efficiency systems — attention has been shifted from capital to
labor, but the result will be the same. The employer demands it
because his profits are thereby increased; the efficient laborer demands
it because it increases his compensation and he feels, rightly, that
superior skill should be rewarded; and society as a whole demands it,
because in its totality it tremendously increases social wealth and
welfare. The sooner unionism recognizes this fact and acts accord-
ingly, the better it will be for its cause, both directly and indirectly.
For we are loathe to admit that labor and capital are, and must remain,
inherently antagonistic.

The second fact that requires recognition is that no plan which
tends to increase the dependence of the laborer upon the employer or
that fails to take cognizance of the real, vital well-being of the employee
can in the long run prove successful. Because of this, it is essential
that the employees in their collective capacity be given a voice in the
direction of the shop. With human nature as it is, the temptation to
cut piece-rates, to speed up machinery, and the utilization of similar
methods must be, so far as possible, removed. In time the employers
will undoubtedly come to see that the lack of hearty cooperation that

TEE EFFICIENCY OF LABOR 161

must be expected from men who are driven instead of led will wreak
its own evil consequences, but in the meantime something else must be
substituted. The details must needs vary with the individual shop
and trade. It is necessary, however, that in some manner the em-
ployees in their collective capacity be recognized. From this point of
view the plans of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the United States Steel
Corporation and the National Biscuit Company, who offer a limited
stock to their employees at reasonable prices, are weak. Few men can
buy a sufficient quantity of stock to insure an effective interest, or if
so, they can not hope to exercise the faintest semblance of influence
upon the policy of the concern. The plan of the William Filene Sons'
of Boston is far better. According to it the employees have a perma-
nent shop committee, with certain privileges of recommendation regard-
ing shop condition, methods of manufacture, and so forth, to a similar
committee representing the employers. A combination of these two
plans would undoubtedly be still more satisfactory wherever practical.
Nothing is better established than that arbitrary, dictatorial methods
on the part of the employer are fatal to the real interest and coopera-
tion that an efficiency system demands. Such an attitude can result
in nothing else than suspicion and antagonism. Whatever plan be
adopted, therefore, it is essential that a channel be provided through
which the workmen can express themselves.

It will be seen, therefore, from what has been said up to this time,
that the question of efficiency is a far more complex one than appears
at first sight. Perhaps, indeed, the efficiency expert is himself not
entirely blameless in the matter, in that he has seemingly placed undue
emphasis upon some system of wage payment and not enough upon the
deeper significance of such a reform. For after all the introduction
of some new plan for paying wages is but a superficial thing, if con-
sidered by itself. True, output may be tremendously increased by
artificially stimulating the workmen through some form of piece-work;
" speeding " increases output, despite the fact that it also kills men.
The permanent, vital results of efficiency schemes appear after a man's
wages have been increased as a result of added output. It is the things
a man buys with his increased income and the improvement in his
environment which it makes possible that constitutes the real basis
of efficiency. Additional wages are of no value unless they bring to
the earner better food and clothes, better housing conditions, relief
from the monotonoy of factory toil, reasonably safe and sanitary places
in which to work — in short, unless they mean a higher standard of
living.

There is probably no efficiency expert worthy of the name who does
not realize all this or who does not appreciate its full significance. It

i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

is probably equally true that he does not strive for these things out of
any consideration for the employee, but rather because it increases pro-
duction. He sees, however, that the one necessarily implies the other.
His first step in the attainment of his end has been the invention of a
new system of wage payment, and he has been increasingly successful
in this direction. But in doing so, he has so far neglected to purposely
emphasize the ultimate aim that his critics have lost sight of it alto-
gether. The result is that in many instances the unionist fails to under-
stand his motive, and the employer does not see its necessity.

The problem of the efficiency of labor is therefore but a phase of
the far wider problem of distribution. What the advocates of labor
legislation and reform are striving to do from the point of view of
the wage-earner, the efficiency expert is endeavoring to secure, though
he may not realize it, from the standpoint of the employer. It would
be well if this fact were more generally understood, for then the diffi-
culties would be solved the sooner, and there would be less working at
cross-purposes. And, after all, it is as Theodore Roosevelt said recently
at Columbus:

We have no higher duty than to promote the efficiency of the individual.
There is no surer road to the efficiency of the nation.

BERGSON' S ORGANIC EVOLUTION 163

BERGSON'S VIEW OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION

By De. HERVEY W. SHIMER

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

THE French philosopher Henri Bergson has most appropriately
chosen as the title of his book on development the name " Cre-
ative Evolution." As the name implies, to the inevitableness, the in-
variability of evolution as developed through physico-chemical laws, this
philosophy adds the spontaneity, the indetermination of creation. The
English translation of this book by Arthur Mitchell is a masterpiece of
such work, and he is to be highly commended for the sympathetic
manner in which the translation has been carried through.

All views of evolution divide naturally into two groups, the mech-
anistic — that all life can be accounted for through the application of
the laws of physics and chemistry — and the vitalistic — that while the
laws of physics and chemistry explain much, they do not explain all.

The principal radical views of these two groups are the following:

Mechanistic
Vitalistic

Neo-Lamarckian.
Neo-Darwinian.

( Creative Evolution (Bergson).
1 Teleology.

The Neo-Lamarckians hold that characters acquired during the
lifetime of an individual are transmitted to its offspring. The Neo-
Darwinians deny this utterly, holding that the germ cell, the reproduc-
tive tissue, is set apart for its generative work while the animal is in
its embryonic state, that is, the reproductive tissue is not the product of
the animal's own soma cells, but of its parents' germ cells. This school
of Neo-Darwinians explains evolution by the theory that the germ cells
are continually changing in every possible direction permitted by their
stage of development and that those of these changes shown forth in
the adult animal or plant which are beneficial to the organism are
selected by nature for preservation. To the adherents of the former
school, environment gives rise to variations; to the adherents of the
latter it merely selects. To the former the long neck of the giraffe is
due to the necessity that successive generations get their food from
higher and higher bushes, a process of stretching illustrated by the ani-
mals in Kipling's " Just So Stories " ; to the latter, those changes in the
germ cell leading to neck elongation in the adult were selected by nature
in times of drought.

Teleology in its most radical form holds that life is carrying out a

164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

pre-arranged plan, that at the beginning everything was determined in
detail and that all life is now following out the lines of that plan.
Comparing this with the other two theories, the rabbits have long hind
legs according to the Neo-Lamarckians because of the exercise they
received when running to escape the fox; their ears likewise became
longer because of the intentness with which they must guard against
enemies. To the Neo-Darwinian the elongate ears and hind legs are
due to changes in this direction in the germ cell, which changes nature
selected by means of the fox who ate all individuals failing to make
this change. To the teleologist it was planned in the beginning that
as the fox became swifter the rabbit should likewise become swifter and
more acute of hearing so that a proper balance should always be pre-
served between them.

Bergson's view of creative evolution is vitalistic in that it, with
teleology, postulates a psychical force, which he calls the life impetus.
But it differs from teleology especially in its belief that life is not
bound by any prearranged plan, that it is free at all times to modify its
course, to change its direction. Life, according to this view, is like a
shell bursting as it flies, each fragment again bursting, and so on. The
life impetus is thus continually dividing. Just as the way a shell bursts
depends both upon the explosive force of the powder and the resistance
of the metal surrounding it, so the direction of life depends upon the
unstable balance of tendencies which it bears within itself and the re-
sistance it meets with from inert matter. It is as if the vital impetus
were trying to graft on the invariableness of matter the largest possible
amount of instability.

According to the view of creative evolution, then, environment is a
force evolution must reckon with, but not its cause, as with the mech-
anists, while adaptation of the organism to its environment will explain
the sinuosities of the course of evolution, but not the general direction
and still less the cause of the movement itself.

The problem confronting this vital impetus as it enters matter is
somewhere to gather energy with which to counteract the retarding
force of matter. At the surface of this earth the most available source
of energy is the sun's rays. So the problem before life was this — to
store this energy in suitable reservoirs so that it could be drawn upon
at any time and for any need such as movement or reproduction. It
succeeded in this by causing the kinetic power of the sun's rays to break
up the inorganic compounds into their separate elements and then re-
combine them into the potential energy of organic foodstuffs. At first,
doubtless, an organism thus gathered for itself the energy which it later
expended in free movements; this form may be symbolized in a crude
way by the infusorian, Euglena. This organism expends kinetic energy
in motion like any animal, but in addition to the ordinary animal

BERGSON' S ORGANIC EVOLUTION 165

method of deriving potential energy from plant reservoirs it likewise
stores up potential energy for itself by the direct action of the sun's
rays on its chlorophyll. But in the course of higher development it
was found that these two functions, that of storing up energy and its
expenditure in free movements, were incompatible in the same or-
ganism. There thus opened out before the organism two lines of
development, one of greater movement, but with all the hazard of an
uncertain food supply, the other of fixity, but with a certainty of food
supply; the former resulted in the animal kingdom, the latter in the
vegetable.

Since, however, these two kingdoms are branches of the same life im-
petus each contains something of the other. The difference lies merely
in the tendencies upon which each lays emphasis, while it leaves the
other tendencies lying dormant. So that plants and animals can not be
defined by mutually exclusive characters, but rather by the accentuation
of certain tendencies. Plants take their food as a rule from the inor-
ganic, animals from the organic ; as a result plants are usually fastened
to the earth, immobile ; animals get their food through movement. As a
consequence of this differing method of food getting the plant cell
surrounds itself with a hard coat of cellulose through which external
stimuli can with difficulty affect the organism, and there is hence made
possible but a very slight consciousness. Since to the animal cell
movement is essential to food getting, it can not completely encase itself
in a hard external skeleton ; it thus follows that external stimuli readily
affect the organism and there is hence rapidly developed an ever higher
type of consciousness.

Consciousness, as used by Bergson, is not limited to self-conscious-
ness, but is the kind of consciousness that Jennings in his " Behavior
of Lower Organisms " is inclined to believe is possessed by all animals
from the highest to the lowest. Bergson relates it to mobility. " The
humblest organism is conscious in proportion to its power to move
freely."

The elements into which a tendency splits do not possess the same
power to evolve. The truly elementary tendencies continue to evolve,
leaving behind the residual, split-off tendencies. This is illustrated
in the development of the plant kiDgdom, where it is the carbon-fixers
which carry on the main line of evolution.

Along the animal pathway, three of the main branches are those of
the mollusks, arthropods and vertebrates. During the middle Paleozoic
all had run into the blind alleys of stagnancy, of torpor, since most
forms of these phyla had become enclosed in a hard external skeleton;
but before this condition had become universal, some of the arthropods
assumed, instead of the hard external skeleton of the crustacean, the
soft one of the insect, and among the vertebrates the armored fish gave
place to the unarmored.

1 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Bergson here makes one of his most suggestive contributions, for he
makes intellect and instinct divergent instead of linear characteristics.
Intellect is not derived from instinct, but they are both present in all
life. The former is emphasized by the vertebrates, reaching its cul-
mination in man; the latter is especially developed by the arthropods
and finds its highest expression in the Hymenoptera — bees, wasps and
ants. The awakening from torpor could be effected in two ways; life,
i. e., consciousness launched into matter, could fix its attention either
upon its own movement or upon the matter it was passing through, and
it would thus be turned either in the direction of intuition, or of intel-
lect. Apparently, on the side of intuition consciousness could not go
far; it found itself so restricted by its envelope that intuition had to
shrink into instinct, i. e., to embrace only that portion of life upon
which its continued well-being depended. Instinct is a prolongation of
the life principle (vital impulse). We call that the life principle
which in a living body coordinates the thousands of cells to work
towards a common end and to divide the labor of feeding, reproduction
and preservation among them, but we call that instinct which causes
the bees of a hive to work towards a common end, and to divide the
labor of feeding, reproduction and preservation among them.

The most essential of the primary instincts are really vital processes.
Instinct only carries further the work by which life organizes matter.
When the little chick is breaking its shell with a peck of its beak it is
acting by instinct, and yet it merely carries on the movement which
has borne it through its embryonic life. When the digger-wasp,
Ammophila, stings its caterpillar victim in just the right places to
ensure paralysis without death it acts by instinct, it must not be con-
sidered to have any knowledge like that of the learned entomologist who
would know the vulnerable places from the outside — from detailed
observations of all parts of the caterpillar body. The insect's knowl-
edge, instinctive, proceeds from its inner identification with the same
life principle as that of the caterpillar — from a sympathy (in the ety-
mological sense of the word) between the two organisms which teaches
the insect from within the vulnerability of its victim, whereas the intel-
ligence of the entomologist goes all around the caterpillar instead of
entering into it, making itself one with it.

On the other hand, consciousness concentrating its attention upon
the matter it was passing through succeeded in evading the barriers
raised by it, and now in man, freed to some extent from matter, it can
turn inwards on itself and awaken the powers of intuition which still
slumber within it. Intuition as thus used is instinct that has become
disinterested, self-conscious, capable of reflecting upon its object.

Bergson makes freedom the corner-stone of his theory. The vital
impetus has for its goal the acquirement of an ever fuller volume of

BERGSON' 8 ORGANIC EVOLUTION 167

free, creative activity. Man shows that forth in himself in the creation,
improvement and pursuit of ideals. He follows no prescribed path ; he
is perfectly free to choose, except that he may not go contrary to the
broad course of evolution, i. e., the direction of flow of the vital impetus.

While consciousness (vital impetus) is thus creation and choice, it
is also memory. Beings advance in time, treading, as it were, upon a
carpet which they weave with whatever colors and texture they wish, but
they are ever rolling this carpet up behind them and carrying it with
them. Thus all of the past is preserved, though not indeed all as self-
conscious memories. It is this whole past which, "gnawing into the
future, swelling as it advances," Bergson calls duration. The biologic
law of recapitulation takes cognizance of a part of this memory.

Thus instead of a finalistic or a mechanistic universe with its course
known or foreseeable, Bergson postulates one creating itself endlessly
along an indeterminable course, constantly enlarging with the volume
of its past experiences.

1 68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

THE ABILITIES OF AN "EDUCATED" HOESE

By Profbssob M. V. O'SHEA

THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

DURING the last few years a number of " educated " horses have
been prominently before the public, alike in this country and in
the old world, and they have received enthusiastic praise from all
sorts of people. Doubtless some readers of this article saw and
admired Blondine, who exhibited his " marvelous " powers continu-
ously during the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo. Many distin-
guished people paid him a visit; and observing his performances, they
went away to tell astounding tales of his intellectual acumen. The
testimonies of men eminent in politics, in war, in business, and in the
professions were daily published at the door of Blondine's pavilion;
and the writer remembers reading the hearty commendations of this
"educated" horse by President McKinley, Admiral Schley, and a long
list of persons celebrated in various walks of life. The press of the
country described the readiness and accuracy with which Blondine
could add, subtract, multiply and divide large numbers; how he would
interpret commands given to him, such as to take a handkerchief to a
particular lady in a company; how he could spell words given him by
members of his audience; how he could read simple sentences; and
how he could perform other mental feats which we have been accus-
tomed to think are impossible except for an intelligent human being.

Leaving aside the " educated " horses of other days and of other
countries, it is the intention here to describe the intelligence of King
Pharaoh, which has probably attracted more attention than any other
horse of recent times. He has appeared before notable people and
vast audiences in every section of this country. He has received
unqualified praise for his abilities from newspaper and magazine
writers, and from such persons as Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Governor
Eberhardt, of Minnesota, and others of like distinction. His trainer,
Dr. Boyd, of Columbia, South Carolina, claims that we have at last an
animal with genuine human intelligence, as shown in his interpretation
of oral and written language, his mathematical calculations, his read-
ing of human character, and similar achievements.

The writer, who had made some observations respecting Blondine's
powers as revealed in his exhibitions in Buffalo, was able to make an
investigation of King Pharaoh's abilities in November, 1911. An
educational convention was in session in Miles City, Montana. King
Pharaoh with his trainer and retinue of attendants happened to be

AN "EDUCATED" HORSE 169

passing through to the Pacific coast at the time. The train was halted
at Miles City, and Dr. Boyd was asked whether he would permit the
writer to make a test of King Pharaoh's reputed human intelligence,
and he readily consented to this. It was stipulated that the trainer
should first exhibit the horse in the presence of a body of twenty-five
observers, these to be chosen mainly from the educators in attendance
at the convention, after which the writer would take control of King
Pharoah, and his trainer and care-takers should leave the building, so
that they could not influence the horse in any way during his perform-
ances. These conditions were agreed to by Dr. Boyd.

King Pharaoh is a small pinto stallion. He has an unusually
large head for his size. The trainer called special attention to this
trait before beginning his performance with the horse. He also dwelt
upon the remarkable success which King Pharaoh had had in all of his
exhibitions. He mentioned the people of prominence who had
" studied " him, and who had commended him, putting special emphasis
upon the testimony of Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Governor Eberhardt.
Whether the trainer intended it or not, it was apparent that his remarks
predisposed the observers in the horse's favor. One could see that they
were much interested in King Pharaoh's large head, which indicated,
of course, in accord with popular belief, that he must be intelligent.
" Large head = superior intelligence " is the simple logic of the un-
critical observer; and such a person will be partially convinced before
he sees the horse in action at all. Then when great men, no matter in
what department they may have achieved distinction, testify in favor
of anything, the majority of people no longer maintain a genuinely
critical attitude toward it. This is the result which the trainer must
have known would issue from his remarks, though he may not have
made them for this explicit purpose.

It should be stated at this point that the trainer had carefully
arranged the setting of the stage before King was brought in. He had
placed a blackboard on an easel; and at four or five yards to the left
there was a rack ten feet long on which could be placed in upright
position ten letters or ten numbers printed on blocks that could be
easily knocked down. The letters and figures were printed on both
sides of the blocks, so that the horse and the trainer could see them,
and the audience could also observe them. Throughout the exhibition
the trainer stood between the blackboard and the rack so that the horse
would always be in front of him, and he could see what was taking
place.

Por the first experiment, the writer put on the blackboard the fol-
lowing figures 8 5 7 6

6 3 9 4

VOL. LXXXII. — 12.

•

'"■■ '■■

170 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

and said to the horse : " King, add these figures." The trainer then
said : " King, do as the gentleman bids you. Go to the rack and show
what is the sum of the first two figures. Go along and do it quickly."
Then turning to the audience he remarked : " King is mischievous
to-day, perhaps because it is so cool, and he may not do just as he
should unless I compel him to. Usually I never have to take a switch
to him, but sometimes when he is too mischievous, I have to correct
him, and urge him to attend to his business." It was interesting to
note the effect of this statement upon the observers. It put them at
once into sympathy with the horse, and predisposed them to explain
King's lack of responsiveness and his mistakes to his " mischief," and
not to his inability to understand what was wanted of him. The
remarks served effectively to divert many of the observers from study-
ing the commands and actions of the trainer as possibly affording a
clue to the reactions of the horse. They just naturally concluded that
so much talk by the trainer was necessary in order to control the
horse's " mischief," and it did not occur to them that verbal clues were
mixed in with the commands.

Meanwhile the horse was standing at the rack without indicating
any interest in the proceedings. He was not " studying " the figures
on the board. He did not appear to understand what Dr. Boyd was
saying about him. At least it was impossible for the writer, who was
carefully noting King's reactions at short range, to detect any recog-
nition on King's part of the trainer's remarks or commands, though it
was claimed he understood every word. Turning to the horse again
the trainer said, " King, why don't you do as the gentleman asked you ?
Find the first number. Come on, behave yourself, and find the first
number," and he picked up a stick as if to slap him. The horse then
walked over to the rack on which the number 10 had been placed near
the lower end. He moved down to this number, and pushed it off.
However, just as King came to the number 10, the trainer said, " Show
the gentleman what the first number is." After having pushed off the
right number, he pushed off the number 6 which was next to it. The
trainer then said, "What is the number you carry? Find the number
which you should carry." The horse moved along the rack, and while
the trainer was talking to and commanding him, stamping occasionally
to impress King with the necessity of "cutting out" his "mischief,"
he pushed off the number 1 and the number next to it. Then the
trainer said, "What is the next number in this addition? Find it for
the gentleman." The horse moved along the rack, and at the com-
mand, " Show the gentleman," he pushed off the number 13, and the
one next to it. The trainer then had some one in the audience put the
number 1 on the rack, though it could not be determined whether the
horse was looking at the moment; and being commanded to show the

AN "EDUCATED" HORSE 171

number which should be carried, King moved up to the rack, and ap-
parently went directly to the right number, and pushed it off.

So he went through with the entire addition, making no mistakes,
except that for most of the numbers he pushed off both the right one
and the one next to it. The trainer in each case would take two or
three steps toward him and say, "He knows perfectly well what is
right, but he is mischievous to-day. Sometimes he does that, but very
rarely." Then the trainer would call out to the horse, " King, if you do
not behave yourself, I will whip you for it. Now you go and do as I
command you." The effect of these remarks on the observers was evi-
dent ; they were siding with the horse in all his " pranks," though he
appeared to be in earnest, according to equine standards. The writer
could detect no evidence of " mischief " in the horse's expression or ac-
tion. But the observers showed sympathy with King, and delight in
his evident intelligence. The writer, who did not participate in the
demonstrations of admiration when King pushed off the numbers, was
said by certain of the observers to be rather cold and blase in regard to
"educated" horses. One newspaper reporter who was in the audience
told the writer later that he thought King would have done much better
than he actually did do, if he (the writer) had not been eyeing him so
coldly and unsympathetically. "I couldn't have done so well myself
under such conditions," said the reporter.

The writer next wrote on the board the figures

7 5 9 2
5 13 8

and said to the horse, "King, subtract." The trainer then called to
him to perform the process, using, so far as one could follow him, sub-
stantially such language as he did during the addition process. The
horse in this experiment always pushed off the right number, but he
also pushed off one or two other numbers in each instance. He would
stop in the vicinity of the right number, while his trainer was talking
to him, but apparently he could not discriminate between the correct
one and those on either side of it. The trainer kept telling the audi-
ence that King knew perfectly well what was right, but he was " out of
sorts to-day." So far as one could tell, the horse was utterly indiffer-
ent to his repeated verbal chastisements, even though, according to the
trainer, he comprehended everything said to him and about him.

Next, the writer put on the board a problem in division, and one in
multiplication, and the horse solved each problem in the way in which
he did the first two ; but in most of his attempts he pushed off more than
one number, which the trainer uniformly ascribed to the cold weather,
or to some similar cause, and not to lack of intelligence. His most re-
markable arithmetical work, judging from the expressions of the audi-

i72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ence, was his correct solution, in the same sense that his other solu-
tions were correct, of the problem, — "If I must pay 35 cents for one
dozen oranges, how much must I pay for 224 dozens ? " King " solved "
this " in his mind," which is more than the average high-school gradu-
ate can do. Also, he apparently carried the solutions of all the other
problems "in his mind" after "studying" them once, which would be
regarded as " some " feat for a mathematician even.

Stopping a moment for comments, it may be noted first that the
trainer while commanding the horse saw the numbers on the rack, and
that the horse passed along the rack, instead of walking up straight to
a number. It was impossible to keep tab on all of the trainer's talk
so as to determine whether he always used a given word or phrase when
the horse was opposite a particular number; but some observers in the
audience believed that this was true, and that the phrase he used was
" Show the gentleman." It was thought by some members of the audi-
ence that the trainer always stamped his foot when the horse was to
move back on the rack in order to find the right number. The writer,
who remained at the blackboard while the horse was "studying" the
figures, noted that he did not appear to concentrate upon them at all.
The trainer would say to him as the numbers were being written, " Now,
King, study these numbers, so that you can do your work quickly." The
horse on at least two occasions nibbled at the writer's fingers while the
numbers were being written. Once he looked out of the window; and
from the focus of his eyes, which were specially observed, it appeared
impossible for him to be attending to the numbers which had been
written. If a child had been doing this work he would have shown in
his bodily adjustments that he was concentrating upon the situation
before him, but it was just the other way with King. The trainer
would tell him to figure a problem all out before he went to the rack,
so that he could do his work fast; and assuming that he did this, it
indicated a higher degree of numerical imagery and retentiveness than
the majority of human beings possess.

After the arithmetical tests, the writer introduced King to three of
the observers situated in different parts of the room. Then five ribbons
of different colors were put on the rack, after which the writer said to
the horse, — "King, take the orange ribbon to Miss W." The trainer
followed with, " King, do as the gentleman bids you. Find the orange
color." The trainer was constantly talking to King, and stamping to
make him obedient, and the horse soon picked out the orange ribbon and
apparently went directly with it to Miss W., throwing it at her. The
writer next said, " King, find the blue ribbon and take it to Mr. X."
Again the trainer talked to the horse while he was performing the task,
with the result that he found the blue ribbon, and took it to Mr. X.
Miss W. threw her ribbon onto the floor, and the trainer said, " King,

AN "EDUCATED" HORSE 173

pick up the orange ribbon and take it to Dr. 0." The horse picked up
the ribbon, turned around, and did exactly as he was commanded; and
in this case, neither the writer nor the observers could detect anv cue
word or signal which was used to guide the horse. It should be said
that all the observers were much impressed with the directness with
which the horse appeared to go to the individual whose name was men-
tioned in any of these tests, though when King was being introduced to
a person he did not seem to pay any attention to him. A human being
would look at any one to whom he was being introduced, so that in the
future he could recognize him through having focalized some of his
characteristics; but King's eyes never once focused on the person to
whom he was being presented. During the ceremonies of introduction,
King might be sniffing at the writer's hand, or nibbling at his coat,
which would cause the trainer to exclaim, — " King, why don't you be-
have yourself ? I will have to whip you." But still when the test came
King seemed to most of the observers to have recognized each individ-
ual to whom he was introduced, and to have remembered his name.

Next the writer asked King to spell the word " horse." The trainer
took him in hand, talking to him and stamping; and the horse went
along the rack and, as with the figures, pushed off in order the letters
h-o-r-s-e, pushing off also letters next to the correct ones in each case.
Several other words were given him, all of which he "spelled" under
the guidance of his trainer. Lastly the writer printed on the black-
board the words, "Take my gloves, and give them to Miss "W." The
horse apparently searched around the body of the writer, but could not
locate the gloves. The trainer gave the audience the impression that
King was trying to find them; but while they could be seen extending
out of the pocket, yet the horse did not take them. The effect created
on the audience was that the horse was actually hunting for the gloves.
It was noticed that as he was sniffing up and down the body, the trainer
was repeating, " Do what the gentleman has asked you to do." It
should be noted further that the writer stood directly before the horse,
and it would be a simple matter for him to associate such a word as
"gentleman" with taking something from his person. It is a frequent
test for exhibitors with horses to have them take something, usually the
hat from a man's head, and give it to some one in the audience.

These experiments having been concluded, the trainer and his as-
sistants were asked to leave the building, and the horse was turned over
to the writer. Before leaving, the trainer said, "The horse is very
mischievous to-day, and you will have to look out for him." This had
the desired effect, or at least it caused many of the observers to seek
places of safety, which put them in a non-critical attitude toward the
experiment. In this connection it should be mentioned that the trainer
gave the writer before he took charge of King, and apparently in an
incidental manner, a newspaper article which ran as follows :

i74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

' ' King Pharaoh, " an " educated horse ' ' who made his initial bow at
Wonderland Park yesterday, vindicated his honor at the close of one of the
performances of the day. There was a "doubting Thomas" in the audience
who thought the horse must have been given signals of some sort to perform
the mathematical and other wonders which were revealed during the performance.

The man of inquiring and suspicious nature was told by Dr. J. M. Boyd,
the owner and trainer of the horse, that after the audience had left he could
remain and see for himself in the absence of the horse 's trainer. The ' ' doubting
Thomas ' ' was left alone with ' ' King Pharaoh. ' ' Shortly the man made his exit
with much expedition, with the horse a close second. The animal, the man said,
had obeyed several commands but seemed to become offended and "went" for
him, as if knowing he was confronted by a doubter.

It seemed apparent that the object of this was to impress the writer
with the desirability of his not being skeptical about King Pharaoh's
abilities, or the horse might attack him and do him harm.

After the trainer and his assistants had left the hall, the writer re-
peated every one of the experiments which had been performed by King
when his trainer was present. It may be stated in brief that he failed
to perform a single test satisfactorily. When told to go to the black-
board, without any gesture or sign other than the mere words of the
command, he did not respond. He could not react even to the word
"blackboard." But when urged with the uplifted hand in the act of
striking, and guided in the right direction, he would go and "study"
the numbers. But when invited to go to the rack and perform the so-
lution, he seemingly had no idea of what was said to him. But when
urged and threatened, he would pass along the rack without knocking
off any number. It was impossible to get him to remove a number by
telling him simply to find the correct one. It was the same in regard
to the spelling. In some cases when he was commanded in a threaten-
ing voice and manner to find numbers, he would paw, indicating that
he seemed to think the command was to count. The only reaction that
could be got from him was to stand before the blackboard, walk along
the rack when urged and threatened with a stick, but without any dis-
position to solve problems, and paw when a command such as " Go and
find Miss W." was continually repeated in an increasingly austere voice.
It was evident that the horse had no imagery whatever for the words
" Miss W.," and no notion of what was wanted of him.

The trainer, who after a considerable period had come to the build-
ing to find out the progress of events, and who stood on the sidelines
while the writer was trying the horse out on some of his feats, finally
could not endure it any longer, and came into the ring, saying to the
audience, " Once in a while King will come across a man for whom he
will do nothing; but he will readily do it for most people." This re-
mark had the desired effect. Some persons in the audience were led to
think that the writer was not in sympathetic accord with the horse, and

AN "EDUCATED" HORSE 175

so could not induce him to perform his usual tasks. At once the writer
called upon Professor Cooley, an expert on horses, who was in the audi-
ence, and who had seen the performance from the start, to take charge
of the horse, which he did, with exactly the same result as the writer
had. Next the principal of the high school in Miles City, who could
not be accused of any skepticism regarding the horse's ability, or any
want of sympathy for him, was asked to put King through his paces,
but he could not get a single intelligent reaction from him. It ought
to be added that the writer was simply neutral in his attitude toward
the horse throughout the trainer's performances; he did not praise or
censure; he simply took notes on each event, which impressed both the
trainer and some of the observers as denoting a too critical and un-
sentimental relation.

It was to be expected that the trainer of King would explain his
disappointing behavior as due to the paralyzing influence of strange
personalities, and indisposition of some sort, for he had "never acted
that way before." So another experiment was determined upon, and it
was agreed that Dr. Boyd should handle the horse himself next time,
and the writer would simply tell him what tests should be made. Now,
it was mentioned above that in the language and arithmetic tests, the
trainer as well as the audience saw the letters and figures, which made
it impossible to eliminate the trainer's influence in guiding his horse,
even though he might be unconscious of it. In order to try out this
point it was decided, and it was thought without the trainer's knowl-
edge, to prepare new blocks with letters and figures only on one side,
and to arrange them on the rack so that the trainer could not see them
while directing King, but so that the horse and the observers could see
them. It was also decided to blindfold the trainer while the horse was
being tested on his ability to discriminate colors, and to select special
ones to give to persons to whom he had been introduced. Strangely
enough, just before the tests were to be made the trainer declared that
King had suddenly been taken sick, and could not be tested, though
" nothing like it had ever happened to him before." To clear up the situ-
tion, which looked very bad, Dr. Boyd promised to bring King to Madi-
son, Wisconsin, for further experiments before January 15, 1912; but
from that day to this (October 1, 1912) it has been impossible to get any
response from him, though King is still amazing people with his " hu-
man intelligence."

Any one familiar with horses knows that they are capable of keen
responses of a particular kind. They can very acutely distinguish tones
of voice in respect to their denoting gentleness, or harshness, or weak-
ness, or sternness in their possessors. Dogs have the same sort of keen-
ness. Very young children, before they understand a single word as a
symbol of meaning, can discriminate a number of shades in vocal qual-

176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ity. A horse can learn the significance of certain words which denote
pimple, definite reactions, as " gee," " haw," " get up," " whoa," and the
like. He can be taught to respond in special cases to a considerable
range of visual and auditory signs or cues, as may be observed in any
circus. He can discriminate strangers from his caretakers, alike by
smell and by sight, and also by the "feel" of the rein in driving him.
The dominant emotion of the horse is fear, and he is keen in noting the
characteristics of persons or places or objects which have been associated
in his experience with pain or terror. He is extremely cautious, which
keeps him ever on the alert, with the result that he will respond to
simple stimuli in the form of "lessons" much more readily than the
cow or the sheep, for instance. King is undoubtedly an average horse
in this respect. As a result of repeated "lessons," he has associated a
few visual and auditory signs with definite responses, and he has prob-
ably connected particular reactions with specific words, as " gentleman,"
or " show the gentleman " which is, of course, but one word to him, de-
noting a specific reaction, just as "whoa" does. Unquestionably much
of his performance depends upon the peculiar vocal and bodily manner-
isms of his trainer. When these are removed, King is at sea, hopelessly
befogged when he is requested to do anything.

Those who exploit the intelligence of the horse, and other animals
as well, usually try to show that they possess the traits of the human
mind, in that they can understand sentences in ordinary speech, can read
and spell and calculate numerically, can learn the names of people and
discriminate their character, can interpret facial expression, and so on.
Now, all these acts and processes demand a synthesis of particular ex-
periences which it is safe to say the equine brain is incapable of under
any kind or degree of education. If a horse could do these things, it
would cease to be a horse. The reason a horse is a horse psychically is
because it is limited to certain types of intellectual synthesis and affective
reaction, all of which have been determined by its ancestral history. It
would be just as sensible to say that a man could be educated to follow
the trail of a fox from the scent of its track, as to say that a horse, or
any other animal, can be trained to read or calculate sums or discern a
skeptic in an audience. This is not reflecting in any way upon the in-
telligence of the horse; it is simply discriminating between the char-
acteristic types of equine and of human intelligence. But if it were
not financially profitable for some persons to possess horses with " hu-
man intelligence," we probably should never be called upon to wonder
about them.

PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE 177

THE ADVANCEMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE

Br FREDERIC LYMAN WELLS, Ph.D.

MCLEAN HOSPITAL, WAVERLEY, MASS.

TEACHING and research are the coordinate ways upon which any
body of knowledge advances. Though we are apt to think first
of the former, the latter is indeed the more basic, since before we can
talk of teaching we must acquire something to teach; as, to a large
extent, it is still the task of psychological medicine to do. It is neither
a difficult nor an especially effective matter to urge in generalities the
desirability of medical training in psychology in the hundred trite
phrases that are current to every one ; the abstractly favorable judgment
is now of little meaning except as the basis of constructive ideas. We
can best decide the place of psychology in medical education in exam-
ining what is the best that psychology has to give it. This question
could indeed be dealt with more simply if there were greater unanimity
of opinion as to what this best may be ; for, as the recent addresses at
Washington plainly showed, divergent opinions still reflect the different
angles from which the subject is approached. The discourse of the
medical man is one of problems, of the psychologist, one of methods;
which under present conditions could scarcely be otherwise. The diffi-
culty is that the methods of normal psychology and the problems of
pathological psychology do not fit. One could well read this in and
between the lines of Franz's remarks, 1 deprecating certain inadequacies
in the methods of pathological psychology, as well as the aloofness from
practical issues on the psychological side. The doubtful attitude of the
psychiatrist towards the psychological Problemstellung is of long stand-
ing. " They ask for a psychology . . ,. applied toward a solution of
their own problems, one which is aimed at practical ends. It has been
assumed that psychology as it is being taught and investigated deals
with matters of no concern, or of too abstract a nature for practise " ;
which assumption indeed has some measure of truth. 2 Psychologists
may not be scientifically at fault for this failure of application, but the
medical justice of demanding it can scarcely be gainsaid, and such
expressions are fair warning that in our natural wish to extend the
scope and influence of psychological science, we do not lose sight of the
fact that if psychology is to be successfully taught to medical students,
it must afford them something they can use. The test of concrete
experience is one that psychology has never been seriously called upon

1 Journ. Am. Med. Assoc, March 30, 1912, 909-911.
a Cf. Hollingworth, Psych. Bull, May 15, 1912, 204-206.

178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

to face, in the sense that other natural sciences have been. I am fully
mindful of Professor Titchener's 3 cogent apologia for the failure of the
contemporary psychology to " hold its men/' who tended either to leave
it for more frankly speculative departments of thought, or sought the
concreter fields of education, or physiology and therapeutics. But the
fact seems to be that psychology has not been over-forward in seeking
the test of concrete experience.

A somewhat definite program for the medical course in psychology
has been discussed by Watson. 4 It seems, not unnaturally, determined
more by the place of the methods in experimental psychology than by
direct consideration of their applications to the study of psychopatho-
logical conditions. From this standpoint, one might in minor detail
suggest some modification of Professor Watson's plan ; thus in any work
on sight, campimetry should probably occupy an equal place with color
vision. The skin and kinesthetic sensations have a psychopathological
importance quite equal to that of hearing. Watson's plan is for a sys-
tematic experimental course; I must confess that what seem the most
fitting topics do not coordinate themselves so readily in my mind, and
my own tendency would be to make such a course less one in experi-
mental psychology than in psychological experiments. The content of
the laboratory course may indeed change with the progress of the sci-
ence, in accordance with the principle that properly governs it; but as
we are not trying to make psychologists, but medical men, we must
subordinate the desideratum of the academic system to a series of those
experiments and methods most likely to be made use of in actual
medical practise. It is evident that in the determination of the proper
subject matter of such a course, there enters not only the available
stock-in-trade, so to speak, of experimental psychology, but also the con-
sideration of those particular clinical exigencies in which they are likely
to be of service. Only such experiments and methods should form a
part of such a course for which definite value in special situations can
be indicated ; and the understanding of the application is on a level of
importance equal with that of the experiment itself. The application
of experimental methods will, of course, be practically confined to the
study of individual cases, and the procedure which should be followed
in the laboratory is thus an intensive study of each experimental method
with individual subjects; group experimentation or methods which
involve it are out of place in such a course. 5 In an enumeration of the
experimental methods which would seem, from the writer's particular
experience, to best deserve place, would be included the study of the

8 Am. J. Psych., XXI., 1910, 406-407.
4 Journ. Am. Med. Assoc, March 30, 1912, 916-918.

8 Cf. Kraepelin, "Ueber Ermudungsmessungen," Arch. f. d. Ges. Psychol.,
I., 1903, 28.

PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE 179

free association experiment, the technique of the " psychogalvanic "
reflex, or some allied method, the properties of the work-curve and a
few of the less equivocal methods for determining it, and the better
developed forms of memory experimentation. Nor should I question
the inclusion of the Binet- Simon tests, though without personal experi-
ence with them. It would lead too far afield to explain just why these
particular experimental methods have been spoken of and not others,
but suffice it to express every assurance that they are among the methods
most helpful to the better understanding of those cases with which
psychiatric clinics are replete. It is true that such division would form
practically separate units in the course, and they could be taken up in
any desirable order, save that, e. g., certain phases of the association
experiment and the " psychogalvanic " reflex are best considered to-
gether. Whether the content of a laboratory course were as above or
something totally different, it must be governed essentially by its medical
usefulness, and those features included which best justify themselves in
this light. How much time can be given, and when, depends of course
on administrative factors; all the time that Watson suggests could be
profitably used, and it should be so ordered as to be convenient for those
who take up the special work given in mental diseases.

Such, in principle, is the writer's conception of a laboratory course
likely to be of most value to students of medicine, nor would it be
claimed that its subject matter could be effectively dealt with under
other than laboratory conditions. There yet remains that considerable
body of psychological problems whose concern with medicine is not less
immediate than those above, but whose relation to experimental, or
indeed in any way objective, methods, is at present very indefinite.
They are essentially problems of psychogenesis — the development of
the various mental reactions and tendencies of which individual char-
acter and temperament are built up. It is readily discernible that a
growing emphasis is laid in psychopathology upon the determining if
not conditioning role of psychogenic factors in a variety of conditions,
ranging from hysteria to the manic-depressive group ; though the scien-
tific development of methods, or their application to the study of normal
mental reaction types, has been largely conspicuous in absence.

It is this phase of the situation that looms largest in Meyer's vision, 6
with especial regard to its problems. The point of view goes back to
some basal concepts of " mental reaction " 7 and the remarks repre-
sented a none the less forceful, if indirect, criticism of the conventional
Fragestellung in its relation to the problems on the pathological side.
While at various times psychological writers have deprecated the tend-
encies inherent, from a scientific standpoint, in many doctrines associ-

*Journ. Am. Med. Assoc, March 30, 1912, 911-914.

7 Most simply outlined in the Psychological Clinic, June, 1908, 89-101.

i8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ated with the name of psychoanalysis, it would be difficult to deny that
the responsibility for psj^choanalysis rests to some extent with the
psychologists ourselves. The neurologist found himself confronted
with certain problems psychological in their nature, with which the
academic psychology had largely thought best not to concern itself. It
is true that we have an " individual " psychology ; one of the differences
in simple reaction time, in color vision, or in memory for nonsense
syllables, various elementary traits among which it has been difficult
to establish relationships or other than superficial interpretation.
From a medical standpoint it is better to give up this Problemstellung
of individual differences in functions, for one, so to speak, of individ-
ual differences in individuals. The medical requirement is rather for
a psychology that shall seek the correlation of objective methods for
studying the personality with the mental reactions of that personality
in the greater laboratory of mundane experience. The key-word to
what medical psychology should be, and what academic psychology
has not been, is, in fact, "personality." To our conventional chapter-
headings of imagination, will, habit, experience and the like, let us
mentally add the words as they affect the 'personality, if we wish to
reach the standpoint of the greatest help in the medical relation. We
shall study the mental evolution of the individual, rather than the
genetic psychology of different mental faculties. Our psychology will
be one of conduct, reactions, adjustments. As such we shall pay
greater heed to feeling as a disturber of these adjustments. We shall
start from the standpoint of the " mind as an adaptive mechanism " ; 8
the personality as a sum of various tendencies in mental adaption or
reaction-type. We shall study the various mental means through
which different personalities react upon, or adjust themselves to, the
vital situations they meet. We shall learn how some personalities react
in ways that involve mental good, others in ways that involve mental
harm, and we shall inquire into the modifiability of these reaction
types, with the view to their possible amelioration.

Though having a somewhat different outlook upon the matter, and
expressing it in different terms, it appears that the things which
Prince 9 finds to criticize in the pathological relations of the academic
psychology are essentially the same.

The problems with which normal psychology has chosen to deal are exceed-
ingly interesting from the point of view of the higher culture, but they scarcely
touch the vital questions which the disturbed, distressed human organism pre-
sents to the physician. . . .If normal psychology is to become an applied science
and in particular to become of help to medicine, ... it must occupy itself more
than it has done with problems of dynamics, of mechanism, of function.

8 Cf . a lucid but uneven article by White, ' ' The Theory of the ' Complex, ' ' '
Interstate Med. Journ., XVI., 1909, No. 14. Also in "Mental Mechanisms,"
Ch. 4, pp. 48-70.

9 Journ. Am. Med. Assoc., March 30, 1912, 918-921.

PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE 1S1

ITg goes further, however, in formulating a definite scheme of in-
struction. This is governed in certain details by its author's special
psychology; some rearrangement of headings, if not also some altera-
tions of terminology, might well prove desirable. Yet it is quite evi-
dent that in a number of the titles we have at least an enumeration, in
greater detail, of the phases which a course along the lines above indi-
cated would take up.

When Dr. Prince was reading this summary in Washington, I
turned to some one sitting next to me and rather lightly remarked that
this was all very well, but Prince was the only man who could give
such a course, my neighbor promptly assuring me that I was alto-
gether mistaken, that he knew many persons who could give such a
course. It was not meant, of course, that there was no one who could
talk about these subjects for the number of hours the course would
specify. But we can not consistently reproach psychology for our lack
of knowledge in these matters, and at the same time propose their im-
mediate fitness as a teaching subject. As a matter of fact we have
very little systematic information about the majority of the topics pre-
sented in Prince's summary. It is most likely to increase if the stu-
dent be brought to observe and study in his cases in these terms, but
this side of the course could to-day no more than reflect the subjective
reactions of certain original and more or less critical intellects upon
the most adequate clinical experience.

The interest and import of these questions most thoughtful persons
will admit, though any psychological critic would probably be quick to
ask how such matters are to be in any part submitted to objective, not
to say experimental, inquiry. jSTot with the color-wheel probably, or
through the tonvariator, or the sound-hammer. Could the question now
be satisfactorily answered, the proper psychology for medical schools
would not be long under discussion. We are not in a position to say,
however, that no progress towards a solution is possible. Our experi-
mental inquiries have not been directed along lines that would develop
such methods. We must also know with greater exactitude the ques-
tions our experimental methods are to be put to answer, and shall need
to experiment with our experiments a good deal. There is to-day only
one experimental method whose direct value in the dynamic psychology
seems comparatively assured; this is the ordinary "free" association
experiment, especially evaluated. 10 There are also some possible adap-
tations of the method of " measurement by relative position " X1 as well

10 Cf. the " Diagnostische Assoziations studien" of Jung; Kent and Eosanoff,
"A Study of Association in Insanity," Am. Jr. Ins., LXVIL, 1910, 37-96,
317-390.

11 Cf . the early work of Sumner and the more recent studies of Hollingworth
and of Strong; also, in pathological reference, G. G. Fernald, Am. Jr. Ins.,
LXVIIL, 1912, 545-547.

i8 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

as other quite specialized tests, that hold out promises of value in these
directions.

It will be appreciated that a dynamic psychology has no exclusive
relation to the pathological, but rather seeks the recasting of psycho-
logical problems into a form more applicable to the uses not only of
pathological psychology, but of normal psychology and society in general.
It is in no way specificially referred to pathological material. Because
psychiatry has to deal, on the mental side, with personality, it desires a
psychology of personality. The study of normal personality, as such,
has its obvious and necessary relation to the pathological. The uni-
versity is in quite as favorable position to make essential contribution
to a psychology of personality as is the hospital or clinic. Research in
this direction encounters certain difficulties that are avoided in the
customary lines of psychological investigation, but this is so by very
virtue of its having personal applicability, its bearing upon more inti-
mate and vital issues.

To adequately cover the teaching field of psychological medicine
one should therefore, on the one hand, be conversant with and able to
judge of the methods of experimental psychology in reference to their
application to the analysis and interpretation of symptoms ; and, on the
other hand, able to recognize and elucidate the more general questions
now stated dynamically. First-hand acquaintance with psychiatric
conditions and problems is everywhere implicit, which involves the
close and continual association with clinical material that is also neces-
sary for research. Here then the problem of research merges with the
problem of teaching, and we shall consider some phases of the subject
also from this standpoint. It is proposed to discuss in this connec-
tion not the further special topics of investigation, 12 but the practical
conditions under which such research takes place, and the most effec-
tive means of furthering it.

The essential clinical material of psychopathology is derived from
various sources, approachable from different angles. According to
social stratum, the neuroses and various border-line and neurological
conditions are most seen either in the private practise of the specialist,
or in the appropriate departments of the general hospitals; the psy-
choses, as the term is generally understood, in the state or private hos-
pitals devoted to their care and treatment. Special institutions, as a
rule, care for the graver congenitally defective (feeble-minded) while
in some instances it has been found advisable to provide special insti-
tutions for the management of such conditions as epilepsy and alcohol-
ism. Much the greatest amount of material, and in its most accessible
form, exists therefore in the institutions; though it does not so greatly

12 Some of which the writer has dealt with elsewhere ; cf . " The Experimental
Method in Psychopathology," N. Y. State Hospitals Bulletin, December, 1910.

PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE 183

surpass in psychological interest the smaller group of neurotic condi-
tions that do not regularly come under institutional care.

It is not now easy to say how this latter group of cases will to any
extent be brought under the observation of the psychologist. Except
in isolated instances, the material of private practise may be systemat-
ically observed only by the physician who treats it. For our psycho-
logical understanding of these cases, we shall presumably remain de-
pendent upon such studies as the specially interested physician is able
to make in the course of his practise. These researches should improve
in number, if not also in quality, as medical students acquire more
knowledge of psychopathological problems, and of the means by which
to approach them. The case is more favorable with that part of this
material than is seen in general hospitals, or in small private institu-
tions, but the obvious economic difficulty of providing for the system-
atic psychological study of this material is one which it has not yet
been attempted to meet. If these conditions are thus less accessible
as a group, it is partly compensated for by their greater accessibility as
individuals, owing to the generally better preservation of the intellect
and cooperative faculties, so far as these enter. In the comparative
study of the neuroses and psychoses, these factors to some extent bal-
ance each other.

The most practical means to further the accessibility of psycho-
pathological material for psychological research, has been through the
establishment of research positions in the institutions whose facilities
are adequate to them. The past decade has witnessed the inception of
a considerable amount of this work, under various state and private
auspices. The conspicuous success of Franz at Washington and of
Goddard at Vineland may be mentioned. These positions have been
regularly rilled by persons of the university training in psychology, who
are expected to devote their time to original investigation. Whatever
the special character of the material investigated, the main responsibil-
ity for psychopathological investigation will rest — and perhaps it may
be added that it ought to rest — with the men in these positions, re-
lieved of the perpetual penalty of therapeutic promise. As the suc-
cess of these positions depends upon the men whom they will draw,
and this in turn upon the opportunities they offer, it may be well to
briefly analyze from both standpoints the external conditions under
which this work is done.

Institutions that make scientific appointments are presumably ready
to devote themselves in some measure to work of a purely research
character, the immediate practical realization of whose benefits is likely
to be a matter of more than ordinary good fortune. The creation of
such positions therefore implies in the administration a fair degree of
sympathy with scientific motives. Institutions inadequate to this de-

i8 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

mand are scarcely suited for such positions, nor are good men for the
work likely to be drawn to them. The salaries vary somewhat from
place to place, and according as the incumbent lives within the institu-
tion or out of it ; but a fair average compensation for work of this na-
ture has been $1,200 a year plus maintenance. The teaching positions
which psychologists ordinarily enter do not, of course, provide training
of any particular technical value for these research activities; in some
cases they might even lessen fitness for research. As Wallin 13 put it,
the only adequate training in this respect is an apprenticeship with one
of the experts in the field, which is very rare at present. On the other
hand, much might be said for the value of direct experience in allied
fields, and their additional contacts with the broader problems of so-
cial psychology. In Titchener's ever-apt phraseology "the best work
will always be done by the best men," who, with a mature outlook upon
the psychological situation and its problems, enter the pathological
field because of exceptional interest, or are selected at the outset of their
careers through evidence of fitness and promise in these special ques-
tions of research. With the above reservation, the candidate is the
fitter for the position the less the time since his Ph.D., and the posi-
tions should be made attractive to those at the outset of the psycholog-
ical career.

If qualified men are to be drawn to these positions, they must be
given a standing in keeping with the class of work expected of them.
It should be commensurate with that accorded to the pathologist, who
forms an integral part of the institution staff. Discrimination will
simply exclude the more competent men. It is doubtful if the scale of
salaries needs to be altered greatly. The additional cost of carrying on
such work would include not less than $150 for annual library expenses,
the remainder being dependent on the sort of work done, and the
special equipment it requires. Many fruitful lines of inquiry require
but little apparatus beyond stationery; some important problems, e. g.,
those concerned with the expressive movements, require elaborate and
somewhat costly installations. Administrative direction of the precise
subjects of research is not usually advisable, however, since it can seldom
be guided by an adequate knowledge of the limitations of methods. In
no case should the attempt be made to equip a general laboratory, but
only to provide such equipment as is necessary for the investigations
in hand. At some time in most investigations a certain amount of
clerical assistance is an all but absolute requirement, and no holder of
such a position should be expected to do his work properly without it.
The greatest possible latitude should exist in regard to questions of
printing; if an investigator is not to be trusted to publish when, where
and what he thinks best, something is wrong with him or his position.

a Journ. Educ. Psychol, April, 1911, 208.

PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE 185

As the worker in an institution laboratory does not have the same op-
portunity to place his work before Fachgenossen as is the case with his
university colleagues, the institution may well accord some facility in
the distribution of offprints.

From the standpoint of the young Ph.D., these research positions
are economically quite superior to anything to be expected of the earlier
years of a teaching career. As maintenance is provided, a very large
part of the salary can, if desired, be saved ; the conditions of living vary
with the character of the institution, but may bring the actual value of
a $1,200 position well towards $2,000. Vacations are short, compared
with academic ones, but this may be quite compensated for by the ab-
sence of routine obligations and various other agreeable features of insti-
tution surroundings. The tremendous advantage, to him who is able to
use it, lies in the freedom for original research; the possible disadvan-
tages are the lack of library facilities, and the intellectual danger of iso-
lation from colleagues. Absolved from routine activity, deprived of the
immediate competitive and critical presence of others in the same field
of work, the lack of energy and devotion means mental dry rot. How-
ever, being not only free, but expected to devote one's entire time to
original research, one can obviously be more productive than his equally
capable fellow-worker whose time is swamped by the routine activities
of teaching; and, so far as personal advancement is based on the char-
acter of work done, the advantage seems to lie distinctly with the re-
search position as against the teaching one. Still neither standing nor
salary in these positions equals the professorial grade in the important
universities, which is, practically speaking, the material end to which
those following the career of psychologist now look forward ; and once
having abandoned the teaching side of the profession one is not likely
to reenter it at a higher level, save upon evidence of altogether distin-
guished merit, probably more than would be necessary should the
candidate follow the routine of academic promotion. For the greatest
abilities these positions should then offer the greatest rewards; to
mediocrity they spell destruction.

The cause of research in psychological medicine will prosper the
better, the longer its special class of investigators can be held to their
work. At present, the best men may not remain in it permanently, but
be taken away at a time when their growing experience makes them in-
creasingly valuable in it. It can not, of course, be questioned that this
same experience, with the facilities of the position, places one in a
peculiarly advantageous situation as regards teaching the subject, which
it might be advisable also to do, in so far as it were possible without
hampering research. University association with clinical research
further offsets the possible difficulties of inadequate libraries and iso-
lation from colleagues. An additional advantage of university associa-

VOL. LXXX1I. — 13.

1 86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

tion is that advanced students, academic or medical, may be brought
into direct contact with research problems in psychopathology and
means thus provided for the carrying on of much additional investiga-
tion. Under the present circumstances the clinical psychologist might
often occupy his time very effectively with the combination of research
and the training of others in its methods and problems; while from a
practical standpoint it also tends to retain him longer in the work
to do so.

The optimum of teaching in medical psychology involves, therefore,
a unification of instruction and research. It deals, on the one hand,
with the clinically useful procedures of experiment; on the other, with
the broader problems of personality and psychogenesis. Its contempo-
rary sources are, on the one hand, the university laboratory, on the
other, hospital clinic, and it is best served by the experience of both.
Throughout, it has been apparent that the subject matter of psycho-
logical medicine is one of particular appeal to students specializing in
mental diseases, and should for the present be elective. It would be
rather unwise to now seek the required study of psychology in medical
schools, as psychology is not yet in a position to make sufficiently defi-
nite contributions of general value. Only through the encouragement
of research, and its direction through proper teaching, are its great and
obvious deficiencies to be supplied, and the endeavor has been to indi-
cate how psychology and medicine can best meet upon grounds of
mutual helpfulness towards this end.

IMMENSE SALT CONCRETIONS 187

IMMENSE SALT CONCBETIONS

By Professor G. D. HARRIS

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Crystalline salt masses may be a mile in diameter! "Where are
they? How were they formed? Who said so? Interrogations like
these are sure to be forthcoming from layman, chemist and geologist
alike whenever such startling assertions are made.

Salt is a common substance. Its occurrence in the waters of the
ocean, as well as those of land-locked, mouthless seas is a matter of
common knowledge. Interesting articles too, have been written re-
garding the immense layers of rock salt within the earth's crust. They
have told of the hundreds of years required in excavating the great
chambers and galleries in the Austro-Hungarian mines at Hallstadt,
Ischl and Weiliczka. Such mines have been the chose-a-voir for travel-
ers in this monarchy for the past two or three centuries. The Stass-
furt mines have become known throughout the world for the richness
of their potassium deposits. The Salt Mountain of Cordova, Spain, and
the Salt Cliff at Bahadur Khel, in the Trand Indus region of India,
are among the notable rock-salt occurrences.

All these salt accumulations have been explained (and perhaps
properly) by supposing that they represent the residue of evaporated
saline waters, waters that occurred in cut-off bays or sounds, receiving
but occasionally supplies from the neighboring ocean, scarcely equaling
the vapors lost by evaporation.

Of late an entirely new method of accumulation or growth of rock
salt masses has been discovered. Here the salt no longer occurs in thin
but wide-extended sheets, layers or strata, but in huge lumps, concre-
tions we may say, with vertical and horizontal diameters approximately
equal. These are the masses we wish here to bring to the attention of
the reader. We do not have to go to Spain or India to see these marvels.
They are, so to speak, right at home. They occur encysted in the sands
and clays of the later geological formations along our gulf coast, from
east Texas to south Alabama inclusive. Not all are immediately along
the gulf border, to be sure, but the majority are but a few score miles
from this line. All have doubtless a general conception of the low,
grassy marsh-lands of southern Louisiana with its intricate system of
tidal bayous beset here and there with dark green live oaks giving the
appearance of old-time great apple trees in a great meadow, when
viewed from a distant vantage ground. Doming up here and there in

1 88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

these monotonous marshlands are great swells of terra-firma, one hun-
dred or more feet in height and a mile or more in diameter. They are
seen from a great distance, and strike one at once as being something
out of the ordinary, surely formed by no common method of uplift, less
yet by circumdenudation. Of these coastal mounds the so-called " Five
Islands," lying to the east of Vermilion and Atchafalaya bays are
splendid examples. Belle Isle is just to the west of the Atchafalaya
Eiver, between Morgan City and the Gulf, Cote Blanche, Grande Cote,
Petite Anse and Cote Carline follow to the northwestward in the order
named. The first, or Belle Isle, is famous as the fabled residence of
Lafitte, the great Gulf pirate, Grande Cote and Petite Anse for their
salt mines and Cote Carline for the southern home of Joe Jefferson, the
actor. The drill has demonstrated the fact that these rounding hills
are the surface indices of salt masses below. Down one, two or three
thousand feet drills have penetrated with but little variation of matter
and structure, making, as already observed, the salt masses perhaps as
deep or deeper (thicker) than they are in horizontal diameter. Just off
the mound one may drill two thousand feet and encounter nothing but
soft clays and sand of Quaternary or " Recent " age. Below are similar
materials belonging to the Miocene Tertiary; there is no salt, some-
times not even salt water. Such strangely local salt lumps naturally
have troubled the philosophical geologist not a little. Some have said
they must have been formed in the crater of some dying volcano, sea-
waters having oozed in and evaporating deposited salt for years and
years in a streaming caldron. But alas for this explanation, these salt
masses are not simply the residue of evaporated sea water, they are 99
per cent, chloride of sodium and without the admixture of crater debris.
They are pure and solid. Again, though careful magnetic surveys have
been made about them, they fail to show any of those erratic local vari-
ations sure to occur in volcanic regions. Finally there is proof positive
they were never deposited in a hole or depression, but on the contrary
have even moved upward bodily through hundreds of feet of surround-
ing deposits! This seems at first absolutely impossible and as certainly
absurd. Nevertheless, we can demonstrate the point beyond doubt.
Note that we have said that certain of these salt lumps occur some dis-
tance from the Gulf coast, up country, so to speak, where the terranes
are of Tertiary and Cretaceous age and are more or less consolidated.
For example, in north central Louisiana salt comes near the surface of
the soil in circular areas. Surrounding these areas are rings of highly
tilted Cretaceous deposits, still outside are the lower Tertiaries, 1,000
or 1,200 feet thick. Clearly then these salt punches, so to speak, have
pushed themselves from amongst Cretaceous rocks right through the
Lower Tertiaries, bending these strata up on all sides of the mass, to a
height of 1,000 or 1,200 feet. The case then seems clear that the salt

IMMENSE SALT CONCRETIONS 189

masses have come from below and have moved upwards. This is as
clearly demonstrated as the fact that the battleship Maine was wrecked
from a force without "because the plates were bent inwards." Were
the Tertiary and Quaternary beds removed from the flanks of these salt
masses we should see a cylinder or perhaps more accurately a truncated
cone of salt standing upon mid-Cretaceous rocks towering upwards half
a mile or perhaps a mile, though the upper end of the cone might not
be over |- mile across. Some one will say that is certainly similar to the
church-spire spur that was lifted out of the crater of Mt. Pelee after
its recent destructive eruption. Others will be reminded of Bogoslof
Island in Alaskan waters. But here again, in endeavoring to explain
the phenomenon there is no need of invoking vulcanicity. For the past
ten years we have had exceptional chances to study all these interesting
salt masses and are prepared to confidently affirm that the origin of
both salt masses and their movements has nothing to do with volcanic
action.

The true explanation of the origin, growth and movement of these
salt masses seems simple when once we have a clear understanding of
certain structural features of the lower Mississippi region. Observe on
any geological map that Quaternary and older rocks back to the medi-
eval or Cretaceous beds all slope Gulf-wards at a much greater angle
than the surface of the ground makes with the horizontal. In other
words, if water should enter a pervious Cretaceous or older bed in
Arkansas and follow the same to the latitude of the Gulf border it
would find itself several thousand feet below the Gulf level. Such
waters would naturally become very warm as compared with water at
or near the surface. They would take soluble substances in solution.
If a break or point of weakness occurred in the superincumbent beds
such hot waters would ascend after the manner of water in an artesian
well. If the waters were saturated with salt at a high temperature they
would be obliged to part with some of their saline burden as they ap-
proached the upper, cooler strata. The amount of salt held in solution
by water at various temperatures, it is true, increases not greatly with
increased heat; nevertheless, it is appreciable, and in the end the giving
up of salt by lowering temperature would produce notable results.
Again, though salt masses might tend to accumulate as just outlined at
a certain place in the crust of the earth, would not pressure prevent
such a growth, and even if growth takes place what would tend to push
the salt up bodily say 1,000 feet or more ? Here again we need none of
Vulcan's aid, for we all know that when once crystallization com-
mences each little crystal will have its growth in spite of almost any
resistance. Witness the growth of ice crystals in our water pipes in
zero weather. In other words, the force exerted by growing crystals is
known to be at least of the same order of magnitude as the crushing

iqo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

strength of the grown crystal. Therefore we are sure growing crystals
of salt can lift a column of Gulf coast deposits at least 3,500 feet thick.
If brine is supplied to a salt mass from below, crystallization will take
place mainly on the bottom of the mass. Therefore the mass will grow
from bottom up. The top will be thrust through the superincumbent
beds, bending and tilting them up at high angles. Some growth would
doubtless take place on the sides of the mass till it attained consider-
able dimensions; afterwards it would be confined to the base, for the
column of rock salt would be a better conductor of heat than the sur-
rounding clays and sands, hence the marked change of heat, hence the
salt deposition would take place at the base of the salt column. The
mass would therefore be of comparatively small diameter, though its
depth might be great.

We see from the above considerations how salt masses might be
formed and how they would by receiving their growth increments from
the bottom seem, to move upwards and pierce the superficial layers of the
earth's crust and there be truncated by atmospheric agencies if they
actually reached the surface, or how they might produce great weales on
the surface in case they did not quite pierce through. Now we wish to
give a few facts indicating that the process outlined above is truly that
by which these salt masses were formed and pushed up. Eeferring
again to Gulf-coast structural features, noting the location of all the
salt masses known to date, we have little difficulty in satisfying our-
selves that such masses are located in a rectilinear manner, row after
row as we approach the Gulf border. These lines are parallel in a gen-
eral way to fault lines farther up country in Arkansas and Texas. A
movement along a fault line, similar to these, most readers will re-
member caused considerable trouble in the region of San Francisco
but a few years ago. Where such lines cross (for in Louisiana there
are two sets) points of weakness occur permitting the upflow of artesian
waters. In several of the " mounds " these waters are saline and
" hot."

Finally the source of the salt itself has been a subject of much spec-
ulation. However, it is a matter of no serious concern for us here. We
know that artesian conditions occur in the general region we are dis-
cussing, we know that there are breaks or fault lines and points of
weakness through which artesian flows may take place, we know that
deep artesian waters are always regarded as " hot." We know
that cooling saturated solutions of salt in water must be continu-
ally giving up salt; and as this crystallizes it forces aside and up-
wards superficial rock strata even to depths of several thousand feet.
Not only do we know it has strength to do this, but, best of all, there
in the Gulf region are the salt masses and there are the bent-up and
folded-back rocks. Still we may be permitted perhaps to speculate re-

IMMENSE SALT CONCRETIONS 191

garding the source of the brines that have fed these growing crystalline
masses. It is well understood that the thick coal-bearing rocks of west
central Arkansas derived their material from the south. The Carbon-
iferous continent extended Gulf-wards doubtless as far as the southern
limits of Louisiana and perhaps considerably beyond. These old lands
were eroded and swept northward into the Carboniferous seas of west
Arkansas already referred to. In Permian or slightly later times this
continental area was base-leveled, standing on a par with west Kansas
and north Texas, receiving deposits of salt and gypsum in shallow sun-
baked seas. After considerable accumulation of these saline materials
the Gulf region was depressed at the south and covered by later and
later deposits and the Gulf invaded the Mississippi valley to Cairo, Illi-
nois. This was in late medieval geological times (late Cretaceous).
Since then the central part of the continent has gradually raised, the
Gulf border has sunk so that, through the Tertiaries and recent ages, the
formations have been tilted more and more to the south till the salt-
bearing Permian beds are doubtless 5,000 to 8,000 feet beneath these
younger deposits. Hence in all probability the source of the artesian
flow of brines that produce the salt masses under discussion.

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192 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY?

By De. STEWART PATON

PKINCETON, N. J.

WHAT is the difference between the college and the university?
There is no blinking the fact that many of the students, most
of the alumni, as well as a large proportion of the members of the
faculties and administrative boards, including presidents, have very
nebulous views in regard to the fundamental distinction that exists
between these two classes of institutions. The successful administra-
tion of a college or university depends upon the recognition of the
existence of a vital principle which distinguishes the functions of one
from those of the other. Many colleges during the last thirty years
have assumed the title of " university," having first given a promissory
note to the public expressing their intention some day to make good
their claim to the title. Thinking people have already begun to express
doubts as to the satisfactory fulfilment in many cases of such a promise
made before the conditions and, responsibilities of the trust had been
fully understood by either faculties or trustees.

The time has now come for a clear understanding of the nature of
the difference which distinguishes the university from the college. The
evils of the laissez-faire policy of administration which to-day prevails
in the councils of our universities have at last aroused more than one
faculty and not a few trustees to a realization of the fact that while a
ship at sea without chart or compass may, if the fates are propitious,
be brought safely into port, the mere accomplishment of such a difficult
task does not increase our sense of confidence in those responsible for
providing for the safety of the voyagers. A trustee of one of our
eastern universities has recently affirmed that the greatest need of these
institutions is not money, but the services of men who have just and
definite ideas of the essential characteristics of a university. If our
higher institutions of learning are ever to keep pace with the intellec-
tual progress of the nation (the question of actual leadership can not
yet be considered), there is immediate need of a statement emphasizing
the distinction existing between university and college, in order that
such an institution may develop a healthy independent existence.

What is a university? There are two ways of attempting to
answer this question. First there is the method usually employed of
approaching the subject by indicating the lines of historical develop-
ment; or we may try, and this is the object for which this paper was
written, to define this institution in terms which will indicate the rela-
tions it should present to the development of human thought and

COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY 193

activity. So many institutions have assumed the name without justi-
fication by deeds that it is necessary to lead up to our definition by a
preface of negation. The university is not, as some people believe it
to be, an overgrown college with an increased number of students, a
larger faculty, and greater material resources. Neither is the prin-
ciple upon which it is administered one that is based upon an expres-
sion of merely local or parochial interests. Chauvinism and insularity
do not thrive in the true university atmosphere. On this account, it is
impossible to conceive of any university as an institution which is solely
dependent upon the support of its own alumni.

In order to understand the positive attributes distinctively charac-
teristic of a university, we must have some clear conception of what
constitutes an education; inasmuch as the institution under considera-
tion represents the acme of the entire educational system.

Education, according to the original usage of the word, is a leading
out process, marked first by an attempt to measure the individual's
capacity and then to direct his energies along lines where growth is
possible. From this it is obvious that the chief aim of education is
the cultivation of good mental habits and not the imparting of informa-
tion. Modern educational reforms have for their object instruction in
methods of work, the information incidentally supplied being of sec-
ondary importance. The older system put the chief emphasis upon the
imparting of information. First one set of correctives or tonics and
then another was administered to students, and if they survived the
treatment they were classed with those " who had received an educa-
tion." Fortunately, there are signs that the age of this form of drug-
giving is rapidly passing away. A few pedagogues still have faith in
cultural specifics and liberalizing studies, with virtues as well advertised
and as highly extolled as any of the life-giving tonics and nostrums of
the quacks, but the general public is beginning to appreciate that the
original use of the word education, or intelligent effort to e-duct, not
a forcible attempt to ad-duct, expresses the modern trend of our educa-
tional system. Recently the suggestion has been made that mental
training is the only remedy for most of the evils connected with our
present system of education.

How often the cart is put in front of the horse ! How often cause
is mistaken for effect ! People possessing special mental qualities have
predilections for certain subjects and these choices are the expression
of a complex individuality largely made up of factors acquired, not by
training, but by heredity. ' The doctrinaire often attempts to reverse
the natural order and attributes the characteristics of the personality
to the subjects studied. If the humanizing and cultural potency of
an education depends upon the proper selection of subjects of study,
what a poor showing is made by the human race after centuries of
expectant treatment! How long will the old superstition that all

194 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

mental disorders, as well as all bodily ailments, can be cured by admin-
istering the proper combination of drugs continue to delude a credulous
public ?

Modern education starts from quite a different standpoint, first
taking into account the biological or inherited trends of the individual,
and then trying to estimate his latent capacity or brain-power in the
expectation of giving the assistance needed to help the student in the
task of self-government and self-improvement. We talk so glibly about
" hereditary influences," " individual capacity," " individualism as
opposed to collectivism," that, if we had a keen sense of humor the
ridiculousness of a system of tutelage which attempts to treat stu-
dents en masse, without any reference to their inherited traits and nat-
ural capacities, would strike us as farcical. This method has been
described as " education by cram and emetic." In the model school or
college the different subjects should not be taught as ends in themselves,
but in order to train the student how to observe intelligently, concen-
trate his attention, repress unhealthy instincts and cultivate those quali-
ties making for a broader, saner life. From kindergarten to the day
of graduation from the university the mental training of students is
dominated to so great an extent by the servile preparation for examina-
tions that a special degree of B.E. (bachelor of examination) might be
conferred on all applicants who require written evidence of having
satisfactorily " passed " in order to be assured of their right to be
classed as " educated persons."

An education should, as Goethe expressed it, make it possible for
the individual to live his life to the fullest. Only after the idea has
been clearly set forth that education and mental training should be
synonymous terms are we ready to comprehend the relationship of the
college to the university. Having grasped this principle, we are then
in a position to realize that in the school and college every effort should
be directed to the formation of good mental habits, while in the uni-
versity the student should be given, under general direction, an oppor-
tunity to practise these habits, and, in addition, to develop to the fullest
extent possible the spirit of intelligent curiosity.

Without the presence of universities, whose chief aim should be to
cultivate the spirit of investigation and of open rebellion against con-
ventional teaching-authority, the intellectual vigor of the entire nation
is seriously impaired. Political freedom can never atone for the loss
of intellectual liberty which should be faithfully guarded by the uni-
versity. In a democracy there is constant danger of forgetting that
the loftiest ideals of freedom are not those associated with the political
life of the nation, but are indissolubly connected with the search for
the truth that alone makes its possessor free. How strange that in a
nation which boasts of the freedom of its political institutions so little
is done by our universities to encourage and protect the agencies which

COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY 195

are the basis of both intellectual and individual liberty, from the par-
alyzing influences that follow an attempt to meet the conventional
social requirements in education. Intellectual liberty often thrives
best in states where political freedom is restricted.

The collegiate university is so much occupied in distributing ready-
made educational suits cut upon a single pattern to applicants for
academic honors, that individualism is almost completely hidden by a
garb which may conceal both the iniquities of mediocrity and the virtues
of genius.

The American college graduate is so accustomed to the evils of a
system in which he is pulled and pushed about by " trainers " that he
is constantly in danger of losing his personal identity. His patience
is often exhausted by listening to sermons on the advantages of scholar-
ship, while he prays in vain for the opportunity to learn by observing
living examples. Many of the crudities in our intellectual life as a
nation are directly attributable to the failure to appreciate the impor-
tance of university ideals to the community and the nation. This
oversight also emphasizes our reluctance to recognize that the spirit of
enquiry is a normal instinct which if repressed is followed by serious
consequences such as the loss of placticity, of intellectual vigor and of
the highest forms of intelligent and sympathetic interest in one's own
profession. The vision of those who are fortunate enough to possess the
spirit of investigation, one of the surest signs of mental health and
vigor, is towards the future, while the fate of individuals and insti-
tutions which turn to look back is the same as that of Lot's wife.
"Denn wer nicht vorwarts kommt der geht zunick; So war es immer
so bleibt es." Unless the spirit of enquiry is developed deep and
abiding intellectual interests are impossible. In its absence we become
mere gatherers-in of knowledge with but a slightly higher degree of
intelligence than that possessed by collectors, but lacking genuine in-
terest in progress. The spirit of discovery is generally accompanied by
a childlike freedom from bias. Without the inspiration that comes
from prosecuting research, our gaze is directed down into the valleys
and not upwards to the peaks whither our aspirations lead us. The
failure of our universities to encourage more extensively than has yet
been attempted enquiries in the field of knowledge is largely responsible
for our diffuse and shallow interests. We are prone to estimate the
mental qualities of a student by counting the number of subjects he
has studied without attempting an analysis of his mental traits. Any
institution which publicly assumes the right to be the bestower of a
liberal education should be prepared to forfeit its claim to the title of
university, as this should be a function of the school and not of the
university. The essence of a liberal education is to be sought for in the
quality of mind of the individual and not in the character of the infor-
mation he possesses. The futility of any institution solemnly prom-

196 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ising to be the dispenser of these special mental traits during the latter
years of the educational curriculum is quite obvious to those who know
that mental habits are, to a large extent, definitely and permanently
formed much earlier than this period. If the qualities commonly
designated as balance, interest and sympathy, the dominant character-
istics of those who actually possess a liberal education have not budded
in the school period, they can not be successfully grafted during the
university years. The formation of mental habits belongs to the school
and not to the university period. To-day the university unfortunately
limits its sphere of usefulness in our intellectual life to frittering away
energies and resources in attempting to reeducate those who have failed
to develop intellectual interests during the school years. At the age
of seventeen or eighteen, when the average student enters the univer-
sity, his mental habits are already formed to such a degree that the
catalogued promises made to him of the efficacy of liberalizing studies
smacks more of the east wind of authority than of common sense. If
those who defend the present conditions of affairs as a necessary form
of compromise are correct, then we may well be pessimistic of our
future intellectual development, inasmuch as the university is revealed
to us as a nurse for the sick rather than as a counselor and aid to the
strong. The dominance of that kind of mediocrity which imperils the
life of democracy is very plainly indicated in the present organization
of our universities that make ample provision for the day-nursery treat-
ment of those who are devoid of intellectual interests and ambitions,
and take little cognizance of the great numbers of students possessed of
mental health, vigor and praiseworthy ambitions.

Many parents and teachers have the unfortunate habit of assuming
a semi-apologetic attitude when referring to courses of studies, as if
they were tasks to be undertaken merely in order to satisfy the conven-
tional demands of society, while all manly virtues are commonly re-
ferred to as if they could only be exercised by training the biceps and
were quite independent of brain development.

At school attention should be directed to the value of constant con-
tinuous effort, emphasizing the fact that a desire to work with one's
brain is just as much a sign of health as the wish to excel in physical
exercises. The importance of mental habits and the formation of
thought processes should be emphasized not only as a means of attain-
ing success in practical issues, but as the essential factors in the pres-
ervation of mental balance.

The silly conventional values commonly attached to an education
should be replaced by substituting those intellectual interests in work
that add so materially to the pleasure of living. The success of an
education and the intelligent interest of an individual in his occupa-
tions may often be directly measured by estimating the degree of
pleasure taken in " talking shop." The devitalizing influences of our

COLLEGE OE UNIVERSITY 197

present system of educational ideals is seen in the urgent desire of many
college graduates to lead a double sort of existence, one half of the day
with, and the other without, their professional interests. The attitude
of so many college graduates to their profession is of such a nature that
" hobbies " and " outside interests " are essential for the restoration of
the mental balance which has been destroyed by the daily occupation.
This " double life " necessitating a daily shift in ideals and ideas may
become a prolific source of nervous disorders, varying in degree from
boredom, even at the mention of intellectual topics, to pronounced
mental derangements. The failure of our present collegiate-university
to show that the real pleasure of life depends upon the association and
not upon the divorce of intellectual interests from the daily occupation
of the individual is one of the most serious defects in a system that
sets a man adrift in his profession without any intelligent interest in it.
The American student is so thoroughly imbued with the idea that "to
be educated " is a condition or state of mind induced by teachers that
he seldom realizes any of the pleasures associated with learning; and
so in later years the practise of his profession becomes for him merely
a method of making a living instead of being at the same time a source
of enjoyment.

By exhortation, backed up by a vigorous policing, the American
collegiate university has endeavored to drive students to the choice of
high ideals, which are emphasized merely in order to satisfy conven-
tional requirements. This is one of the most serious defects in our
entire educational system, as it frequently becomes necessary in after
life for the individual at a critical period to readjust fundamental
mental mechanisms in order to meet the real issues of life. On the
other hand, the cultivation of the spirit of intelligent and candid scep-
ticism has been sadly neglected in our American universities. Students
are taught to think only in accordance with the " cast iron rules " given
them as guides to thought and conduct, while the more important les-
sons of searching diligently for the truth, and of being continually on
the guard lest the rising mists of authority completely blind their
vision, are seldom emphasized. The ideals of the alma mater more
often suggest submission to a corporal than to the admonitions of a
parent. In many of our universities to-day the doubts of the weak are
crushed out of existence, while the resistance of the strong to a system
of passive intellectual oppression breeds a spirit of rebellion. High
ideals can not be maintained in an atmosphere where the value of intel-
lectual honesty is not appreciated, or where the advice is not infre-
quently given, " Do not express your doubts in public."

Pater's affirmation, "What we have to do is to be forever curiously
testing new opinions and courting new impressions, never acquiescing
in a facile orthodoxy of Compte, or of Hegel, or of our own," expresses
a well-known law of physiology seldom referred to in our universities.

198 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The spirit of the real university should reflect the characteristics of
youth in its love of testing new opinions and courting new impressions.
Without the presence of a large body of investigators an institution
ceases to live or, if vitality is prolonged, it is merely of the vegetative
type. The spirit of investigation leads men to conquer difficulties
which would terrify them if they were driven into the breach solely by
the voices of authority. The spirit of investigation is as important to
the artist, the business man and the writer as it is to the scientist in
his laboratory. The American university has not yet succeeded in
injecting the energy proportional to its resources into our intellectual
life, because it has not yet attempted to develop the driving power
which alone can save us from the disastrous results of having so reck-
lessly sacrificed the heritage of youth. The majority of the graduates
who yearly go out from the doors of our higher institutions of- learning
without any definite intellectual interests have passed directly from the
period of adolescence to that of old age.

The intellectual vigor of the average college graduate has been
dwarfed by the conventional system of education, in which the spirit
of dogmatism in teaching crowds out most of the natural impulses to
learn. He is not given a moment in which to develop any ardor for
the pursuit of knowledge. Little emphasis is given in the curriculum
to the value of research, and this lack destroys initiative and smothers
individuality by catering to the wishes of those educational promoters
who are always eager to gain prestige by organizing personally con-
ducted parties in search of liberal education and general culture.
Another very serious defect in the curriculum of our universities is
shown in the effort made to protract the period of training the acquisi-
tive functions at a time when the initiating and productive capacity
of the student should be developed to the highest degree possible. The
most productive years of the average student in our universities are
now wasted in copying models at a time when they should be encour-
aged " to block out their own ideas."

There is no civilized nation which should be as optimistic of its
intellectual development as the United States. The fact that ideas
and ideals have not been completely crushed out of existence by the per-
petuation of school methods during the university years is the best
testimony that the innate qualities of the American mind have extraor-
dinary powers of growth even among most unfavorable environments.
The relation of the alma mater to the majority of college students is
that of the governess to pupils, deliberately sacrificing vigorous mental
traits for drawing-room accomplishments. Our American higher insti-
tutions of learning pay far too much attention to the cultivation of mere
forms of thought, and have neglected the study of the mechanism and
laws of thought production.

The period of vigorous manhood is, as has already been indicated,

COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY 199

characterized by a keen interest in the advancement of learning. Those
who do not comprehend or sympathize with the investigator are defi-
cient in the mental traits which are preeminently characteristic of the
normal individual during the prime of life, and express the highest
aspirations of our race. The chief value of research to a university is
to be found in the presence of a body of men who, in spite of their
years, retain their interest and progressive ideas longer than those who
have more sympathy with the methods of the pedagogue than with
those who are desirous of learning. We may best maintain the tradi-
tions and the highest instinctive tendencies of our race by encouraging
productive scholarship. In a brilliant passage, the author of the
"Foundations of the Nineteenth Century" has shown that the spirit
of discovery is the conscience of Teutonic learning. When our ener-
gies are restricted merely to familiarizing ourselves with the learning
of the past, or in attempting to enter the domain of speculative thought
in which the Greek intellect reigned supreme, we throw away our
heritage and precipitate conflicts between inherited and acquired trends
of thought that often end in intellectual apathy. In order to vitalize
the knowledge of a dead past, we must inject into it the spirit of dis-
covery which alone reflects the highest aspirations of our race. The
lack of idealism and the spirit of indifference so often characteristic of
the graduates of many of our universities is in a large measure the
product of an educational system which, by ignoring objectivity in
teaching and failing to cultivate the spirit of enquiry, has ignored the
underlying trends of thought that, if properly directed, can bring us
nearer to the ideals compatible with our social traits. To endeavor
to satisfy the intellectual needs of our race by continually repress-
ing the spirit of enquiry and by driving students to contemplative
reflection upon the accumulated stores of knowledge, is equivalent
to exchanging the driving force or spirit, that is born in us, for
a suit of clothes. When the specific racial tendencies reflected in the
spirit of discovery are not intelligently directed they find expression in
utilitarian motives. By attempting, as does our educational system, to
force American students to become passive recipients of knowledge, we
are asking them to sell their heritage for a mess of pottage.

When once the essential distinction that exists between university
and college is grasped, it is necessary to determine to what extent the
present system of organization is favorable or antagonistic to the devel-
opment of these two different types of institutions. An impartial
examination of the facts such as is given in the excellent exposition of
this entire subject by Cattell 1 shows how extremely difficult it will be
for most of the older institutions which have assumed the name of
university to prove their right to this title. As has already been
pointed out, the present system of administration is adapted merely to

1 Science, May 24 and 31, 1912.

2oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the perpetuation of the college spirit and traditions. We have seen
that the college without radical administrative reorganization can not
" grow into " the university. The supposition that the natural devel-
opment of the former will, according to the laws of growth, expand into
the latter, is an assumption that has resulted in an unnecessary conflict
of ideals ; as those of the two institutions are not interchangeable. The
unfortunate state of affairs is exemplified in more than one of our
eastern universities, where we see the members of administrative boards,
thoroughly imbued with the collegiate idea, attempting to carry out
educational policies that do not conform with the ideals of members of
the faculties, who have had greater opportunities for familiarizing
themselves with university standards. When the attempt is made to
effect a compromise, the efficiency of both institutions is seriously
impaired and results in an interminable conflict of interests. The
trustees who, as a rule, are unfamiliar with the nature of the university
problems, often control its policy through the administration of the
finances, even determining the election of presidents and the distribu-
tion of sums for educational purposes. As a result of this usurpation
of powers the faculty is in danger of becoming merely a body of
employees of the trustees, without any power to shape the educational
policy of the institution.

The increased emoluments and the excessive prominence bestowed
upon executive officers have had a disastrous effect in detracting from
the appraised value of the work of scholar and investigator. The great
eagerness with which administrative offices are sought for by members
of the faculty show how extremely superficial are their intellectual
interests. One can not imagine a Momsen, Pasteur or Darwin delib-
erately putting aside his special investigations in order to become an
administrator.

The present system of organization has resulted in a temporary but,
nevertheless, serious depreciation of the estimated value of scholarship ;
and has also given rise to an extreme spirit of Chauvinism, inimicable
to the development of those mental qualities that underlie true culture.
In executing a plan for the development of the university, boards of
trustees defer largely to the wishes of the alumni of the institution.
On account of the great and constant influence exerted by the large
body of alumni, the older institutions in the east will find that it is
increasingly difficult for them to identify their interests with those of
the national life. Admirable as are a few of the influences which grow
out of the " college spirit," there is a great deal that is objectionable
and affords a suitable medium for the development of fixed ideas. The
intense emotional reactions of the undergraduates and their more or
less absurd sentimental devotion to the standards of a single institution
give rise to conditions not specifically different from those that give
fixity and undue valuation to many of the ideas characteristic of hys-

COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY 201

terical or paranoid states. When the public fully realizes that the
development of the spirit of intelligent criticism should be one, if not
the chief, end of education, it will become obvious that it is very diffi-
cult to attempt to bestow the elements of a liberal education in the
collegiate atmosphere. One may quite as well expect the spirit of
truth-telling to be acquired in an atmosphere permeated by falsehood
as to believe the acquisition of mental balance is possible in surround-
ings in which feeling and sentiment dominate judgment and reason.
The extreme partisanship cultivated in undergraduate life dominates
many of the undertakings of the post-graduate, and its evil effects are
particularly noticeable in the parochial character of administration of
the professional schools (theology, law and medicine).

The entire intellectual life of our higher institutions of learning,
and in time of the nation, would be revivified if the administration of
these institutions were reorganized in order to meet the following con-
ditions. (1) A clear understanding of the essential difference between
college and university. (2) The determination by the administrative
boards of these institutions to adopt a policy which shall be compatible
with the ideals of either college or university, and not represent an
unfortunate series of compromises ending in hopeless mediocrity.

(3) A public confession of faith as to the value of intellectual ideals by
repeated public affirmations, as expressed in words and deeds, to the
effect that it is always more difficult to secure the services of great
scholars than it is to obtain funds to be expended in bricks and mortar.

(4) The establishment of democratic ideals of government in a form of
organization which shall not be dominated by the autocracy of president
and deans nor by an oligarchy of trustees; and finally (5) The substi-
tution of national ideals of efficiency for the narrow local prejudices
which so frequently restrict the life and sphere of usefulness of our
universities.

Many of these reforms may readily be introduced by bringing the
trustees and overseers into closer touch with the faculty, so that there
may be a more direct exchange of views on important questions; and
by the reorganization of the former bodies, so that the members may
be made familiar with the aims and ideals of the university.

If our eastern universities persist in continuing their present
parochial forms of administration, within the next decade we shall see
a multiplication of independent foundations forming the nuclei or
centers of university work. Half a century hence there will probably
be a resurrection of the older and privately endowed colleges as state
universities.

VOL. LXXXII. — 14

Peofessok Edmund B. Wilson,

Professor of Zoology, Columbia University, President of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

203

THE PEOGEESS OF SCIENCE

THE CLEVELAND CONVOCATION
WEEK MEETING

There was an excellent meeting of
the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science and of the affili-
ated national scientific societies at
Cleveland during the week of January
first. The scope and magnitude of
their work can be indicated by a state-
ment of the number of papers on the
program for the different sciences,
namely :

Mathematics 49

Astronomy 35

Physics 52

Engineering 40

Geology 27

Zoology 84

Entomology 73

Botany 60

Phytopathology 49

Horticulture 53

Anthropology 27

Psychology 56

Biological chemistry and phar-
macology 63

Anatomy 63

Physiology 67

Education 11

Economics and Sociology 13

Total 822

In no other country except Germany
could there have been brought together
such an extensive series of papers
nearly every one of which was based
on research work and contributed to
knowledge. Such a program demon-
strates an extraordinary extension of
scientific work in the United States in
the course of the past twenty years.
It may appear that men of great dis-
tinction and contributions of note-
worthy importance were not repre-
sented in proportion to the total number
of those who read papers. But this is
in part due to the circumstance that

one does not see the trees on account
of the forest. If the only advances
made in science during the past year
were represented by a dozen of the
papers taken at random from the Cleve-
land program, each one of them would
appear to be an important scientific
contribution.

It is noticeable that the different
sciences represented on the program
contributed papers not far from equal
in number, even though the sciences
themselves may vary greatly in impor-
tance and in the number of its workers.
Fifty to seventy papers are about as
many as can be presented in a three-
days' meeting, and most of the socie-
ties had about so many. Thus phyto-
pathology was as largely represented as
botany, entomology as zoology, physiol-
ogy as physics. This seems to demon-
strate the value of scientific organiza-
tion, for if there had not been societies
for the presentation of these papers, it
may be that the work would never have
been done.

There are several cases in which the
program does not adequately represent
the scientific work of the country.
Thus the engineering societies do not
meet with the association and the sec-
tion of engineering is weakened. This
year the chemists decided to meet sepa-
rately like the engineers, partly because
New Year's week, chosen as a time
when college and university men can
be present, is inconvenient for those
engaged in industrial work. It seems
desirable to increase rather than to
decrease the contact of the pure and
applied sciences, and it may be hoped
that joint meetings may be arranged,
perhaps at periods of three years. In
that case the national societies devoted
to economics, history and philology
might also join in a great convocation

204

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Dr. E. B. Van Vleck,
Professor of Mathematics at the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin, Vice-president for
Mathematics and Astronomy.

iveek meeting, which would impress on
those present and on the public the
magnitude and weight of the work be-
ing accomplished for science and schol-
arship.

The American Association for the
Advancement of Science and its affili-
ated societies have failed to accomplish
as much as the British Association for
the diffusion of science and in bringing
together those engaged in scientific
research and those who are or might
become interested. Programs of gen-

De. J. A. Holmes,
Director of the Bureau of Mines, Vice-
president for the Section of Geology.

De. William A. Locy,

Professor of Zoology at the Northwestern

University, Vice-president for the

Section of Zoology.

eral interest were arranged at Cleve-
land by nearly every section, but the
attendance was practically confined to
scientific men. Such meetings should
be brought to general attention by full
accounts in the local press and by re-
ports throughout the country, but here
almost complete failure must be con-
fessed.

The council of the association took
several steps intended to improve it*

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

205

organization. The members on the
Pacific coast, who number about 500,
were authorized to make arrangements
for a general meeting at the time of
the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1915,
and if they see fit to hold annual sec-
tional scientific meetings. All institu-
tions engaged in scientific research were
requested to send delegates to the con-
vocation-week meetings, paying their
expenses when possible. In addition
to the permanent secretary and the
assistant secretary there was made pro-
vision for an associate secretary, who

Dr. Duncan S. Johnson,

Professor of Botany at the Johns Hopkins

University, Vice-president for the

Section of Botany.

shall devote his entire time to the asso-
ciation and to the organization of sci-
entific men.

The high scientific standing of the
men responsible for the conduct of the
work of the association is shown by
the officers annually elected. We are
able to reproduce here portraits of
several of those who presided over the
sections at the Cleveland meeting. The
president of the association, Professor
Edward C. Pickering, director of the
Harvard College Observatory, is able
to transfer this high office to Professor

John Hays Hammond, LL.D.,

Vice-president of the Section of Social

and Economic Science.

De. J. J. R. McLeod,

Professor of Physiology at the Western

Reserve University, Vice-president

for the Section of Physiology.

206

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Reconstruction of Eoanthropus dawsoni.

E. B. Wilson, professor of zoology at
Columbia University. So long as the
association is able to select presidents
such as these, it bears witness to the
fact that this country possesses men
who unite scientific genius with per-
sonal distinction. The next convoca-
tion-week meeting will be at Atlanta;
two years hence Philadelphia is pro-
posed.

AN EXTINCT SPECIES OF MAN
An anthropological discovery, rival-
ling in importance the discovery of
Pithecanthropus erectus in Java by
Dr. Du Bois twenty years ago, was
communicated to the London Geolog-
ical Society last month by Mr. Charles
Dawson and Dr. A. S. Woodward, the
keeper of the Geological Department
of the British Museum. It appears

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

207

Condv/e Sigmoid notch
which hinges
fhejatvto

Jlj'cending

2"~mo/ar^

Canine

f/lC(S0/*

..-Chm

Jaw of Eoanthropus daicsoni.

that some four years ago Mr. Dawson
noticed that a road had been recently
mended by peculiar flints, and on
tracing them to their source, he found
that the laborers had dug out an object
looking like a cocoa-nut, which they
had thrown on a rubbish heap. This
proved to be part of a human skull,
and excavations of the undisturbed
gravel where it was found discovered
part of the jaw bone. A somewhat
absurd cablegram was sent the news-
papers in this country reporting the
discovery of a fossil man who could
reason before he could speak. But it
is the case that the cranium is on the
whole human in its characteristics,
while the jaw tends to be simian.

A restoration of the jaw by Dr. W.
P. Pycraft, of the British Museum, is
here given, and a more fanciful recon-
struction of the primitive man, drawn
under his direction by Mr. Forestier
for the Illustrated London News. The
remains were found on a plateau 80
feet above the river bed, to which ex-
tent denudation had taken place since
the gravel was formed. In it were also
found the remains of extinct mammals
and many water-worn, iron-stained flint
artifacts, to which the term eoliths has
been applied. The gravel is early
pleistocene, near enough to pliocene to
make it almost certain that the imme-
diate ancestors of the pleistocene man
must have lived during that period.

The cranium is fragmentary, but
typically human, with a capacity of
over a thousand cubic centimeters, indi-
cating a brain about four fifths that of
the average European and twice as

large as that of the highest apes. The .
bones are remarkably thick and the
temporal muscles extend higher up on
the skull than in any recent or fossil
man. The jaw bears some resemblance
to the Heidelberg jaw, but it is less
massive, with a still more negative
chin and other simian features. As
restored it is much like that of the
chimpanzee. Dr. Woodward regards
the remains as belonging not only to
a hitherto unknown species, but has
erected for it a new genus to which the
name Eoanthropus dawsoni has been
given. Becent discoveries prove that
primitive man at a period from one
hundred thousand to a million years
ago was widely spread over Europe
and apparently as far as Java, and
that different species and perhaps
genera may have lived simultaneously
in different regions.

THE SEALS OF THE PBIBILOF
ISLANDS

President Taft has sent a special
message to the congress recommending
the repeal of the law passed on Febru-
ary 15 of last year prohibiting the
killing of seals on the Pribilof Islands
for five years. His recommendation
and that of the experts of the govern-
ment should certainly be followed by
the congress. A clear statement of the
whole situation, drawn up by Dr. David
Starr Jordan and Mr. G. A. Clark, has
been recently given out by the Bureau
of Fisheries of the Department of Com-
merce and Labor. The Pribilof Islands
in Bering Sea came into the possession
of the United States in 1867, and our

208

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

government has received about ten mil-
lion dollars in royalties paid on seal
skins. At the time of the transfer to
the United States, the herd numbered
about two and a half million animals,
but has now been reduced to about one
tenth of that number. The decline was
due to pelagic sealing which took ad-
vantage of the migration journeys and
distant feeding habits of the seals to
kill them in the open sea. In 1894
about 60,000 animals from the Pribilof
herd were killed in this way, mostly
females with unborn young or with
pups in the rookeries. It is said, fur-
ther, that from a half to three quarters
of the seals shot in pelagic sealing are
never recovered.

Many efforts were made to do away
with the evils of pelagic sealing, and
finally in 1911 a treaty was dTawn up
according to which the United States
and Russia, as owners of the principal
fur seal herds, agreed to pay to Great
Britain and Japan fifteen per cent,
each of the product of their land-seal-
ing operations, on condition that pel-
agic sealing be abolished by those na-
tions for fifteen years. If no seals are
killed on the Pribilof Islands, the
treaty would be practically made of no
effect, and one might expect pelagic
sealing to be resumed. It is also true
that those best informed on the subject
hold that the killing of superfluous
bulls is a real advantage to the herd.
The seal is a polygamous animal, each
bull having an average family of fifty
cows. Fear of the adult males causes
the young males to herd by themselves,
and they may be driven away and
handled like cattle. If there are too
many bulls, there is continuous fight-
ing, and the pups are killed. The con-
ditions are somewhat similar to those
in the raising of cattle, the experts
wishing to use the methods commonly
in vogue, whereas the suspension of the
killing of superfluous males would lead
to the condition in which calves are
being raised in a field in which there
are a hundred cows and a hundred
bulls.

It is certainly to be hoped that the
congress will accept the recommenda-
tion of President Taft and its own
experts and not interfere with the
proper interpretation of the treaty of
1911 and the best treatment of the
seal herd of the Pribilof Islands.

SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
We regret to record the death of
Dr. Lewis Swift, formerly director of
Mt. Lowe Observatory, known for his
discoveries of comets and nebulas; of
Mr. Samuel Arthur Sanders, a British
astronomer, and of Mr. William G.
Tegetmeier, the English naturalist.

The national scientific societies at
the recent convocation-week meetings
elected presidents, as follows: the
American Physical Society, Professor
B. O. Peirce, of Harvard University;
the Geological Society of America, Pro-
fessor Eugene A. Smith, professor
emeritus of the University of Alabama
and state geologist; the Society of
American Bacteriologists, Professor C.
E.-A. Winslow, of the College of the
City of New York; the American
Botanical Society, Piofessor D. H.
Campbell, of Stanford University; the
American Anthropological Association,
Professor Roland B. Dixon, of Harvard
University; the American Psycholog-
ical Association, Professor C. H. War-
ren, of Princeton University; the So-
ciety of the Sigma Xi, Professor J.
McKeen Cattell, of Columbia Univer-
sity; the American Society of Nat-
uralists, Professor Ross G. Harrison, of
Yale University; the American Eco-
nomic Association, Professor David I.
Kinley, of the University of Illinois;
the American Historical Association,
Professor William A. Dunning, of Co-
lumbia University.

It has been proposed to municipal
authorities of Paris that the memory
of Henri Poincare should be honored
where he taught, and it is suggested
that the portion of the Rue Vaugirard
between the Boulevard St. Michel and
the Odeon should be named after him.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY.

MARCH, 1913

HENRI POINCARE AS AN INVESTIGATOR 1

By Professor JAMES BYRNIE SHAW

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

IT has not seemed to me appropriate, nor would there be time, nor
should I be able, to enter into an exhaustive study of the life-work
of a master-mind like Jules Henri Poincare. Indeed, to analyze his con-
tributions to astronomy needs a Darwin ; to report on his investigations
in mathematical physics needs a Planck; to expound his philosophy of
science needs a Royce; to exhibit his mathematical creations in all their
fullness needs Poincare. Let it suffice that he was the pride of France,
not only of the aristocracy of scholars, but of the nation. He was in-
spired by the genius of France, with its keen discernment, its eternal
search for exact truth, its haunting love of beauty. The mathematical
world has lost its incomparable leader, and its admiration for the mag-
nitude of his achievements will be tempered only by the vain desire tc
know what visions he had not yet given expression to. Investigators of
brilliant power for years to come will fill out the outlines of what he had
time only to sketch. His vision penetrated the universe from the elec-
tron to the galaxy, from instants of time to the sweep of space, from the
fundamentals of thought to its most delicate propositions.

In his funeral oration, Painleve, speaking for the Academie des
Sciences, said : 2

He was only twenty-four years of age, when after four years of silent and
sustained reflection, he began the series of mathematical publications which
leaves us in doubt whether to admire most its surprising profundity or its sur-
prising fecundity.

Whether he attacked the ascension, step by step, of the truths of arithmetic
discontinuity, or unloosed the tangle of geometric form, or followed the subtlest

1 For a biographical sketch of Poincare^ see Revue des deux Mondes, 1912,
September 15. Also the second edition of Lebon's book on Poincare has appeared.

2 Revue du Mois, Vol. 7 (1912), p. 133.

VOL. LXXXII. — 15.

2io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

windings and caprices of the continuous laws that join quantities together, there
is not one of his works which has not the masterly touch, not one of his fifteen
hundred publications which does not show the lion's claw.

At the age of twenty-seven, the Faculty of Sciences offered this young
conqueror its chair of physical mechanics. At thirty-three the Academy of
Sciences opened its door, an example soon followed by the learned academies of
the entire world; for there was no body of scientists in Europe or America
which did not feel that it honored itself in adjoining the cooperation of Henri
Poincare\

But the mathematical sciences were for this illustrious analyst only a mani-
fold and prodigious measuring instrument admirably adapted to the comparative
etudy of the phenomena of the universe. This instrument he set himself to use,
and what skill he displayed! At the age of thirty, he astonished the physicists
by his critique of the general principles of their science; that was but the
beginning of bold speculations which led him year by year up to the very edge
of the unknown, to the constitution of matter, to the paradoxical mechanics
that sprung up after the unexpected discovery of the mysterious radioactivity.

Yet this was only part of his activity: geodesy, cosmogony, astronomy,
philosophy of science, he included them all, penetrated all, explored all. His
celestial mechanics would be glory enough. It was this that revealed him first
to a wide public. King Oscar II. of Sweden, Maecenus of science, enlightened
and generous, in 1887 opened an international competition in mathematics. In
1889, at the end of the contest, France learned with joy that the great gold
medal, supreme prize of this new tournament, had been awarded to one of her
children, a young scientist thirty-five years of age, for a marvelous study of the
mechanical stability of our universe; and the name of Henri Poincare' was
famous.

Gentlemen, the Theban hero dying after two victories said: "I leave two
immortal daughters. ' ' This hero of the world of thought who has just suc-
cumbed, leaves in the ideal world, as real as the other world, an immortal pos-
terity which will guide the future researches of men. Indeed his life will remain
an example as harmonious in its faultless lines as the orbits of those stars whose
eternal past and eternal future he desired to know.

To this eulogy of Professor Painleve certainly I could add nothing,
and it does not seem necessary to enumerate the many other honors of
Poincare's. I shall undertake only to consider briefly his conception of
science in its chief phases, and in the light of this conception to con-
sider at more length in particular his ideas of research. As an investi-
gator his opinions carry extraordinary weight, as he was a subtle phi-
losopher and a skilled psychologist. We may treat three phases of sci-
entific activity as distinct, pure science, industrial science and what we
may call euthenic science.

In speaking of the death of Brouardel, 3 who did much for the study

of hygiene, and had helped in preventing three invasions of cholera,

without disturbing commerce, Poincare said before the Academie des

Sciences :

In this direction scientists can scarcely count on the satisfaction of dis-
covering general laws, exterior as it were to space and time, but there are other

l C. B., 143 (1906), p. 996.

HENRI POINCARE AS AN INVESTIGATOR 211

joys and above all that of doing good immediately to humanity and correcting
evils without forcing the remedy to wait.

The scientist is accustomed to conquer truth only by degrees; for him all
certainty should be bought by long hesitations, by perpetually feeling his way.
He suspects what comes too easily, and accepts it only after submitting it to
numerous and diverse proofs. The man who must act can not embarrass himself
by such scruples. He cares little for a truth which must wait so long, because
it may arrive too late, and after the moment for action has passed. He must
make rapid conquests; sometimes these are not the most durable nor those we
should esteem. He also has to avoid reefs which we know not, we for whom
time does not count, and sometimes we are tempted to say a true scientist ought
not to risk them; how much better on the contrary to congratulate ourselves that
there are men skilful enough to avoid them.

Towards pure science his attitude was almost adoration. It is best
set forth by extracts from his " Value of Science " and " Science and
Method":

The search for truth should be the goal of our activity; it is the only end
worthy of it. . . . When I speak here of truth doubtless I mean primarily scien-
tific truth, but I wish to speak also of moral truth, one of whose aspects is what
we call Justice. ... To find one as well as to find the other, it is necessary to
struggle to the utmost to free ourselves from the bonds of prejudice and passion,
to attain absolute sincerity.

The best expression of the harmony of nature is Law. Law is one of the
most recent conquests of the human mind. Man demands that his gods prove
their existence by miracles, but the eternal marvel is that there are not miracles
all the time. And the world is divine because it is harmonious. Were it ruled
by caprices what could ever prove it due to aught but chance?

But does this harmony which the human intellect believes it finds in nature
exist outside the intellect? Doubtless not; a reality completely independent of
the mind that conceives it, sees it, feels it, is an impossibility. What we call
objective reality is, in the last analysis, what is common to many thinkers and
could be common to all; this common part, we shall see, can be only the harmony
expressed by mathematical laws.

So we conclude that this harmony is the sole objective reality, the sole truth
we can ever attain, and if I add that the universal harmony of the world is the
source of all beauty, it becomes comprehensible how we should prize the slow
and painful progress by which we learn little by little to know it.

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it
because it pleases him, and it pleases him because it is beautiful. Were nature
not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, life would not be worth living.
I do not mean here, of course, that beauty which impresses the senses, the beauty
of qualities and appearances; not that I despise it — far from it; but that has
nought to do with science; I mean that subtler beauty of the harmonious order
of the parts which pure intellect appreciates. This it is which gives a body, a
skeleton as it were, to the fleeting appearances that charm the senses, and with-
out this support the beauty of these fugitive dreams would be but imperfect,
because it would be unstable and evanescent. On the contrary intellectual
beauty is self-sufficient and for its sake, rather than for the good of humanity,
does the scientist condemn himself to long and tedious labors.

212 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

In connection with this view of the scientist in his own domain, I
desire to quote also from the preface of the recent second German edi-
tion of " Value of Science/' which expresses his attitude towards indus-
trial science :

Science has always had to contend with skeptics and scoffers who were quite
ready to draw conclusions from relative failures and temporary inactivity, and
to note the confessions of scientists who admit that the field of science is
bounded, but fail to add that inside its own realm it is supreme.

He who views scientific work from the outside is often amazed to see yester-
day's truth so easily become to-morrow's error. He believes then, that our
conquests are over-confident, that the principles so proudly paraded are only
novelties, and he does not see that beneath these necessary changes of form
scientific truth is always one and the same. It remains eternally unchanged and
only the clothing in which we deck it out changes with the fashion.

Fortunately science is needed in applications, and this silences the skeptic.
If he desires to use some new discovery, and convinces himself of its success,
he must indeed admit that it is more than an idle dream. We thus perceive the
blessing which lies in the development of industry.

I do not wish to say that science is created for its applications, far from it;
one must love it for its own sake; but the recognition of its applications pro-
tects us from the skeptic.

Poincare's conception of science can be summed up in these terms :
Science consists of the invariants of human thought.

In the field of investigation, the important thing for Poincare was
the discovery of the real relation between isolated facts. The important
facts are those that suggest relations. We select facts from this stand-
point. The world of relations was as real to him as the world of phe-
nomena, and so far as we know the real relations, in whatever language
we express these relations, just so far we know the actual world, the ob-
jective world. Even absolute space and absolute time do not exist, these
two are relations furnished by our own minds. 4 Thus the term energy,
and our notion as to the existence of energy, may change in the course
of time, but the persistent relation that gives us our present notion of
energy is real and does not change. It may be true, as Herschel said,
that in the twinkling of an eye a molecule solves a differential equation
which if written out in full would belt the globe, but the molecule knows
nothing of the equation — that is created by the mind, and as the modern
discontinuous physics develops, it may be that we shall have to use dif-
ference equations rather than differential equations. But the differen-
tial equation expresses certain persistent relations between phenomena,
and is thus real, and is the replica of an objective reality. The differen-
tial equation means that the phenomenon is one such that each state is
the result of the immediately preceding state; the new integro-differen-
tial equation of Volterra means that the state is due to all the preceding
states; the difference equation means that the states follow each other

4 Scientia, 12 (1912), 159-171 (posthumous).

HENRI POINCARE AS AN INVESTIGATOR 213

abruptly; and integro-difference equations would mean that they de-
pend on all preceding states discontinuously. Each is able to account
for certain relations in the states. In the same sense the word atom is
the name for a set of relations, and though it may change and the atom
itself become a solar system, yet what we really mean by the atom is
permanent and represents an objective reality. We are witnesses too of
an evolution in science and mathematics from the continuous to the dis-
continuous. In mathematics it has produced the function defined over
a range rather than a line — a chaos, as it were, of elements — and the
calculable numbers of Borel. In physics it has produced the electron,
the magneton, and the theory of quanta, 5 about which Poincare said
shortly before his death :

A physical system is capable of only a finite number of distinct states; it
abruptly jumps from one state to another without passing through the inter-
mediate states.

In biology we have the corresponding theory of mutations. Yet
despite this apparent reduction of old ideas into dust, contradictory to
our hopes of its permanence; as Poincare put it: this is right and the
other is not wrong. They are in harmony, only the language varies;
both set forth certain true relations.

Just as Maxwell and Kelvin were able to invent mechanical models
of the ether, so Poincare is perhaps the most profound genius the world
has ever known in devising the more subtle machinery of thought to
represent the relations he found not only between numbers and geo-
metric figures, but between the phenomena of physics. His mind seemed
to create new structures of this kind continually, finding expression for
the most intricate relations. Nowadays this is the same as saying that
he was a mathematician, for this ideal world of relations is the one with
whose structure mathematics is concerned, and which mathematics
claims sovereignty over, verifying Gauss's assertion : " Mathematics is
Queen of all the Sciences."

In the address of Masson when Poincare was made one of the forty
immortals, he said :

You were born, you have lived, you will live, and you will die a mathe-
matician; the vital function of your brain is to invent and to resolve more cases
in mathematics; everything about you relates to that. Even when you seem to
desert mathematics for metaphysics, the former furnishes the examples, the
reasoning, the paradoxes. It is in you, possesses you, harries you, dominates
you; in repose, your brain automatically pursues its work, without your being
aware of it — the fruit forms, grows, ripens, and falls, and you have yourself
told us of your wonder at finding it in your hand so perfect. You furnish an
admirable example of the mathematical type. Since Archimedes it is classical
but legendary. Earely will historian have found an occasion so fit to note in life
its external characters, and in place of relating your works, rather is not this

6 See Jour, de Physique, 1912 (5), 2; pp. 5-34; 347-360.

2i 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the occasion to see how mathematical genius manifests itself, whether it is the
result of atavism, or the product of a special culture, at what moment and
under what conditions it sees light, at what epoch of life it is most active and
brilliant ?

Fortunately the answer to Masson's question is to be found in Poin-
care's own writings, and it becomes the more interesting when taken in
connection with his further thesis that the method of research in mathe-
matics is precisely that of all pure science. This method I desire to con-
sider at some length, for I conceive that such a consideration will be
entirely appropriate in this place.

The first research mentioned by Eados in the report of the com-
mittee to the Hungarian Academy in 1905, when Poincare was awarded
the first Bolyai prize as the most eminent mathematician in the world,
is the series of investigations relating to automorphic functions. These
functions enable us to integrate linear differential equations with ra-
tional algebraic coefficients, just as elliptic functions and abelian func-
tions enable us to integrate certain algebraic differentials. With regard
to these researches, Poincare tells us that for a fortnight he had tried
without success to demonstrate their non-existence. He investigated a
large number of formulae with no results. One evening, however, he was
restless and got to sleep with difficulty ; ideas surged out in crowds and
seemed to crash violently together in the endeavor to form stable combi-
nations. The next morning he was in possession of the particular set of
automorphic functions derived from the hypergeometric series; he had
only to verify the calculations. Having thus found that functions did
exist of this kind, he conceived the idea of representing these functions
as the quotients of two series, analogous to the theta series in elliptic
functions. This he did purely by the analogy, and arrived at theta-
fuchsian functions. Having occasion to take a journey, mathematics
was laid aside for a time, but in stepping into an omnibus at Coutances,
the idea flashed over him that the transformations which he had used to
define these automorphic functions were identical with certain others he
had used in some researches in non-euclidean geometry. Eeturning
home he took up some questions in the theory of arithmetic forms, and
with no suspicion that they were related to the fuchsian functions or
the geometric transformation, he worked for some time with no success.
But one day while taking a walk, the idea suddenly came to him that the
arithmetic transformations he was using were essentially the same as
those of his study in non-euclidean geometry. From this fact he saw at
once by the connections with the arithmetic forms that the fuchsian
functions he had discovered were only particular cases of a more general
class of functions. He laid siege now systematically to the whole prob-
lem of the linear differential equations and the fuchsian functions and
reached result after result, save one thing which seemed to be the key-

HENRI POINCAEE AS AN INVESTIGATOR 215

stone of the whole problem was stubborn. He was compelled to go away
again to perform military duty, and his mind was full of other things.
But one day while crossing the boulevard the solution of the last diffi-
culty suddenly appeared and upon verification was found to be correct.
In this account of the birth and growth of mathematical develop-
ment, which he assures us is practically the same as for all such de-
velopments, it is obvious that the central notion is that of generaliza-
tion. Elliptic, abelian and theta functions are in turn generalized into
a new class of transcendents. Inversion of differentials is generalized
into inversion of differential equations. This notion of generalization
we need to inspect a little closely. Mathematical generalization consists
of two types of thought, often not discriminated, and often scarcely to
be discriminated from each other. One type consists in so stating a
known theorem that it will be true of a wider class than in its first state-
ment, and the predicate asserted has a wider significance. In such gen-
eralization the first statement of the theorem becomes a mere particular
case of the second statement. Examples will occur readily to every one.
There are two forms of this type : in one, many known cases are brought
together under one law; in the other form, the law thus found is made
to apply to other known cases, perhaps never before suspected to be re-
lated to the first set. It is the guiding threads of analogy that usually
bring about these forms of generalization. This kind of generalizing
power Poincare had in high degree. In his memoir on " Partial Dif-
ferential Equations of Physics " 6 he says :

If one looks at the different problems of the integral calculus which arise
naturally when he wishes to go deep into the different parts of physics, it is
impossible not to be struck by the analogies existing. Whether it be electro-
statics, or electrodynamics, the propagation of heat, optics, elasticity or hydro-
dynamics, we are led always to differential equations of the same family; and
the boundary conditions though different, are not without some resemblances.
. . . One should therefore expect to find in these problems a large number of
common properties.

Also in his " Nouvelles Methodes de la Mecanique Celeste " he says :

The ultimate aim of celestial mechanics is to solve the great question
whether Newton's law alone will explain all astronomical phenomena.

In his address awarding Poincare the gold medal of the Eoyal Astro-
nomical Society, G. H. Darwin 7 said:

The leading characteristic of M. Poincare 's work appears to be the immense
wideness of the generalizations, so that the abundance of possible illustrations
is sometimes almost bewildering. This power of grasping abstract principles is
the mark of the intellect of the true mathematician; but to one accustomed
rather to deal with the concrete the difficulty of completely mastering the argu-
ment is sometimes great.

8 Amer. Jour. Math., Vol. 12.

T " Scientific Papers," Vol. 4, p. 519.

216 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

In the account of the creation of the fuchsian functions we see this
power of finding examples of his generalizations, that is to say, of ap-
plying them. By these functions he could solve differential equations,
he could express the coordinates of algebraic curves as fuchsian func-
tions of a parameter, he could solve algebraic equations of any order.
Humbert put it succinctly thus : " Poincare handed us the keys of the
world of algebra." Again, from the simplification of the theory of
algebraic curves he was able to reach results which led to a generaliza-
tion of the 'fuchsian functions to the zetafuchsian functions, which he
afterward used in differential equations, the starting point of the prob-
lem. He applied the theory of continuous groups to hypercomplex num-
bers and then applied hypercomplex numbers to the periods of abelian
integrals and the algebraic integration of differential equations of cer-
tain types. He applied fuchsian functions to the theory of arithmetic
forms and opened a wide development of the theory of numbers. He
applied fundamental functions to the potential theory of surfaces in gen-
eral, showing how the Green's function could be constructed for any
surface, permitting the solution of the problem. He developed' integral
invariants, which persist through cycles of space and time. He dared
to apply the kinetic theory of gases and the theory of radiant matter to
the Milky Way itself, suggesting that probably we are a speck in a spiral
nebula. He analyzed mathematically the rings of Saturn into a swarm
of satellites, and the spectroscope confirmed his conclusions, a piece of
work ranking with the mathematical discovery of Neptune. He found
a generalization for figures of equilibrium of the heavenly bodies, dis-
covering an infinity of forms and pointing out the stable transition
shapes from one type to another, of which the piriform was quite new ;
at the same time throwing light on the problems of cosmogony. He
applied trigonometric series, divergent series, and even the theory of
probabilities, to show that the stability or instability of our universe has
never been demonstrated, but that if probability is measured by continu-
ous functions only, the universe is most probably stable.

There is no essential difference between generalizations of this type
in whatever realm they appear. It is generalization to see that projec-
tive geometry merely states the invariancies of the projective group, and
elementary geometry is a collection of statements about the invariants of
the orthogonal group. Expansions in sines and cosines, or Legendrian
polynomials, or Bessel functions are particular cases of expansions in
fundamental functions, and these arise from the inversion of definite
integrals. It is also generalization to reduce the phenomena of light to
a wave-theory, then the phenomena of light, electricity and magnetism
to ether-properties. It is generalization to reduce physics and physical
chemistry to the study of quanta of energy, and, I might add, to reduce
all the physical sciences to a study of the kinematics of four-dimensional

HENRI POINCARE A8 AN INVESTIGATOR 217

space. When we say natural law, we mean generalization of this type.
The laws of science are generalizations of the relations between phenom-
ena. According to Poincare there are three classes of hypotheses in
science: (1) Natural hypotheses, which are the foundations of the
mathematical treatments, such as action decreases with the distance,
small movements follow a linear law, effect is a continuous function of
the cause, physical phenomena are discontinuous functions; (2) Neutral
hypotheses, which enable us to formulate our ideas, and are neither veri-
fiable nor unverifiable, such as the hypothesis of atoms or of a continu-
ous medium; (3) Generalizations, invariantive relationships, which are
valuable, may be verified by experiment and lead to real progress. In
" Science and Hypothesis " his thesis is, that science consists of ob-
served facts organized according to these three classes of hypotheses.
In "Value of Science" the thesis is, that the objective value of science
consists in the laws, that is, in the generalizations, discovered. In
" Science and Method " the thesis is, that the discovery of laws is by
methods substantially the same as those of mathematical investigation,
deducing from a significant particular a wide-reaching generalization,
selecting our facts because of their significance.

This type of generalization, however, is only a part of the mathe-
matical generalization. It might in broad terms be characterized as the
purely scientific type. The second type, which might be broadly char-
acterized as the purely mathematical type, is that in which there is a
distinct widening of the field of a conception, usually by the addition
of new mathematical entities. Examples are the irrational numbers,
negative numbers, imaginary numbers, quaternions and hypercomplex
numbers in general. The name imaginary indicates the fact that the
actual existence of these was once open to question in the minds of some.
Other examples are the non-euclidean geometries, the non-archimedean
continuity, transfinite numbers, space of four and of iV dimensions.
The ideal numbers of Kummer and the geometric numbers of Minkowski
are generalizations mainly of this type. It is not possible to separate
sharply this kind of generalization from the other, and it would often
be difficult to say whether a given mathematical investigation belongs
primarily to the one kind or the other. However, when an investigation
does not merely utilize material that is already known, but introduces
new objects for study whose properties are not known, we can classify it
under the second type. Usually the second type arises from inversion
processes. We have given certain properties to find the class of things
satisfying them. If they do not exist we create them. Whether we con-
sider that the new objects have (in mathematics) been created or dis-
covered, is merely a matter of psychologic point of view. For example,
in one of Poincare's last papers 8 he explains the apparently irreconcil-

s Scientia, 12 (1912), pp. 1-11.

2i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

able difference of opinion which there is among mathematicians regard-
ing the existence of a definable infinity as due to the difference in the
psychology of the two classes. One, the idealistic, feeling that every-
thing we define is due to the mind, and finite; the other, the realistic,
feeling that there is an external world which may well contain an in-
finity. The idealistic class, to which Poincare belonged, would consider
that these extensions to which we referred are in a sense creations.

It is scarcely necessary to enumerate the creations of Poincare.
They are many, for he was gifted with extraordinary originality. The
account given above of the creation of the fuchsian functions is an ex-
ample of one of his most important. It opened an immense field of in-
vestigation. He created a type of arithmetic invariants expressible as
series or definite integrals, which opened a new field in theory of num-
bers. His investigations of ordinary differential equations which are
not linear, such as those in dynamics and the problem of N bodies, cre-
ated an extensive class of new functions which (I believe) are yet with-
out special names, as well as suggesting the existence of classes of func-
tions for which we have, as yet, even no means of expression. The in-
vestigations of asymptotic expansions opened paths to dizzy heights.
Fundamental functions in partial differential equations also open a re-
gion now under development. We may say that the most marvelous of
his creations rise from the general field of differential equations. We
might cite further his researches in analysis situs, the realm of the in-
variants of a battered continuity. His double residues and studies in
functions of many real variables are creations from which will spring a
noble progeny. Even the lectures in which he presented the results of
others scintillate with original thoughts.

To generalize in mathematics and science it is not enough simply to
get together facts or ideas and to put them into new combinations. Most
of these combinations would be useless. The real investigator does not
form the useless combinations at all, but unconsciously rejects the un-
profitable combinations. It is as if he were an examiner for a higher
degree ; only the candidates who have passed the lower degrees ever ap-
pear before him at all. Often domains far distant furnish the useful
combinations, as in the account given of the genesis of the fuchsian
functions, the theory of arithmetic forms through the roundabout route
of non-euclidean geometry furnished the generalization of the first
fuchsian functions to the complete class. This was of the first type.
But how are those of the second type born ?

We come thus to the heart of the matter. Merely to say that we dis-
cover laws is not sufficient. How do we discover extensions? How
devise new formulas? Make new constructions? The answer to this
question is, for Poincare, found in psychology. It is necessary to get
together many facts, but this does not insure that we shall build with

HENRI POINCARE AS AN INVESTIGATOR 219

them any more than that a collection of beams and stones will make a
cathedral. Mere haphazard construction does not produce the cathedral
either. To reach the end it is necessary to have the end in view from
the beginning. It is not only necessary to choose a route, but we must
see that it is the route to be chosen. This implies a power of the mind
which Poincare calls intuition. It is that power which enables us to
perceive the plan of the whole, to seize the unity in the matter at hand.
This power is necessary not only to the investigator, but it is also neces-
sary — in less degree, perhaps — to him who desires to follow the in-
vestigation. Why is it, he asks, that any one can ever fail to understand
mathematics? Here is a subject constructed step by step with infallible
logic, yet many do not comprehend it at all. Not on account of poor
memory — that may lead to errors in calculation, but has little to do with
comprehension of the subject. Sylvester, for example, was notorious for
his inability to remember even what he himself had proved. It is not
due to lack of the power of attention, for while concentration is neces-
sary in the development of a demonstration, or in following a piece of
logic, it does riot give this appreciation of mathematics. A mathematical
demonstration is a series of inferences, but it is above all a series of
inferences in a certain order. The important thing is the order, just
as in chess the mere moving according to the rules is not enough, it is
the plan of the game that counts. If one appreciates it, this order, this
plan, this unity, this harmony, he need have no fear of a poor memory,
nor need he weary his concentration. The student deficient in this
power may learn demonstrations by heart, he may assent to each step as
logically proved, yet he will know little of the theorem itself. Those
who possess this kind of insight which reveals hidden relations, this
divining power for the discovery of mines of gold, may hope to become
investigators, creators. Those who do not have it must find it or give up
the task. The great educational question of the day is the problem of
the development of the intuition. If we learn to cultivate this spirituelle
flower it will open all doors of invention and discovery of Jaws. It is an
interesting problem for even the grade teacher. If it be true, as Boris
Sidis and others have claimed, that there are superior methods of edu-
cation (which seem really to lie along this line) then they must become
the methods of future education. We will begin to educate for genius.
One thing seems evident, that too prolonged adherence to the methods
of rigid reasoning leads to sterility. In mathematics at least both logic
and intuition are indispensable, one furnishes the architect's plan of the
structure, the other bolts it and cements it together. Logic, says Poin-
care, is the sole instrument of certitude, intuition of creation. Yet even
the steps of a logical deduction are planned in their entirety by the
intuition. In discussing the partial differential equations of physics 9

• Amer. Jour. Math., Vol. 12.

2 2o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

and their solutions, he points out that one often has to content himself
with the guidance he can get by physical considerations. An example
of this was the use made by Klein of electrical considerations in hand-
ling Dirichlet's problem on a Eiemann surface. In the physical aspect
of the problem this would usually be sufficient, for the physical data are
at the best only approximate. The mathematical necessities of converg-
ence demand, however, that the problems be handled purely analytically
and deductively. In one of his lectures he compares the process with
the formation of a sponge. When we find it fully formed it is only a
delicate lace-work of needles of silica. But the really interesting thing
is the form it has taken, and this can be fully understood only by know-
ing the life-history of the sponge which has impressed its form, its will,
so to speak, on the silica. In the same way a logical development of a
theorem can really be understood only through a study of its living de-
velopment. Need we point out the significance of this to the research
student? Just as a painter who would become great must sit at the
feet of a master and see his creations grow on the canvas, so the student
does well to watch a master at work on scientific creations. This is the
good he gets at the university. No compendium of results of the great
creators will suffice. Nor is a too detailed study of the history of a
problem, or too extensive a list of its bibliography, of assistance to the
intuition. These might assist the later logical development, but not the
inventive power. Poincare rarely did more than to acquaint himself
with the present status of a problem he desired to consider. It is evi-
dent too that the intuition is sui generis, and guidance of it in the
seminar must simply stimulate, not undertake to determine its form.
The investigator must set his own problem and work it out in his own
way. The director of research should furnish favorable surroundings
and set forth the matter of his lectures in as genetic form as possible,
as for example, Poincare' s and Klein's masterly courses. But he should
not prescribe forms of development, nor methods of attack for the
novitiate.

The types of intuition are numerous. We leave to the psychologist
their enumeration and description. For example, we should expect a
visualist to think in pictures, for in this direction his imagination would
be vivid. Such a mind would make use of diagrams and mechanical
forms to embody his ideas. We think at once of Faraday and his lines
of force, of Kelvin and his models of the ether. Poincare compares
Bertrand and Hermite, schoolmates educated at the same time in the
same way. Bertrand when speaking was always in motion, apparently
trying to paint his ideas. Hermite seemed to flee the world, his ideas
were not of the visible kind. Weierstrass thought in artificial symbols,
Eiemann in pictures and geometric constructions. Poincare is spoken
of as belonging to the audile type, for he remembered sounds well.

HENRI POINCARE AS AN INVESTIGATOR 221

He seems from his memoirs and papers, however, also to be equally of
the visual and the symbolic types. He valued words highly, and his
style is a mountain brook descending from rarefied heights, its clear
current here falling over rocks, there gliding smoothly down. His
thought is a penetrating ray that illuminates the deepest recesses of the
wilderness of phenomena.

But in any case, whether one be analyst, physicist, biologist or
psychologist, the characteristic trait of the intuition is the direct appre-
ciation of relationships between the objects of thought, which unite
them into a complete structure, unitary in character and harmonious
in form. We might define intuition as that power of the mind by
which we build the great theories and fit phenomena into a plan
designed along the lines of unifying principles. To be more exact,
the mind creates a world of its own. This world is conditioned by
what we call the outside world, but in many respects we are free to
make it what we please, just as the architect is free to create his build-
ing although his material limits him. However, we endeavor to create
this world with the maximum simplicity, mainly because simplicity
implies harmony, that is, beauty. We are not satisfied with what
William James called the " blooming confusion of consciousness " but
we construct a replica of this consciousness which is simpler. Of two
ways we can construct the replica, we choose the simpler. Thus we
choose Euclidean geometry instead of Lobatchevskian, on account of its
simplicity, although either might be applied to the world of phenomena.
We choose to say the earth rotates on its axis, for that makes astronomy
possible. This replica must have a plan, a design, a symmetry, a
coherence. Intuition is the perception of this idealized structure. It
is akin to the dream of the artist, or the vision of the prophet. Indeed
the eminent literary critic, Emile Faguet, calls Poincare a poet. Was
it not Sylvester and Kronecker who said that mathematics was essen-
tially poetry ! That was as far as they ever got in defining it. In his
address on " Analysis and Physics," Poincare says :

Mathematics has a triple end. It must furnish an instrument for the study
of nature. But that is not all, it has a philosophic end; and, I dare to say it,
an esthetic end; . . . these two ends [physical and esthetic] are inseparable, and
the best way to attain the one is to keep the other in view.

The mathematician does not build in stone, nor paint on canvas,
nor construct a symphony, though his harmonies are in and through
all these; his medium is more ethereal; but is his creation therefore
the less beautiful?

Since the intuition is necessary, the first problem of education
becomes the conservation and development of this power. Poincare
points out that in mathematics, for example, we should not begin with
general definitions and laws, nor with rigorous logic in the proofs of

222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the theorems. Thus he recommends that in the special mathematics
of the secondary school and in the first year of the Ecole Poly technique,
there should not be introduced the notion of functions with no deriva-
tives. At most we should content ourselves with saying " there are
such, but we are not concerned with them now." When integrals are
first spoken of, they should be defined as areas, and the rigorous defini-
tion should be given later, after the student has found many integrals.
He says: 10

The chief end of mathematical instruction is to develop certain powers of
the mind, and among these the intuition is not the least precious. By it the
mathematical world comes in contact with the real world, and even if pure
mathematics could do without it, it would always be necessary to turn to it to
bridge the gulf between symbol and reality. The practician will always need it,
and for one mathematician there are a hundred practicians. However, for the
mathematician himself the power is necessary, for while we demonstrate by
logic, we create by intuition; and we have more to do than to criticize others'
theorems, we must invent new ones, this art, intuition teaches us.

We turn finally to the research student. How is he to bring the
intuition to bear on his problem effectively ? If creative work is to be
hoped for only through this agency, how do we set it to work? This
question Poincare answers in his analysis of his creation of the fuchsian
functions. He holds that the intuition does its work unconsciously.
We can not use the term " subconsciously," for he had a repugnance to
the doctrine of the superiority of the subliminal self. He points out
that our unconscious activity forms large numbers of mental combina-
tions, as an architect, we will say, makes many trial sketches, and of
these combinations some are brought into consciousness. These are
selected, he believes, by their appeal to the sentiment of beauty, the
intellectual esthetic sense of the fitness of things, the unity of ideas,
just as the architect from his haphazard sketches selects the right one
finally by its appeal to his sense of beauty. Poincare admits that this
explanation of the facts is a hypothesis, but he finds many things to
confirm it. One is the fact that the theorems thus suggested in mathe-
matical creation are not always true, yet their elegance, if they were
true, has opened the door of consciousness to them. It was Sylvester
who used to declare :

Gentlemen, I am certain my conclusion is correct. I will wager a hundred
pounds to one on it; yes, I will wager my life on it.

But it often turned out the next day that it was not true. How-
ever, it led eventually to things that were true. The direct conclusion
from Poincare' s hypothesis would be that we must conserve and develop
the esthetic sense of our field, whether mathematics, physics, chemistry,
or what not. And we may well pause to consider whether the young

10 L'Enseignement Math., 1899, p. 157.

HENRI POINCARE AS AN INVESTIGATOR 223

investigator should not include some course in design in his work, in
painting, architecture, music, poetry or sculpture. Courses in the
appreciation of art, rather than the criticism of art, might also be very
serviceable indirectly. The constructive philosophers, like Plato or
Bergson, might furnish valuable indirect training. Eeading that leads
to an appreciation of the beauty and sublimity of the universe is of
the same value. In any case whatever would intensify the esthetic
sensitiveness would be worth while.

When the intuition does not favor us, the golden butterfly fails to
emerge from its chrysalis, what is to be done? Here is his answer for
whom time did not count, taken from one of his most recent papers. 11
There is a note of pathos in it as well as a hint of premonition. He
presents some incomplete results of a new and very important theorem
in geometrical transformation, which he is convinced is true, yet the
proof of it encounters great difficulties. Every particular case he has
been able to settle is favorable to the theorem. After explaining why
he is publishing an incomplete paper for the first time, he says :

It would seem that in this situation I should abstain from all publication
bo long as I have not solved the problem, but after fruitless efforts for many
months it seems to me wisest to let the whole problem ripen during several years.
That would indeed be well, were I sure of some day being able to take it up
again, but at my age I can not go bail for this. On the other hand, the impor-
tance of the subject is great . . . and the totality of results so far obtained is
too considerable for me to resign myself to definitively allowing them to become
unfruitful. I may hope that the mathematicians who interest themselves in the
problem and who will be more fortunate than I without doubt will find some
means to resolve it.

Again, Poincare points out that these flashes from below the horizon
of consciousness must be preceded by periods of prolonged attentive
work. It is like setting Pegasus to plowing corn, but this conscious
effort is necessary. This discouraging wandering over the hills and
rocks, examining the promising paths and the fragments that point to
a nearby mine, day after day, is indispensable to success. It is the
weary search over the face of the mountain and the driving of many
fruitless drifts that eventually lead the prospector to his mine of gold.
On this kind of drudgery Poincare spent two periods of two hours each
daily. The unconscious action of his mind did the rest of his work.

Neither does the discovery of the mine develop it. After the
unconscious power has led us to our eldorado, it has done all it can.
The deductions, the demonstrations, the applications, must be carried
out at the expense of prolonged effort again. The intuition can not do
this kind of work. Its region is the nebulous part of thought where
the mental ions unite, dissolve, and whirl away, — or we may say that

" Bend. Circ. Mat. Palermo, 33 (1912), p. 375.

224 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

it is found where the breakers surge against the shores of the unknown.
But in the consciousness, the stable, the crystallized, the permanent
combinations are formed; the new world is organized, surveyed,
mapped, and the frontier is widened. Here everything proceeds under
hard supervision.

Finally, the research student, the investigator, must have a burning
love for the search for truth, as well as for the truth itself. And when
in his somber moods he asks, what does it signify in the end? he finds
the answer at the close of Poincare's " Value of Science." He expresses
the significance of science in these clear terms :

Civilizations are measured only by their science and their art. Some per-
sons are surprised at the formula: science for science's sake; yet it is quite as
good as life for life's sake, if life is only misery; and even as happiness for
happiness' sake, if one does not place all pleasures on the same level, if one
does not admit that the end of civilization is to furnish more alcohol to people
who like to drink.

Every action must have an aim. We have to suffer, we have to work, we
have to pay for our seat at the show, but it is in order that we may see, or at
least that others may sometimes see.

What is not thought is nought ; since we can think only thoughts, and every
word we use in talking about things stands for a thought, to assert there is
anything else than thought is a senseless affirmation.

Meanwhile — a strange contradiction for those who believe in time — geologic
history teaches that life is only an episode between two eternities of death; and
even in this episode conscious thought has endured and will endure but a moment.
Thought is but a flash in the midst of a long night.

Yet this flash indeed is everything.

A CHRONICLE OF THE TRIBE OF CORN 225

A CHRONICLE OF THE TRIBE OF CORN 1

By Professor EDWARD M. EAST

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ALEXANDRE DUMAS maintained that he weaved more history
into his romances than the contemporary chroniclers did into
their histories. Perhaps he did. At least the reader may lose himself
in the marvelously interesting fancies of the great Frenchman, and if
he gleans some points of fact they are gratuitous — features for which
he has not paid. But when he finds that his cherished enmity toward
Aaron Burr is founded on the fictions of political opponents, that the
reformation was largely politics and not ethics, he feels in much the
frame of mind as when in earlier days he was robbed of his belief in
Saint Nicolas.

These statements are not intended as a libel on the political his-
torian. They serve only to defend the title of this article. The mod-
ern historian depends, first upon the records of writers contemporary
with the epoch under consideration, second, upon the corroboration or
refutation of these records by circumstantial evidence. The biological
historian uses precisely the same method. His contemporary records
are the records set down by the plants or animals themselves — auto-
biographies, as it were. He has this advantage over the transcriber of
written records, however, the plant autobiographies are true. There is
no boasting, no glossing of faults, no exaggeration. The transcriber
may misinterpret the record, but this is not the fault of the record.
He has but to read it aright. The written record, on the other hand,
may be false at the outset.

The story of the birth and evolution of maize, the plant at the basis
of our national prosperity, is of interest not only to agriculturists and
botanists but to historians and philosophers, for it is one of the crops
whose cultivation is linked with the beginnings of civilization. It has
taken some years to fit the puzzle together, but now the gaps are but
few. Of course the proofs are not absolute. No proof is. But it may
be left to the judgment of the reader whether the case is beyond the
reasonable doubt of the lawyer. At least, it is typical of the reasoning

1 An endeavor to trace the exact path of the evolution of maize is beset with
more difficulties than are indicated here. I agree with many of the conclusions
of both Montgomery and Collins, whose excellent researches have given us a
remarkable insight into the probable phylogenetic history of maize. I have
endeavored to present in this paper only the probable way in which certain
important jumps occurred, facts that might be supposed to be of more popular
interest than a strictly botanical discussion.

VOL. LXXXLI. — 16.

226

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 1. A Typical Maize Plant as

DESCRIBED BY THE BOTANISTS. (After

Bonafous.)

Fig. 2. A Reproduction of the
Chinese Drawing upon which Rested
the Argument for Asiatic Origin of
Maize. (After Bonafous.)

of the botanical historian and has been carried further than that of any
other plant that has been cultivated since before recorded time and of
which the wild prototype is unknown.

The clues upon which the botanical detective works are many, and
it is only by dovetailing numerous facts that the probability of a correct
conclusion is increased until it is beyond question. That criminal de-
tectives can establish a reasonable proof by circumstantial evidence was
shown long ago by Poe. Mathematics does not recognize a series of
coincidences. Coincidences do occur but not in series. If a series of
facts point to the same conclusion, the probability that that conclusion
is correct increases by multiplication, not by addition. If the probabil-
ity that one throws heads with a coin is one half, the probability that he
throws a pair of heads with two coins is one half times one half, or one
quarter, not one half plus one half which would be a certainty. Thus
the fictitious reasoners of Poe and Doyle have argued that if a series of
independent circumstances point in a single direction, that direction is
the proper one. If certain facts seem to be outstanding, they must be
looked to, for their fallacies will sooner or later come to light. The
same is true in botanical history as the following incident shows:

A CHRONICLE OF THE TRIBE OF CORN 227

The sagas of Iceland show unquestionably that some time about the
year 1000 the Norsemen landed in North America. Where they landed
has been a question. The sagas describe the natives they met, the
Skrellings, as small and ugly, great of eye and broad of cheek. "And
they came in skin canoes." The description fits only the Esquimaux.
The sagas relate further, however, that the Norsemen found mosurr
wood and self-sown wheat and that in the spring they filled their boats
with " wine berries." Students of the sagas have taken the wineberries
to be grapes, the self-sown wheat to be wild rice and the mosurr wood
to be maple. There were discrepancies here. The ethnologists say the
Esquimaux have not wandered south, and the botanists find that the
grape and the wild-rice do not grow in the northeast. It may also be
pointed out that grapes are not gathered in the spring even in the most
flourishing circumstances.

Some have ridiculed the sagas, some have brought the Esquimaux
as far south as Boston, others have turned the Skrellings into Indians
in spite of their description. It remained for a botanist, Professor M.
L. Fernald, to show that the mosurr wood is birch, that the wild wheat
is the Strand wheat (Elymus arenarius) a plant familiar to the Ice-
landers, and that the wineberry is either the mountain cranberry that is
in its prime in the spring or one of the wild currants, both plants being
known to the Norsemen as vinber or wine berries. The plentiful occur-
rence of these species north of the St. Lawrence River straightens out
all the inconsistencies and makes the geography, ethnology and biology
of the old sagas perfectly plausible.

This short illustration typifies the method of the botanical his-
torian, though perhaps the details of his work had best be explained.
Foremost in the significance of its evidence is the geographical distri-
bution of the wild plant and its subvarieties. From this knowledge one
may sometimes locate the point of origin with surprising definitenoss.
But often an important cultivated species has no known progenitor in
the wild. This lack of information is unfortunate for the investigator,
but not prohibitive of results. It makes the problem only that much
more interesting. The next point of attack is to discover the distribu-
tion of the wild species nearest related by their structure and character-
istics to the material under investigation. The fact that an organic
evolution has occurred is the master key that unlocks many problems.
Classification along natural lines was made possible by establishing the
fact of evolution. The relatives of plants are hall-marked in a manner
not often mistakable, and if the general family group is not too widely
distributed, the problem may be considered as fairly well along.

If there are no near relatives extant, if the plant is the last leaf
upon the family tree, one must turn to the evidence of the plant itself.
By this I mean he must study the inheritance of the various characters

228

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 3. An Ancient Indian Flint Type Above, with its Modern Successor Below.

by which its varieties are differentiated and endeavor to find out how
the features peculiar to it have originated. He may then be able log-
ically to connect it with very distant relatives.

Now to turn to the collateral evidence. Collateral evidence on dis-
tribution and relationship is furnished by paleontology. Such data are
really direct and important when fossil remains occur in sufficient
quantities, but this is not often the case. It is usually fragmentary and
can be classed with that of archeology. Neither archeology nor history
furnishes certain proof of plant origin, however, as we shall see. Their
evidence must simply be given the weight it deserves when considered
with other facts. Lastly, philology furnishes indications as to the his-
tory of a species, for common names of cultivated plants are well pre-
served in the languages of the people who have used them. But, like
other evidence, it must be accepted with caution. The cashew is called
by the French pomme de Maliogani, which is all right except that it is
not an apple and has nothing to do with mahogany. This shows how
much worse a compound name is than a simple name, since with a
simple name there can be but one error.

We shall endeavor to construct our history and evolution of maize
along these lines, though not keeping the same order.

Maize has not been found in the wild state, although it is such a
remarkable plant it seems improbable that with our present knowledge
of plant distribution it should remain undiscovered if in existence.
This fact has made the problem of its nativity very difficult, even
though Americans have been satisfied of its new-world origin for some
time. Competent critics have skillfully argued old-world origin, and
from the strictly historical point of view there was earlier much to be

A CHRONICLE OF THE TRIBE OF CORN

229

said in their favor. The word maize (mays) itself is strictly Ameri-
can, but this name has been in use only since adopted by Matthiole in
1570. In modern European languages the common name has been one
purporting to show eastern origin, in English Indian corn, in French
blS de Turquie or Turkish wheat. Since maize is not wheat, it might
almost be concluded it was not Turkish. The trouble was. one could
not prove it. As a matter of fact, such names only show the tendency
of a people simply to indicate the foreign origin of an introduced art-
icle, as when the French gave the name coq d'Inde or Indian cock to the
American turkey. According to De Candolle maize was called Roman
corn in Lorraine and Yosges, Sicilian corn in Tuscany, Indian corn in
Sicily and Spanish corn in the Pyrenees. The Turks call it Egyptian
corn and the Egyptians, Syrian dourra, which prove it to be neither
Egyptian nor Syrian.

It has been generally agreed by historians that there was no Hebrew
or Sanskrit word for maize and that there was no Egyptian representa-
tion of the plant. It is true, Rifaud found an ear of maize in a tomb at
Thebes, but this was the work of a modern impostor, for if maize had
been a crop of ancient Egypt, pictures of it would have been as plentiful
as they are of other Egyptian plants. The plant certainly was not
known in Europe in early times, but the question ever arose whether or
not it could have been introduced from the East during the Middle
Ages. Bonafous, who was the foremost writer on the subject in the
early nineteenth century, took this view and was responsible for long-
continued doubt on the subject. The principal evidence on the ques-
tion was that obtained from a charter drawn up between two crusaders
in 1204, according to which seeds thought to be maize and brought
from Anatolia were presented to the town of Incisa. Historians of the
crusades made much of this charter, although botanists thought from

Fig. 4. A Giant Flour Corn from Peru compared with a Dwarf Pop Corn

from the United States.

23°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig.

A Prize-winning Sweet Corn.

their description that the seeds might be sorghum instead of maize.
The absurdity of relying on such isolated clues came out with the dis-
covery that the whole charter of Incisa was a modern fabrication.

The only other evidence of eastern origin that there has been any
trouble in demolishing is a picture of an ear of maize together with its
ideograph in a Chinese book written some time between 1578 and 1597.
Since the Portugese came to China in 1516 and to Java 20 years earlier,
it is plain this is not good evidence of Chinese origin. During the half-
century between this date and the date of the article, nothing could be
more probable than Portugese introduction of maize into China.
Furthermore, the fullness of early Chinese records is such that they
would hardly have remained silent on an important agricultural crop
until 1578.

Pig. 6. A " Champion " Sample of our Greatest Economic Treasure,

the Improved Dent Corn.

A CHRONICLE OF THE TRIBE OF CORN

231

This dearth of early records of the plant in the old world shows
convincingly the American origin of the plant, for after the discovery
of America its cultivation became rapidly diffused, a proof that if in-
digenous to Asia it would have been important agriculturally for cen-
turies.

On the other hand, no one has ever questioned the fact that maize
was widely cultivated in America at the time the country was discov-
ered by Europeans. It was the staple crop in both continents and had
names in all the native languages. Its antiquity and importance are
evidenced by its prominence in the religious rites of the people. The
North American burial mounds, the tombs of the Incas and the temples
of Mexico were made depositories of the seeds just as the tombs and
temples of Egypt treasured wheat and barley. These facts do not indi-
cate antiquity in cultivation equal to that of Egypt, however, for the

Fig. 7. An Ear of the Mexican Podded Corn (Zea mays tunicata).

civilization of the Peruvians and Mexicans is known to be of a much
later era. At the same time, one may assume a history much longer
than that indicated by these data for two reasons : from its wide dis-
tribution and numerous ancient varieties, and from Darwin's discovery
of its seeds mixed with shells buried in soil along the Peruvian shore
that had become raised by natural action 85 feet above sea level.

The American origin of maize being assured, interest in our prob-
lem narrows. The Americas are large. To what particular part was
the plant indigenous? First let me say that it is a peculiar fact that
the vast territory now known as the United States produced no culti-
vated plants of first importance. Excluding the Jerusalem artichoke,
some comparatively unimportant berries and some relatives of the apple,
our country gave man no agricultural treasures. It merely accepted
with thanks the lavish generosity of the tropics. As far as maize is con-
cerned, the physiology of the plant itself corroborates this statement.
It germinates and grows best in hot climates. We must look for the
home of maize, therefore, in the plains or plateaus of tropical North

232

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 8. A Reversion to the Ancient Branched Ear Type.

or South America — the plains because annuals do not develop in
forested regions. Under the circumstances, our search need only be the
less troublesome absentia search in botanical records, since the regions
have been combed by botanical explorers for three hundred years.
The result as far as maize is concerned was nil. Perhaps though the
word nothing is too exclusive. First cousins of our interesting family
were discovered in Mexico and Guatemala, the plant called teosinte;
and experimental evidence indicates a sufficiently near relation to justify
these regions as the original home of the emigrant. This evidence,
which gives us a picture of the original plant, is now to be considered.
Maize varieties differing slightly from each other are now numbered
by the hundred. Of these, five or six differ by very distinct characters
and have come to be thought of as subspecies. Those known as dent,
flint, pop, sweet and flour corns are familiar to every one. One known
as Curagua with toothed leaf edges, one with very hairy leaves known as
hirta and one in which each seed is covered with husks or glumes known
as tunicata are not so common. These varieties are our heritage from
the aboriginal inhabitants, for each was known and cultivated some-

Pig. 9. A Common Reversion having Seeds on the Tassel.

A CHRONICLE OF THE TRIBE OF CORN

233

where on the continent before the arrival of Europeans. They are con-
sidered by botanists as one species. The wild relative teosinte has been
thought to be not only a distinct species but a member of a different
genus. There is good evidence, however, that there is not a much
greater difference between teosinte and the maize nearest like it than
there is between a number of the most distinct maize varieties. These
facts make it reasonable to suppose that both types arose from a com-
mon ancestor slightly different from each.

Teosinte and maize belong to the tribe Maydese, a division of the
Gramineas or true grasses. Our final problem is to connect the steps in
the evolution of maize that distinguish it from the more typical grasses
and if possible to picture the restored original form. The data from
which one can do this come from observations of thousands of crosses
between the different maize varieties.

JMll**

f*^j

it i\J V

w r

T _■

^^BE|*

^ii, -,'*

: - s-S^

Fig. 10. A Rare Reversion to Perfect Flowers.
Note the stamens around the seeds.

Sweet corn is probably the most recent type. Sweet corns are simply
dent, flint, pop and floury types that have lost the ability to mature
starch grains. This is proved by crossing it with starchy kinds. For
example, dent corns crossed with certain sweet corns produce flint types
in the second hybrid generation. Starchiness is put into the hybrid by
the dent variety and the latent flintiness of the sweet variety appears.

In the same way crossing indicates that as the pop or poplike va-
rieties increased in size by numerous slight variations, the flint, the
dent, and the floury kinds were produced through the correlation be-
tween the structure of the seeds and their size. This brings us back to
a many-branched pop-like variety, examples of which are common
enough to-day.

Most maize varieties have naked seeds, a feature unlike other
grasses including teosinte. The remaining members of the familv have

234

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Fig. 11. Teosinte. (Photo by L. H. Smith.)

the seeds protected from animal marauders by husks or glumes. This
is again a simplification caused by the loss of a character, as is proved
by crossing the ordinary maize varieties with the variety tunicata in
which the character still remains. This gives us a grass-like corn with
each seed covered — a plant in many ways like teosinte. It still differs
from it by but one important and several unimportant characters, and
the difference can not be particularly significant, for maize and teosinte
cross freely and give fertile hybrids.

The difference is this: The female or pistillate spike of maize, the
part which we call the ear, consists apparently of several two-rowed

Fig. 12. A Teosinte-Maize Hybrid showing the Dominance of the
Teosinte Characters. (Photo by Webber.)

A CHRONICLE OF THE TRIBE OF CORN 235

•spikelets grown together; the same part in teosinte consists of bundles
of distinct two-rowed spikelets with jointed axes. It takes two steps
to bring maize to something like this condition. Ordinary maize va-
rieties often produce individuals that have ears branched in much the
same manner as the tassel or male spike. This is probably a reversion
toward a former type. At least, pure varieties of this kind can be iso-
lated. Furthermore it can be shown by crossing that the branched con-
dition is due to a single hereditary character that has been lost by the
cultivated kinds. The other step is the increase in number of rows,
giving us the fine ears with from 18 to 24 rows that take the prizes in
the agricultural shows. This feature is probably not due to the grow-
ing together of the spikelets. It is much more likely that increased
number of parts came about through progressive variations, much as
the increase of petals has brought the horticulturist so many double
flowers. This type of variation is very common and still continues in
maize, for the prize ears of the exhibitions contain many more rows
than the more ancient little flints that were grown by the east coast
red men.

The fact that but two essential variations, kinds that continue to
occur, separate teosinte 2 from the maize nearest like it, combined with
the fact that the two are fertile in crosses lead me to believe that the
two plants are simply diverse types of the same polymorphic aggrega-
tion, although they may be called species if one desires.

Perhaps we should stop here and not follow the path of speculation
to its uttermost limit; still there are two more backward steps indi-
cated by studying the cultivated plant. The plant is monoecious; that
is, the male organs and the female organs are borne in separate flowers,
though both are found on the same plant. This condition is not un-
common among the grasses although it is not the primitive condition.
The unique fact is that the female flowers that form the ears are borne
on short branches in the axils of the leaves of the maize stalk, while the
male flowers are borne in a terminal spike, the tassel. This method of
flowering is not so peculiar if the ear branch is examined. The husks
that surround the ear are merely the leaves of the lateral branch upon
which the ear is borne as a terminal spike. The lateral branch has
simply shortened. It is telescoped together until the distance between
the nodes is sometimes not more than an eighth of an inch. It seems
just to conclude from the number of these internodes that the ear branch
was at one time as long as that portion of the main stalk above the ear,
that the flower spikes of the ancestral plant were once more or less level
topped, bringing them into a horizontal plane. What caused the change

2 There are a large number of characters of less importance separating
maize and teosinte that show that the two plants have developed along different
lines after their separation from an ancestor more like both.

236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

we do not know, but if the plants were already monoecious before the
change, and such a variation occurred, it would have been likely to have
continued to exist in competition with the parent form on account of
the greater chance for perfect fertilization of the silks.

The last step in our history is to make ancestral maize a perfect
flowered species ; that is, a form in which each flower has both male and
female organs. There is no question but that this was once the case.
"We know it by the characters possessed by the more ancient wild
grasses and by the ease with which the plant reverts to the former con-
dition. No one has isolated a race that breeds true to the older type,
but every one who has raised corn has seen hundreds of tassels contain-
ing little seeds. It would seem that kindly external conditions alone
are sufficient to bring back to the corn the memory of its old habit.
When moisture is plentiful and the soil fertile, one can see these freaks
by the hundreds in almost every field. The production of male flowers
or their essential parts, the stamens, on the ears is much more rare, but
it does occur.

Onr history is complete. We can picture to ourselves the wild
promaize growing on the plateaus of Mexico and Central America
thousands of years ago. A towering prince of grasses it was, bearing its
tiny seeds on loose spikes at the ends of the branches. Conditions
changed. The perfect flowers separated into two kinds, bearing organs
of the different sexes. A type with shortened side branches appeared,
giving the seeds greater protection from feathered and furry enemies.
This was probably the grain that some wise man among the forerun-
ners of the Toltecs discovered and made the foundation of American
agriculture. From that time forth cultivation made possible the selec-
tion of variations that would not have survived in the wild. Variation
must have been plentiful, and our aboriginal corn breeders less foolish
in agriculture than they were in commerce, as is demonstrated by the
numerous varieties improved by long selection presented to the white
man in return for a few paltry beads of colored glass.

THE NITROGEN OF THE AIR 237

THE UTILIZATION OF THE NITROGEN OF THE AIR

By ARTHUR A. NOYES

PROFESSOR OF THEORETICAL CHEMISTRY IN THE
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

A GERMAN geographer has estimated that the world contains
1,700 million people, and that they are increasing at the rate
of twelve million a year. During each succeeding decade, therefore,
provision must be made for feeding a new population greater than the
present population of the United States. This demands an enormous,
steadily growing increase in the world's output of agricultural products.
How to provide for this increase is one of the largest material problems
that confronts our generation and the generations to come. Many
factors must contiibute to its solution. New land must be brought
under cultivation by a wider distribution of population, by increased
facilities of transportation, by better utilization of the available water-
supply through storage and irrigation. A larger yield per acre must
be secured by improvement of the varieties of food-yielding plants
through biological selection and breeding, through the adoption of more
economical methods of farming, and especially through increasing and
maintaining the fertility of the land by the scientific use of fertilizers
in adequate amount.

This last aspect of the problem is the one with which this article is
concerned. It is a vital part of the food problem, one which can not
be eliminated by advances in any of the other directions just referred
to; for plants can not live on water and air alone. They consist, to be
sure, in largest proportion of compounds of carbon, hydrogen and
oxygen; and they have the marvelous power of producing these
compounds under the influence of sunlight from the carbon di-
oxide of the air and the water of the soil. But they contain also
as essential constituents certain other elements, especially nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium, which they can not obtain from the air,
which they must therefore extract from the soil. These elements
are, however, present only in small quantity even in virgin soil;
and they soon become exhausted through the harvesting of successive
crops. It is therefore necessary, in the long run, to return to the soil
the quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that are contained
in the vegetable products taken from it.

The sources from which we can obtain these three plant-foods
cheaply and abundantly is so large a question that only one of them,
nitrogen, will be here considered. Of the three this is by far the most
expensive — by far the most difficult to obtain in sufficient quantity at
low cost.

238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Before discussing the present and prospective sources of supply of
useful compounds of this element, it should be mentioned that, though
the consumption of these compounds in fertilizers exceeds all other
uses of them, yet enormous quantities are required in other industries.
Thus, the powerful modern explosives which have made practicable
great engineering works, like the Panama Canal and the Hudson River
tunnels, are all nitrogen compounds — made by the action of nitric
acid on glycerin, cotton, or some other material. Most of the so-called
coal-tar products, the artificial clyestuffs, drugs and perfumes, are also
prepared from the substances distilled out of the tar by first treating
these substances with nitric acid. Ammonia, too, a compound of
nitrogen with hydrogen, is used in large quantity in refrigerating
plants and in various chemical industries.

Up to a few years ago, there were only two important commercial
sources of nitrogen-compounds — the great natural deposits of sodium
nitrate (the so-called Chili saltpeter) in Chili, Peru and Bolivia; and
the crude ammonium sulfate obtained in the manufacture of gas and
coke from coal. But the saltpeter deposits will, at the present rate of
exploitation, become exhausted within a period variously estimated at
from 30 to 100 years; and, in the meantime, owing to increased cost of
production, the price of the saltpeter is steadily rising, thus restricting
its availability as a fertilizer. The ammonia produced in gas and
coke works is only a by-product; and the quantity of it can not of
course be increased beyond that corresponding to the demand for the
main products, gas and coke. The total quantity of ammonia thus
produced is in fact entirely insufficient to furnish the nitrogen used in
fertilizers; and by far the larger proportion of commercial nitrogen is
still derived from the saltpeter deposits of South America.

The nitrogen from these sources costs to-day in American or Euro-
pean markets not far from 15 cents a pound — a price which is causing
a nitrogen famine among the crops of the world; for the cost is too
high to admit of spreading it in adequate quantity over the millions of
acres of land under cultivation. This condition of things offers a
challenge to the scientific investigator. For, though nitrogen is one
of the commonest elements, forming as it does, four fifths of our
atmosphere, yet we are drawing nearly all our nitrogen from South
American mines or from gas works and are paying fifteen cents a
pound to get it in a form available for plant life.

It might seem as if the problem of converting the nitrogen of the
air into compounds that can be assimilated by plants was essentially a
chemical one; but recent discoveries have opened also to the biologist
a great field of investigation in this direction. For it has been found
that, although the higher plants can not utilize directly the nitrogen
of the atmosphere, there are certain common kinds of bacteria, which

THE NITROGEN OF THE AIR 239

make their homes on the roots of leguminous plants, such as the pea,
bean and clover, which have the power of absorbing nitrogen from the
air and of converting it within the roots of the plant into organic
nitrogen compounds.

This discovery explains for the first time the fact long known to
farmers that the richness of the soil can be increased by rotation of
crops — a fact so extraordinary, till its explanation was understood,
that one might well have wondered whether it was not one of the
fallacious traditions which are so common among farmers and sailors.
This increased fertility is now readily accounted for as follows. Sup-
pose that a crop of wheat is first grown on a piece of land, and that
thereby the nitrogen compounds in the soil are largely consumed in
producing the nitrogen compounds contained in the grain. Suppose
now that the next year the same land is planted with clover. As it
, grows, the bacteria referred to develop upon its roots, absorb nitrogen
from the air, and store up in the roots an abundant supply of nitro-
genous compounds. After the clover crop is harvested, these roots
decay in the soil, yield up to it their nitrogen-content, which becomes
available for the nourishment of a new wheat crop during the follow-
ing year.

An interesting illustration of these considerations has been fur-
nished within recent years by the vegetation of the island of Krakatoa.
It will be remembered that this island was overwhelmed in the year
1883 by an eruption of its volcano, which destroyed all vegetation and
buried the original soil beneath a thick layer of volcanic ashes. It
might have been expected that this new soil of ashes, which was of
course free from all nitrogenous organic matter, would not be able to
support plant life ; yet the island soon became covered with an abundant
growth. This vegetation was found, however, to be of an unusual
character, in that it consisted very largely of leguminous plants — that
is, of those plants which, with the aid of bacteria, can take their
nitrogen directly from the air.

These facts suggest that the problem of supplying plants with the
nitrogen needed by them may ultimately be solved most simply and
directly by the biologist. For through further study of the conditions
determining the activities of different species of nitrogen-absorbing
bacteria, considered in relation to the kind of crop, the character of the
soil and other agricultural conditions, it may prove practicable, by
inoculating the soil with the proper kind of bacteria and by treating
it in such ways as will best regulate bacterial growth, to secure all the
needed nitrogen from the air. Already, government agricultural sta-
tions are furnishing pure cultures of nitrogen-absorbing bacteria which
have a limited value in the case of certain soils.

Until such a perfect solution of the problem can be worked out by

2 4 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the biologist, we shall, however, be dependent on nitrogenous fertil-
izers; and one of the great tasks of the chemist is to cheapen such
fertilizers by obtaining the nitrogen contained in them directly from
the air. During the last ten years great progress has been made in
this direction; and it remains to describe briefly, without entering into
technical details, the general lines along which this problem has been
successfully attacked.

Two kinds of processes have been developed. One of these has the
object of producing nitric acid, a compound of water with one of the
oxides of nitrogen. The other kind of process has for its object the
production of ammonia, a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen. For
use in a fertilizer the nitric acid, which is a liquid, or the ammonia,
which is a gas, must of course be converted into a solid salt. This is
most cheaply done by neutralizing the nitric acid with lime or the
ammonia with sulfuric acid, yielding calcium nitrate or ammonium
sulfate, respectively. Whether the nitrate or the ammonium salt is
made the constituent of the fertilizer makes little difference ; for, though
plants directly assimilate the nitrogen only in the form of nitrate, yet
there are always present in soils the so-called nitrifying bacteria, whose
function it is to convert ammonium compounds into nitrates.

Xitric acid is a compound whose constituents, nitrogen, oxygen and
water, are present in unlimited quantities in the air. The raw ma-
terials are available free of cost. The problem is therefore only to
make them combine under economic conditions. The difficulty arises
from the fact that nitrogen is an extremely stable substance; so that,
instead of tending to form compounds with oxygen, the nitrogen oxides
tend rather to break down into their elements, nitrogen and oxygen.
Thus, scientific investigations have shown that if a mixture of these
two gases in the best proportions is exposed to a temperature of 1500°
centigrade, that is, to a white heat, only one third of one per cent,
unites to form nitric oxide, however long the mixture be heated. But
these investigations have also shown that while most compounds decom-
pose with rise of temperature, this one, nitric oxide, becomes more
stable, the higher the temperature. Thus at 3000° five per cent, of
the mixture of nitrogen and oxygen will unite to form nitric oxide.
To get a fair yield of our product we must therefore expose air to an
enormously high temperature. But this isn't all ; for we must cool off
the gas without causing the nitric oxide which has been formed to
break up again into nitrogen and oxygen. To do this, we must call
to our aid another chemical principle, which is this : although the
quantity of a product finally formed in a chemical piocess sometimes
increases and sometimes (as in this case) decreases with falling tem-
perature, yet the rate at which that product forms or decomposes
always decreases very rapidly as the temperature is lowered. We must,

THE NITROGEN OF TEE AIR 241

therefore, expose the air to a very high temperature and then very
suddenly cool it to a temperature so. low that the nitrogen oxide already
formed does not decompose at an appreciable rate.

These conditions have been practically realized in only one way —
by causing an electric discharge, similar to that in an ordinary arc
lamp, to take place in air. The temperature of the arc is enormously
high, but the air just outside of it is comparatively cool; so that any
nitrogen oxide formed at the boundaries of the arc mixes at once with
the colder air and thus escapes decomposition. The excess of air con-
taining the oxides of nitrogen is then passed into towers filled with
quartz over which water is trickling, whereby nitric acid is formed.

It is not necessary to enter further into details; for these are the
essential features of the commercial process for the manufacture of
nitric acid which is now being carried out on a large scale at Notodden
in Norway. Aside from the cost of installing and maintaining the
electrical and absorbing apparatus, the only large expense involved in
the process is the cost of power used in producing the electric discharge.
The works must therefore be located where water-power is obtainable
at the lowest possible cost; and Norway was naturally chosen as the
seat of the industry in Europe. The saltpeter factories there are
already utilizing 200,000 horse-power; and thousands of tons of their
product have been shipped to this country, for use in fertilizing the
fruit orchards of California and the sugar plantations of Hawaii.

Almost simultaneously with this process for the manufacture of
nitrate there is being developed a process for the artificial production
of ammonia, its competitor in the fertilizer field. The aim is to pro-
duce this compound also from its elementary constitutents, nitrogen
and hydrogen. Nearly pure nitrogen can now be obtained cheaply
from the air by a commercial process which up to twenty years ago had
been carried out only on the smallest laboratory scale; namely, by
liquefying air with the aid of a liquid-air machine, and then distilling
the mixture of nitrogen and oxygen, much as a mixture of alcohol and
water is distilled in the rectification of spirit. The nitrogen, having
a much lower boiling-point, passes off first, yielding a gas containing
less than half a per cent, of oxygen, which can readily be removed from
it by chemical means. Pure hydrogen can be obtained cheaply by the
decomposition of water in two or three different ways. The raw ma-
terials needed for the production of ammonia, although not costless like
the air and water used in making nitric acid, are therefore obtainable
at low cost; and the main problem again consists in finding a practical
way of causing them to combine.

It is a curious fact that difficulties are met with here which are
just the reverse of those encountered in the synthesis of nitric acid.
Ammonia is a compound on which temperature has the opposite effect :

VOL. LXXXII.— 17.

242 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

instead of forming in larger proportion as the temperature is raised,
it forms in smaller proportion; thus, if a mixture of nitrogen and
hydrogen be heated for a long time to 800° centigrade, only one hun-
dredth of one per cent, of ammonia forms, while it can be calculated
that at 400° one half of one per cent, of ammonia must finally result.
We ought therefore to work at as low a temperature as possible; but
we then meet the difficulty that the rate of combination becomes
extremely slow. Thus, owing to the extreme inertness of nitrogen, no
detectable quantity of ammonia is produced, even when nitrogen and
hydrogen are heated together for several hours at 400°. When, how-
ever, it is known that a chemical change tends to take place in a certain
direction and when the only difficulty is that it is going on too slowly,
there is always a reasonable hope of overcoming this difficulty; for we
know that chemical changes are often greatly accelerated by mere con-
tact with suitable solid substances. Such substances are called catalyz-
ers, and Professor Wilhelm Ostwald, one of Germany's distinguished
scientists, predicted a dozen years ago that the great advances in the
chemical industries within the next few decades would be made through
the more extensive employment of catalytic processes. This prediction
has found one of its many fulfilments in the commercial development
of the method for the production of ammonia here under considera-
tion. For after many years' investigation, certain metals have been
found which cause a rapid combination of nitrogen and hydrogen even
at comparatively low temperatures. The first metal that was found to
have this power in a marked degree was osmium, a metal similar to
platinum. As the total quantity of this element in our possession is
estimated to be 200 pounds, and as it is valued at about $1,000 a
pound, this discovery was hardly a practical one. Later it was found,
however, that under special conditions some of the commoner metals,
such as uranium, manganese, and even iron, when extremely pure, can
be made to serve the purpose. Without entering into further details,
it may be stated that a satisfactory yield of ammonia can be attained
by carefully purifying the hydrogen and nitrogen gases, by highly
compressing them (up to 50 or 100 atmospheres) and then passing the
compressed gases slowly over one of these metals at 500-600° ; and
that a large factory for the manufacture of ammonia by this process
is now being erected in Germany.

Certain other chemical processes for the fixation of atmospheric
nitrogen, less direct than those already described, but nevertheless
commercially practicable, have also been developed and put into opera-
tion within the past ten years. There is therefore little doubt that
from these sources a large additional supply of nitrogen-compounds
will soon be available and that their cost will be gradually lowered.
To the vital problem of feeding the human race the chemist is there-
fore making an important contribution.

THE LABORATORY METHOD 243

THE LABORATORY METHOD AND HIGH SCHOOL

EFFICIENCY

By Professor OTIS W. CALDWELL

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

IT is a striking fact that for twenty years there has been no increase
in the percentage of pupils who complete a high school course.
In the period between 1900 and 1910, the number of pupils in public
high schools in the United States has increased over 76 per cent, (from
519,251 to 915,061). * During this same period the number of high
school teachers who teach these pupils has increased over 100 per cent,
(from 20,372 to 41,667). The number and value of high school prop-
erties has increased proportionately during this period, including im-
provement in the quality and quantity of facilities for work in libraries,
laboratories, gymnasia, etc. But for twenty years, approximately twelve
per ceut. of the enrollment of the high schools has been graduated. Re-
gardless of the increase in facilities, and of an increase in teaching
force, which is one third greater than the increase in the number of
pupils, and of an assumed increase in the relative efficiency of this
teaching force, and regardless of the increased public belief in second-
ary education, there has been no increase in twenty years in the per-
centage of high school pupils that take a full high school course. The
fact that they begin the work indicates clearly that some one in con-
trol regards it as worth while for some reason for these pupils to engage
upon the work of the secondary schools, though they may at the outset
expect to do but one or a few years of the work. But the fact that ap-
proximately 88 per cent, do not complete a course indicates that most
of those who thought it worth while to enter the high school, for some
or many reasons do not find it possible or perhaps not worth while to
follow out the course, even if at the outset they intend doing so.

Failure to carry school work is one prominent factor in the elimina-
tion of pupils from school, though doubtless the content of the curric-
ulum, and social and economic conditions may often be determining or
contributing factors. In one large high school 432 pupils entered the
freshmen class in the autumn of 1909. Of these 432, 338 left school
before completing the third semester, thus leaving 94 of the original
432 in school. Of those who left, 124 made no passing credit in the
school and 121 others failed to receive passing credits in 43 per cent, of
the subjects which they took. The remaining 93 pupils who left school
made average grades above 80 per cent. (75 being the passing grade in
1 Ann. Rep. U. S. Com. of Ed., 1911, p. 9.

244 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

this school) though the pupils failed to secure credit in 22 per cent, of
their subjects. There were, therefore, 245 of the 338 pupils who had a
percentage of failure from nearly half to all of their subjects, and 93
pupils who failed in 22 per cent, of their work. The 94 pupils who
remained in school failed to receive credit in slightly less than 5 per
cent, of their subjects.

It seems possible that this case is more striking than would usually
appear from such investigations since the problems associated with this
particular school may be peculiarly difficult.

In a careful study made by Mr. G. E. Johnson, of St. Louis, and
covering records from twelve high schools with a total number of 18,-
926 pupils, he finds that approximately 90 per cent, of those pupils
who were failing in their work left school, while but ten per cent.
■of those who were making 90 per cent, or better in their work
left school. This percentage of those who failed and left school re-
mains almost constant throughout the four years, with the exception
that in the Chicago and Kansas City schools rather a larger percentage
of the failures drop out in the earlier years than in the later years,
while in the smaller schools the percentage of dropping out of those who
fail remains about the same throughout the whole high school course.

Doubtless the compulsory attendance law and the sixteen-year labor
law often are factors in continuing for a time the attendance of pupils
who do poorly, and that with the close of the sixteenth year economic
•and social necessity takes many pupils out of school. But we must note
i;he fact that the percentage of failures who leave school remains al-
most the same for all the years of the high school. Possibly the termi-
nation of the period when pupils must attend school may operate to re-
lieve those who are failing, from the necessity of further attendance in
an institution in which they do not "make good/'

School methods (of dealing day by day with the series of topics that
make up a given study) are often contributing causes to the failures
which lead pupils to leave school.

The present situation is interesting. In the elementary schools
from which these pupils have come to the high school, the school day
runs from 8 :30 or 9 :00 o'clock to 3 :30 or 4 :00 o'clock and the greater
part of all study is done during school hours, under direct or indirect
-supervision of the teacher. The teacher is present to correct any mis-
understandings in assignments, to give a directing question or sugges-
tion, or to quicken the endeavor, when such is needed. The work of
one year is fairly well connected with that of the preceding years and
partially new and partially old ground is covered each year. In the
high school, particularly, in the first year, the subjects of study are
largely or wholly new, often so new as to constitute fields quite un-
known to the pupils. Even when some of the subjects are not new, we

TEE LABORATORY METHOD 245

have a larger change than occurred between any two elementary grades.
Pupils in a given subject go to the special room of the teacher for their
recitations, recite and receive their assignment and then go to another
class room for another subject, or return to their assembly room or to
their homes with their assigned work for the next clay. The teacher in
the elementary school ordinarily meets the pupils of a given grade for
most or all of their work, and knows them as they appear in all their
work. In high school each teacher is especially interested in one or a
few subjects and this one or few are the only ones in which the teacher
knows his pupils. In the elementary schools the teacher usually stands
as representative of one grade of pupils. In the high school the teacher
usually stands as representative of a subject.

Not only does the first-year high school student encounter a new
content of subject matter, but usually a new kind of school day. Many
high schools begin work at 8 :30 or 9 :00 o'clock and close at 1 :00 or
1 :30 or 2 :00 o'clock. In many high schools all of the hours in school
are occupied in recitation or laboratory work, all individual study or
assignments being done away from school.

The conditions for home study present all the possible variations,
but most home study must be done under discursive influences — a little
study, a little conversation about irrelevant matter, an intermittent
discontinuance for small household duties, a prolonged intermission for
recreation, with the half-consciousness of wrong-doing because of un-
finished and overhanging lessons, even interrupted sleep because of a
number of unfinished tasks, a final effort to secure categorically such
facts regarding the assignment as are essential to enable the pupil to
meet the teacher, a consciousness of incompleteness of preparation and
a hope that, if called upon at all, the call may come for the facts that
are in the pupil's meager store. Often the pupil's own initiative to
home study must be supplemented by commands or entreaties from
parents, and sometimes parents must do pupil's work for them, under
penalty of family chagrin due to impending failure of the child. In
most cases poor habits of study and an essentially immoral attitude
toward study result from purported home study, though some pupils of
good ability and strong individuality may do quite effective or superior
work through home study. The habit of dawdling, waste of time in
getting to work, wondering whether the work really must be done,
whether a lexicon, cyclopedia, or parental answer to questions may not
be found, leaves an entirely improper attitude toward real study.
Sham work, at first as a makeshift, later becomes the only kind of
which some individuals are capable.

Some important experiments have been made to determine the rela-
tive value of directed and individual class-room study.

It has seemed to several teachers to be worth while to see if more

246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

carefully directed class-room study, less so-called recitation and less
home work might not yield better results.

Experiments in mathematics have been carried on by Mr. Ernest
E. Breslich, of the University High School (Chicago), Department of
Mathematics. At the outset Mr. Breslich found that some pupils who
did poorly on their assigned work did not understand the suggestions
that had been given regarding good ways for undertaking the home
work. Parents insisted that the assignments made were impossible,
whereas for one reason or another the pupils had failed to get essen-
tial suggestions regarding the assignment. Even with assignments
clearly understood certain habits of home study which did not exist
had been assumed. A series of visits to other classes showed similar
conditions. Pupils reported poor results from their home study, various
excuses or no excuses being offered. The teacher explained away the
pupil's difficulties and, in most cases, the pretense of having the work
done at home was continued.

To ascertain the ways in which the members of one class attack
their work, Mr. Breslich assigned a lesson, taking unusual care to make
clear all phases of the assignment. The class was then told that the
next fifteen minutes would be given to studying the lesson assigned.
All pupils were slow in beginning the work and some occupied all of the
fifteen minutes in getting ready to go to work. Some who ordinarily
came to class with well-prepared lessons looked about to see how others
were undertaking the work, and followed them. Few really accom-
plished anything in the fifteen minutes.

To investigate more carefully these individual habits of study, Mr.
Breslich told his classes that at a certain hour each day the class room
would be open to students who had difficulty with assignments or
wished to make up back work, and good use was made of this oppor-
tunity. The teacher passed about among the pupils as they worked,
making suggestions, but rarely answering questions directly.

It was then decided to make more prolonged trial of this supervised
study with all members of one class. In one section of the class no
home work was assigned and in the other section home work was as-
signed and in the usual way. The two sections had the same work.
Both spent fourteen lessons on simultaneous linear equations, at the
end of which the same test was given to both sections. The relative
standings in grades which these two sections received upon the same
examination, at the close of the preceding semester in mathematics,
that is prior to beginning these experiments, are: Section A, average
81.4; Section B, average 79.4, B being slightly weaker than A. In
Section B 5.9 of the class had failed in the preceding semester and
none in Section A.

Section A was given home work with no class room supervised

THE LABORATORY METHOD 247

study. Section B was given supervised study and no home work.
Upon the test following the fourteen lessons their standings were:

Section A — with home work and no supervised study averaged 62.8,
with 50 per cent, receiving the failure mark.

Section B — with supervised study and no home work averaged 65.5,
with 31.2 receiving the failure mark. It is to be noted that Section B,
a somewhat weaker section, surpassed Section A, and that its lower
number of failures indicates that the poorer pupils profited most from
the supervised study. Section A reported an average of 1J hours spent
on each lesson, while in Section B the actual time of class work was
36 minutes per day. Section B solved an average of two problems more
to each pupil than did Section A. With the supervised class work as a
basis, too much time was spent on the home assignments. Section B
worked slowly during the first three lessons, but with the development
of independence and confidence they soon worked rapidly. The interest
and pleasure of Section B, some of whom had failed in the preceding
semester, were noticeable.

In the following topic to which six lessons were given, the methods
were reversed, Section A being given supervised class-room work and
Section B home assignments, and class recitations. At the close of this
series of lessons the same test was given both sections with the result
that Section A with supervised work and no home work averaged 77.5,
and Section B with home work and recitations averaged 86.4.

12.5 per cent, of Section A failed on the test and 5.7 of Section B
failed.

31.2 per cent, of Section A secured a mark of A, and 52.9 per cent,
of B secured the A mark.

This seems to show that the pupils in Section B, by means of their
previous fourteen supervised lessons, had learned enough about inde-
pendent study to enable them to do their home work in such a way that
Section A even under supervision did not surpass Section B in six les-
sons. The ability of Section B, gained under supervision, persisted in
home study through six following lessons.

In the Detroit Central High School a different plan has been fol-
lowed in some experiments in algebra and Latin. Principal David Mc-
Kenzie writes :

We have experimented somewhat with a plan to give additional direction to
the weaker pupils of the ninth grade. I cite the two cases of first course in
Algebra and Latin. At the end of ten weeks all pupils who were marked failing
in these subjects were grouped together for special work in addition to their
regular recitation periods. They were given twenty lessons each, on the ground
covered during a period of six or seven weeks. Each pupil was treated as a
pathological subject. In the final test they were marked as follows:

248 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Latin

Total number of pupils 15

Number marked ' ' Excellent " 1

Number marked ' ' Good " 6

Number marked ' ' Fair " 3

Number marked ' ' Weak " 1

Number ' ' Not passed " 3

Number "Left" 1

Algebra

Total number of pupils 20

Number marked ' ' Excellent " 2

Number marked ' ' Good ; ' 4

Number marked ' ' Fair " 3

Number marked ' ' Weak " 5

Number marked ' ' Not passed " 3

Number marked ' ' Left " 3

It is plainly evident that a large number of ninth grade pupils need greater
direction than they receive at present, and I am convinced that we must resort
to some plan to give them this additional help, if we are to eliminate excessive
mortality in this grade.

The double period plan is in use in many schools. In the Joilet
Township High School for some years two periods per day, ten hours
per week in all, have been given to all science work, manual training,
domestic science and mechanical drawing, this period being used both
for study and recitation. This school has also used this plan with be-
ginning algebra, beginning geometry and beginning history. In Joilet
the consensus of opinion of teachers is that the plan is successful. Prin-
cipal J. Stanley Brown states that by such a scheme " the percentage of
failures may be reduced to a minimum, and that is a compensation for
the slight increase in teaching force and extra amount of money spent
for teaching."

At Murphrysboro, 111., an experiment (in manual training) has
been under way which, while not bearing directly upon our question,
has a collateral bearing upon it by indicating that even single periods
and more prolonged periods of class instruction may sometimes be
used in such ways as to make the shorter and not the longer period de-
sirable, though doubtless longer periods usually are desirable.

A small class of boys in manual training was divided, one section
being given single periods for this work, the other the same number of
double periods. The principal, Mr. G. J. Koons, stated that the single
period pupils were not above the double-period boys in their general
class standing nor in ability. All were given piece work and records
were kept of the hours used by each boy in completing each piece of
work. Eleven pieces of work were completed by each pupil. The single
period pupils used approximately 25 per cent, less time on an average
for each piece than the double-period boys, and on the test given to all

THE LABORATORY METHOD 249

at the close of the work, the single period pupils averaged 7 per cent,
above the double-period pupils. This experiment suggests a possible
waste of time in longer periods, possibly lack of readiness in attack-
ing work, of attention and high tension of effort throughout the period.
It is well known that appreciation of relative shortness of time avail-
able usually results in higher alertness, readiness of attack, higher tone
and more constant prosecution of the work in hand. It must be kept
in mind that the Murphrj^sboro experiment involves a small number of
pupils and withal may be more of a suggestion of method than of the
value of any particular length of period given to a study. Most teach-
ers who have tried class-room directed study find double periods, part
for study and part for general discussion, most effective.

Variations of the above experiment are under way in other schools.

Throughout the whole United States there has been a significant
attempt to introduce courses in general science into the first year of the
high school. While in different schools these courses vary largely in
their content, length and in many details of method, they agree in their
purpose of being less formal, less rigid and abstract than the highly
differentiated sciences, and in selecting and treating topics in science
in such ways that the pupils think through these topics with good
methods of thinking and with a knowledge content that appeals to the
pupils as being worth while. The dominant method is that of class
study of real things and real situations. An active attempt is made to
secure individual experimentation or individual study from every pupil.
The whole general science movement is an attempt to secure a scientific
method of work, upon concrete problems, the significance of which ap-
peals to the worker. We have been putting first-year pupils into formal
sciences which were beautifully organized and orderly, possibly even ele-
mentary from the point of view of the adult science and the research
student, but which are an abstract field to the pupil who has not been
led to rationalize the common phenomena of his surroundings. This
general science course has met a splendid response and its method has
resulted in more effective work in subjects other than science during
the first year and in the sciences in the following years. It is stated
by teachers and principals that where significant laboratory courses in
general science are given, fewer pupils fail in their work, more remain
in school in the second year, and there is a much larger demand in
subsequent years for courses that utilize laboratory methods, similar to
those of general science courses. The method and significant content of
the general science course seems to prepare in ability to work and in
desire to work in other laboratory courses. My own observation leads
me to conclude that the oft-made statement that pupils are naturally
averse to work, is much exaggerated. If properly guided to inde-
pendent, purposeful study, really significant work becomes a pleasure
to most pupils.

250 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

General science is an attempt to get back to the valuable parts of
the natural history of our fathers, the purposeful, dynamic, thoughtful
but elementary interpretation of common significant problems. The
kind of interpretation which physiography promised to give when it
first came into secondary schools and which physiography may still
serve to unify better perhaps than any other single branch of science.

The more fully directed study in general science and in other labo-
ratory sciences presents an opportunity for individual, first-hand study
of concrete things for experiment and interpretation of phenomena.
But, as is true in other high school subjects, it is wasteful for the
science teacher merely to assure himself that the pupils and materials
are enclosed within the same room. Science in which we boast of con-
crete studies, of the laboratory method and of the possible significance
of content that is unsurpassed, has sometimes become as formal in its
home assignments as unlikely of achievement, its recitations as free
from individual dynamic activity as any other subjects. It as well
as the other subjects needs to be revived by use of its own concrete labo-
ratory method. Laboratory teaching in science or other subjects may
rise to the highest level of excellence or may descend to a meaningless
mechanical manipulation that is deadening. But it is believed that -the
laboratory method offers us an important method greatly needed in all
our high school subjects, most seriously needed in the first years of the
high school.

It must be obvious that if such methods of high school work as
suggested by the experiments cited above are used, some important
changes must be effected. Most important is wider recognition of real
teaching, real development of pupil-power, as compared with assigning
and hearing lessons and telling facts to pupils, in case they have not
understood them. Eecitations and class discussions and home assign-
ments should not be wholly omitted, but these may profitably be much
reduced. Then, when teachers direct their pupils in individual study
of real situations, assignments may be expected to become more appro-
priate, more carefully planned, less frequently made at the close of the
period as the class is starting from the room. The assignment is a
highly important part of the period's work, and it is an educational
misdemeanor to make an incomprehensible assignment.

The extension of these methods of study would help to eliminate
some of the abuses of the ordinary class room recitation. With directed
individual study, each would have fuller opportunity for work, and
each must learn to work independently. It does not follow that all
general discussion should be omitted, but in directed work there are
ample opportunities for general discussions. Nor does it follow that
no home work should be assigned.

A more intimate interest in each pupil is possible through class-

THE LABORATORY METHOD 251

room study. The ordinary assignment of home work and class-room
recitation method tends to reduce all the class to a base level. Class-
room study enables the teacher better to teach both weak and strong
pupil, to his highest efficiency. The ordinary class recitation method
— a sort of vermiform appendix on our educational system — often con-
sists either in allowing the best students to do the work or in having
them sit idly by, developing habits of low tension while the teacher
attempts to pull up the weaker ones to a fair understanding of the
point at hand. It requires a higher order of ability to teach genius
than mediocrity, and our present class-room methods often ignore
genius, through an illy balanced sense of duty to the mediocre, or may
neglect the majority in the interests of the few brighter pupils. Well-
balanced study should enable the teacher to stimulate all to a high
degree of effort.

Class-room study means a longer school day and more teaching
force or longer hours for the present teaching force. The school day
should be longer. Germany has approximately thirty school hours per
week to our approximate twenty hours per week in secondary schools.

Almost all high-school work should be done at school in school hours
under guidance of teachers. Less assigned home work will mean less
carrying of responsibility for school duties during the hours at home
when often such responsibilities can not be met and under conditions
which often foster ineffective habits of study. There will always re-
main plenty of good home work; good reading, some assignment, upon
work in line with school work; but our pupils should no more carry
home with them the larger burden of their school work than a good
business man should take home with him his major business duties.

The longer school day is not to be feared, but welcomed, if by means
of it adequate time for proper study is secured. We have cheapened
our schools by shortening them. Even longer hours for teachers, the
time being given to more prolonged and more effective teaching in a
reduced number of classes, is not undesirable, if by means of these
longer hours more effective teaching and less wreckage through failure
in high school may be secured.

252 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

HOW EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE IS FINANCED

By Professor H. C. PRICE

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

THE American farmer is ahead of the European in many things,
particularly in the use of labor-saving machinery. But in the
application of business principles in their financial operations, the
European farmers have perfected systems that are in advance of any-
thing yet attempted in America. This has been largely brought about
by the force of circumstances necessitating an economic transformation.
During the last century the competition of new countries with immense
areas of virgin soil flooded the European markets with agricultural
products and forced the European farmers to reorganize their business
methods.

As a result they have organized to make available abundant credit
at low rates of interest and on favorable terms of repayment. By credit,
it is not meant that the farmer gets everything he buys on time without
paying anything on it, and that he is in debt on every hand, but just
the reverse. It means he has money available at all times, so that he
may pay cash for everything he buys, thus getting the benefit of the
lowest cash prices and discounts. His credit is at the bank and not at
the store, and through the bank he gets the loans that he needs at rates
of interest just as low and in many cases lower than secured by other
industrial enterprises, no difference how large or how much business
they do. But to accomplish this the farmers have had to take a hand
in the banking business themselves. They have organized on a coop-
erative basis to secure the credit they need and to supervise its distribu-
tion rather than leaving it to private interests to supply the same.
By so doing they have reduced rates of interest, lengthened the time
for which loans are made, provided for the repayment of loans by
annual installments, and they keep the money in the rural districts and
prevent its accumulation in the large cities.

Sources of Capital

The sources from which the capital is drawn that is thus made
available to the use of the farmers may be classified under three heads :
(1) subvention from the government, (2) savings deposits of the
farmers and rural population, (3) from the sale of bonds secured by
mortgages on farm land.

EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE 253

The relation of the governments in furnishing agricultural credit
has varied greatly. In France the rural banks have been established
for the most part on funds advanced by the government without in-
terest. This policy was begun in 1894 and in 1910 the working capital
at the disposal of the rural banks which had state aid amounted to
71 million francs (between 14 and 15 million dollars), of which 40
million francs had been advanced by the government. In Austria the
provincial governments have actively assisted in the establishment of
rural banks to furnish credit for farmers and have advanced loans
without interest to them. In Germany the government has indirectly
aided the rural banks by establishing central banks founded on capital
advanced by the government, in most cases at 3 per cent, interest. The
central banks in turn furnish credit to the rural banks and the rural
banks to the farmer. The Prussian Central Bank at Berlin now has
a capital of 75,000,000 marks from the Prussian government. How-
ever, its business is not confined to agricultural banks, but is open to
all kinds of industrial cooperative associations. It receives deposits
and makes loans to the cooperative banks throughout the kingdom of
Prussia, and serves as a compensating medium between the different
cooperative institutions. For example, if a rural bank has large
deposits and a surplus of funds, it deposits them in a central bank to
be loaned to some other bank in need of funds.

The desirability of government subvention is a disputed point, and
in Germany which has the best developed system of agricultural credit
in the world, many are opposed to it as being entirely unnecessary and
think that a better system can be developed without it.

The second source of capital, savings and deposits of the farmers
and rural population, is the most important. It has the advantage of
developing the habit of saving among all classes in the country and it
keeps the money in the rural districts in which it is earned. In Ger-
many alone there are over 16,000 rural savings and loan banks with
one and one half million members and deposits of over $250,000,000.
Instead of being deposited in savings banks to be loaned out in the
cities, as is the case in America, or deposited in postoffice savings banks
to be loaned to city banks, the money is kept in the rural districts and
loaned out at a rate of interest that the farmer can use it to advantage.

The third source of capital, obtained by the sale of bonds secured
by mortgages on farm lands, was the first form of cooperative agricul-
tural credit established in Europe and was begun in Germany in 1770.
Its most rapid development, however, has been within the last thirty
years, and at the present time the German farmers have over $1,000,-
000,000 borrowed in this way, none of it costing them more than 4 per
cent, interest and in some cases it is as low as 3 per cent.

254 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Agricultural Credit in the Province of Saxony

The agricultural credit institutions of the province of Saxony in
the kingdom of Prussia are as highly developed as in any place in
Europe and are typical of the German system. The province of
Saxony lies in central Germany, contains an area of 9,750 square miles
and in 1910 had a population of 3,088,000, equal to 315.7 per square
mile. The largest cities in the province are Halle and Magdeburg with
180,000 and 280,000 population, respectively. It is the heart of the
sugar-beet district of Germany and the richest agricultural section of
the entire empire. It contains 97,000 farms of over five acres in size.
The estimated worth of the land per acre is $300 (for the whole of
Germany it is $150 per acre). It is a typical agricultural province, in
which the most intensive systems of agriculture have been developed,
necessitating the investment of a large working capital per acre, which
has been made available through the development of agricultural credit
institutions.

These may be divided into two classes: (1) the institutions furnish-
ing real credit, that is, loans secured on farm mortgages made through
the public land mortgage bank — the so-called Landschaft of the prov-
ince of Saxony, (2) institutions for furnishing personal credit, that is,
working capital on short time loans and on personal security which is
provided through the farmers' cooperative banks.

The Land Mortgage Association

The German Land Mortgage Association {Landschaft) was first
established in 1770 by the nobility of eastern Germany, with the ap-
proval of Frederick the Great, for the purpose of securing loans on
their farm real estates. Instead of borrowing individually they or-
ganized an association and issued a common mortgage bond against
all of the real estate owned by the members of the association.
Furthermore, the management of the association was under the direct
control of the government and the officers were quasi-public officials.
Other similar institutions were soon established, but confined their
members to the nobility and large landowners. However, the results
secured were so satisfactory, the rates of interest so low and terms of
the loans so favorable that the plan extended and the farmers of the
middle classes organized in a similar manner.

The province of Saxony, in which the farmers of the middle class
predominate, did not organize a land mortgage association until 1864.
A few years later came the war between France and Prussia (stopping
industrial development) so that in reality the association did not make
real progress before 1880. To-day the total mortgage indebtedness of
the province is 830,000,000 marks, and over 220,000,000 marks of
these loans have been made through the Provincial Land Mortgage

EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE 255

Association. The proportion of the loans made through the associa-
tion is constantly increasing and within the last six months they have
increased 10,000,000 marks, but the time probably will never come
when all of the outstanding mortgage loans will be made through the
land mortgage associations, as in many cases mortgages are given by
members of families in settlements of estates, loans are made within
families and through other private interests, so that in no case is it
likely that over two thirds of the mortgage indebtedness of a province
will be made through a public credit institution.

The Business of the Land Moktgage Association

The Land Mortgage Association of the province of Saxony, which is
typical of all other similar institutions in Germany, is a cooperative
union of the landowners of this province for the purpose of securing
loans for its members on their land by issuing bonds {Pfandbrief en)
against the same. The association is not a stock company. ISTo profits
are declared to individuals, but go to the reserve funds of the associa-
tion. Any one may become a member who is a landowner in the prov-
ince and pays a land tax of at least 90 marks per year, which means
owning from 10 to 25 acres of land, depending upon its value.

The articles of the incorporation for the association were approved
by the Prussian government and the oversight of the business is under
the direction of the Minister of Agriculture of the kingdom of Prussia.
The association is independent to conduct its own affairs and to elect
its own officers, but the election of the higher officers must be approved
by the government. A farmer wanting to borrow through the as-
sociation makes his application. After examination of the title of
his farm and finding it satisfactory he has the privilege of borrowing
to two thirds the assessed value of his farm for taxation by giving first
mortgage to the association for the amount he borrows. The associa-
tion does not have the money on hand to make the loan, but secures the
same, not by selling the mortgage, but by issuing what is known as a
Pfandbrief or mortgage bond of equal amount to the mortgage and
selling the bond. There are several features of the Pfandbrief that are
characteristic. First, it is not secured alone by the mortgage of the
farmer for whom it was issued but by all the mortgages and property
of the land mortgage association. Second, it is transferable without
endorsement at any time and is an impersonal security payable to
bearer. Third, it is not a bond in the sense that it runs for a definite
length of time, for there is no fixed time at which it matures. Fourth,
the holder does not have the right to demand payment of the face of
the bond — that is, to call in the loan — but the issuer — the land mort-
gage association — has the privilege of paying it at any time. For
example, the bond may be called in and paid six months after it is

256 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

issued or fifty years, at the pleasure of the land mortgage association.
But under no conditions is the amount of bonds outstanding per-
mitted to exceed the amount of mortgages held by the land mortgage
association.

The business of the land mortgage associations has been done so
conservatively that their bonds are regarded as the very best of security
and are favorite investments for trust funds, savings banks and any
capital seeking a perfectly safe investment negotiable at all times. In
fact, these bonds sell next to government bonds, and in case of war, or
even threatened war, they sell better. The government may be over-
thrown or compelled to suspend payment of interest, but the farm real
estate that secures the bonds can not lose its value.

The rate of interest the bonds bear is 3 per cent., 3^ or 4 per cent.,
at the option of the farmer securing the loan, but the price at which
they sell depends upon the condition of the money market. At the
present time (July 1, 1912) 3 per cent, province of Saxony Pfand-
brief en are selling at 81.00, 3^ per cent, at 90 and 4 per cent, at 99.80,
while the 4 per cent, national bonds of Germany are selling at 100.
In case a farmer borrowing $1,000 chooses a 3 per cent, interest rate
and the 3 per cent, bond are only selling for 81.00, he gets only
$810 and pays $30 per year interest, that is, 3 per cent, on the face of
the bonds, and gives his note and mortgage for $1,000. But on the
other hand, if 4 per cent, bonds are selling at par and he chooses a
4 per cent, loan, he gets his $1,000 in cash for his Pfandbrief and
pays $40 per year interest and gives his mortgage and note for $1,000.
It is always regarded as the best policy for the borrower to choose the
class of bonds selling nearest par, unless they are selling above par, in
which case the farmer securing the loan gets a premium over and above
the amount of his liability and it is to his advantage to take such loans.
When the bonds go above par they are called in and paid off by the
farmers refunding their debts at lower rates of interest. Here comes the
advantage that the farmers reserve for themselves in the privilege of
paying off the bonds at will. Just such a thing happened when in
the seventies the rate of interest advanced to 5 per cent., due to the
scarcity of money and the enormous demand for it in building railroads
on the continent and ten years later the rates of interest sank until
3 per cent, bonds sold close to par and the farmers rapidly paid off
their loans made at the high rate of interest by using new bonds at
the lower rate of interest and selling them to pay off the old ones.

Central Land Mortgage Association

In order to widen the market for the Pfandbrief en a central land
mortgage association was established in Berlin in 1873. By this means
it was thought to make them an international security and to give them

EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE 257

a larger market. The bonds of the central association are secured by
all the mortgages of the provincial associations belonging to the central
association. The results attained through the central association, how-
ever, have. not fulfilled expectations. The Pfandbriefen in no consid-
erable extent have found their way into the international money mar-
kets. The offering of them in such large quantities on the Berlin
Bourse reduced the price below what they could be sold for in home
markets through the local banks. Furthermore, there is a sentiment
among investors buying bonds that as long as the provincial bond is
equally as secure as the central they prefer to invest in Pfandbriefen
of their own province. In the province -of Saxony, with its 220,000,000
marks of Pfandbriefen outstanding, the director of the Landschaft
estimates that 75 to 80 per cent, of the total amount invested in them
is capital of the province of Saxony. So far as security was concerned,
nothing was to be gained by consolidation into a central association,
since the provincial association bonds are as secure as bonds can be
made.

Of the total amount of bonds in circulation at the present time only
about 10 per cent, of them are central association bonds. The latest
statistics show that the provincial and central association of Prussia
have the following amounts of outstanding bonds.

Land Mortgage Association of Prussia

Association Founded Outstanding Bonds

East Prussia 1788 426,152,350 M.

West Prussia 1787 123,074,405 M.

New West Prussia 1861 186,278,210 M.

Berlin 1868 449,563,500 M.

Pomerania 1781 252,007,525 M.

New Pomerania 1871 19,006,900 M.

Posen - 1857 301,525,300 M.

Silesia 1770 608,634,180 M.

Saxony 1864 126,675,600 M.

Celle 1790 15,579,100 M.

Hanover 1825 24,706,650 M.

Bremen 1826 10,360,425 M.

Westphalia 1877 74,554,300 M.

Central 1873 433,255,000 M.

Total 3,093,493,545 M.

Mark equals 23.8 cents.

Amortization of Loans

One of the most valuable features of the loans made through the
land mortgage associations from the standpoint of the farmer is the
gradual amortization through annual payments made with the interest.
This is obligatory on the part of the borrower and usually is -| per cent,
to f per cent, of the face value of the loan. In the land mortgage

vol. lxxxii.— 18.

258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

association of the province of Saxony the amortization is £ per cent,
per year. On a loan made at 4 per cent, is added the f per cent,
amortization and ^ per cent, to cover the operating expenses of the
association, making a total of 5 per cent., and by paying this amount
annually for between forty to forty-five years the loan will be paid off.
The farmer in the meantime also has the privilege of paying it all or
in part at any time. After the loan has been made the rate of interest
can not be raised or the loan called in, so if the farmer has secured his
loan at a low rate of interest he can carry it until it has been amortized
by his annual payments. The Saxon farmers who in the nineties
borrowed at 3 per cent, and got par for their bonds are relishing this
feature now that the rate of interest has advanced to 4 per cent.

However, many of the better farmers make no attempt to pay off
their loans any faster than is required through the annual amortization
payment, finding that they can get their credit cheaper in this way
than any other and can make more interest on the money used in their
business than they have to pay for it. The association also has the
provision that when 10 per cent, of the original loan has been paid an
additional loan can be made and in this way a farmer can continue to
carry indefinitely practically the same amount of loan on his property
if he finds it advantageous to do so. The average length of time loans
run in Saxony is about twenty-five years.

By this method the farmer gets all the advantages of the money
market if money is tight — the rate of interest goes up and the price
of the Pfandbriefen go down when money is abundant and interest
rates low the price of Pfandbriefen go up. The farmer through his
bank watches the money market and takes advantage of the low points
in interest rates to secure his loan, and once made he is safe from hav-
ing his loan called in or his interest rate raised.

Decentralizing the Business
A practical point in the operation of such a business is to make it
as convenient as possible for the farmer to do business with the land
mortgage association. The province of Saxony is a territory nearly
100 miles square and the association is located in Halle, a relatively
large city. For all of the farmers to come to the central association to
negotiate their loans would be impracticable and would diminish the
business very much. This problem has been solved by dividing the
province into districts 10 to 15 miles square and in each district is a
local officer of the association elected by the members in their annual
meeting. This officer assists the members in getting their loans, sends
in their applications, gives information concerning the association and
looks after the business in his district. When property is appraised
for loans, he is chairman of the committee making the appraisement.

EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE 259

When interest is not paid or a member is neglecting his farm, the local
deputy, as he is called, serves as the medium between the association
and the delinquent member. In this way the advantages and economy
of a centralized organization and at the same time the benefits of a de-
centralized association — that is, one close to the individual farmer —
are secured.

Personal Credit

While the land mortgage association is sufficient to provide the
long-time credit that is needed by the landowner, it does not suffice
to furnish the short-time loans that are needed to supply working
capital, to buy seeds, fertilizers, livestock to be fattened, to pay for
labor to grow crops and such operations as require capital for six to
nine months. To the farm renter or any farmer who does not own
land, the land mortgage association has nothing to offer.

To meet this need the rural banks have been established. The work
of this class of banks had its beginning particularly with William
Eaiffeissen among the peasant farmers of western Germany about the
middle of the last century. Eaiffeissen saw the dire straits of the
small -farmers who were without credit and at the mercy of the usurer.
He began by establishing cooperative associations to do their own bank-
ing, and there were four fundamental principles that he insisted upon
that have been retained in the true Eaiffeissen banks of the present
time. First, unlimited liability of the members. This was necessary
in the beginning in order to get any credit at all. All the members
were practically without means and the question of limited or unlimited
liability was of little moment to them.

Second. A restricted area of operation for the bank. This was
confined to the district in which the members were all personally
acquainted with one another. In European farming it is customary,
especially for the peasants, to live together in small villages and not
on single farms as in America, so that the boundaries for the operation
of the bank were generally confined to a single village.

Third. No dividends to members. A low rate of interest, usually
4 per cent., was paid on the capital stock each member had invested in
the bank, but all profits made over that amount were set aside in a
reserve fund.

Fourth. No salaried officers were employed in the banks except the
bookkeeper. The management of the bank was made a matter of
honor, the work to be done without any mercenary compensation.
The business was done in the most democratic manner possible. Every
member was given a voice and made to feel he was personally respon-
sible for the success of the business. Loans were made for specific
purposes, for example, to drain a field. The committee considered the

26o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

advisability of the proposed expenditure in making the loan, the mem-
bers of the bank all knew the plan of the member and were interested
in his success, because in case the member failed and was unable to
repay his loan to the bank they would all be losers.

EaifTeissen did another thing that is of utmost importance in rural
banking. He adjusted the loans of the bank to meet the needs of agri-
culture. The farmer needs a longer time loan than the merchant or
manufacturer. City loans for three and four months do not fit the
business of farming. With the farmer 6 to 9 months is the shortest
time for which he needs a loan. The time from planting a crop till it
is harvested and ready to market is at least six months. The city mer-
chant will turn over his money four or five times during the year but
the farmer only once, so that the rural banks must make the loans for
longer periods than is customary in the city. In case of crop failure in
bad seasons loans must be allowed for still longer periods and in Eaif-
feissen banks these provisions were made.

From their beginning in the Ehineland the Eaiffeissen banks have
spread not only over all rural Germany, but almost all rural Europe.
They have been modified to meet local conditions but with it all have
kept in view the purpose of serving the needs of the farmer.

In studying the agricultural banking or credit system of a country
the condition of the individual farmer must be taken into consideration.
A system applicable to peasant farmers with small holdings, such as
are found in many parts of Europe, is not likely to offer much of value
for American farmers. But in a section in which the average wealth
and stand of the farmers is on the same level as in America, a svstem
that is proving successful may afford some good lessons.

Eukal Banks in the Province of Saxony

Such a section is to be found in the province of Saxony where the
rural banks are splendidly organized and doing a business of $100,-
000,000 per year.

The first striking difference between these rural banks and the orig-
inal Eaiffeissen banks is that they are organized on a limited liability
basis. The farmers of Saxony for the most part are well to do, but they
vary greatly in their financial worth. The man whose property is worth
a hundred thousand marks is not willing to become a member of a rural
bank or a cooperative association of any kind with members who are
worth only five thousand marks and agree to an unlimited liability for
its members. Consequently the Saxon banks are organized limiting the
liability of the members in proportion to the interest they have in-
vested in the bank. The fundamental object of the rural banks is to
furnish credit to their members for working capital at the lowest rates
of interest possible and not to make a profit on their business. In the

EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE 261

province of Saxony there are 660 rural banks. These are small village
savings banks with an average membership of about 100 farmers. They
are the units of the farmers' cooperative organizations of the province.
At Halle there are three central cooperative organizations, with all of
which the local banks stand in relation and are members: (1) The Cen-
tral Cooperative Bank, which does nothing but a banking business and
whose members are cooperative associations instead of individuals.
(2) The Central Cooperative Association for the purchase and sale of
agricultural products. This, like the central bank, has for members
associations instead of persons and does a wholesale business in buying
and selling agricultural products. (3) The Union of Cooperative So-
cieties, which oversees the management of the local societies, audits
their books, furnishes uniform systems of bookkeeping and looks after
the organizing of new societies and does the propaganda work in pro-
moting agricultural cooperative work in the province.

In order to become a member of the Central Bank at Halle the local
association or bank must take a share in it which is 300 marks. The
number of shares that the local bank or association hold is in propor-
tion to the amount of business it does. By virtue of holding shares
in the central association it is entitled to make loans from it. The
farmer goes to his local bank, of which he is a member and to whom he
is known, and makes his application for a loan. The bank in turn ap-
plies to the Central Association with which it has credit and secures
the money and it costs the farmer -J per cent, more interest than the
local society pays the Central in order to cover the local costs of the
society. The average interest rate charged by the Central Bank in 1909
was 3.92 per cent., in 1910 it was 4.34 per cent, and in 1911 was 4.39
per cent. The rate of interest paid for deposits is 3 to 3^ per cent..,
depending upon the current interest rate.

Credit is the first requisite of successful cooperation. When a coun-
try has a well-established system of agricultural credits it is almost cer-
tain to be thoroughly organized on a cooperative basis in other lines.
This is the case in the province of Saxony, particularly in the purchase
of agricultural supplies, such as fertilizers, feeding stuffs, coal, seeds
and agricultural machinery.

The local banks serve the farmers both as the societies through
which the purchases are made and furnish the credit for making the
purchases. In this way there is a saving in the cost of doing the busi-
ness and the bank knows how the money is spent.

Moral Effect of Cooperation
The development of the cooperative credit systems among the farm-
ers of Europe has had an important influence on their social life.
Aside from the independence gained in their business affairs by being

262 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

freed from the money-lenders which for the most part were usurers,
they have been united in a community of interest that has widened their
circle of acquaintance, given them a sympathetic interest in each
other's welfare and has largely displaced the jealously so commonly ex-
isting in rural communities.

Among the peasant classes where the Eaiffeissen savings and loan
banks were established with unlimited liability of the members, min-
isters have frequently testified that they have been as important factors
in the moral life of the people as the church itself. Intemperance and
immorality is not permitted among the members. If a farmer takes to
intemperate drinking his loan is called in by the bank. If he is neg-
lecting the work on his farm the loan is called in. So that every
•farmer feels he is under the constant watch of the other members and
since they are united together in a cooperative association, where if one
man fails the others must pay his losses, they are all interested in each
•other and anxious to see every one succeed.

The application of the cooperative principle of "one for all and all
for one" serves as an incentive to the individual farmer and inspires
him to do his best.

Need in the United States

The farmers of the United States as yet have not appreciated the
value of organizing to improve their credit. In the southern states the
cotton crop must be marketed as soon as harvested to meet outstanding
loans that the farmers have made at exorbitant rates of interest. The
grain dealers throughout the central states know that they will be
flooded with wheat and corn just before tax-paying time by farmers who
.are compelled to sell in order to raise money to pay taxes. Intensive
systems of farming that must be adopted to adjust American agricul-
ture to present needs means a larger working capital for the farmer, he
must use more labor, more commercial fertilizers, better seed and he
.must drain his land. The European farmer gets twice as large a crop
yield per acre as the American farmer because he spends twice as much
•capital in producing it. He cultivates better, fertilizes better and he
takes better care of his land.

Interest rates in general are lower in the United States than they
are in Germany and yet the German farmer is able to secure his credit
through his cooperative organizations at two thirds the rate of interest
ordinarily paid by the American farmer. In addition the loans are
made on much more favorable terms and the times and methods of re-
payment are adjusted to suit the business of the farmers.

The advantages of the farmers organizing to sell their credit for
what it is worth are not all on the part of the farmer. But for the
capitalist seeking a safe investment for his money they offer a security

EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE 263

that can be bought at any time and is always negotiable. Such organi-
zations serve as an economic saving between borrower and lender. The
man in America at the present time who wishes to invest his money in
farm mortgages must seek out such loans personally or through an
agent. The punctuality with which the interest will be paid and the
loan when it falls due will depend upon the personality of the farmer.
But such is not the case when the loans are made through a land mort-
gage association and the investor instead of lending direct to the farmer
buys the bonds of the association; he then knows that his interest will
be paid as punctually as on a government bond ; that his security has a
market value and can be sold for cash any clay through his bank. The
establishment of the land mortgage association and selling its bonds on
the open market opens up a field for investment that is now practically
closed to a large class of investors.

One thing to be emphasized in regard to the success of the European
systems is the fact that it has been largely due to the direct oversight
that the governments have had over them. Without this government
relationship they could not have commanded the confidence of the public
that they have. It is hopeless to expect an equal degree of success for
similar institutions in America unless they are also organized under
government control, at least to the extent that the public will have
absolute confidence in their solvency.

264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

A STUDY IN JEWISH PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

By Dr. J. G. WILSON

A. A. SURGEON, PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, ELLIS ISLAND

THIS is preeminently the day of preventive medicine. The cam-
paign started many years ago to educate the people in the man-
ner of avoiding contagious diseases has gradually been extended to
other fields, until now the prophylaxis of insanity is almost as freely
discussed as that of puerperal fever. And this is as it should be.
Though the recovery of the already insane and the feeble-minded is
seldom permanently accomplished, the outlook for the final prevention
of these conditions among the potentially insane is by no means hope-
less. The work undertaken by such organizations as the National
Committee for Mental Hygiene, and the various allied state organiza-
tions and societies having the same general end in view are well known,
and although the good already accomplished in the way of educating
the people in those habits of life and thought which tend to make the
development of mental afflictions less likely, is as yet inconsiderable, it
promises, in the long run, to bring forth excellent results.

More and more we are coming to a realization of the importance
of a good heredity. All medical men are practically agreed upon this
subject. In the prevention of feeble-mindedness it is the one essential
factor. It is of hardly less importance in the prevention of insanity.
In an article on the hygiene of the mind, a recent writer has said " An
individual who comes from normal stock, abstains from alcohol, and is
free from syphilis, and escapes accidental head injury is not threatened
with mental alienation." 1

Conklin in the " Mating of the Unfit " refers to the offspring of
one normal man by two separate women, one a feeble-minded girl and
the other a perfectly well-balanced individual. The descendants of
the feeble-minded woman were 480 in number, and of these 143 in-
herited the tainted mentality. The normal woman had 365 descendants
and not one of them was to be classed among the mentally defective. 2

It is also universally agreed that the propagation of tainted stock
is much more likely when there is a close inbreeding of such stock.
The best should be bred to the best, but different types of the same
strain and close blood affinities should be avoided.

A fact so generally conceded should be applied as far as possible to
the principles of marriage between individuals of both the same and

1 A. J. Rosanoff, reprint from New York State Hospital Bulletin, November,
1911.

2 Editorial, The Lancet Clinic, March 7, 1912.

JEWISH PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 265

different races. If the science of eugenics deserves any practical appli-
cation at all, it should insist upon a careful study of the every-day
violation of its cardinal principle by a whole race who persistently
refuse to practise the very doctrine which is essential to the preserva-
tion of a sound and healthy mentality. I refer to the Jews.

In order to further elucidate the subject and to make good this
rather bold assertion, I propose to prove the following propositions:
First, the Jews are a highly inbred and psychopathically inclined race.
Second, the prevalence of mental affections among them is almost en-
tirely due to heredity.

That the Jews are as a matter of fact racially pure is a statement
that must not be taken absolutely in a literal sense. All races have
received admixtures of some outside blood, but it is undoubtedly true
that, since the time of the prophet Ezra and his campaign for racial
purity which was begun at the time of the return from the Babylonian
captivity, 536 years before Christ, the central stem of Judah has
remained practically free from admixture with other races. Any stu-
dent of the old testament can easily substantiate the statement that
violations of the law against marriage with the heathen races, by which
they were surrounded, were, from that time on, most summarily pun-
ished. The feeling against such procedure grew in intensity until, at
the time of the fight for the maintenance of Jewish independence under
the Maccabees, it had reached such a degree of fervor-? that rabbinical
decrees forbade friendly social intercourse with the Gentile on any
pretext whatever. There is no doubt but that the Jews inter-married
and inbred among themselves on an ever increasing scale clear up to the
time of the fall of Jerusalem.

After the Dispersion, there is some difference of opinion as to the
degree with which they maintained the racial purity which they had
been over 600 years in establishing. The weight of evidence, however,
is all in favor of the view that they did not abandon the time-honored
doctrine of racial solidarity. During Eoman times and the dispersion
throughout the Mediterranean littoral, the rabbinical decrees were still
vindictive in their treatment of the subject. To such extreme lengths
did they go, that the Goy or Gentile party to the contract was regarded
as having no right at all, but was considered like the slave, as having
a status that rendered him incapable of connubium with the Jews. 3

Those anthropologists who cite the fact that there were a great
many converts to Judaism immediately after the fall of Jerusalem,
and that the Jews thus received a great deal of Eoman blood into their
veins, overlook the fact that these converts were the very ones from
whom the Christians in turn drew the majority of their converts.
Thus the Judaized Eomans were almost immediately lost to Judaism.

* Ephraim Feldman, ' ' Intermarriage, Historically Considered, ' ' p. 19.

266 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Likewise the alleged conversion of the Chazars, a Tartar tribe of Bussia,
was in reality confined to the ruling classes and their immediate court
dependents, the main body of the people remaining free from the
admixture with the Jewish proselytes. 4

During the middle ages the Christians themselves put a ban on
intermarriage and thus the rule against its practise was doubly enforced.

Since the time of Napoleon and the consequent removal of the
political disabilities of the Jews, there has been no increasing tendency
to take outsiders into the Jewish fold. Even in New York, where the
social and business relations between Jew and Gentile are perhaps
closer than in any other city in the world, there is practically no tend-
ency to encourage mixed marriages. Although it is manifestly impos-
sible to obtain exact figures upon this subject, all the obtainable data
go to support the view that the inbreeding is going on here as much
as in any other place in the world. M. Victor Safford, who has investi-
gated extensively the results of immigration upon the ethnic composi-
tion of our population, has said that a study of the marriage certificates
in New York City, while not giving sufficient grounds to absolutely
prove the contention that intermarriage between Jew and Gentile is
rare, does, nevertheless, justify the belief that such is the case. 5 The
children resulting from such marriages almost invariably marry either
Jews or persons who, like themselves, are only half Jews. Thus, what
little departure*there is from the principle against mixed marriages has
no tendency to introduce fresh blood into the central stem. Hirsch
has said that if all the Jews had remained Jews since the time of Christ
that there would be 100,000,000 in the world to-day. 6 If we grant the
truth of this rough approximation, it only serves to show that the
result of all this "marrying out" has been an ever-increasing practise
of inbreeding in the pure central stock. "When we consider that the
total number of the race is small, being probably not much over
12,000,000 altogether, we can easily see that there is not enough variety
of blood among the members of the different Jewish families to avoid
frequent consanguineous marriages.

Theoretically, the Jews are compelled to observe marriage customs
which result in racial incest. Practically, it is well known that they
really do marry their own cousins much more than do the people of
other races. Jacobs says that they are probably three times as guilty
in this respect as others. 7 I think we must concede the point that they
are a highly inbred and closely related race. This fact undoubtedly
accounts for the very strong racial characteristics which they possess.

* W. D. Morrison, ' ' The Jews under Eoman Bule, ' ' p. 413.

8 M. Victor Safford, private communication, June 29, 1912.

•William Hirsch, "Keligion and Civilization," p. 579.

7 Joseph Jacobs, ' ' Studies in Jewish Statistics, ' ' Appendix, p. 4.

JEWISH PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

267

I am not here concerned with any of those characteristics except the
psychopathic ones. If they are endowed with exceptionally great
mental gifts, it is beyond the scope of this paper to consider them.
What I now propose to show is that they suffer from constitutional
mental inferiorities, or psychopathic tendencies to a degree entirely out
of proportion to the occurrence of such infirmities among the general
population. First we will consider our own country. As fully two
thirds of the Jews in the United States are in New York, it will be
unnecessary to go out of that state to procure the evidence. In the
year ending September 30, 1909, out of a total of 5,222 admissions to
all the New York State hospitals for the insane, 488 were Jews. 8
While these statistics do not show the total number of Jews insane
from all causes to be greatly in excess of the ratio which they bear to
the general population, they plainly indicate that they do not fall below
the general average, and when we come to analyze them in detail we
find that they show a disproportionate number of cases due to consti-
tutional mental inferiority. Taking those insanity groups which in
all classifications are universally admitted to be due to bad heredity,
the total number among the non-Jews was 2,297 or 48 per cent, of
the total number of non- Jewish admissions. On the other hand, 65 per
cent, of the Jewish insane belonged to the constitutionally inferior
groups. 9

Table of Admissions to the Manhattan State Hospital fob the Insane
Classified by Eace and Nature of Psychosis for the
Year ending September 30, 1908 u

Psychoses

Senile psychoses

General paresis

Alcoholic psychoses

( Dementia prsecox)

(Manic-depressive insanity).
Epileptic psychoses .

Other psychoses | 22.58

Total number of each race

Irish

Jewish

German

U.S.

Italian

9.80

2.87

6.70

7.14

3.70

7.59

14.05

20.10

17.46

9.87

27.69

.32

11.85

11.90

8.64

13.48

27.47

14.95

16.66

23.44

16.66

28.43

12.89

18.25

13.58

2.20

1.59

4.64

3.17

4.93

22.58

25.27

28.87

25.42

35.84

408

313

194

126

81

Negro

9.80
29.41

7.82
13.72

9.80

3.92
25.53

51

The practical freedom of this race from the alcoholic psychoses is
a matter of common knowledge. Now alcohol was responsible for
over ten per cent, of the insanities admitted to the New York state
hospitals for the year ending September 30, 1909. But the Jews ad-
mitted for alcoholic psychoses for the same period constituted less

8 Twenty-first Annual Report of the State Commission in Lunacy, Statistics
of the Insane, tables 4 and 14.

8 These percentages are deduced from tables 4 and 14, Statistics of the
Insane, State of New York, 1908-09.

11 De Fursac and Eosanoff , quoting Dr. Kirby in ' ' Manual of Psychiatry, ' '
p. 6.

268

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

than one per cent, of the total Jewish admissions. Notwithstanding
the fact that the Jews are thus almost entirely uninfluenced by the
greatest of the acquired or accidental causes of insanity, their total
number of insane does not fall to the level of the average for the general
population. Thus out of 1,762 admissions to the Manhattan State
Hospital for 1910-11, there were 455 Jews; that is to say, they made
25.9 per cent, of the total admissions. This is nine tenths of one per
cent, more than their usually estimated relation to the general popula-
tion of the community from which they were recruited.

Reliable data from foreign countries serves to show that, notwith-
standing his freedom from alcohol, the Jew still contributes more than
his share to the general insane population. Thus in Germany for the
period 1890-1902 there were to the 100,000 of population, an annual
average number of 67 insane and feeble-minded Jews as against 49 of
the non-Jewish population. The congenital idiocies and congenital
imbecilities showed an especial disproportion against the Jews, they
having 4.51 as compared to 2.75 among the non-Jews. 10 That the
proportion of the constitutionally inferior is especially large is shown
by a reference to the subjoined table, which is taken from De Fursac's
and Eosanoffs latest work on psychiatry. It will be noted that not-
withstanding the fact that they have practically none of the psychoses
which are due to alcohol, the Jews come second in point of number
of admissions.

In this connection the percentage of the Irish admitted for alco-

Table of Mental Defectives among Immigrants (Idiots, Imbeciles, Feeble-
minded). Annual Eeport Commissioner General of Immigration, 1911.

Rejected for the Year 1911

Finnish

Russian

Spanish

Magyar

Greek

Dutch and Flemish.

Scandinavian

Bohemian (Czech)..,

Ruthenian

Pole

Slovak

Italian (North)

Croatian, Slovenian .

Italian (South)

English

German

Scotch

Irish

Hebrew

French

Total

Mental Defectives

Per 100,000

9.779

18,721

8,068

19,966

1

5

37,021

2

6

13,862

1

8

45,859

4

9

9,223

1

11

17,724

2

11

71,446

9

12

21,415

3

15

30,312

5

16

982

2

22

159,638

36

23

57,258

13

23

66,471

15

23

25,625

6

23

40,246

11

27

91,223

26

28

18,132

6

32

Maurice Fishberg, ' ' The Jews : A Study of Race and Environment. ' '

JEWISH PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 269

holic psychoses exactly equals that of the Jews admitted for dementia
prsecox. Now, dementia praecox is classed as one of the insanities
depending upon a constitutionally inferior mental make-up, as is like-
wise manic-depressive insanity. These two constitutional inferior
groups which are universally agreed to rest upon a bad heredity, alone
account for over 55 per cent, of the insanities among the Jews in the
above table. Statistics could be multiplied almost indefinitely to show
similar results.

Among the frankly feeble-minded, the Jews stand next to the top
of the list of those immigrants who are deported on this account. The
report of the Commissioner General of Immigration for 1911 shows
that the French are the only ones who surpass them. In this connec-
tion it is well to note that over one half of the French immigrants for
the year 1911 was recruited from the ranks of the French Canadians,
who are a notoriously inbred and defective stock.

If it be objected that the foregoing table represents one year alone
and can not be properly used to aid in drawing such wholesale con-
clusions, the answer is two-fold. In the first place this was a year in
which the general average of Hebrew defectives was proportionately
smaller than in other years. For instance, in 1907 nearly one third of
those certified at Ellis Island as mentally defective were of this race,
although they did not average over 14 per cent, of the total number of
arrivals.

In the second place the number of feeble-minded children in the
public schools of New York City is disproportionately large among the
Jews. Thus of 317 mentally defective children selected at random
from ungraded classes, Miss Anna Moore in 1911 found that there
were 130 Hebrews, 40 Italians, 35 Germans, 20 Irish and 9 negroes. 12

An attempt has been made to deny the ethnic or racial relation
with the greater prevalence of feeble-mindedness and insanity, which
the foregoing data would naturally seem to indicate. Thus it has been
said that the birth-rate among the Jews being lower than that of the
general population, there is consequently a larger proportion of adults
among this race as compared with others, and insanity being chiefly a
disease of adults, it follows that its greater prevalence among the Jews
is apparent rather than real.

To explain the large number of feeble-minded the argument runs
in this wise : Although the birth-rate among the Jews is low, Jewish
parents take better care of their children than others, consequently
more survive those illnesses which result in mental deterioration.

The chief fallacy in this argument lies in the fact that those who
use it neglect to state that feeble-mindedness is overwhelmingly a dis-

12 Miss Anna Moore, Keport published by State Charities Aid Association,
1911.

270 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ease of childhood, death for one cause or another intervening in, the
majority of instances long before the age of the natural expectation of
life is reached. When we consider this universally admitted fact, it
becomes apparent that at least one of the aforesaid explanations must
be wrong. For, if children of Jewish parents survive in such dispro-
portionately large numbers as to account for the seeming excess of
feeble-rnindedness, it naturally follows that this survival must offset the
diminished birth-rate and serve to maintain the normal relation between
child and adult population.

If the difference in the relation of adult to child population really
exists in a sufficient degree to be a factor at all in the explanation of
the degree of prevalence of insanity and feeble-mindedness, the logical
argument would be as follows :

1. The proportion of Jewish adults to the general population is
greater than among others, consequently the proportion of the child
population is less.

2. Feeble-mindedness is a disease of childhood.

3. Conclusion: Being fewer Jewish children there are fewer feeble-
minded among Jews than among others.

If we reverse the argument and assume the premise that more
Jewish children survive than among others we should have the follow-
ing syllogism :

1. The proportion of Jewish children to the general population is
greater than among others, consequently the proportion of the adult
population is less.

2. Insanity is a disease of adults.

3. Conclusion : Being fewer Jewish adults there are fewer Jewish
insane.

A consideration of the foregoing examples of reductio ad absurdum
only serves to confirm the belief that, after all, there must be some
intimate relation existing between the racial, or inherent ethnic char-
acteristics of the Jews and the greater prevalence of insanity and
feeble-mindedness among them. In no instances shall we find any
reliable data that show the proportion of feeble-minded and insane
among the Jews to be less than among the general population; in
most countries it is undeniably larger, and in every instance the num-
ber of Jews suffering from mental defects are recruited from the ranks
of the congenitally inferior in a far greater proportion than is the case
among the non-Jews.

In the light of our knowledge of the laws of heredity, there can be
but one thing responsible for the above-described condition. It must
necessarily have been brought about by too close inbreeding.

That the excessive number of constitutional inferior insanities has
a partial explanation in the fact that long centuries of inbreeding have

JEWISH PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 271

produced a race with a paranoid make-up seems not altogether improb-
able. The general paranoid attitude of the race is shown in an almost
universal tendency to assume the possession of superior racial mental
qualifications, and when these are denied or in any way gainsaid, to fail
to appreciate the point of view of the one who opposes them.

This idea of superiority to other people is so inbred that it has
probably become a hereditary character for which the individual is
entirely irresponsible. But a paranoid make-up is not particularly
dangerous to its possessor who is otherwise normal, unless by great
stress or a very unusual combination of disagreeable experiences this
tendency be diverted into abnormal channels.

The chief danger lies in the accentuation of the character by too
close inbreeding with those having a like tendency. In fact, the gen-
eral attitude of the person who has this paranoid make-up in a mild
degree may be said to be an enviable one rather than otherwise. He
is aggressive in upholding his rights, suspicious of attempts to thwart
him in the pursuit of the same, and strives constantly to reach the goal
of his ambitions. These are all admirable traits. It is only when they
become accentuated to the point where they are pervaded by delusions
of grandeur and persecution, that they render the person possessing
them a menace to society.

To return to the thought expressed at the beginning of this paper,
that the prevention of mental diseases is quite the most important part
of their treatment, it would seem that the Jews have it in their power
to ultimately stamp out the feeble-minded and insane from among their
race. The way in which they can do this must be plain to whoever has
followed the gist of my argument. It is all a question of eugenics.
A little more care in the matter of consanguineous marriages and a
quick and thorough departure from the old beaten tracks which forbid
the introduction of non-Jewish blood into their veins, will, in the
course of a few generations, redeem them from the unhappy mental
state info which they have fallen.

272 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

THE LANGUAGE OF METEOROLOGY

By CHARLES FITZHUGH TALMAN,

U. S. WEATHER BUREAU

f~N discussing the vocabulary of any branch of science one is embar-
-*- rassed by the fact that scientific language in general is a neglected
subject. The principles of scientific terminology and nomenclature (on
the etymological side) are not, to my knowledge, taught in modern cur-
ricula; their formal exposition belongs to the scholarly literature of a
past generation; and the writings of our contemporaries bear evidence
of the fact that philology does not now enter to so large an extent as
formerly into the equipment of the average man of science.

The student of to-day is, as a rule, left to make his own generaliza-
tions on this subject from the transformations in the technical vocab-
ulary that happens to come under his observation; and his inductions
suffer in proportion as these transformations become less orderly.
When he arrives at the creative stage, and is called upon to label his
contributions to knowledge, he is apt to still further increase the dis-
order of the language; and thus an interaction is going on that would
speedily lead to chaos, if it were not checked by powerful though un-
recognized laws governing the development of human speech — a per-
vasive " Sprachgef iihl " that saves the language from falling into rapid
ruin, though it can not protect it from gradual deterioration.

The fact that the underlying principles of terminology and nomen-
clature are not, to say the least, clearly formulated in the minds of most
men of science makes it desirable, in discussing a particular group of
technical terms or names, to begin far back of one's subject — just as it
is desirable for a newspaper writer on Halley's comet to begin by en-
lightening the public in regard to the heavenly bodies in general. How-
ever, it is not practicable to follow such a plan within the limits of a
brief paper. In the present case I shall cut the Gordian knot by simply
referring my readers to the two statements of fundamental principles
that I have myself found most illuminating — viz., the fourth book of
William WhewelPs " Novum Organon Eenovatum " and Dr. Lereboul-
let's article " Etymologie " in the " Dictionnaire encyclopedique des
sciences medicales " — and proceed at once to a discussion of some
salient features of the language of meteorology.

One curious fact about this language is that a considerable part of
it is unknown to meteorologists. Hundreds of useful terms have been
introduced to fill the gaps in its vocabulary — some highly felicitous,
others at least tolerable — only to sink into speedy oblivion, leaving their
places unfilled. Take, for example, the names of the isograms — and

THE LANGUAGE OF METEOROLOGY 273

the name " isogram " itself. The latter, denoting a line that repre-
sents equality of some physical condition on a map or diagram (the
isotherm and the isobar being the most familiar examples, is a con-
venient generic term, the need of which must have been often felt long
before it was invented, in the year 1889, by Francis Galton. Yet to
this day it is unknown to most meteorological writers, who continue to
use an awkward periphrasis to express this every-day idea.

Several meteorologists have drawn lines connecting places of equal
evaporation ; very few have ventured to give these lines a name. There
is no inconvenience in referring once or twice in a scientific memoir to a
" line of equal evaporation." Suppose, however, one needs to mention
the same thing fifty times. One is almost driven to the necessity of
substituting a single word for this long phrase; and thus certain
writers have, in fact, coined the terms " isoatmic line " and " iso-
thyme " ; but neither of these has gained currency in the habitual
vocabulary of meteorologists.

In all, some eighty meteorological isograms have been named; but
of their names less than a score are generally familiar, and many are
almost completely forgotten.

During the last two or three years the recognition of the importance
of the " barometric tendency " in weather forecasting has made us tol-
erably familiar with the " isallobar " ; but what of the " isallotherm " ?
Lines of equal temperature-change have been drawn on forecast charts
for a great many years. Their name, however, has just been invented,
and is hardly yet known to the practical forecaster.

There is a marked reluctance on the part of contemporary men of
science to contribute to the scientific vocabulary. This is perhaps due
to the growing ignorance of the principles of etymology to which I have
already referred ; though it may be also the token of a reaction from the
pedantry of an older generation, which cumbered the language with
terms too labored for daily use, and often with names of things that
might well have been left nameless.

I have in mind a number of lexical curiosities that furnish diver-
sion to any one who chances to read a memoir by A. Piche, " La
Meteorologie dans le Departement des Basses-Pyrenees." From this
work we learn that " meteorologistotheory " is the branch of science
dealing with meteorologists ; that " meteorologistopiry " has to do with
experiments in the training and organizing of meteorologists; that
" meteorologistonomy " relates to meteorological administration ; that
" meteorologistotechny " is the art of applying the laws relating to the
production of meteorologists, their arrangement into groups, and the
development of their labors ; that " meteorologistosophy " is the philo-
sophical study of meteorologists; etc. In short, M. Piche has stuck
pins through his meteorologists as if they were so many butterflies, and
has made them the subject of a new branch of natural history. His

vol. lxxxii — 19.

274 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

terminology is so terrifying that we are thankful the meteorologists
had individual names before he got hold of them ; otherwise we shudder
to think what he might have done in the way of nomenclature! The
same ingenious Frenchman invented an instrument for measuring the
sensible temperature which he called at first the " calorisoustractom-
eter " ; but later he took pity on humanity and changed its name to
" deperditometer."

Of the two evils — a clumsy term or none at all — the former is cer-
tainly to be preferred. There can be no progress in ideas without a
corresponding progress in language. This fact is emphasized by
Whewell; and he cites in illustration the cases of Caesalpinus in botany,
and Willughby in ichthyology, each of whom introduced excellent sys-
tems of classification which failed to take root or produce any lasting
effect among naturalists because they were not accompanied by corre-
sponding nomenclatures. No one recognized this truth more clearly
than Linnaeus, whose great contributions to botany were surpassed by his
contributions to the language of botany. Whewell quotes a maxim
from Linnaeus's " Botanical Philosophy,"

Nomina si nescis perit et cognitio rerum,

which ought to be taken to heart by the many scientific men of to-day
who are conspicuously shirking their obligations to the technical
vocabulary.

In the history of meteorology there are innumerable instances of
important ideas that led a precarious existence for years, almost ignored
by meteorologists at large, because no one had crystallized them by giv-
ing them names. Think of the number of conceptions that owe their
present defmiteness in our minds to the felicitous terminizing of Ealph
Abercromby ! The seven typical forms of isobars are familiar ex-
amples. Another is the generalization " recurrence," under which
term Abercromby united the many cases of the supposed tendency of
particular types of unseasonable weather to occur from year to year at
about the same period — Indian summer, the " Ice Saints," the
" Lammas floods," the " January thaw," the " borrowing days," and a
number of other similar interruptions in the regular march of the sea-
sons — all of them more or less elusive when submitted to a rigorous
analysis, but none the less deeply-rooted conceptions in the popular
mind. Individually these supposed occurrences are familiar to all
meteorologists, but we should probably sometimes lose sight of their
generic similarity had not Abercromby given them a handy generic
name.

Probably in no branch of science is the vocabulary more confused
than in atmospheric optics ; especially in English. This particular sub-
ject affords so many examples of the vices of the existing language of
meteorology that we may profitably consider it at some length.

THE LANGUAGE OF METEOROLOGY 275

In a publication which, I regret to say, bears the official imprimatur
of the Weather Bureau, 1 I find a definition of the " solar aureole,
corona, or glory." These names are stated to belong to the familiar
phenomenon of diffraction rings around the sun; and the question
arises — Why three names for one thing? Etymologically one is as
good as another ; but the single term " corona " was long ago appropri-
ated to the phenomenon in question. If we consult Pertner's
" Meteorologische Optik," we shall find that, according to this authority
at least, the aureole is not identical with the corona. A separate name
was desired for that inner portion of the complete corona which is, as
a rule, the only part visible ; extending from the blue-white zone around
the luminary to the reddish brown circle adjacent, but not including
either indigo or violet. Pernter was, I believe, the first person to dis-
tinguish this part of the corona under the name " aureole." The glory,
again, is something quite different. This is not seen around a heavenly
body, but surrounds the shadow of the observer's head — strictly speak-
ing, of the observer's eye — cast upon a cloud or fog-bank. In the phe-
nomenon of the Brocken specter the glory constitutes the " Brocken
bow " — though the specter and the bow are persistently confused in the
dictionaries and in the literature of meteorology.

This leads us to a further hopelessly confused statement in connec-
tion with the definition above quoted, reading as follows : " A smaller
circle surrounding the shadow of the observer's head is called an
anthelion, aureole, glory, or fog shadow." The word " anthelion " has,
indeed, been used persistently in this sense in English literature;
though such a use has never been countenanced in French or German.
Bravais and his successors applied the name " anthelion " to what is
sometimes called in English the " countersun " ; viz., a white image of
the sun seen at the same altitude as that luminary, but opposite it in
azimuth — one of the rarer phenomena of the great halo family.
Although this, the preferable, use of the name is absolutely ignored in
the English dictionaries — which uniformly confuse the anthelion with
the glory — it is not quite unknown to English writers. I find the
"anthelion," in this sense of the term (as observed in the year 1762),
described and figured in the "Philosophical Transactions" (abridged),
Vol. 11, p. 532. A similar use of the term occurs in Howard's
" Climate of London," 2d ed. (1833), Vol. 1, p. 222. As to " aureole,"
we have already seen how Pernter has desynonymized this term. " Fog
shadow " is obviously a most inappropriate name for a ring of light.
In short, the sentence above quoted, revised in accordance with the
requirements of accurate terminology, would read : " A smaller circle
surrounding the shadow of the observer's head is called a glory." The
three other names are untenable.

1 Monthly Weather Review, Vol. 33, p. 527. This is, however, substantially
a quotation from the Smithsonian Meteorological Tables.

276 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Although I have quoted a Weather Bureau publication — because it
happened to lie nearest at hand — the example selected is a fair specimen
of the loose language of a majority of writers on atmospheric optics.
In fact, the vocabulary is so confused that one can hardly write of any
but the commonest of the photometeors without defining each term he
uses; and I am not sure that even the names of the commonest are
wholly unequivocal. In a recent number of Nature — a journal which
is usually a purist in scientific English — the beautiful circumzenithal
arc, Mascart's " upper quasi-tangent arc of the halo of 46 degrees," was
referred to as a " zenith rainbow." Still more startling is it to find
the new edition of Wood's " Physical Optics " ignoring the term
" corona " altogether in describing the diffraction rings around the sun
and moon.

In contrast to the prevailing confusion in the English vocabulary of
this subject, we find that the labors of Pernter have led to the adoption
of a nearly uniform terminology in recent German literature; but
this writer shares with his compatriots a prejudice in favor of native
terms that detracts much from the value of his contributions to the
universal language of science. Thus, while he has adopted the Greek
word " halo," he prefers to call a corona a " Kranz," and he clings to
" Hof " as a general name for the heliocentric circles of all kinds.
In fact, very few Greek or Latin names appear anywhere in his great
treatise on atmospheric optics. Of course, this fact is merely typical
of the almost universal preference of German science for linguistic
isolation ; a subject too large to enter upon here.

In French, the complicated terminology of halos was set in order
by Auguste Bravais, and his labors have been admirably seconded in
our own time by Louis Besson. Fortunately French science still pre-
fers a Grasco-Latin vocabulary, and the terms it introduces are easily
taken over into English. No adequate account of halos has yet ap-
peared in our language. Whoever undertakes to write one will hardly
err in adopting the Bravais-Besson terminology en bloc, with only the
necessary idiomatic modifications and without regard to the practise of
earlier English writers on the same subject.

In the brief space remaining at my disposal I think I can not do
better than to refer specifically to a few meteorological terms, of more
or less recent origin, that deserve a wider use in scientific literature
than they now enjoy.

Beginning at the top of the alphabet, I find that the branch of
meteorology dealing with upper-air research is not yet known to all
meteorologists as " aerology." This term, proposed by Koppen, and
officially adopted at the Milan meeting of the International Commis-
sion for Scientific Aeronautics in 1906, is so well adapted to fill a
serious gap in our vocabulary that one is surprised at the slow progress
it has made in English. This is all the more surprising because, in

THE LANGUAGE OF METEOROLOGY 277

spite of its Greek etymology, it was promptly accepted by the Germans,
and is now fully established in their language. The expression " scien-
tific aeronautics," still incorporated in the name of the international
commission that has the oversight of aerological matters, is an obvious
misnomer as applied to the exploration of the free atmosphere, notwith-
standing the fact that aeronautical methods and appliances are largely
used in this field of research.

The most remarkable occurrence in the history of aerology was the
discovery, in 1902, of a region of the atmosphere originally called by
its discoverer the " isothermal layer " ; a name that he has since aban-
doned in favor of " stratosphere." A number of other names have
been proposed as alternatives — in some cases for reasons that, to any
one familiar with the natural history of scientific terms, seem decidedly
frivolous. Thus, some of our English confreres objected to the original
name because there was no certainty that the so-called " layer " had an
upper boundary — an objection that has perhaps been disponed of
recently by Dr. Alfred "Wegener. Mr. Dines, one of the ablest
of aerologists. prefers to speak only of "isothermal columns" in the
atmosphere; but this plan leaves the important stratum as a whole
without a name. There is every indication at present that Teisserenc
de Bort's second term, " stratosphere," will ultimately prevail. It
commends itself by its consonance with the term " troposphere," ap-
plied by the same investigator to the region of clouds and convective
disturbances, and with Wegener's recent tentative names for supposed
higher strata of the atmosphere — " hydrogensphere " and " geoco-
roniumsphere " ; and all of these conform to the well-established ter-
minology of " atmosphere," " hydrosphere " and " lithosphere."

Meteorology has recently profited, as to terminology and otherwise,
by the writings of Henryk Arctowski, who, though a Pole by birth and
a Belgian by adoption, wields a very facile pen in English. M. Arc-
towski is responsible for the convenient words " pleion " and " anti-
pleion," denoting, respectively, regions of positive and negative depar-
ture from a normal. Thus, a temperature pleion. or " thermopleion," 2
lay over western Europe during most of the summer and early autumn
of 1911. Lines of equal positive and negative departure from normal
temperature (not " anomalies," which are departures of local means
from the means of latitude circles) were unnamed until Arctowski
called them, respectively, " hypertherms " and " hypotherms." All
these terms are correctly formed from Greek roots, are easily assimilable
into our language, and are well fitted to give definiteness to a group of
ideas that formerly suffered in this respect by the lack of a terminology.

2 M. Arctowski 's terminology is not quite consistent, since he does not speak
of " thermoantipleions, " but of " thermomeions. " As ' ' antipleion ; ' is an
awkward form in combinations, it is unfortunate that it was adopted as the
generic term. ' ' Meion ' ' is preferable.

2 7 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Nevertheless, their use has not spread since they were proposed, two or
three years ago. It is to be hoped that they are not destined to share
the oblivion of some analogous terms relating to atmospheric pressure
proposed about forty years ago by Prestel ; viz., " pleiobar," " mesobar "
and " meiobar."

Purely English terminology has received some useful amendments
at the hands of Dr. Hugh Robert Mill, who in this respect is carrying
on the worthv traditions of " British Bainfall." Thus he has balanced

%j

Symons's terminology of droughts — the "absolute" and the "partial"
drought — by introducing the term " rain spell " for a period of more
than 14 successive days with rain. This expression, however, like the
term "rain day," is one that would need to be redefined in other coun-
tries. Dr. Mill has rendered an even more useful service to precise
terminology by distinguishing between the words " mean," " average "
and "general." He speaks, for example, of the mean temperature at
Camden Square during the month of June, 1900 ; the average tempera-
ture at the same place in June during a ten-year period; the general
rainfall over the whole county of London in May, 1910, and the average
general rainfall over the same region for a term of years.

British meteorologists have also succeeded in establishing a work-
ing terminology in English for the various deposits of frozen moisture
that have occasioned so much fruitless discussion at international
meteorological meetings. The Meteorological Office now applies the
term "rime" to the rough deposits due to fog, and "glazed frost" to
the transparent smooth coating usually caused by rain which freezes as
it reaches terrestrial objects. The ambiguous expression "silver thaw"
has been discarded in British meteorology.

The endless subject of cloud terminology and nomenclature can not
be discussed in this paper; but I wish to call attention to one term in
this connection recently introduced by M. Besson. This is the name
"nephometer" for an instrument used in measuring the amount of
cloudiness, as distinguished from the familiar " nephoscope," by which
we observe the positions and movements of individual clouds.

German meteorologists have lately introduced the all-Greek names
" chionometer " and " chionograph," and the hybrid "nivometer," for
the instruments used in measuring snow. Although these terms will
hardly displace "snow-gage" in English, we shall probably find it con-
venient to use their derivatives ; e. g., " nivometric " ; just as we use
" pluviometric," though we generally avoid " pluviometer."

The name " ceraunograph " applied by Odenbach in 1891 to his
variety of the thunderstorm-recorder now seems destined to become the
generic and international designation for the numerous instruments of
this class. Particular forms have been known as "thunderstorm-re-
corders," "lightning-recorders," " brontometers," " brontographs,"
" ceraunometers," "electroradiographs," etc. " Ceraunophone " will.

THE LANGUAGE OF METEOROLOGY 279

accordingly, be the natural designation of the modification of the cerau-
nograph in which a telephone-receiver takes the place of a recording
pen.

Our Weather Bureau has recently contributed to the meteorological
vocabulary the name " kiosk/' applied to a little pavilion in which work-
ing meteorological instruments are displayed for the benefit of the
public. Although the connotations of this word are hardly consistent
with the style of architecture adopted for these structures in America,
no better designation has been proposed, and it is safe to assume that
" kiosk," as well as the object so named, has come to stay. It is rather
curious that, although " Wettersaulen " have been familiar objects in
Germany for half a century, their use has only recently spread to Eng-
lish-speaking countries, and the need of an English name for them has
only recently made itself felt.

When the first complete English meteorological dictionary makes its
appearance it will need to take account of fully ten thousand words
and plirases; and in connection with hundreds of these much work
must be done in tracing their vicissitudes and in bringing them into
something like conformity with a systematic and workable language.
The terms I have mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs are, in the
language of the day, " a drop in the bucket."

In closing, I wish to repeat a recommendation that I recently made
to the International Meteorological Committee, through the kind inter-
mediation of the chief of the Weather Bureau, in behalf of the creation
of an international commission on terminology, analogous to the com-
missions already established by the committee on various other meteoro-
logical subjects. The utility of such a step is well attested in the his-
tory of other sciences. In electricity, for example, the useful names of
the electrical units — "ohm," "volt," "ampere," "coulomb," "farad,"
" joule," " watt " and " henry " — were all promulgated by formal inter-
national agreement.

The International Meteorological Committee and Conferences have,
it is true, given us official definitions of a few terms; but such work can
not be done on an extensive scale save by a body especially created for
the purpose and having far more time at its disposal than is available
at the ordinary triennial assemblies of meteorologists.

Pending the consummation of this wish, let me urge meteorologists
to familiarize themselves with the neglected language of their science;
to avoid coining needless synonyms of terms that already exist; and,
when a new term is really needed, to create one with due regard to the
analogies of the language and its availability for international use.
Generally speaking, only Greek and Latin derivatives answer the latter
requirement. If a meteorologist feels himself unequal to framing a
valid word from the classical vocabularies, he can always appeal for aid
to some friendly colleague of philological attainments.

2 8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

THE SWEDEN VALLEY ICE MINE AND ITS EXPLANATION

By MARLIN O. ANDREWS

LEHIGH UNIVERSITY, SOUTH BETHLEHEM, PA.

THE Sweden Valley Ice Mine, one of the unexplained mysteries of
nature, is located about four miles east of Coudersport, the
county seat of Potter County, Pa. A similar phenomenon is situated
on Dingman Eun, about three miles west of Coudersport. These are
natural ice-manufacturing plants, running under full head during the
warm season of the year, but shutting down entirely during the cold
months of winter, when there is plenty of ice and snow to be had else-
where and when it would seem to be the most natural time for the
formation of ice at these places.

To learn something of the history of the Sweden Valley Ice Mine
we must go back to the time when the Indians were the chief inhabit-
ants of this particular section of the country.

A certain tribe knew the location of deposits of silver and lead,
which they carefully guarded against discovery both by other bands of
Indians and by the few white settlers in that vicinity. As the whites
became more numerous the Indians were driven farther west, taking
their mineral secrets with them, as well as the scalp of one white hunter
who accidentally discovered one of their lead mines. For years accounts
of these mines were handed down from one generation to another, until,
having become partially civilized, the Indians returned to recover, if
possible, some of their lost wealth. They came in bands of five or six
and searched the country thoroughly in the vicinity of Coudersport and
Sweden Valley, but without success. The country had been so changed
by the advance of civilization that they were unable to follow the direc-
tions given them by their ancestors and were finally obliged to abandon
the undertaking.

These strange, unexplained actions on the part of the Indians nat-
urally aroused considerable curiosity among the residents. They sur-
mised that the Indians were searching for minerals, and the ground
was again thoroughly gone over, but with no better success.

A year or so later, in 1894 or 1895, a Cataraugus Indian came to
Coudersport, got a lunch and walked off into the woods. After some
time he returned with some fine specimens of silver ore which he
exhibited to the amazed loungers who gathered around him. He then
disappeared without telling any one where he was from, where he
secured the ore or where he was going.

The result of this visit was only natural. Silver mining was the

THE SWEDEN VALLEY ICE MINE

281

topic of conversation whenever two or more persons got together.
Another search was organized which resulted in the discovery of the
Sweden Valley Ice Mine.

Mr. John Dodd and Mr. William O'Xeil were prospecting near
Sweden Valley when, underneath four or five inches of moss, they
found a thin layer of solid ice. After leveling off a space about fifteen
or twenty feet square they dug a shaft about six feet square by twelve
feet deep. At a depth of nine feet they found petrified wood, impres-
sions of leaves, ferns and other vegetation, also bones which were pro-
nounced to be human. At a lower depth a peculiar kind of rock was
found which they thought might contain gold or silver. Some of this

Showing the Opening at the Top of the Shaft.

was assayed and found to be of no value. At a depth of twelve feet an
aperture was found from which came a cold draught. This was thought
peculiar, but nothing was done to investigate farther and the work was
abandoned.

The following spring Mr. Dodd found a considerable amount of
ice in the mine, but thought that it had gathered there during the
winter and had not yet melted. However, as the warm weather ad-
vanced, the quantity of ice^ instead of melting as was expected, began
to increase, and by the middle of July the sides of the shaft were covered
with a coating of ice a foot or more thick and large icicles were form-
ing from the opening at the top.

As winter again came on, the ice began to disappear until the cave

282 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Looking down the Shaft, showing the Ice-covered Steps.

was nearly free from the summer's product. This phenomenon has
regularly been repeated each year since its discovery.

Mr. Dodd, who owns the land; had a small building erected around
the mine, leaving the roof, directly over the shaft, open so as to allow
the rays of the sun to beat in upon the ice formation. The beautiful
woods surrounding this spot make an ideal place for picnics and it has
become a favorite place for visitors to spend an afternoon, and inci-
dentally cool off.

Two years ago (1910) the bottom of the shaft settled eighteen
inches, leading to an experiment by Mr. Dodd. He says that two sticks
of dynamite were placed about eight feet back into a crevice at the
bottom of the shaft and fired without turning a stone or dislodging any
earth in the shaft. A possible conclusion is that there is a cave under-
neath the mine large enough to absorb the shock of the explosion.
Nothing more has been done in the way of investigation.

The Dingman Run Ice Mine is a more recent discovery, being
found on June 15, 1905, on Dingman Run on the farm of Mr. Pelchy.
Mr. Pelchy, with the help of another man, was clearing up some brush-
land for farming when, in order to get a better foothold on the steep
hillside, he tore away a little of the moss, which was several inches deep
at that place, and found pieces of ice.

Having heard of the ice mine at Sweden Valley he began to dig
in the hope of discovering a similar phenomenon on his own farm.
He made an opening in the hillside ten feet deep by twenty across,

THE SWEDEN VALLEY ICE MINE

283

finding crevices in the rock from which he took chunks of ice weighing
twenty and twenty-five pounds. Nothing moie was done to bring this
mine to the notice of the public and consequently it is known to but
very few people even in Coudersport.

Although the Sweden Valley Ice Mine was discovered in 1898, it is
practically unknown to-day. It is astonishing how many people within
a few miles have never visited it nor heard of it. Recent inquiry
(March, 1912) at the United States Geological Survey, Washington,
brought forth the following response :

There are in northern Pennsylvania, on the high plateau, several localities
where, during the winter, snow and ice accumulate in large quantities under the
protection of cliffs and caves, so that ice is obtainable from these sources during
the succeeding warm season, but the Geological Survey has no knowledge of any
ice mine in which ice is actually forming during the warm season.

The reason the U. S. Geological Survey has no record of these phe-
nomena is that their survey in Potter County has never been completed
and no atlas of the county has ever been published.

Further inquiry brought the following reply:

Icicles forming from the Top of the Shaft.

284

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

We find that phenomena similar to that described by you are not unknown
and have been discussed in numerous papers. One of the best of these is the
article on the Decorah Ice Cave and its explanation by Mr. Alois F. Kovarik,
Scientific American Supplement, November 26, 1898, pp. 19158 and 19159.
Dr. Samuel Calvin in his geology of Winneshiek County, Iowa (Iowa Geological

A View of the Inside of the Mine, showing Ice-covehed Steps at the eight.

Survey, Vol. 16, 1905, pp. 142 to 146), describes this phenomenon and quotes
at length from Mr. Kovarik 's article, with approval. See also ' ' Glaciers and
Freezing Caverns," by Edwin Swift Balch, Philadelphia, 1900, pp. 88, 89, 177,
136 to 161; also "Ice Caves and Frozen Wells as Meteorological Phenomena,"
by H. H. Kimball, Monthly Weather Eeview, Vol. 29, pp. 366 and 509, 1901.

The writer looked through these references hastily and from Balch's
"Glacieies or Freezing Caverns" the following is taken:

The natives and peasants in the neighborhood of Glaciere caves generally
believe that the ice of caves is formed in summer and melts in winter. I have
met with this belief everywhere in Europe; in the Eifel, Jura, Swiss Alps,

THE SWEDEN VALLEY ICE MINE

285

Tyrolese Alps, and Carpathians: and also occasionally in the United States.
Peasants and guides tell you with absolute confidence : ' ' The hotter the summer
the more ice there is. ' ' The strange thing is that any number of writers —
sometimes scientific men — have accepted the ideas and statements of the peasants
about the formation of ice in summer, and have tried to account for it.

The belief of the peasants is founded on the fact that they scarcely ever
go to any cave except when some tourist takes them with him, and, therefore,
they rarely see one in winter, and their faith is not based on observation. It is,
however, founded on an appearance of truth: and that is on the fact that the
temperature of glaciere caves, like that of other caves or that of cellars, is
colder in summer than the outside air, and warmer in winter than the outside

Another View of the Inside.

air. Possessing neither reasoning powers nor thermometers, the peasants simply
go a step further and say that glaciere caves are cold in summer and hot
in winter.

Professor Thury tells a story to the point. He visited the Grand Cave de
Montarquis in midwinter. All the peasants told him there would be no use
going, as there would be no ice in the cave. He tried to find even one peasant
who had been to the cave in winter, but could not. He then visited it himself
and found it full of hard ice.

While the writer does not claim, as these peasants, that the heat of
summer is the direct and only cause of the formation of ice, he does
hold that it is an indirect cause and that the ice to be seen in the Sweden
Valley Ice Mine is formed after the temperature outside the mine is far
above the freezing point, and it is when the temperature outside is the
highest that the ice is formed the most rapidly. The cause of this will
be explained shortly.

286

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The general skepticism regarding the existence of this phenomenon
has been illustrated many times of late and has furnished the people of
Coudersport with an endless source of amusement.

In the eaily part of the summer of 1911 a certain man of Detroit,
Michigan, came to visit relatives in Coudersport. He was, of course,
taken to see the ice mine, which was in its prime at that season of the
year. Upon his return to Detroit he wrote a short article for one of
the Detroit papers in which he told of this wonder that he had seen
near Coudersport and offered to bet any one and every one $100 or more
that his fictitious-sounding story was true. A millionaire ice manu-
facturer took the bet and eight other business men of Detroit followed
suit. Two newspaper men were selected as stake-holders to decide the

Petrified Wood taken from the Sweden Valley Ice Mine.

bets. They visited the mine and, of course, verified the newspaper story,
much to the disgust of the nine losers.

It is claimed by a great many persons who hear of this phenomenon,
never by those who actually see it, in the summer time, that the ice is
not formed during the summer, but is only an accumulation from the
preceding winter. It was to prove the falsity of this claim that the
writer visited the mine many times during the winter and spring of
1912. The existing conditions were found to be as follows:

The pit or shaft is about eight feet in diameter by twelve feet deep
and, as shown in the sketches, is located at the base of a steep hill. In
the winter time the pit is comparatively dry and free from ice. The
temperature inside is the same as that prevailing outside. In the

THE SWEDEN VALLEY ICE MINE

287

winter circulation

spring of the year, as the snow on the hillside begins to melt and the
frost comes out of the ground, water naturally begins to trickle down
the sides of the shaft, where, strange as it may seem, it is frozen in the
form of small icicles. This freezing process continues, until by July
the sides of the pit are completely covered with a coating of ice a foot
or more in thickness. In the early fall the process stops and the forma-
tion of ice gradually melts. The sides of the shaft are of loose shale,
in which there are numerous crevices extending back and up into the
hill, the rock strata being rather
sharply inclined. A draught of
cold air, which at some places is
strong enough to extinguish the
flame of a small taper, issues from
these fissures in the summer time.
This draught is variable, being
stronger on hot than on cool days.
A heavy mist may also be seen
rising out of the pit and floating
off clown the hill close to the
ground. The temperature of the
pit during the past summer varied
between 25 and 32 degrees Fahren-
heit.

The explanation of this phe-
nomenon appears to lie in the cold
currents of air issuing from the
crevices of the rocks along the
sides of the shaft. The air must wmmer circulaHm

gain access to these fissures at some other point, which must be
at a higher altitude than that of the pit, as will be seen from the
following discussion.

This being true, it is evident that in the winter time the column of
air directly over the pit is cooler and consequently heavier than that in
the rock passages. Therefore, it forces its way down into the pit and
up through the rock strata, chilling the rocks to a great depth and
storing up a vast quantity of " cold." We see, then, that the amount
of " cold " which is stored up, or the depth to which the rocks are chilled
at the beginning of warm weather in the spring, depends upon the
length and severity of the winter.

As the warm weather comes on the column of air over the pit be-
comes heated and is displaced by the cold, heavy air flowing down out
of the passages. This cold current of air freezes any surface water
which flows over the edges of the pit and maintains a freezing tempera-
ture as long as the supply of " cold " in the hill lasts, after which the
circulation of air ceases and the ice formation melts.

2 88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The place at which air gains access to these passages need not be a
single opening, but consists, in all probability, of numerous small aper-
tures, covered possibly by a thin coating of moss, loose shale or other
porous substance.

In the summer time the warm outside air entering these apertures
comes in contact with the rocks which have been chilled by the reverse
currents of the preceding winter and in doing so gives up its heat to
them, becoming specifically heavier. It then forces its way on down,
displacing the warmer and lighter column of air above the pit.

It is evident that the rapidity with which this circulation takes
place depends upon the difference in temperature of the two air col-
umns. That is, the cold outward current is much more noticeable on
hot days than on cool days in summer, and in winter the strongest in-
ward current is noticed on the coldest days.

This fact accounts for the common belief that the freezing takes
place more rapidly and that the mine is colder on hot than on cool days.

The temperature of the mine, or, in other words, of the air as it
issues from the crevices, remains practically constant throughout the
summer, which is proved by thermometer readings. However, the dif-
ference between this constant temperature and the temperature pre-
vailing outside the mine is obviously greatest on the hottest days and
therefore, as one enters the mine, the contrast is more noticeable. This
causes one to believe that the mine is colder when it really is not. It
is true, however, that the ice is formed most rapidly during the hottest
weather. This is not because the temperature of the mine is lower, as
is generally supposed, but is due to the fact that the circulation of air
is more rapid; that is, a greater quantity of cold air issues from the
numerous apertures and consequently a greater amount of "cold" is
available for the formation of ice.

As soon as the supply of '" cold " in the rocks is exhausted the inter-
nal and external air columns become gradually equal in temperature
and weight, the circulation ceases and the ice begins to melt. This gen-
erally occurs about September of each year.

If this is the true explanation of this phenomenon, we may say,
with truth, that in this particular instance it is the heat of summer
which causes the ice to form, but, at the same time, we can not disre-
gard the fact that it is the severity of the preceding winter and the nat-
ural arrangement of the rock strata which make it possible for the heat
of summer to produce this peculiar phenomenon.

THE LIGHT OF THE STARS 289

WHAT BECOMES OF THE LIGHT OF THE STARS?

Br FRANK W. VERY

WESTWOOD OBSERVATORY

ONE of the most astounding things in nature is the enormous energy
which the sun is continually dispensing as radiation to surround-
ing space. The earth, as viewed from the sun, is a mere point in space,
and receives no more than 1/2,200,000,000 of the radiant energy which
the sun is outpouring so lavishly. Yet out of this small fraction of the
total radiation, practically all the terrestrial activities of wind and
wave, tropical hurricanes and avalanches of ice on alpine slopes and the
no less potent but milder forces which clothe the earth with verdure,
originate.

If we include all the planets in the solar system, and assess the out-
going solar rays at the maximum tariff imposed by the obstructions in
their path, it still remains true that only 1/100,000,000 of their power
is directly utilized in maintaining the thermal equilibrium and life of
the attendant orbs, dependent from day to day for these gifts upon the
dispenser of all of this bounty.

The solar outpouring for even a single day is inconceivably great,
yet the same flux of energy has been going on ceaselessly and with very
little change in its absolute intensity for at least a hundred million
years, as the records of geologic time attest. If only one part of solar
radiant energy in one hundred million is directly utilized, what becomes
of the other ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thou-
sand, nine hundred and ninety-nine? Remember, also, that our sun
is but one among hundreds of millions of stars made known to us by
our photographic telescopes, all outpouring similar torrents of energy,
and the question comes home to us accentuated with many million-
fold intensity.

Professor Comstock 1 has shown that the theoretical and observed
distributions of luminosity among the brighter stars may be reconciled,
if we suppose either that the intrinsically brightest stars have a " dis-
tinct tendency to cluster about the sun," or else that " there is a
sensible absorption of light in its transmission through space, of such
average amount that a star having a parallax of a tenth of a second
appears one magnitude fainter than it would appear in the absence of
absorption." Other modes of attacking the problem must be invoked
in order to decide between these alternatives.

1 George C. Comstock, ' ' The Luminosity of the Brighter Lucid Stars, ' ' Pub-
lications of the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America, Vol. 1, p. 307.

VOL. LXXXII. — 20

2 9 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The much more searching analysis of Professor J. C. Kapteyn 2
favors an actual absorption of light from the more distant stars, but a
very much smaller one than that demanded by Comstock's result.
Kapteyn's method, however, when applied to bodies more remote than
the nearer stars, gives about the same amount of absorption for the
easily resolvable clusters, IST.G.C. 7078 and 7089, and for the irre-
solvable and very much more distant Andromeda nebula, which indi-
cates that his absorbent medium is a local adjunct to these stellar
masses, and that it is perhaps a meteoritic envelope of somewhat greater
volume than the stellar agglomeration, but not a universal medium
filling all space. The circumferential absorption or scattering deple-
tion of light by a limited envelope can not be taken as an indication
of nebular distance, but will vary with the constitution of the en-
shrouding meteoritic swarm.

To make apparent any general absorption of radiation by the inter-
stellar medium, it becomes necessary to investigate the properties of
space far beyond the limits of the Galaxy and its outlying shells of
sparsely distributed stars, and, crossing the immense voids of surround-
ing ether, to inquire whether they contain other galaxies of dimensions
comparable with our own, and whether these afford any evidence of a
gradual absorption of luminous energy by the intervening medium.

The first scientific enunciation of the doctrine that there are such
external galaxies was given in 1734 by Emanuel Swedenborg in his
Principiorum Berum Naturalium, 3 and Herschel's nebular discoveries
lent some support to the doctrine; but it was not until after 1864 that
further evidence really bearing on the question came. Then, spectro-
scopic examination at the hands of Huggins and his successors divided
the nebulas into two great classes of the gaseous nebulas with spectra of
a few bright lines, and the white nebulas with continuous spectra. This
furnished the first real criterion for a fundamental distinction.

The gaseous nebulas are so closely associated with the Milky Way
that they obviously belong to our galactic system; and Eanyard's
recognition of wide, dark lanes or spots, often branching or dendritic
in form, blotting out extensive regions on Barnard's photographs of
the Milky Way, showed that not all of the gaseous bodies in its neigh-
borhood are luminous, but that some are to be compared to a dark
smoke or mist, obscuring the glories of the brightness which lies back
of the widely extended and absorbent cosmic cloud. 4 Among the con-

2 Contributions from the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory, No. 42.

8 ' ' Emanuel Swedenborg-Opera quasdam aut inedita aut obsoleta de rebus
naturalibus nunc edita sub auspieiis Regias Academise Scientiarum Suecicag.
Holmise, 1908." II Cosmologiea-Pars tertia, Paragraphus prima, N. 8 et 11,
pp. 271-272.

4 See A. Cowper Eanyard's completion of Proctor's "Old and New Astron-
omy," where the subject is discussed at some length, pp. 739-746.

THE LIGHT OF THE STARS 291

spicuously vacant spaces in the Milky Way may be noted those running
east from Rho Ophiuchi, others east of Theta Ophiuchi, and mingled
star clouds and vacancies in Sagittarius near 18^ hours right ascension
and 11° south declination.

Since there exist these enormously extended masses of gaseous or
misty material, capable, whether themselves luminous or dark, of exert-
ing a strong absorption upon the light of any bodies beyond them, and
intimately associated with the Milky Way; and since, further, it is
inevitable that the broad disk of the galactic accumulation must have
gathered into its vicinity great swarms of meteoritic material, 5 acting
after the manner of a general, widely distributed mist, forming an
envelope analogous to an atmosphere having its greatest depth in the
direction of the galactic plane; it follows that this extensive quasi-
galactic atmosphere and its associated, but locally limited, gaseous
bodies must especially absorb the light from those distant galaxies which
lie in or near the plane of the Milky Way. This, it seems to me, is the
probable explanation of the extraordinary increase in the numbers of
the white nebulae near the poles of the Galaxy, namely, that the galactic
quasi-atmosphere being thinnest along a diameter at right angles to the
plane of the swarm, the light of external galaxies is best able to pene-
trate through the obstructions if coming from this direction.

Kapteyn's recognition of absorption by an interstellar medium also
supports the above explanation, since he finds that the absorption di-
minishes in extra-galactic latitudes. 6 Professor Comstock, it is true,
reaches a different result, finding that stars of the 10.5 magnitude have
larger proper motions as their galactic latitude increases, whence he
concludes that " at right angles to the Galaxy the limits of the stellar
system fall within the range of vision," which may be correct, but his
explanation that this is so because "the transmission of light through
and that this medium offers little obstruction in the direction of
the galactic plane does not necessarily follow. The simple ex-
planation that the Galaxy is a discoidal aggregation of stars with
limits less remote than is sometimes assumed, permits the suppo-
sition that the 10.5-magnitude stars in the galactic plane comprise
many relatively bright stars at a double distance and having a mean
annual proper motion of 0".01, whereas the extra-galactic stars are
the extra-galactic spaces is impeded by some absorbing medium," 7

5 The central regions of a galactic accumulation of stars may be expected to
be relatively free from meteoritic material, for here we have a space swept clean
by the stellar attraction which gathers in the material and places it where it can
be readily absorbed. In the more distant intergalactie spaces, the meteoritic
material is widely dispersed, but upon the borders of the galaxies there are
accumulations of finely divided matter, not yet incorporated in the stars.

6 Contributions from the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory, No. 42, pp. 23-24.

7 Publications of the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America
Vol. 1, p. 282; see also Astronomical Journal, No. 558.

2 9 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

soon cut off by the external galactic limits and have a mean distance
one half as great, represented by a double proper motion of 0".02.
This hypothesis fits the observations and reconciles the conflicting
results of the two investigators.

Among the many spiral or discoidal nebulae there are some which
have the plane of the disk presented edgewise, and which are fore-
shortened into long and narrow shapes, sometimes with a central
globular condensation. Several of these elongated objects are centrally
divided by a dark band. I take it that these dark bands represent the
quasi-atmospheric element in question. One of the best examples is
the nebula Herschel II 240 Pegasi, which is a fusiform object (as seen
in projection) with a strong central condensation, and fading gradually
towards the extremities. The bright mass is almost exactly bisected
by a longitudinal black band, sharply defined, and about one fourth'
of the width of the bright part near the ends. It appears to be an
equatorial belt of absorbent material, outside of, or an extension of,
the margin of a luminous lenticular mass. Other examples are:
HV 19 Andromeda, HV 8 Leonis, HV 41 Canum Yenaticorum, HV 24
Comce Berenices and HI 43 Virginis. It is very probable that our own
Galaxy is a similar disk-like aggregation of stars, involving spiral star-
streams, and surrounded or interpenetrated by an absorbing medium
which is most extensive in the plane of the disk.

In considering the absorption of light in space beyond the farthest
reaches of the Galaxy, the investigation is best limited to luminous
bodies of the galactic order which are neither themselves involved
within the coils of our own starry system, nor situated in an extension
of its plane, that is, we must exclude those objects whose galactic
latitude is small. The latter, by the hypothesis, will consist of only a
few near and relatively brilliant objects whose light has sufficient in-
tensity to penetrate the galactic absorbent medium; but lest the dis-
tinction should be considered too fine, or too hypothetical, it may be
waived in the present test.

I find only one nebula among those pictured by Mr. Isaac Eoberts
which is in a conspicuously vacant region. Of this nebula, H IV 74
Cephei = G.C. 4634 — N.G.C. 7023, Eoberts says: "The nebula
appears in a region almost devoid of stars." It is situated near the
border of a branch of the Milky Way. Sir William Herschel has
recorded his impression that nebula? are apt to be found in regions
which are poor in stars. This may be so, but an impartial examination
of the photographs seems to indicate that the supposed connection
between nebulae and stellar vacuities is mainly a myth. It will require
more extensive material than we now have to decide the point. Where
such connection does undoubtedly exist, two different causes may be
assigned for it: (1) a gaseous nebula between the Milky Way and our-
selves may have a wide border of non-luminous absorbent material

THE LIGHT OF THE STARS 293

which blots out the light of the more distant stars; and (2) the misty
matter associated with the more condensed star-groups may obscure the
light of external galaxies which therefore are better seen through the
thinner places in our own stellar mass. Either of these causes would
account for the stellar voids which Sir William Herschel describes as
even a warning of the proximity of nebulas; but it will be seen that
there is no foundation for the inference which Mr. Herbert Spencer
has built upon the supposed fact, namely, that none of the nebulas can
be external galaxies, because " thousands of nebulas . . . agree in their
visible positions with the thin places in our own Galaxy," and that they
are necessarily most intimately linked with its structure. The connec-
tion, if established, will in no wise invalidate the wider generalization
that external galaxies must appear to be most numerous in those regions
where the mists or gaseous masses attendant on our Galaxy thin out
and permit the light from the outside to penetrate the starry walls.

Mr. Eoberts bears this testimony to the fact that the larger part of
the nebulas are situated beyond the confines of the Galaxy: There are
" to be seen," he says, " stars apparently in a complete state of develop-
ment, scattered over the surfaces of the most prominent of the nebulas,
but it will be observed that they do not conform with the trends of the
spirals nor with the curves of the nebulous stars [or stellar condensa-
tions 8 ?] involved in them. This fact I apprehend to be strong evi-
dence that they are independent of the nebulas — that they are not in
any way involved in the nebulosity, but are seen by us either in front,
or else in space beyond the nebulas. If they were beyond them, their
light would have to penetrate through the nebulosity, and we should
therefore expect it to be duller in character and the margins of the
stars to be surrounded by more or less dense nebulous rings; but these
effects are not traceable in the photo-images, and we are consequently
led to adopt the alternative inference that they are between us and the
nebulas. If they were involved in the nebulosity, they would conform
with the trends of the convolutions and appear like nebulous stars." 9

The dark lanes in the Milky Way are sometimes called " rifts," a
term which implies that the stars are distributed in a relatively thin
sheet which can be rent asunder. Moreover, the word is not used in a
merely metaphorical or descriptive sense, but in its full significance, as
in the following quotation from " Worlds in the Making " by Svante
Arrhenius (p. 173) : "The presumption that these rifts represent the
tracks of large celestial bodies which have cut their way through widely
expanded nebular masses has been entertained for a long time." And

8 Of the larger spiral nebulse, Professor G. W. Ritchey says (Astrophys. J.,
Vol. 32, p. 32, July, 1910) : "All of these contain great numbers of soft star-like
condensations which I shall call nebulous stars. ' ' It appears not improbable that
these represent irresolvable stellar groups.

9 ' ' Photographs of Stars, Star Clusters and Nebula?, ' ' Vol. 2, pp. 23-24.

294 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the same author explains the dark ring around the nebula near Rho
Ophiuchi on the supposition that " the smaller and more slowly moving
immigrants . . . are stopped by the particles of the nebulae," and are
detained by the gathering crowd. But even if it could be demonstrated
that the stars are arranged in thin sheets, and that celestial bodies exist
of sufficient size and momentum to plow their way through great aggre-
gations of stars, demolishing everything in their track, it would still be
exceedingly improbable that only one layer of stars should exist in a
given direction, or that several rifts should coincide. On the other
hand, the presence of widely extended masses of dark absorbent matter
in the shape of branching streams, sheets or rings, situated between us
and the depths of star-strewn space, is not unlikely.

The gaseous nebulas which form a part of the galactic structure are
often very extensive, and are of a great variety of shapes, being fre-
quently strangely irregular; but the more numerous white nebulas are
formed more nearly after a common pattern, although still with infinite
variation as to details. 10 In general, what is common to nearly all of
the white nebulas is a tendency to form a two-branched spiral, the
branches issuing from opposite sides of a central condensation, and
coiling either within the boundaries of a plane circular disk, or forming
a helix around a cylindrical directrix. The former figure is the more
characteristic, and is well exhibited in the Great Nebula in Andromeda.

Another very remarkable and at present unique type is the transient
nebulosity which appeared around Nova Persei, issuing from the star
as a center, and expanding into the commencement of a vortical ring.
It was an electric phenomenon, an exhibition of canal rays, or positive
ions, on a grand scale. Facts from the history of these two bodies will
be found useful in preparing one of the necessary means for our quest.

It is obvious that we require for this investigation of external
galaxies some scale of distances, and equally obvious that at present
such a scale can be only approximate. Indeed, it is probably this
uncertainty as to the scale on which the universe is constructed which
deters astronomers from attempting to discriminate between different
galactic orders. I propose to see if this uncertainty can be, in part,
removed.

I propose to take the distance of the Andromeda nebula as our
celestial " yardstick," which may be called one andromede, and assuming
that when we consider a large number of nebulas, the average size does
not vary with the distance, and that consequently the average distances
may be taken inversely proportional to the angular diameters of the
objects, I shall classify the nebulas according to apparent size and
brightness. It is essential that the subdivision shall not be too minute.

10 The class of white nebulae exhibits various stages of development, and
includes objects of mixed type. See E. A. Fath, "The Spectra of Spiral Nebulae
and Globular Star Clusters," Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 33, p. 58, January, 1911.

THE LIGHT OF THE STARS 295

There is in nature a tendency to wide variation, coupled with a coor-
dinate tendency to uniformity in averages, when the number of classes
is limited. Thus the land mammals range in size from elephants, say
15 feet long, to mice and shrews of a few inches. If we divide the
earth into a good many faunal regions, the average sizes of the mam-
mals in the different provinces may vary considerably; but if we divide
the earth into only two halves, the averages will be almost identical.

For the present research, I take Sir John Herschel's " General
Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars," which, coming from a
single hand, and that the hand of a master, may be considered fairly
homogeneous; and excluding the clusters which are known to be asso-
ciated with the Milky Way, and are therefore comparatively near, I
divide the remaining objects into two classes: (1) large nebulae, or
those having a diameter greater than 2'; and (2) small nebulae, or
those which are less than 2' across; and I shall assume that the small
nebulae are on the average farther away than the large nebulae in the
ratio, x : 1, leaving the value of the ratio to be determined by consid-
erations to be drawn from the result, and which will appear in the
sequel.

A point-source of light diminishes in brightness as the square of its
distance increases; but light from a large number of points so close
together that they can not be discriminated must be treated as a
luminous surface; and since the angular area of a surface also dimin-
ishes proportionally to the inverse square of the distance, the intrinsic
brightness, or the brightness of the unit of angular area, does not
change with the varying distances of the nebulae. We must therefore
inquire : Is the intrinsic brightness of a small, and therefore presumably
distant, white nebula equal to, or less than that of a large one ? If the
average brightness of the unit of angular area is less for the smaller
white nebulae the presumption is that the light of the smaller and more
distant objects has been absorbed in passing through space. To apply
this test, I further subdivide each class into three groups — (vf) very
faint, (/) faint and (b) bright, or, if desired, the last two may be
combined into a single group.

Dividing the nebulae in Herschel's catalogue into groups of four
hundred each, and taking the ratios of the small to the large nebulae in
each of the thirteen groups, I find that without exception the faint and
small nebulae are more numerous than the bright and small in a rela-
tively very much larger ratio than occurs in the corresponding divisions
of the large nebulae. With only three exceptions the same relation is
obtained by comparing the very faint and the faint nebulae. Treating
the groups separately, and taking the mean of the ratios, I find

Small divided by large: vf, 8.38; /, 6.83; b, 1.48.

The sums for the entire catalogue are

296 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Small: v/=1765, /=897, b = 241.
Large: t;/= 235, f— 172, & = 204.

The division into separate groups with the result that the same gen-
eral law is given by every one of the groups is of course the more
severe test ; but taking the ratios for the sums as answering our present
purpose, we have for the ratio of

Small nebute .
Large nebulas
or approximately v/:/:6 = 6:4:l; that is, the very faint nebulas are
in excess over the bright ones among the small nebulas in the ratio 6 : 1,
but are of nearly equal frequency among the large nebulas. In other
words, the large nebulas are intrinsically much brighter than the small
ones.

I next performed the same operation with the 744 objects in a
" Catalogue of New Nebulas Discovered on the Negatives " taken with
the Crossley reflector at the Lick Observatory, dividing them into two
groups : ( 1 ) very small, or not over one half minute in diameter, and
(2) those which are above this size and which may be called "large."
These groups were divided into two classes: (a) very faint, including
those which are described as " very faint " and " very very faint,"
and ( b ) pretty bright, or those given in the catalogue as " faint " to
" bright." The result of this examination is that three fourths of the
large nebulce are pretty bright, and one fourth very faint; while the
very small nebulas have just the opposite distribution of brightness,
three fourths of them being very faint, and only one fourth pretty
bright.

In comparing the two catalogues, it must be recognized that the
photographic method is far more delicate. Most of the objects in the
photographic catalogue could not be detected by visual examination.
The photograph also includes faint margins and therefore increases
the apparent size of such nebulas as are visually perceptible. Conse-
quently, Herschel's small nebulas are about equivalent to the " large "
nebulas of the photographic catalogue, and we should expect that the
photograph would include a much wider range of brightness — all of
which is confirmed by a discussion of the observations.

Let us suppose that the average distances of the several classes of
nebulas are given in andromedes, and denoted by the letter a, and that
the coefficient of transmission of light through space is t a ; also that
the mean distances are inversely proportional to certain assumed
apparent diameters which are fairly typical. Each class of nebulas
includes objects having a considerable range of actual diameter, that is,
the variation of distance is not as great as that of the apparent diam-
eter. Instead of taking a mean value of 4/ to represent the diameter
of that class which includes nebulas less than A/ in diameter, I take

THE LIGHT OF THE STARS 297

the upper limit of £' as representing the class of very small nebulae.
For the intermediate class which includes those objects called " small "
by Herschel and " large " in the Lick catalogue, and which may be
designated as medium, I take a diameter five times as great, or 2^';
and for Herschel's " large " nebula?, I take a diameter of 5'. The
reason for these selections shall now be given.

I take for the diameter of the Andromeda nebula, 110'. This sub-
tends the longer axis of the oval figure of the more condensed spiral
arms. The fainter extensions are omitted because these are seldom
included in the more distant nebula?. Taking a suitable value for the
coefficient of transmission, the curves giving the relation between
brightness and distance become congruous for the two catalogues, if we
take x, the unknown ratio of distance for large and small nebula?, equal
to 2 for Herschel's catalogue, and x = 5 for the Lick catalogue. This
gives the following sequence:

Nebular Class Diameter Distance Transmission

Andromeda IIO'.O, fl 1 = 1.0 andromede, t = 0.996

Large nebulas 5'.0, a 2 = 62.5 andromede, t a = 0.778

Medium nebulae 2'.5, a 3 = 125.0 andromede, t a = 0.606

Very small nebulas 0'.5, c 4 = 625.0 andromede, t a = 0.082

The statement which was made for the ratio of brightness among
the groups in the Lick catalogue (vf and / -J- b for large and small
nebula?) can be repeated in identical language for Herschel's catalogue
by merely substituting the fraction f instead of f ; that is to say,
Herschel's nebula? are not only nearer than the Lick nebula?, but are
more nearly at a common distance; and the fraction expressing the
ratio of brightness for the two groups of near and distant objects
among the Herschelian nebula? approaches nearer to the value of
equality which it would have if all of the nebulae were at the same
distance, for then there would be equal absorption, and large and small
objects should be equally grouped about a mean value.

Eatio of brightness
for large and for
small nebulas

If equidistant, 1 : 1
Herschel, 2 : 1

Lick Obs'y, 3:1"

The absorption exerted by the medium between us and the nebula?
is in the main a non-selective one. If it were not so, but resembled the
ordinary selective absorption of the planetary atmospheres, the most
distant nebula? should be deep red instead of white. Some selective
absorption may, however, be exercised by the misty quasi-atmospheric
envelopes which we have reason to believe are associated with some or

11 For the details of this investigation reference may be made to my paper,
"Are the White Nebulas Galaxies?" Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 4536, Bd.
189, 441-454, November, 1911.

298 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

all of the galaxies; but these effects will be local and independent of
the distance separating us from the galaxy in question.

If the intergalactic absorption is non-selective, and therefore not to
be attributed to diffraction from particles comparable in size with the
wave-lengths of light, nor to selective scattering produced by gaseous
molecules, to what shall we refer it? We believe, on what seems to
be good scientific evidence, that meteoric stones and meteoritic dust
particles are strewn through the celestial spaces. Can they produce the
depletion of the nebular light ?

In part, no doubt, the light is absorbed by meteoritic material; but
there is a fatal objection to the supposition that all, or even a large
part, of the absorption can be produced in this way. If there were
enough meteoritic dust to reduce the light from the most distant nebulae
to a small fraction, only this fraction could escape absorption. The
rest of the radiant energy from the stars would be absorbed and
reradiated from particle to particle, but without being able to escape,
and the entire mass of meteoritic material accumulated in the untold
depths of space must eventually glow. Long before this, the skies
would become a scorching envelope. The universe would be a prison
house. There would be no escape from its brazen walls.

Is there any other solution of the problem ? I think that there is ;
but first let us get an approximate conception of the dimensions of this
universe of galaxies. By combining the rate at which the nebulosity
around Nova Persei expanded, with established principles from known
physical laws, and noting further that the nova, like all of its kin, was
a galactic object — a member of the condensed swarm of stars which
constitutes our Milky Way — also that it was on the more distant branch
of that mighty ring, I have deduced a first approximation to the dimen-
sions of the more condensed portion of our Galaxy.

Next, I have passed from the Milky Way to the Great Nebula in
Andromeda by asking how much farther the nebula must be in order
that a new star which appeared almost at its very center in August,
1885, should have been comparable in brightness with a nova of
moderate size in our own Galaxy. The answer is that approximately
1 andromede = 1600 light-years, or 15,000,000,000,000,000 kilometers. 12
An entirely independent computation, on somewhat different lines, by
Mr. J. Ellard Gore, leads to a result of the same order. Mr. Gore is
not quite as explicit as I have been ; but the general agreement between
our results makes me feel confident that we are not far from the truth.

No other of the white nebulas compares with the Andromeda nebula

12 In Knowledge for September, 1912, I conclude that Lord Kelvin's esti-
mate of the diameter of the Galaxy, which was five times as great as mine, is
probably the better of the two, whence it follows that 1 andromede = 8,000 light-
years. But we are concerned at present with rough estimates of an order of
magnitude only, and may waive all minute details.

THE LIGHT OF THE STARS 299

in size, and their average distance apart may perhaps be ten times as
great. We will suppose that each galaxy is at the center of an other-
wise unoccupied cube 10 andromedes on an edge. The radius of a
sphere containing 450,000 such cubes is 760,000 light-years. Now
Perrine estimates that there are at least 500,000 nebulae in the heav-
ens within reach by the Crossley reflector, and probably nine tenths
of these are white nebulae or galaxies. It is therefore safe to say that
the light of the stars can travel for one million years before becoming
so much reduced by intergalactic absorption as to be beyond the grasp
of this powerful instrument.

The view which I now wish to present is that it is the ether itself
which absorbs the radiation from the stars.

Considered merely as to its volume, the ether is so overwhelmingly
immense that all other bodies shrink into nothingness in comparison.
The radius of the sun is

r =7 X (10) 5 kilometers.

Half the distance to the nearest star is

r # ==2 X (10) 13 kilometers.

An ethereal sphere which may be called the sun's own, being bounded
by the similar spheres of neighboring stars, may be drawn with the
latter radius. The radius of the sun bears to that of its interstellar
sphere the ratio

r : r* = 1 : 30,000,000,

and the volume of the associated ether exceeds that occupied by the
solar substance in the ratio

(r ) 3 : (r ) 3 = 2.7X (10) 22 : 1.

Since there are vacant spaces between neighboring galaxies, something
must be allowed for these. Let us suppose that the ethereal volume is
four hundred times greater than that just given, or that its volume
ratio is

Ether volume : Matter volume = (10) 2i : 1.

This allows a considerable extension of thinly scattered stars around
each galaxy, and places the galaxies at relatively smaller distances from
each other than the stars, if distances are expressed in terms of diam-
eters, an arrangement which is indicated by the evidence already
presented.

The next step in the argument demands an estimate of the total
light from all of the stars. Call this L. Newcomb gave us such a
photometric measurement, and found

L = 600 stars of zero magnitude.

The brightness of the sun is

3 oo TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

L' = 3.3 X (10) 10 stars of zero magnitude.

Hence U = ^ X ^^ * - = 5.5 X (10) 7 X L.

The average illumination in intergalactic space is very likely less than
one one-hundred-millionth of that of sunlight; but a majority of the
stars have less absorbent atmospheres than our sun, and as sunlight at
the earth's distance must be increased in the ratio 1 : 46,000 to give
the light emitted by the surface of the solar sphere, the average radiant
energy at stellar surfaces may be assumed as (10) 12 times the average
radiant energy in the star-lit ether.

If V and L are the volume and average illumination of the ether,
V = the total volume of stellar material, and L' = the total light
from the combined surfaces of all of the stars, an instantaneous image
of the relation between the two bodies — ether and matter — that is to
say, a representation of the relation if there were an instantaneous
emission of light with an infinite velocity, would give

VL : V'L'= (10) 12 X 1 : 1 X (10) 12 ,
or equality. But if the element of time enters, and also the actual
velocity of light, the illumination at a given point in the ether will
increase with the time. Let the year be the unit of time. After one
billion years, supposing that the stellar radiation can have endured as
long as this, instead of unity for the ratio VL/V'L' as in the pre-
ceding equation, we shall have

VL = V'L'X (10) 12 .
Considering the limiting surface of the ether to be, not an imaginary
circumscribing sphere, but the sum of the combined stellar surfaces
across which the sum total of stellar radiant energy is being constantly
transferred from matter to ether, the case stands about like this :

Total Radiant Energy
Volume Radiation (Superficial) (Volumftriei

12

Stars = 1 Stars = (10) 12 Stars = (10)

Ether=(10) 12 Ether = (10) 12 Ether =(10)

24

The large amount of the total radiant energy of the free ether, com-
pared with that of the stars may seem surprising, but it results from
the fact that the average illumination of the ether is due to the accu-
mulation of radiant energy from depths of space which are greater as
the ether is more transparent. Unless the radiant energy were ab-
sorbed, it could not do otherwise than accumulate. The accumulation
represents the combined radiation of an immense number of stars
whose average distance is to be measured in millions of light-years —
how many millions depends upon the time that the stellar radiation
remains in the ether before it is all absorbed.

According to what precedes, the average ethereal energy can hardly
be less than the radiant energy from the stars within a range of a
million light-years, and may amount to many times this figure; and as

TEE LI GET OF TEE STABS 3°i

the absorption is a gradual one, the actual duration of luminous propa-
gation may have to be reckoned in thousands of millions of years.
Now the radiant energy of the ether represents its temporary mass.
If we knew the relation between mass energy and radiant energy, we
could give the ratio between the permanent energy of mass of the stars
and the luminous energy of the ether. For example, if the mass energy
of a star is on the average (10) 12 times its radiant energy, then the
total energy of the universe is always equally divided between ether and
matter, because the same radiation comes forth from unit volume of
matter, and is distributed to (10) 12 units of ether. Or, if mass energy
bears a larger ratio to radiant energy than this, energy may remain
longer in its material than in its ethereal form, only a small fraction
of the total energy residing in the ether.

To conjoin stellar centers and ethereal expanses, an intermediate
order of existence is needed: An order which faces both ways, having
relations with the ether and with the stars. Viewed from the side of
ether, we begin to dimly apprehend an electric substance, not yet matter,
although possessing many of its properties, seeming to be both a sub-
stance and a force, mobile, energetic, viscid enough to be localized and
to take on intricate forms, a world-plasm, waiting to be incorporated.

Meteorites circulating around a galactic center remain for enormous
periods in the neighborhood of their apogalacteum, and moving with
extreme slowness, they have time to gather to themselves the scattered
atoms of space, even though the attracting masses may average only a
few grams. A meteoritic mass of 1 gram which, if quiescent, will at-
tract to itself the particles within a radius of 1 meter in about 2 months,
may be expected to leave a clean-swept track of considerable width
through that part of its revolution which occurs in intergalactic space.
Possibly the meteoritic chondri have thus grown by accretion in the
depths of space, even if, as some suppose, their nuclei may have orig-
inated by condensation from masses of heated mineral vapor. Such a
slow growth is not incompatible with various vicissitudes, and an even-
tual consolidation of many such masses into compound chondritic com-
plexes, after the manner of the formation of large hail stones.

Particles which are thrown off from luminous stars, or from fine
cosmic material near the stars, being driven away by the pressure of
light, are not necessarily of dimensions much larger than molecular,
and although the swiftness and small mass of such light-repelled par-
ticles must prevent them from acquiring additions by attracting the
atoms near which they pass, some increase of size is to be anticipated
by chance collisions with atoms, the particles being slowed down and
reabsorbed by massive attracting bodies. But these are the last steps
of an intergalactic process. We must go farther back to reach its in-
ception.

If we attribute the absorption of light in space to the ether itself,

3 o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the radiant energy absorbed performs work upon the ether, presumably
the generation of minute ethereal vortex-rings — the elementary par-
ticles from which electrons are derived, or possibly the positive and
negative electrons themselves out of which the atoms are formed.
From associations of electrons to atoms, from atoms to molecules, from
molecules to the first tiny beginnings of a cosmical crystalline subli-
mate, there is a continual progression and increase of size. Finally,
this widely dispersed material must be gathered from the immense
voids of space into the germs of future worlds, and for this task the
meteorites appear to be the appointed instruments.

A process which goes on forever in one direction is inconceivable.
For every swing of the pendulum there must be a counter swing. If
atoms have been built up by the action of light, they can be torn apart,
and the energy of their formation will be once more set free. We may
assume that a certain proportion of the atoms disintegrate, a very mi-
nute proportion ordinarily in planetary bodies, but a much larger one
under solar conditions. The following facts suggest a relation : ( 1 ) The
known radioactive elements disintegrate with the production of helium,
and the evolution of enormous thermal energy. (2) The stars which
are, at least externally, the hottest, since they have effective tempera-
tures which have been rated in a few cases as high as 40,000° C, are
surrounded by extensive atmospheres of helium. These relations favor
the hypothesis that the helium stars contain an exceptional amount of
peculiarly unstable elements, and owe their high temperature to the heat
set free in the gradual elimination and destruction of these substances.
The energy of formation of the atoms is being slowly dissipated as radia-
tion from the stars, but is eventually reabsorbed by the ether, and is
thus restored to the material phase of its existence by the formation of
new atoms.

A plausible inference may be formed from the behavior of radium.
In 1,000 years, 4 grams of radium will have been nearly one third
transformed into other forms of matter of less intrinsic energy, the
radium being reduced to about 2.8 grams. During this interval of.
time, the four grams of radium will have emitted, according to Euther-
ford's measurement of the annual production of heat from radium,
(4.0 + 2.8) x 876?000 x lj0 00 = 3.0 X (10) 9

gram-calories of heat. This is, of course, only a first approximation.
The progression is not strictly linear. Since the gram of substance
transformed has not, in this case, been annihilated as matter, but has
simply been transmuted into other forms of matter, the 3 X (10) 9
gram-calories of thermal energy do not represent the total mass-energy
of the gram of matter, but only that portion of the mass -energy which
has been lost in this partial transformation. If we suppose that the
total original energy is 1,000 times as much as that which has been lost

THE LIGHT OF THE STARS 3°3

in 1,000 years by radio-active transformation, or enough to last at the
same rate for 1,000,000 years, the thermal energy corresponding to the
mass-energy of one gram is 3 X (10) 12 , which is very nearly the same
as the 5 X (10) 12 water-units, computed by De Volson Wood for the
specific heat of the ether. 13 We seem, at any rate, to be approaching
limiting values which are perhaps connected with the transition from
ether to matter, or the reverse. If a volume of rotating ether, having
a specific heat of 5 X (10) 12 , can be condensed, or in any other way
transformed into a volume of matter with specific heat unity, since
specific heat is capacity for absorbing thermal energy, the tremendous
shrinkage of this capacity during the formation of matter out of ether
represents the absorption of so much energy, and the almost complete
saturation of the original capacity. It follows that if the process is
reversed, the thermal energy of atomic formation must be set free.

Since radium decays far more rapidly than most elements, the one
million years suggested in the preceding illustration must be greatly
extended in order to represent the average duration of matter. Simi-
larly, the one million light-years deduced for the distance of the fainter
nebulae on the Lick Observatory plates is not a limiting distance be-
yond which light can not penetrate, but it is a distance at which light
is reduced to perhaps eight per cent, of its original intensity, or a quan-
tity of that order. It is evident from the phenomena connected with
the decay of the radio-active elements, that different elements have dif-
ferent durations. The rarer elements are either those which require
a very long time and a long process of successive ethereal modifications
in their development, or else they are elements which are relatively un-
stable, and which decay more rapidly than the others.

Eutherford gives the radius of an electron as 1.4 X (10)~ 13 cm., on
the supposition that the electron is a sphere, in which case its surface
will be 2.5 X (10)" 25 sq. cm., and its volume 1.1 X (10) -38 cub. cm.
The mass of an electron being, according to Sir J. J. Thomson, 1/1700
times that of a hydrogen atom, and the latter weighing 1.1 X(10)~ 24
gram, the density of an electron works out
/11V 10 _24 \

Z> = ( l.7X10 3 )" f " (L1 X 10_38) =5 ' 9 X 101 ° < water=1 )-
This value is so extraordinary that obviously we are not dealing with
any ordinary problem in material density. The only phenomenon
which has any resemblance to it is the increment of mass which the
electron acquires at velocities approaching that of light in Kaufmann's
experiment. Add to this the fact that the velocity of light is a con-
stant, and the conclusion apparently follows that if the velocity of
wave-motion in the ether can be diminished to even the smallest ex-
tent below that of light, the medium ceases to be ether, and the motion
ceases to be ethereal wave-motion, but is left behind as the beginning
13 Philosophical Magazine for November, 1885, pp. 402-403.

304 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of a materialized etheric energy. The enormous density found for the
electron is an average density and must be still more exceeded if the
mass-giving energy is not distributed uniformly within the volume.
By all electric analogies it is natural to assume a superficial concentra-
tion of energy in the electron itself. The large apparent density of the
electron is perhaps explicable on the assumption that the mass-giving
substance is condensed in a very thin surface-layer where it revolves
with a velocity smaller than that of light by only a very minute amount.
The substance of such a shell should have an almost infinite density.
The average density of the enclosed volume should still be very great.
If, for example, the electron is a vortex-ring of ether of the same sur-
face as the sphere, an almost infmitesimally thin shell of ether revolving
ever so little slower than the velocity of light, is no longer free ether,
but becomes matter of almost infinite density, the velocity-gradient
falling off very rapidly in the interior of the vortex, and the internal
density being negligible. Such a body should possess surface potential,
polarity, strong elastic resistance, and other properties demanded of the
electron.

If it be admitted that a definite volume of ether can receive a per-
manent limit, it seems necessary that some surface of discontinuity, as
well as a stress, akin to fluid viscosity, exerted between the volume and
its surface, should be set up. Calling E the ethereal viscosity, A the sur-
face of discontinuity, and V a velocity, such as the mean velocity in the
volume, or the limiting velocity at the surface, to be determined by the
nature of the viscous mechanism which is at present unknown, the
viscous stress (F), so far as it depends on dynamic considerations, is
equal to a momentum transferred through a definite volume of fluid to
a limiting surface at a given speed, and may be represented as in fluid
viscosity by the equation

F = EAY,

but with this distinction: The ether has no mass except as it acquires
mass by receiving a rotary motion. The dimensional equation for vis-
cosity, _

, J E = M/LT J

becomes '

L 2 1 i 4

~T 2 x LT ~ Y 3

-C/ = -Li X /T72 X

since the etheral mass is proportional to the energy (which varies as the
square of the velocity) impressed upon a volume proportional to r 5 ,
where r is the mean radius of the gyrating volume. In the case of a
ring rotating in its own plane, or of a surface rotating around an axis
which is a closed curve, r may be the radius of the ring or of the sur-
face. Substituting the value of E in the expression for F, we have

_ V T2 L U

THE LIGHT OF THE STARS 3°5

F cc r 3 X v*.
The ethereal viscosity being excessively small, either very high veloc-
ities, or very long durations are required to produce appreciable ether
drift. As Lagrange has demonstrated, there can be no surface of dis-
continuity in a perfect fluid, because such a surface implies a con-
tinuous generation of rotation in portions of a fluid of constant den-
sity. Conversely, if any discontinuity can be imposed upon the ether,
it must be a viscous fluid. Any structures formed from a viscous fluid
must eventually decay. The duration of the material phase may be
enormous, but its ultimate transition is inevitable. The point I wish
to make is that there is evidence of an absorption of light by the ether,
and that there is also evidence of atomic disintegration. The two
processes interlock into necessary and concomitant parts of a consistent
whole. What I bave tried to demonstrate is the existence of a phe-
nomenon and its approximate law, without attempting a refinement
which would be unwarranted at the present stage of the investigation.

Conclusion

In brief, we may conclude that space contains myriads of galaxies
which would make the midnight sky one blaze of light, were it not for
the absorption of light by the ether of space. This absorption can not
be a selective scattering by gaseous molecules, because this would de-
plete the radiation of short wave-length unduly, and would redden the
light of the more distant nebulas, whereas no such change of color with
distance is found. Neither can the absorption be due to the general
absorption of radiation of every wave-length by coarser meteoritic dust,
since the meteoritic material would in time become heated to incan-
descence, as Arrhenius has noted, and in this case also the entire heav-
ens must glow. There remains, then, the supposition that the ether
itself absorbs the radiation from the stars, and that in this fixation of
energy, matter originates. 14

There is, I apprehend, a close analogy between the sequences of
cosmogony and of geogeny. Upon the earth there are wide expanses
of oceanic depths which have apparently remained such from the be-
ginning of denudation. That remarkable property of saline solutions
whereby suspended solid particles are quickly precipitated, causes the
marginal deposition of those sediments brought to the sea by the rivers.
The oceanic depths are the counterparts of the intergalactic spaces. In
both, change progresses very slowly.

But around the borders of the continents, sediments accumulate in
geosynclines which are self perpetuating. The increasing weight of
the deposit deepens the depression, until after the accumulation has

14 As suggested in my paper, "A Cosmic Cycle," Am. Jour. Sci., Ser. 4, Vol.
13, p. 189, March, 1902.

VOL. LXXXII.— 21.

3o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

reached a depth of 10 to 15 kilometers a reaction sets in. The deeply
buried beds of water-bearing detrital formations soften, very likely
under the influence of heat generated by the concentrated radioactive
minerals, as Professor Joly supposes. 15 Long eras of crumpling, ele-
vation and mountain-formation follow, to be in turn succeeded by
other ages of denudation. "The energy which determines the place of
yielding and upheaval, and ordains that the mountains shall stand
around the continental border," passes through a rhythmic interchange
or cycle. The cosmogonical process which I have described embodies
an analogous cycle, embracing the formation of matter from the ether,
and most abundantly in the vicinity of stellar aggregates, by the fixa-
tion of the radiant energy, outpouring from the disintegrating stellar
substance. Then follow, in turn, the concentration of the material on
the borders of the earlier galaxies and the birth of new heavens. In
proof of this association of old and new along a border region, the sim-
ilar distribution of the fourth -type and helium stars, which probably
represent the extremes of a thermal series, may be cited.

The conception of a universal ether is to many so vague that the
distinction between ether and a purely spiritual atmosphere seems
slight; yet the difference is fundamental. The mind of man is not
conditioned by space. Thought can not be measured by the yardstick.
Ether, on the contrary, occupies space. The dimensions of its waves
have been made the fundamental standards of our units of length.
Nevertheless, we still grope and guess as to the real structure and na-
ture of the ether. Some of its properties seem to verge on the meta-
physical. Back of it, we have glimpses of a source of energy which is
inexhaustible, as if it were most intimately linked with the Infinite
Source of all existence. Matter which used to be looked upon as dead,
and as incapable of exhibiting energy except as this was thrust upon
it from without by physical forces, begins to look almost alive. "It
moves," said Galileo, of the solid earth ; and to-day the delighted phys-
icist, armed with the spectroscope and spinthariscope, Crookes's tube
and the electrometer, finds, in the Zeeman effect or the radium emana-
tion, evidence that the atom is an orderly maze of bewildering motion.
Its inertia is a gyroscopic inertia. Absolute rest would be nonentity.
Everywhere the universe speaks of never-ending life and motion. Cre-
ation is not the bringing forth of an infinite number of dead structure-
less particles, sent out as a set of miserable little waifs at some indefi-
nitely remote epoch and left to clash without guidance, without pur-
pose. Creation is perpetual. The interiors of matter are seen to be
more and more wonderful, more and more intensely active, as we ap-
proach the sacred portals where divine influx from the Soul of the
Universe quickens into the energy which is matter.

15 J. Joly, ' ' Radioactivity and Geology. An Account of the Influence of
Radioactive Energy on Terrestrial History."

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

3°7

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

THE ACADEMIC SITUATION.

Scarcely a mouth passes without the
occurrence of one or more events dis-
quieting to those who would make our
universities the homes of scientific re-
search, creative scholarship and social
progress. Such circumstances do not
usually become known, for it is to the
private advantage of those concerned
that they be hushed. Strange as it
may seem at first sight, the state uni-
versities are on the whole making prog-
ress in the direction of greater aca-
demic freedom and dignity, while the
private corporations tend to exhibit the
reactionary tendencies of their boards
and administrative officers. If, how-
ever, the people learn the importance
to the nation of maintaining their uni-
versities on a high plane, all is well.
It is easy to tax corporations which
become antisocial into innocuousness.
Indeed each university will find its own
level by its own weight. Harvard and
Columbia are still our richest institu-
tions and probably still maintain their
leadership in advanced work and public
service ; but they are losing ground
relatively to the state universities and
perhaps even in comparison with their
own positions ten years ago. It would
surprise most people to see the list of
those who have recently declined to
consider chairs at these two universities.

It is the high traditions of Harvard
which give significance to the curious
circular recently sent from the con-
troller's office to those whom one uni-
versity president habitually calls "the
instructional force." The circular is
accompanied by four large pages of
instructions and a schedule containing
some 180 blank spaces to be filled and
is couched in jargon about "prorating
salaries to the various classified func-
tions," and the like. The professors
and instructors are informed that

(2a X 3a) + (26 X Sb) -f (2c X 3c) +
(2d X 3d) + (2e X 3e) = total hours
of regular exercises per course.
They are told that

Preparation for lectures should in-
clude only that time which was taken
during the half-year for lectures deliv-
ered in this period. It should not in-
clude time spent in the general collec-
tion of materials.

Surely the only correct answer to the
question how many hours a day a pro-
fessor spends on his work and in prep-
aration is twenty-four. This circular
was naturally resented by members of
the faculty and was partially, but
somewhat grudgingly, withdrawn, the
president stating that it was ' ' issued
under a misunderstanding, ' ' presuma-
bly a misunderstanding of the senti-
ments of the faculty.

This Harvard incident is serio-comic.
At Wesleyan there has occurred within
I the same past month a wholly serious
breach of academic decency. The pro-
fessor of economics and social science,
who has served the university and the
public with distinction for twenty
years, made some remarks in regard
to the observance of the sabbath, which
found their way into the newspapers.
The president wrote inquiring whether
he was correctly reported, and on being
told what he had said, asked for his
resignation. This was promptly sent,
and the president relieved him from his
duties at once. The five letters passed
in the same day, and the president
must have acted without adequate con-
sultation or consideration. It is as ex-
traordinary as it is ominous that in our
present academic system the liberty of
speech of a professor and the fate of
his wife and children should be de-
pendent on the will of an official. In
this case the professor was speaking
within his own professional field, and
not even to students of the university

Sir John Mdhray.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

3°9

or in its city. He surely would fare ill
at Wesleyan University who said "The
sabbath was made for man, and not
man for the sabbath" and "Beware
of the scribes which . . . for a pretence
make long prayers; these shall receive
greater damnation." The trustees of
Wesleyan University still have the op-
portunity to decline to accept the resig-
nation of the professor of economics
and social science. The other honorable
alternative is to change the name of
the institution to the "Middletown
Methodist College."

THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN
Oceanography as a science may be
dated from the voyage of the Chal-
lenger round the world from 1872 to
1876 under the scientific direction of
Sir Wyville Thomson and the naval
command of Sir George Nares. Sir
John Murray was one of the naturalists
of the expedition and later became
editor of the great series of reports.
In addition he has published many
important papers on oceanography and
marine biology and has conducted sur-
veys in marine and inland Scottish
waters. Probably Sir John Murray
and Alexander Agassiz are the two men
who have accomplished the most for
marine biology, and it is a cause for
pride that both were born on this side of
the Atlantic. We may also view with
gratification the earlier work of Bache
of our coast survey and of Maury of
our navy, who in the forties and fifties
laid the foundation on which the sci-
ence of oceanography has been erected.
When Sir John Murray visited the
United States last year and made a
series of extremely interesting ad-
dresses in various places, he established
a fund in honor of Alexander Agassiz,
under the National Academy of Sci-
ences, for a medal to be conferred for
distinction in oceanographic research.
It should give us pause to reflect that
there is none so well deserving this
medal as were Dana, Bache, Maury
and Agassiz.

In 1909 Sir John Murray — who like
Agassiz acquired wealth by an inci-
dental use of his scientific observations
— offered to defray the expenses of a
cruise of the Michael Sars in the North
Atlantic, if the Norwegian government
would lend the ship and its scientific
staff. The expedition was undertaken
with the cooperation of Dr. Johan
Hjort, director of Norwegian fisheries.
The Michael Sars, named in honor of
the naturalist who sixty years ago
made dredgings off the coast of Nor-
way, was admirably equipped for deep-
sea explorations. Starting from the
east of Ireland it worked down to the
Canaries and by way of the Azores to
New Trinidad and back to Ireland and
Bergen. About 120 observing stations
were established and much valuable in-
formation was obtained, while the bio-
logical material has been distributed to
specialists in different parts of the
world.

A general account of the researches
undertaken by the Michael Sars and of
the modern science of oceanography
has now been prepared by Sir John
Murray and Dr. Hjort and has been
published by The Macmillan Company.
The book contains some 600 illustra-
tions, the portrait of Sir John Murray
being here reproduced, and forms an
accurate and readable account of what
is known in regard to the depths of
the oceans of the earth.

GEORGE HOWARD DARWIN

Sir George Darwin, of whose death
we learned not long ago, was, perhaps
as much as any of our times, one of
the most noteworthy examples of the
best scientific lives of our generation.
Sprung from a family with notable
scientific traditions for several genera-
tions, and gifted with talents in no
way inferior to the best of those
amongst whom he worked, he employed
all the resources at his command for
the promotion of the highest interests
both of his own subject and of the

Sib Geobge Darwin.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

3"

scientific world at large. Never very I
robust in health, he accomplished sev-
eral long and laborious tasks and yet
rarely failed to place his time and en-
ergy at the disposal of those who made
demands on them. He was brought up (
in a school of mathematics which put
ingenuity and brevity at a high pre-
mium, yet when faced with a difficult
problem he usually chose the direct
route towards the solution, often at the
cost of long and laborious calculations.
Even when deeply engrossed in the
work he was doing, he would lay it
aside at a moment 's notice to listen to
and discuss the problems of his friends
or pupils. And while acting as an
inspiration to many of his contem-
poraries, he never failed to impress
them with his modesty even when ex-
pressing his own opinion in his direct
but kindly manner.

For many years Sir George Darwin
has been recognized as the leader — a
title he would have immediately dis-
claimed — in a subject which is perhaps
the most fascinating and the most
dangerous of all those which may oc-
cupy the thoughts of a scholar. Cos-
mogony is replete with unsolved prob-
lems and hypotheses may be multiplied
almost indefinitely. Almost any new
discovery or advance in our knowledge
of the physical world may have a bear-
ing on it. Sir George Darwin, whose
best known work lies in this field, never
allowed himself to be led much beyond
what he was able to establish by exact
methods. If he gave a theory of the
past history of the earth and its satel-
lite, he did not allow the reader to
imagine that he had solved the prob-
lem, but simply considered his work as
sufficient to make probable a possible
hypothesis.

While his earlier interests were in
the direction of pure science, his asso-
ciation with Lord Kelvin led him to
the consideration of a practical prob-
lem. Tidal prediction is always im-
portant for a country with the mer-
cantile interests of Great Britain. Sir

George Darwin had immense power in
dealing with long and intricate calcula-
tions, and his ability was nowhere bet-
ter employed when he drew order out
of chaos in furnishing methods which
could be used by a seaman to obtain
the tides of his port of call or by a
government in the formation of tide
tables for its coasts. This same facil-
ity and his gathered experience led to
his advice being continuously sought in
the discussion of meteorological rec-
ords. In geodetic problems he was one
of the chief advisers of the government
and was its representative in the inter-
national congresses which have been
held in Europe during the last fifteen
years. In all such matters the English
government asks for and acts upon the
opinions of its representative scientific
men, and Sir George Darwin took his
full share in these responsibilities.

His most notable public function
was his presidency of the British Asso-
ciation during the memorable tour in
South Africa some seven years ago.
The sounds of the warfare in that
country had only just ceased and great
tact was needed to avoid any unpleas-
ant feelings either amongst the native
or white races. It is not too much to
say that the association could hardly
have made a better choice for its pre-
siding officer. In some forty speeches
all over the colonies, while avoiding
platitudes, he hit the right note, not
stirring up excitement and not sending
his hearers away without some thought
which characterized the occasion. The
same touch was visible in his final
public appearance as president of the
Mathematical Congress held in Cam-
bridge last August. None of those who
heard his tribute to Henri Poincare" on
that occasion realized that he himself
would so soon also depart.

His numerous friends not only in
England and Europe, but also in this
country, will regret the passing, not
alone of the student, but of the wise
and kindly man whose humanity was
never lost in his scholarship.

3 I2

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

SCIENTIFIC ITEMS

We record with regret the deaths of
Mr. Francis Blake, inventor of the tele-
phone transmitter and other electrical
apparatus; of Dr. Thomas Volney
Munson, who while engaged as a
nurseryman at Dennison, Texas, made
valuable experiments on the breeding
of fruits, especially in viticulture; of
Professor George Augustus Koenig,
professor of chemistry at the Michigan
College of Mines; of M. Louis Paul
Cailletet, the distinguished French
chemist, known especially for his work
on liquefaction of gases; of M. Leon
Teisserenc de Bort, the French meteor-
ologist, known for his work with cap-
tive balloons; of Dr. Otto Schoeten-
sack, professor of anthropology at
Heidelberg, and of Dr. Yujiro Motora,
professor of psychology at Tokyo.

The Elisha Kent Kane gold medal
of the Geographical Society of Phila-
delphia was presented to Professor
William Morris Davis, of Harvard
University, on January 28, and the
Culver medal of the Geographic Society
of Chicago, on February 19. — Professor
George Herbert Palmer, Alvord pro-
fessor of natural religion, moral philos-
ophy and civil polity, and Professor
Francis Peabody, Plummer professor
of Christian morals, have given their
final lectures at Harvard University.
Professor Palmer has served the uni-
versity for forty-three years and Pro-
fessor Peabody for thirty-eight years.
- — Professor J. Hadamard, professor of
analytical and celestial mechanics in
the College de France, has been elected
a member of the Paris Academie des
Sciences in the section of geometry, in
succession to the late Professor Henri
Poincare.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY.

APRIL, 1913

THE INFLUENCE OF FOEESTS UPON CLIMATE

By Professor ROBERT DbC. WARD

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Introduction: Popular Belief in Forest Influences, and its

Possible Origin

FAR and wide, the world over, we find a popular belief in an influ-
ence of forests upon climate, especially upon rainfall. This is
not difficult to explain. Take our own experience, for example.
On a summer day we leave the hot, sunny road and walk along a
narrow forest path. The trees give shade; the glare and heat of the
road are replaced by the soft, dark carpet of leaves and moss ; the air
seems cool and damp. It is all a great relief, and the impression
is inevitable that a forest climate is different from that of the open.
Again, on a spring day, when the snow has disappeared from the
fields, but when a chilly, wintry wind is blowing, we leave the open
meadow and cross a patch of woodland. There is snow still lying
deep under the trees; there is welcome protection from the biting
wind; it seems pleasantly warm. Has not, we naturally say, the for-
est a climate all of its own? Once more. We observe, the world
over, that where there are extended forests there is heavy rainfall, and
we see deserts and treeless areas where the rainfall is light. We infer
that the forests have something to do with producing the heavier rain-
fall, and some of us may even go a step farther and think that the great
treeless areas were once forested, and that deforestation has made them
dry. Or, to give one more case, we may have noticed the increasing tree-
growth with increasing elevation on our mountains, and may have con-
cluded that the denser forest is the cause of the heavier precipitation
which is generally observable as we ascend our mountain slopes.

Thus it may come about, naturally enough, that people believe in
forest influences upon climate. Yet, if we ourselves happen to have

VOL. LXXXII. — 22.

3 i4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

based our own belief on any such evidence as the foregoing, we ought to
remember that our own sensation of heat, or cold, or dampness, by no
means necessarily, or even usually, corresponds with the actual meteoro-
logical facts. Further, the great rainy and dry belts of the earth's sur-
face are controlled by a world-wide distribution of temperature, pres-
sure and winds, that is, by the general circulation of the atmosphere,
and by conditions of the higher strata far and away beyond the reach
of any local effects such as those of a forest. Universally, in response to
natural controls, a scanty rainfall is hostile to tree-growth, and forests
are favored by heavy rainfall, which gives good conditions of soil-mois-
ture and is generally accompanied by higher relative humidity, more
cloudiness and less extreme temperatures than prevail over treeless re-
gions. In the case of mountains, again, it should be clearly in our
minds that, as a rule, and up to a certain limit, an increase of altitude
involves an increase of precipitation, quite apart from the presence or
absence of any forest. We must be careful not to put the cart before
the horse. The forests, in other words, are the result of the rainfall,
and not vice versa.

Importance of the Subject : its Complexity

That this subject has an important relation to our national conserva-
tion policy no one will deny. Unfortunately, the discussion of it has
become more or less a matter of semi-political controversy. Much has
been written without adequate study of the question. Heated argu-
ments, pro and con, have been advanced in debates and in print. Re-
markably divergent views have been, and are to-day, held upon the
question. It has been claimed that forests have no climatic influences
whatever. On the other hand, some have believed that deforestation in
North America has affected the climate of Europe. A recent writer
maintains that the principal cause of the "intellectual and industrial
stagnation " of the Spanish peasants is to be found in the effects of de-
forestation in making the climate drier, so that the people are " worked
to death to support life." The literature is extended and bewildering.
It runs back at least five hundred years. A bibliography published in
1872 contains nearly two hundred titles, and began with Fernando Co-
lumbus, who attributed the heavy rainfall of Jamaica to its heavy for-
ests, and a (supposed) decrease of rainfall on the Azores and Canaries
to deforestation. It has been said that this whole discussion first came
up in really acute form at the time of the French Revolution, when
private timberlands were largely destroyed.

The subject is thus greatly complicated by the nature of the discus-
sion. It is, furthermore, by its very nature a complicated problem. On
the one hand, climate itself is the complex resultant of many different
controls. Among these are the latitude; the elevation above sea-level;
the varying influences of land and water; the proximity of ocean cur-
rents ; the prevailing winds and storms. In this list of controls, but at

FORESTS AND CLIMATE 3*5

the end, the last and the least important of all, modifying slightly, per-
haps, the total effect of all the other controls, comes the surface-covering
of the earth. This may be snow, or grass, or sand, or lava. Here be-
longs the forest, a special kind of surface covering.

On the other hand, the forests. What do we mean by forests ? Do
we mean the vast, dense tropical forests of the Amazon, or a grove of
trees on a New England farm ? Have we in mind evergreen or decidu-
ous trees, or both? Are the forest trees tall or scrubby? Is their
height uniform or varying? Is there undergrowth or is the forest
clean ? Are we considering the forested slope of a steep and lofty moun-
tain or the trees in a valley bottom ; a tropical or an extra-tropical for-
est ; a region of heavy or one of moderate rainfall ; of much or of little
cloud? Clearly, a complex problem is here before us. No wonder that
so much diversity of opinion exists with regard to it. Few of those who
discuss the question are at all aware of its extent or complexity. They
see only one or two small aspects of it, and upon a very insufficient, and
often inaccurate, knowledge they base broad and misleading generaliza-
tions.

In a matter of such general interest it is most important to proceed
carefully, and to see clearly just what we do, and what we do not know.
That is the purpose of the present paper : to set forth, as the writer sees
it, the status of the " forest and climate " discussion in the light of the
available facts. It may be added, parenthetically, that it is only com-
paratively recently that a scientific study of the subject has been pos-
sible.

The Historical Method of Treatment: its Unreliable Eesults

The favorite method of attacking the problem of forest influences
has been the historical method. Probably the large majority of those
who believe in such influences are affected, consciously or unconsciously,
by the use of historical arguments. A certain region, we hear, was once
forested. There are now few or no traces. " People " say that the cli-
mate there has " changed." Hence, the disappearance of the forests
must have produced the change of climate. This is not an unfair illus-
tration of the historical argument. Sometimes, of course, simple hear-
say, and general impressions, are replaced by actual records of the
change in area covered by trees, and by rainfall observations (extending
over a relatively short period), or by rough accounts of the depth of
water in rivers and streams. But, at best, this method of treatment is
very unreliable. All the elements in the discussion are uncertain : the
early forest conditions; the supposed "change" of climate; the ac-
curacy of any available meteorological observations. Granted that a
"change" of climate has actually taken place, was the so-called
" change " the cause, or the effect, of the change in forest cover ? And
may not the "change" have been the result of the well-known oscilla-
tions of the climatic pendulum, which bring periods of wetter and then

3 i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of drier years, and which are, therefore, more, or less, favorable to for-
est growth ?

The historical argument may be illustrated by the following:
The valley of Aragua, in Venezuela, is shut in on all sides, and the rivers
which water it, having no outlet to the sea, unite and form Lake Tacarigua.
This lake during the last thirty years of the past century showed a gradual
drying up, for which no cause could be assigned. In the beginning of the present
century the valley became the theater of deadly feuds during the war of inde-
pendence, which lasted twenty-two years. During that time land remained
uncultivated, and forests, which grow so rapidly in the tropics, soon covered a
great part of the country. In 1822 Boussingault observed that the waters of
the lake had risen, and that much land formerly cultivated was at that time
under water. The drying up of the river Scamander in the Troad, and the con-
tracting of the Euphrates in its channel, may be referred to as illustrations of
the same effect of the cutting down of forests, and of diminished vegetation.
(Buchan's "Introductory Text-book of Meteorology," 1871, p. 50.)

Clearly, we have nothing beyond the merest hearsay evidence in all
this, and absolutely no facts upon which to base a scientific conclusion.
Again, in regard to Greece:

In the course of centuries, the forests have in large measure been destroyed
. . . and with the passing of the trees the rainfall has decreased, so that during
the summer months, when hardly a shower comes to moisten the parched earth,
the country is for the most part extremely arid. (Clarence H. Young, Bulletin
American Geographical Society, Vol. 32, 1900, p. 151.)

Those with even an elementary knowledge of the climatic zones will
recall that Greece, like northern California and northern Africa, lies in
the subtropical belt, whose dry, or even wholly rainless summers, de-
pend upon the great controls of temperature and pressure and winds
and storm-tracks, far and away beyond the reach of any such insignifi-
cant local agencies as a few trees.

Or again :

The rainfall (of Teheran) was formerly very much less, say up to 10 or
11 years ago; it then did not, I think, exceed five inches per annum, but it is
now about ten. The great increase is no doubt due to the many gardens which
have sprung up within the last 10 years in and outside the city, and perhaps also
to the formation, 10 years ago, of a lake 50 miles south of Teheran. The lake
has a length of 22 miles, and is from 3 to 6 miles broad. (A. Hontum Schwindler,
Syvions's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, Vol. 28, 1893, p. 145.)

This is a good example of the weakness of the historical argument,
even when apparently based upon actual observations.

We might cite further the rather hackneyed examples from Trinidad,
where the cause of a general but rather slight decrease in the mean an-
nual rainfall for ten-year periods between 1862 and 1891 (from be-
tween 66.50 and 67 inches at the beginning of the period to slightly
over 65 inches at the end) has been "said to be the disappearance of
the forests"; from Kimberley, where the cutting down of trees to sup-
ply timbers for the mines is supposed to have had "most injurious ef-
fects on the climate," increasing the number of dust-storms, among
other effects ; from Ismailia, where tree-growth since the opening of the

FORESTS AND CLIMATE 3*7

Suez Canal is said to have brought an increased rainfall; from the
Peninsula of Sinai, from Syria and from Algeria, in all of which de-
forestation is said to have changed luxuriant and fertile districts into
deserts. One other example, quoted by a recent writer, may, perhaps,
be referred to :

In 1551 the Marquis of Northampton went from Orleans to Nantes (on the
river Loire), with his suite, in "five large, many-cabined boats," whereas navi-
gation is now impossible above Saumur, the distance of which from Nantes is
less than half that of Orleans. This change is ascribed to the deforestation
carried on extensively in the surrounding country in the seventeenth century, and
the consequent diminution in the volume of water in the Loire due to diminished
rainfall.

There is no need to multiply these examples. They show, clearly
enough, why the historical method is unsafe, and why it has given but
meager results.

An Essential Consideration: Why Should Forests Influence

Climate ?

It is a curious fact that so few of those who are firmly convinced
that climate is affected by forests, ever seem to ask themselves: "Why
should forests influence climate ? " We seem to accept it as a fact with-
out asking ourselves why it should be so. If we stop a moment to con-
sider the reasons which come to mind, we shall probably sooner or later
enumerate them about as follows :

(a) Because forests must retard and obstruct air movement, favor-
ing calms, and causing the air to ascend slightly over the trees. Both of
these effects may be favorable, in a small way, to rainfall. The barrier
effect, by reducing the velocity of high winds, ought to moderate the
extremes of winter cold.

(b) By means of their shade, trees ought to check the warming of
the ground, and of the air, especially in summer.

(c) Because of the retention of moisture in the forest litter, and of
the decreased evaporation which may be expected to result from the
lessened air movement under the trees, it seems not unreasonab]e to ex-
pect that forest air will be somewhat damper than that outside. This,
under proper conditions, may also favor rainfall.

(d) The diffusion of the water vapor transpired by and evaporated
from the leaves may perhaps increase the opportunity for rainfall.

(e) We may expect the tree cover to diminish nocturnal radiation
from the ground underneath, and thus to maintain a slightly higher
temperature within the forest than outside of it at night.

(/) Also, there may be some effect from the increased radiating
surface due to the presence of the leaves or needles. This must be
chiefly effective at night.

(g) The heating of the leaves must be less than that of bare ground,
because of the evaporation of much water from the leaves, and because

3 i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of the slow heating of the water in the leaves. To a certain slight ex-
tent, then, a forest cover ought to behave as does a water surface; it
ought to warm a little less rapidly and therefore it ought to cool less
rapidly.

(h) The process of growth of the trees, and the chemical changes
which are going on during their life, must require an expenditure of
energy whose effect might possibly be observable in a difference of tem-
perature between the forest and the open. The rise and return of the
sap may also be expected to be accompanied by certain slight tempera-
ture effects resulting from the transfer of root temperatures upwards
and of crown temperatures downwards.

In these, and perhaps in other ways, we may seek for the causes of
forest influences upon climate. But, whatever may be the theoretical
reasons for believing in such influences, we are here concerned only
with the facts as they are at present known. One further word of cau-
tion is necessary. It is one thing for a forest to have a climate of its
own within its own limits, under or above the trees. It is quite another
thing for a forest to affect the climate of the surrounding country, or of
distant regions. The latter effect is naturally the one in which the real
interest centers. But it is also the one which is by far the most diffi-
cult to study. It is clear that nothing more than reasonably local modi-
fications of climate ought to be expected. The special climate of the
forest itself — so far as it may appear to have one — can only affect the
surroundings by modifying the air currents which pass through or over
it, by producing an ascending movement of the forest air to take part in
the prevailing wind movement, or by causing, as may happen under
especially favorable conditions, local air currents of its own. Most, if
not all, of the above-mentioned theoretical effects of forests upon climate
have been overestimated.

Forests as Wind-breaks
The most obvious effect of forests is that of the barrier, or wind-
break. First, there is far less wind movement within the forest than
there is outside. Second, friction on the tree-tops reduces the ve-
locity of the wind blowing over the forest. Third, to leeward of the
forest there is a belt of relative cairn which is roughly ten to fifteen
times as wide as the forest is high, as has been determined by measure-
ments in Iowa and in the Rhone Valley. More recently, in Roumania,
Murat has shown that within 165 feet to leeward the decrease in veloc-
ity may be from four to eight miles an hour, and that the effect of the
forest in decreasing velocity extends as far as 1,500 feet to leeward.
Some years ago, comparative observations in the harbor, city and sub-
urbs of New York and Boston showed a remarkable reduction in wind
velocities with increasing distance inland, the velocities in the city
being a little over three fifths, and those in the suburbs about one third,
of those in the harbor.

FORESTS AND CLIMATE 319

Clearly, then, wind-breaks such as those whiqh have been recom-
mended for, and are found in, much of our western treeless area furnish
considerable protection, over a narrow strip to leeward of the trees,
against the sweep of strong hot or cold winds. Such a reduction in
wind-velocity may have beneficial effects in reducing somewhat the ex-
tremes of heat or cold, and in diminishing evaporation from soil and
from plants, and perhaps also in checking the blowing away of the soil.
On the other hand, frost is more likely to occur where there is less air
movement. Deforestation, on a large scale, especially on extended level
areas, will therefore favor a freer sweep of the wind, which may be hos-
tile to the growth of crops. Over any extended treeless area, exposed to
high winds and with a severe climate, the best protection will be found
in the planting of narrow belts of trees, alternating with agricultural
strips. It should be noted, however, that this very wind-break, by de-
creasing wind velocity, keeps the air of the forest interior from affect-
ing the atmospheric conditions round about. In other words, the forest
diminishes its own climatic influence.

Influence of Forests upon Temperature

There is comparatively little popular interest in any possible influ-
ence of forests upon temperature, attention being almost altogether
focused on the rainfall factor. Upon their soil temperatures, forests
have a slight cooling effect (up to about 5°) attributable to the shade
and to the greater moisture of the forest floor; the extremes are re-
tarded and reduced; frost penetrates less deeply. Between evergreen
and deciduous forests there is this difference, that in the former sun-
shine has freer access to the ground, and warms and dries it better than
in the latter. In general, a forest climate bears a faint resemblance to
a marine climate in having a slightly smaller range of temperature tharj
the open, the extremes being most moderated in summer. In central
Europe the mean annual minima are about 2° higher in the forest, and
the mean annual maxima are about 4° lower. Individual summer
maxima may be 6° to 8° lower in the forest, and individual winter min-
ima 3° higher (Prussia). Conditions in the United States are probably
not very different, although our greater extremes of heat and cold here
would perhaps lead us to expect a slightly greater forest effect in mod-
erating these extremes. The sum-total effect is, therefore, a slightly
cooling one, chiefly because the forest is a little cooler than the open in
summer, and about the same, or very slightly warmer, in winter. But
these temperature differences in the average of the year are very small,
and even in individual cases are certainly usually inappreciable without
the use of thermometers. The considerable difference in our feelings of
heat and cold ("sensible temperature") within and outside of a forest
is probably chiefly due to the combination of the other factors, such as
wind movement, moisture, exposure to sunshine, etc. Indeed, a good
many of the reported differences between field and forest are probably

32o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

too large, owing to unfavorable exposure of the thermometers. It is,
however, significant that the presence of relatively cool air over forests
has been indicated by the fact that balloons, in passing over forested
sections, often have a distinct tendency to descend. This cooling effect
above the forest is pretty clearly of more importance than any tempera-
ture effect within the forest, but we have as yet very little reliable in-
formation on this phase of our problem.

It is to be expected that equatorial forests should have more marked
effects in lowering the temperature than temperate forests. The high
maxima reached over the deserts of the lower latitudes, largely as a
result of the excessive heating of the sandy surface, do not occur where
the dense equatorial forests shade the ground; increase the radiating .
surface by means of their leaves; supply much water vapor through
transpiration and evaporation, and possibly also, by favoring fog and
cloud formation, cut off sunshine. Woeikof has done good service in
calling attention to this important function of tropical forests. We
must not, however, suppose that scattering forest patches in our tem-
perate latitudes can have any notable effects upon temperature. As
Supan has well stated the case, in speaking of the very " moderate "
effect of forests on temperature:

No one will care to maintain that the system of isotherms would be radically
altered if Europe and Asia were one great forest from ocean to ocean.

Influence of Forests upon Humidity and Evaporation
Within European forests the relative humidity exceeds that over
the neighboring glades or fields by a few per cent. (2-10 per cent.).
This is an expectable condition, and no doubt in part due to the slightly
lower average temperature in the forest. The local formation of dew
might be favored on this account. It appears, further, that evergreen
forests have more influence in increasing relative humidity than do
deciduous forests. Evaporation from free water surfaces within for-
ests is a little less than one half of that in the open, a fact which is to
be explained chiefly by the decreased air movement, and, to a much
less extent, by the slightly lower temperature and the slightly higher
relative humidity. In addition to the action of forests in decreasing
evaporation, there is the positive effect of supplying moisture to the
air through the process of transpiration. The amount of moisture
thus given off from the leaves of the forest has been estimated to vary
from three times that from a horizontal water surface of the same extent
to less than half that from the water. Evaporation is, of course, much
the most active under sunshine. In Central Europe the annual amount
of transpiration in forests consisting of well-grown beeches and oaks
has been estimated to be about one quarter of the total precipitation.

It is apparent that, as rain-bearing winds progress inland from the
ocean, their tendency to continue rainy will be favored if they pass over
extended forest areas instead of over bare soil, or even over grass or

FORESTS AND CLIMATE 3 21

crop-covered surfaces. It is also a well-known fact that a certain por-
tion of the rainfall of continental interiors is supplied from secondary
sources not the ocean, such as lakes, rivers, swamps, and to some slight
extent even from the forests themselves. But the forests must of
course have received the water before they can give it up; they can
not supply it by and through themselves. There seems to be no really
very good reason for thinking that the rainfall conditions of the
interior of North America would be very much changed if all the for-
ests bordering on the coasts were replaced by crops or by grass. It is
foolish for us to think that the forests are more important than the
ocean in supplying water vapor for rainfall. Without the rainfall sup-
plied by the vapor evaporated from the oceans the existing forests would
never have grown at all. The amounts of moisture concerned in the
great rain-producing processes of the atmosphere are so large that the
local supply from forests can not conceivably play any considerable
part. A recent German writer has stated his opinion that

It is beyond any question that a forest can not increase the moisture-content
of the atmosphere as a whole. On the contrary, it takes from the air a large
amount of moisture which has been brought from the ocean by warm ascending
currents. Indeed, under certain weather conditions extended forests even favor
a decrease of cloudiness by producing a descending current of air, in contrast
with the ascending current produced over an easily-warmed open field.

Influence of Forests upon Eainfall: Why do We Expect It?
Thus we come to the phase of the discussion which is of much the
greatest popular interest. Do forests increase rainfall? Does defor-
estation result in a decrease of rainfall? It is almost inevitable that
the majority of persons should approach these questions with a fairly
strong prejudice on the affirmative side. There is the general and
universal impression in favor of such an influence, already referred to
in the opening paragraph of this paper. In addition, the theoretical
considerations above enumerated turn our thoughts in the same direc-
tion. By way of a review, then, let us ask, What are our reasons, at
this stage of our discussion, for thinking that forests may influence
rainfall? First, the barrier and frictional effect, which, by forcing
horizontal air currents to rise, should tend to favor condensation, as
cloud, and perhaps also as rainfall. The slackening of the air move-
ment above an extended forest ought to increase the thickness of the
stratum of moving air, thus giving it a slight, and local, ascending
component. This same slackening effect should produce a tendency to
light winds and calms, which are often favorable to showers and local
thunderstorms, especially if the air is damp. Second, the damper and
slightly cooler air in and over a forest may, at least to a slight extent,
affect the passing air currents, especially if these are warm and dry,
perhaps increasing the tendency to form local fogs, dew, or even light
rain over and to leeward of the fo/est, provided the existing conditions
are already favorable. It has even been held by some that when the

322 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

process of condensation has been started, it may continue automatically,
the liberation of latent heat tending to produce convectional currents.
This perhaps fairly expresses the general view of the average person
at this point. However, having seen that the influence of forests upon
temperature and upon humidity is so slight, even among the trees, it is
unreasonable to expect that the influence upon rainfall over the forest,
and especially away from the forest, will be considerable. In the great
ascending, damp air masses of a general storm ; in the flow of the winds
across a mountain barrier; in the active convectional overturning of a
summer thunderstorm — what really significant effect can the slightly
damper and slightly cooler air of the forest play in the process of pro-
ducing or determining the amount of the rainfall ? We say, " the air
over the forest is damper; therefore there will be more rainfall," quite
forgetting that the damper air is useless as a source of precipitation
unless it is cooled to the dewpoint. Furthermore, this moisture is
constantly being carried away by the winds, and distributed through a
great mass of air, thereby giving up more and more of whatever rain-
producing effectiveness it may have had.

Forests and Kainfall: the Observations and the Difficulties
Whatever may be our personal prejudices, and whatever may be the
theoretical considerations in favor of an influence of forests upon rain-
fall, what we really want is the facts, so far as they are at present avail-
able. Obviously, in a scientific study of this problem, the historical
method of treatment, previously referred to; all theoretical considera-
tions, and all prejudices, must give way before the results obtained by
means of actual observations, made under approved conditions, with
accurate instruments. There has been great difficulty in securing abso-
lutely trustworthy observations. Many of the older records are clearly
unreliable because of the improper exposure of the rain-gauges, the dif-
ferences in the elevation or exposure of the instruments being enough
to account for all the observed differences in their catch. Some excel-
lent series of observations have, however, been carried on during the
past twenty-five years or more in several European countries, by the
agricultural and the forest experiment stations. A system of parallel
or radial stations has been extensively used, these being located within
forests and in the surrounding open country. Simultaneous observa-
tions extending over as many years as possible are compared, the great-
est care being taken to have the best exposures, and to allow for the
effect of the wind on the catch in the gauges.

The proper exposure of rain-gauges is one of the most perplexing
problems in observational meteorology. Rainfall has long been known
to be very " patchy," that is, there are considerable differences within
very short distances. Thus it happens that gauges which are near
together and under similar conditions of exposure often record quite

FORESTS AND CLIMATE 323

different amounts of rainfall or of snowfall. Further, the catch of a
gauge is markedly influenced by the exposure. In the open field, for
example, where there is a free sweep of the winds across the top of the
gauge, more rain-drops and especially more snowflakes, are carried
over the gauge than in a more protected location, where the drops and
flakes can fall more nearly vertically. Thus, a gauge in a forest clear-
ing where the wind velocity is somewhat reduced by the trees, ought to
record more precipitation than one in the open country, although the
actual fall might be identical in the two cases. A difference of a few
feet in the elevation of a gauge will also often result in a catch varying
considerably in two neighboring gauges. Furthermore, forests affect
wind directions, and this also may influence the catch in the gauges.
An element of great uncertainty is thus inherent in all the earlier
results obtained by observation, and indeed to some extent in the later
ones also, but it should be distinctly emphasized that every effort is
now made to " correct " the results for just such errors. In the
majority of places where parallel stations exist, the gauges in the forest
have actually shown an excess over those in the surrounding open
country. Whether this is a real excess of rainfall, or only a difference
in the catch, is the disputed point.

The Lintzel Case

There are four cases which have been frequently cited as showing
an influence of forests upon rainfall. There is the famous Lintzel
case, first cited by Muttrich. At Lintzel, on the Luneburg Heath, in
Germany, the rain-gauges used to show a rainfall smaller than the
average at a number of the neighboring stations. In 1877 a consid-
erable planting of young trees was undertaken around Lintzel, until
several thousand acres were covered. As time went on, the rainfall
at the Lintzel station (in an open field surrounded by the forest)
showed an increase as compared with that of the surrounding stations. 1
There are, however, reasons against accepting these apparently conclu-
sive results at their face value. The probability of error, the chance
of discovering which is greatly diminished by the " smoothing " of the
generalized results; the failure to make allowance for the protective
effect of the increasing tree-growth; a recent change in the location of
the rain-gauge; the shortness of the record, and the general variability
and uncertainty of rainfall as a whole, are all considerations which, on
the best of authority, may be urged on the other side.

The Nancy Case

Then there is the Nancy case, from France. This is a case of four
stations (in two pairs), two in the forest and two in the open, within
a small area, the altitudes and the general condition of one pair being,

^n 1882-86 Lintzel had about 90 per cent.; in 1887-91 it had about 102
per cent.; in 1892-96, about 118 per cent.

324 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

as one writer has said, " as comparable as stations can be made."
These Nancy results showed, for a period of about twenty-five years,
and for the best pair of stations, somewhat more rainfall (about one
half inch to one inch in the yearly average) in the forest. In the case
of the other pair the excess was much greater. This series of compara-
tive observations was unfortunately discontinued a few years since, and
although the available data have been widely used, they are, in the
opinion of the leading official meteorologist of France, as expressed in
private correspondence with the present writer, inadequate to serve as
the basis of a serious study.

The Indian Case

The two cases just cited are in the temperate zone. The other two
cases are found within the tropics. There is, first, the case of a dis-
trict in the central provinces of India, where forest protection and
reforestation began in 1875, and where the rainfall, as compared with
the rainfall of all India, showed an increase of about 12 per cent, in a
comparatively few years. This, again, seemed an unanswerable argu-
ment in favor of a forest influence upon rainfall. But the complica-
tion due to periodic oscillations of climate, various uncertainties and
the possibilities of error in the observations, together with the difficulty
of " correcting " the catch, acknowledged by the Indian authorities
themselves, have led to a feeling that we ought at least to suspend
judgment in this case. Nevertheless, because the effect of wind upon
the rainfall catch is less in the tropics than in our own latitudes, and
therefore the error arising from the increasing protection afforded by
the growing forest is greatly lessened, von Hann (1908), the acknowl-
edged authority in climatological matters, is ready to accept the gen-
eral result of these Indian observations as evidence in favor of an influ-
ence of forests in increasing the amount of precipitation at least in
the tropics. Dr. G. T. Walker, however, the present director of the
Meteorological Service of India, in a recent study of supposed changes
of climate in India (1910), does not find evidence of an effect of forests
in increasing rainfall.

The Java Case

Finally, we may cite the Java case, which is without question the
most striking of all. This case was studied and first discussed a good
many years ago by Professor Alexander Woeikof, of St. Petersburg.
The facts as given by him are these : There are extensive dense forests
in the south of Java, while the north coast has been largely deforested.
A station, Tjilatjap, on the south coast, distant from the mountains,
has a mean annual rainfall almost twice as large as that of three sta-
tions (Batavia, Tegal, Samarang) on the north coast. The difference
is, in round numbers, about 150 inches against 75 inches. The north
side is the windward side for the northwest monsoon, and during the

FORESTS AND CLIMATE 325

rainy season (December to March) should have more rain than the
south, or lee, side. Yet the fact is that there is about the same rain-
fall on both coasts at that time. During the southeast monsoon the
south (windward) side has a much heavier rainfall than the north
(leeward), which is normal. On Celebes, where, according to Woeikof,
no such deforestation has taken place, the windward and leeward sides
have their normal values of rainfall, the former having a notably larger
amount. The case is obviously a very striking one. In reply to a
letter from the writer, asking whether newer data from Java tended to
strengthen or weaken his previous opinion regarding this case, Dr.
Woeikof said :

I have not modified my views on forests and rainfall. ... It seems to me
that in later years at Tjilatjap, on the south coast of Java, which I cited as a
station surrounded by forests, the rainfall is smaller than before. This would
confirm my views, as in this formerly very little settled part of the island, forests
are rapidly disappearing.

The Java case remains, then, on the authority of one of the best-
known meteorologists, a striking example of forest influence on rain-
fall. So striking, indeed, is it that one is tempted to ask what other
possible controlling factors are here active in producing this sur-
prising result.

Recent European Studies

The careful observations which have lately been made in Europe by
several investigators (Schubert, Hamberg, Schreiber and others) in
western Prussia, Posen, Sweden, Saxony, France and elsewhere, have
clearly shown that rain-gauges at forest stations, and above the forest
crowns, do generally catch somewhat more rainfall than do the gauges
at the parallel stations in open country at the same elevations. The
excess varies roughly, we may say, between 1 per cent, and at the most
10 per cent, of the annual mean. But leading European authorities
are pretty well agreed that when definite allowance is made for the
effects resulting from differences of exposure, due to the better protec-
tion of the forest gauges, the apparent excess within the forest is
reduced, by the probability of error, to a very narrow margin indeed.
In some cases the margin disappears entirely. Schubert, for example,
found a summer excess in forested areas of about 6 per cent. Of these
6 per cent., 3 per cent, he believes to be attributable to the better pro-
tection of the forest gauge, leaving 3 per cent. And 2 per cent, of these
remaining 3 per cent, he thinks still liable to an error. This leaves
but 1 per cent.

Conclusion Regarding Rainfall

It appears, therefore, that we have as yet no satisfactory or con-
clusive evidence that forests, at least in our own latitudes, have a sig-
nificant effect upon the amount of rain fall, as distinguished from the
amount of the rain catch in the gauge. Nor is there direct and unas-

326 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

sailable evidence that our forests increase the frequency of precipita-
tion, although some excellent authorities incline to the view that they
do. No one can fairly be called unreasonable if he believes that, after
making all proper corrections, there remains no appreciable difference
in rainfall inside and outside of our temperate zone forests. Perhaps
even the slight remaining differences ought themselves to be " cor-
rected " away. On the other hand, no one can be called unduly
optimistic who, knowing the many uncertainties involved in any critical
study of rainfall records, gives the forest " the benefit of the doubt "
and holds that it really does rain a little more over forests than in the
open. But the " little " is, at best, very little, as the latest European
observations have shown. We can not, if we will, make it an excess
of more than a few hundredths of the total annual rainfall. The
margin of difference between the two points of view is thus seen to be
very slight indeed. One thing is clear. Granting that all of the
observed differences between the catch within forests and outside of
forests is due to an actual difference in rain fall, and not largely to the
difference in exposure, the excess over the forest still remains but a
small proportion of the annual rainfall. In other words, even the
uncorrected observations give a maximum value for forest effects which
is itself relatively slight. If, at best, forests can only produce such
slight differences over and among the trees themselves, we can not
suppose that they will have enough effect upon passing air currents to
influence the climate of more distant regions. Hellmann has shown
that an increase in the rainfall over a forest, resulting from the slack-
ening of the lower air currents and a readier descent of the raindrops,
is accompanied by a lessened fall to leeward. Thus there is equaliza-
tion; simply a slight difference in distribution.

It is not altogether surprising that one writer has expressed the
opinion that " no definite and unassailable result can ever be obtained "
by means of such forest meteorological observations as those now made
in Europe, and that " there would be little to be gained by a further
study of the question." Yet this attitude will hardly commend itself
to those who are anxious to have the present uncertainty cleared up,
so far as possible. In view of what has already been said, it hardly
needs to be stated that, in spite of the deforestation, by lumbering and
fire, of large sections in the eastern United States, there is no reliable
evidence of any decrease in rainfall, nor of any other change of climate.
(It is, however, only fair to say that a good deal of this denuded area
has been covered by second-growth timber.) Nor, in spite of the
prevailing popular impression to the contrary, is there any reliable
evidence whatever that cultivation and tree-planting over extended
areas of the west and southwest have resulted in any increase in the
amount of precipitation. There is, of course, a better conservation of
moisture for plant use. We are surely within the bounds of reason when

FORESTS AND CLIMATE 3*1

we say that there is no hope that we can increase our rainfall really
appreciably or effectively by any amount of tree-planting. A whole
ocean of water can not give rainfall if the general pressures and tem-
peratures and winds are hostile to precipitation.

As was pointed out at the beginning of this paper, forests are of
many different kinds. We can not, therefore, reasonably expect all
forests to have the same effects. There may be a difference between
tropical and temperate forests, as has already been suggested in the
case of Java rainfall, for tropical weather types and rainfall conditions
are different from our own, just as tropical forests are different from
our own. Tropical rainfalls, as over the great forested Amazon valley,
are largely thunderstorm rains, and as forests tend to check air move-
ment, and calms are favorable conditions for convectional overturning,
it appears as if tropical forests might be expected to influence rainfall
more than our own. Furthermore, from the hot and damp tropical
forest, and from the leaves of the closely-crowded tropical trees, there
must come a large amount of moisture which will increase the vapor
content of the ascending air and tend to increase condensation and
rainfall. Thus Woeikof, whose emphasis on the case of Java has been
referred to, believes that in low latitudes the vast tropical forests do
increase the amount of rainfall. Von Hann, the leading authority
on climate, holds that we may conclude " with considerable certainty
that, at least in the tropics, the forest may increase the amount of
rainfall." Hettner, also, in his work in the tropical Cordillera, came
to the conclusion that the forests in the Cordillera of Bogota favor the
growth of clouds and the production of rain. While this is an inter-
esting phase of our discussion, we have as yet no thorough study of
tropical conditions by means of the parallel station method. There is
also another point. In low latitudes, where the dense tropical forests
are found, the rainfall is already so heavy that it is of little or no
significance whether there is a good deal more, or a good deal less.
In exactly those regions, therefore, where, if anywhere, forests may have
a really appreciable influence on rainfall, little or no economic impor-
tance attaches to the question. Woeikof believes that rain often begins
earlier over tropical forests, and in Mauritius, Walter has called atten-
tion to the fact that the number of rainy days seems to be greater over
forested areas.

It need hardly be pointed out that, if rain is already falling, the
opportunity for it to reach the earth's surface must be better if it falls
through the somewhat cooler and damper air over a forest or a grass-
covered surface than through a hotter and drier stratum of air over a
desert. In the latter case the loss by evaporation may be so great that
the drops do not reach the surface at all. Obviously, the contrasts
between these two conditions are greatest in the case of the tropical
forests and tropical deserts. It must, however, be observed that this

328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

effect is one of the conservation of rain already produced without the
action of the forest, not a case of an increase of rainfall directly due
to the forest.

Another effect of conservation may sometimes he seen when, after a
rain, the low clouds (" fog") continue to hang over a forest, and may
give another light shower there while no more rain falls over the fields.
In this case, the drops left hanging on the leaves evaporate; the air
over the forest may become very damp ; a slight cooling will suffice to
produce a second falling of the same water which fell previously. This
is clearly not a case of an increase of rainfall. It is pretty safe to say
that it would rain somewhat oftener, and a little more heavily, over
tropical deserts if the surface were covered with vegetation instead of
being sandy and therefore heated to a high degree, although the cause
of the rain is far beyond the action of desert or forest. But tropical
deserts are sandy deserts because the general condition of the atmos-
pheric circulation makes them so, not because they have been deforested.

Influence of Forests in Collecting Moisture from Clouds and

Fogs

There is one effect of trees, often observable during dense fogs,
which results in the collection and precipitation of water drops which
would otherwise not fall to the surface. This is a mechanical collection
by trees, or it may be by telegraph and telephone wires, or by the rig-
ging on board ship, of the fog or cloud particles carried against the ob-
ject in question by the moving air. When the amount of water thus col-
lected is sufficient, drops fall from the collector as a gentle shower. Thus
there is an actual increase in the amount of precipitation, although
no increase in the amount of condensation. Many years ago, Sir
John Herschel, during his residence at the Cape of Good Hope, called
attention to the fact that, when low clouds were closely overhead,
a shower of rain might be experienced under the trees on the side
of Table Mountain, whereas no rain fell outside. The explanation
which he gave was inaccurate, but the fact was important. Recently,
Marloth has shown that the collection of water droplets from the clouds
on Table Mountain is an important factor in supplying moisture for
the swamps and springs. A rain-gauge with a bunch of grass fas-
tened on wires around its rim, so that the collected water drops would
run into the gauge, gave from ten to thirty-five times as much "rain-
fall" as an ordinary gauge. Further, the number of horse-power fur-
nished by a stream coming down the mountain decreased more than
one half after a fire had burned off the vegetation on the top of the
mountain. Abbe has called attention to the " steady dripping of trees
enveloped in cloud-fog" on the windward side of Green Mountain, on
the Island of Ascension. This mountain owes its name to the fact that
it is always green with verdure. From its summit comes the principal

FORESTS AND CLIMATE 329

water supply for the garrison, this water being contributed partly by
" slight showers " and partly by the " steady dripping " just referred to.
"Every exposed object/' says Professor Abbe, "contributes its drip."
Another case, described by William L. Hall, in the Hawaiian Islands,
is that of the collection of the drip from the trees in a region of heavy
fog ( ? cloud) in troughs for the use of cattle. In this locality defores-
tation would, it is stated, " reduce the productiveness of the plantations,
if not ruin them entirely."

The present writer has several times, during fogs, noted the drip-
ping of water from the wires above the sidewalks in his own city. The
sidewalks being dry at the time, the drops from each wire made a wet
line on the pavements. Again, when steaming through the thick fogs
on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, many of us have seen real,
though gentle, showers of rain falling from the wet rigging on to the
dry decks.

In winter, when the moisture freezes on the trees, the branches and
twigs may become heavily covered with "frost." Fischbach has noted
the fact that in winters of deficient snowfall in the Black Forest, he has
several times observed that the frost shaken off of the trees by the wind
has made possible the use of sledges for transporting wood. In one
single European case, reported by Wilhelm, the amount of " rainfall "
resulting from the occurrence of such a frost deposit on trees was not
far below .05 inch.

In this mechanical collection of water particles by a forest, we seem
to have a really effective means of increasing the total fall of rain. It
is easy to see that if such favorable conditions are often repeated, and
where the trees are tall and have many branches, the surface of the
ground beneath the forest may easily receive a not inconsiderable supply
of moisture. Such action on the part of forests is further aided by the
fact that fogs often seem to last longer among trees. Nevertheless, we
should remember (1) that the conditions favorable to this particular
forest influence are found only locally, especially on forested mountain
slopes and tops ; (2) that the increase in the fall of rain is limited to the
area covered by the forest itself, and is, therefore, not upon soil used for
agriculture; and (3) that in the European observations, above referred
to, this particular action of forests was at work, as well as all other for-
est influences, yet the results were, as has been seen, uncertain.

Influence of Forests upon Hail and Other Storms
There has been a widespread impression in parts of Europe that
hailstorms avoid forests, and that forests serve to break up and to
weaken other storms. The evidence on the question of hailstorms is
conflicting, but we may say that the popular impression can be explained
on the ground that hail naturally does more damage to tender crops

VOL. LXXXII.— 23.

33o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

than to forest trees, and that the damage in the former case would at-
tract, in the latter would largely escape notice. Further, as regards
storms and high winds in general, forests do, as has been seen, tend to
check wind velocity, and thus to reduce the local violence of a gale.
On the other hand, however, recent investigations in Germany have
shown that in thunderstorms the obliquely descending component of the
wind can be but slightly, if at all, affected by forests, whose trees are
easily uprooted by these winds.

The Hygienic Influence of Forests

There are several ways in which forests have a hygienic significance,
and the location of many of our well-known health resorts in or near
extended forest areas is, therefore, well planned and logical. The re-
duced wind movement; the protection against the severest extremes of
summer heat and of winter cold; the marked decrease of dust and of
other atmospheric impurities; the grateful shade and lack of glare on
sunny days; the relatively small number of microorganisms — all these
are helpful, not only to those who are ill or convalescent, but to per-
sons in good health; all these are arguments in favor of wooded parks
in and in close proximity to our cities. In addition, but of non-climatic
importance, there are the scenic attractions of the forests; the relief
from the noise and the bustle of the city; the fragrance of the air among'
the evergreen trees, and the frequent intermingling of river and lake
and mountain, all of which features contribute to the popularity of
forest sanitaria and pleasure resorts. So far as the composition of for-
est air is concerned, there is no further notable difference between it
and the air outside. We can not, therefore, look for any marked cura-
tive effects on that account. The much-discussed beneficial effects of the
ozone in the forest air seem to lack the support of observation.

The Influence of Forests upon Water-supply, Erosion and

Floods

The preceding discussion has dealt with the influence of forests upon
climate. Therefore no mention has been made of their relation to the
conservation of the water-supply, to erosion and to floods, all of which
are non-climatic, or at any rate only indirectly climatic effects. There
is still a great deal to be learned about the use of forests in connection
with water-supplies; their effects in holding back rainfall and in stor-
ing the winter snow; their relation to floods, and ground-water, and
springs and erosion. The " last word " in this discussion is to be found
in the "Final Eeport of the National Highways Commission" (Sen.
Doc. No. 469, 62d Cong., 2 sess., 1912). From this report we take the
following statements, which are of peculiar interest, because they repre-
sent the conclusions and recommendations which have been reached

FORESTS AND CLIMATE 331

after a thorough study of the different phases of this many-sided prob-
lem. It is easy to see why different observers, under different conditions,
have reached such divergent results.

Whatever influence forests may exert upon precipitation, run-off and erosion,
it is evidently greatest in the mountainous regions where the rainfall is heaviest,
slopes steepest and run-off most rapid. Here also the land is less useful for other
purposes. The extent of the influence of forests upon these three factors varies
greatly, according to circumstances involved in each case. Under one set of
conditions, forests may benefit stream flow and mitigate floods, while under other
conditions they may have the opposite effect. In no case can they be relied upon
to prevent either floods or low-water conditions. There is substantial agreement
on this point. Nor is their influence extensive enough to warrant their use as the
only means of securing the uniformity of stream flow which is desirable for
navigation or the development of water power. For this purpose storage reser-
voirs would be much more effective. The prevention of erosion undoubtedly out-
weighs all other benefits of forestation and constitutes one of the most necessary
phases of conservation. The commission favors the prevention of deforestation
of mountain slopes wherever the land is unsuitable for agricultural purposes, and
urges the reforestation of those tracts which have already been denuded, not
only when located at the headwaters of navigable streams, but wherever this
would be the most valuable use of the land. The increasing pressure of popula-
tion upon subsistence will make it necessary to use for agricultural purposes all
land suitable for cultivation. The influence of forests upon stream flow and
erosion is not sufficient to warrant their retention except where the land is
unsuited for other purposes. Furthermore, it is possible, if correct methods of
agriculture are employed, to retain for cultivation areas located on steep hill-
sides. This has been successfully accomplished in other countries by terracing
and by other means. It must be remembered, however, that reforestation alone
can accomplish little toward preventing erosion. The prevention of forest fires,
the regulation of hillside farming and the prohibition of complete denudation
of mountain tracts, where the soil cover is thin and the land unsuited for agri-
cultural purposes, are also necessary. Forests retard the melting of snow in the
spring, and, by allowing the water from this source to be absorbed, exercise a
beneficial influence upon stream flow, but should heavy spring rains fall upon
the snow thus preserved and cause it to melt within a few hours, the effect of
the forest is in such a case to aggravate rather than ameliorate flood conditions.
It thus appears that under one set of conditions forests may exercise a beneficial
influence upon stream flow and floods, while under another their influence will
be harmful. *

But these problems do not directly concern the climatologist. He is
satisfied if he can make clear, as he sees it, the influence of the forest as
a control of climate. If his statements are often disappointingly broad
and generalized, it is because he has not the needed scientific basis for
making them otherwise.

V.

•vt

332 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

GOETHE AND THE CHEMISTS

By ROY TEMPLE HOUSE

NORMAN, OKIA.

WE learn from " Dichtung und Wahrheit " that when the young
Goethe came home ill from the University of Leipzig in 1768,
he fell under the influence of a physician who claimed to have found an
infallible panacea which he did not dare use because he was afraid of
legal action against him. His young patient was suddenly seized with
an attack of violent illness which threatened his life, and the physician
was persuaded to use his mysterious drug, with the result that the young
man at once began to mend and soon recovered. This experience was
the beginning of Goethe's infatuation for alchemy, which began fan-
tastically enough — although we have no occasion to quarrel with it when
we remember its influence on " Faust " and " Die Wahlverwaud-
schaften " — but became in the course of time a serious and profitable
interest in chemical investigation. Although he was never a thoroughly
grounded chemist himself, his marvelous skill in forming mutually
profitable partnerships with specialists made his chemical activity of real
and great significance.

Established at Weimar as an official member of the government, he
early made friends with the interesting court apothecary, Wilhelm
Heinrich Sebastian Buchholz. This gentleman had studied medicine
and received his medical degree, but after leaving school had devoted
himself to pharmacy and had bought what was then the only apothecary-
shop in "Weimar. He was a prosperous and jovial man of the world and
played an important part in the social life of the little capital, but he
was none the less a genuine scientist, and Goethe's debt to him was a
considerable one, as he himself admits in the narrative entitled " Ge-
schichte meines botanischen Studiums " which closes the " Meta-
morphose der Pflanzen." Buchholz kept up a large garden which con-
tained, we are told, " not only the herbs which he needed for his busi-
ness, but rare and newly discovered plants." He seems to have kept
himself well informed as to new discoveries and developments in his
own and related sciences, and when the Montgolfier brothers sent up
their balloon from Avignon in 1783, Buchholz tried a similar experi-
ment at Weimar; but Goethe wrote his friend Knebel, describing the
first attempt : " He torments the air in vain ; the balls refuse to rise."
His later efforts seem to have been crowned with success, to the aston-
ishment of the multitude and the distress of the pigeons; and Goethe,

GOETHE AND TEE CHEMISTS 333

delighted with this and later flights which he witnessed in Cassel, seems
to have finally reached the point of performing the feat himself. He
worked also with Buchholz at the analysis of water and its purification
by the use of powdered charcoal; and the pharmacist remained until
his death, which occurred in 1798, an active and honored member of
Goethe's celebrated " Freitaggesellschaft."

A brother of Goethe's friend Friedrich Hildebrand von Einsiedel had
studied mining and metallurgy, secured the title of Bergrat (counsellor
of mines) and established a laboratory in Weimar. Goethe appears to
have visited him frequently, but we learn of nothing in the way of
genuine additions to the world's knowledge that developed from his
labors. Current references to him indicate that he occupied himself
largely with marvelous chemical exhibitions for lady visitors; and Wil-
helm Bode describes him as a man of natural gifts, who, " although he
knew more about chemistry, geology, even of the history of countries
and races, than all the masters, doctors, scribes and priests," neverthe-
less accomplished nothing of serious importance. In 1785 he was sent
to North Africa by the French government to study mining conditions
there, and Goethe mentions the enterprise several times in his letters;
not, however, so much for its scientific importance as because of the
fact that he took with him one of the most prominent lady members of
Weimar Court society, after she had succeeded in spreading the report
of her death and had had a dummy buried in her place. On his return,
he gave up his scientific investigations, and Goethe purchased his appa-
ratus for his fosterling, the University of Jena; so that in spite of his
lack of energy, August von Einseidel played a very essential part in the
scientific activity of the Duchy of Weimar, after all.

One of the assistants of the talented apothecary Buchholz was a
young Saxon, Friedrich August Gottling, who was destined to surpass
his master. The son of a poor minister, beginning life as an apothe-
cary's assistant, he published in 1778 an " Introduction to Pharma-
ceutical Chemistry," and so interested Goethe that the latter made it
possible for him to study at Gottingen from 1784 till 1787, and to travel
and observe industrial conditions in Holland and England. Shortly
after his return his powerful patron secured his appointment to a pro-
fessorship at Jena, where he was very profitably active for many years.
Gottling will be remembered longest for his part in the phlogiston dis-
cussion. It was about 1700 that Stahl promulgated his theory that com-
bustion involved a loss of substance. Although Lavoisier (1743-1794)
proved conclusively that burning is oxidation, i. e., an addition instead
of a subtraction, German chemists of Gottling's time, partly perhaps
for patriotic reasons, still clung to the exploded theory, and Gottling,
who published between 1794 and 1798 a "Contribution toward the
Justification of Antiphlogistic Chemistry," stood almost alone among

334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

his countrymen in his views on this question. It is true that he was
not entirely free from the influence of the old method of reasoning, as
is shown by the fact that he tried to explain the burning of phosphorus
in nitrogen — which of course occurred only because he did not in that
day have instruments which made it possible to exhaust all the oxygen
— by the assumption of a new and mysterious substance which was in
itself the essence of light and heat.

He and Goethe worked together at the extraction of sugar from
beets and at other enterprises, and Goethe was his regular and faithful
student as well as his colleague and his patron. The great poet be-
came an enthusiastic champion of the new chemistry, and published in
Schiller's " Musenalmanach " in 1797, an epigram which ran:

Schon ein Irrlicht sah ich verschwinden, dich Phlogiston! Balde,
O Newtonisch Gespenst, folgst du dern Briiderchen nach.

(Will o' the Wisp, Phlogiston, I see thou hast vanished. And shortly
Newton's vague specter shall flee; flee as his brother has fled.)

But even Goethe's eloquent fulminations were not powerful enough
to banish the Newtonian specter.

After Gottling's death Goethe continued to interest himself in the
chemist's widow and little son. The latter, Karl Wilhelm Gottling, be-
came librarian and professor of philology at Jena, and was later to
repay in some measure his old patron's kindness to himself and his
father, by assisting in preparing the complete edition of his works.

Dr. Alexander Nikolaus von Scherer, born in Russia in 1771, was
recommended to Goethe in 1797 by Wilhelm von Humboldt. The poet
furnished the newcomer a laboratory and equipment, and both he and
Duke Karl August took the warmest interest in him. He made some
interesting discoveries with phosphorus, and from 1798 he edited in
Jena the Allgemeine Journal der Chemie. He died in Eussia in 1824,
a member of the St. Petersburg Academy.

One of Scherer's assistants in the conduct of the Journal was the
somewhat younger Johann Wilhelm Ritter, a Silesian, who came to Jena
penniless in 1795. He entered the university, and at once attracted
general attention by his scientific aptitude. Ritter made some discover-
ies of great value. He discovered the chemically active dark rays in the
solar spectrum, and accomplished some interesting results with galvan-
ism. He obtained hydrogen and oxygen by disorganizing water with
the electric current, he decomposed sulphate of copper, and he con-
structed a " charging pile " which was a precursor of the modern ac-
cumulator. Goethe studied and worked with him a great deal, espe-
cially during the years 1800 and 1801. He was inclined to be some-
what speculative and mystical, and especially after his call to the Uni-
versity of Munich in 1804, he gave himself up to various lines of fan-
tastic theorizing. He became deeply interested in animal magnetism,

GOETHE AND THE CHEMISTS 335

experimented with divining rods for the location of minerals and water
below the surface, and developed a theory of siderism that for a time
enjoyed considerable notoriety. His writings continued to exert an in-
fluence over Goethe, and their effect is traceable in the latter's novel
" Die Wahlverwandschaf ten."

But the most notable of all Goethe's chemical helpers was the young
Bavarian, Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner. The son of poor parents, this
young man secured education enough to become a pharmacist's assist-
ant, and even caine so far at one time as to own a small establishment of
his own. But the fates seemed working against him. Although he had
published a number of monographs which had made him nationally
known, it seemed for a time as if he would be unable to gain even the
most meager living for himself and his family. In 1810 he was penni-
less and unable to secure the humblest position as an apothecary's assist-
ant, when Duke Karl August and Goethe, whose attention had been at-
tracted to him by his publications and who were confident that he would
be competent and useful in spite of his irregular education, called him
to Jena to replace the deceased Gottling.

This was the beginning of a long and useful period of forty years
at Jena, ending only with his death, although in the course of his ac-
tivity there he received at least five more favorable offers from other
institutions. His was a faithful, affectionate nature, and he felt such
gratitude to his Weimar patrons for having come to his assistance at
the time of his greatest need that he refused to leave on any terms. He
showed his idealistic turn of mind very strikingly at other points. Al-
though he is responsible for several inventions which have great indus-
trial value, he always refused — and in this matter Goethe was heartily
at one with him — to impose any restrictions on their use, but threw
them open to the world and allowed others to reap the profits. He was
always ready to give free advice to industrials, and made large fortunes
for others, while he himself was struggling along on the utterly inade-
quate salary which was all his little university was able to spare him.

Dobereiner did useful work in stoichiometry and atomic measure-
ments ; as Gay-Lussac had established the laws of proportion in inor-
ganic chemical compounds of gases, so the young German was able to de-
velop the proportions for organic compounds. His discussions " On
Pneumatic Chemistry " were valuable additions to the chemistry of gases
in general. His measurements of the amount of carbonic acid gas which
escapes in the alcoholic fermentation of sugar and the publications which
he based on the data thus obtained, extended knowledge of a process
which Lavoisier had already established in a general and partially only
theoretical fashion. In 1829 appeared his "Attempt at a Grouping of
the Elements according to their Analogy." Here occurred for the first
time the celebrated arrangement into triads — chlorine, bromine, iodine,

336 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

etc. It was too early for his assertions with regard to atomic weights to
be verified, but it is surprising how nearly accurate his system was.

Dobereiner, between the years 1820 and 1830, made some remark-
able discoveries with platinum. He heated the double chloride of
platinum and ammonium to a glow and obtained what he called
platinum sponge. He found that this light, porous substance, when
slightly warmed and placed in contact with alcohol, becomes red hot,
and that if it is set in a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, it grows hot
without the application of heat from without. He drove hydrogen
against a piece of the platinum sponge surrounded by atmospheric air,
and found that the platinum was heated and the hydrogen ignited by
the process. He found also that metallic platinum, in contact with
hydrogen gas, causes it to unite with oxygen to form water. These
experiments excited attention and admiration throughout the chemical
world. The great Swede Berzelius termed his discoveries " the most
brilliant of the generation," and the most celebrated of Dobereiner's
pupils, Eunge, the discoverer of aniline, ranked his master as " the
most famous of living chemists."

We have said that a great deal of Dobereiner's work has industrial
importance. He saw how to derive acetic acid from alcohol, and he
was able to hasten the process of vinegar formation by the help of
powdered platinum. He applied his discovery of the ignition of hydro-
gen by contact with platinum sponge, to the construction of an instru-
ment called the " Dobereiner igniter," which enjoyed great popularity
until it was superseded by friction matches. But this quality of
platinum is still utilized in gas tips and in the manufacture of sul-
phuric acid.

Dobereiner experimented with the possibilities of coal-gas for illu-
minating purposes, obtaining his gas by the action of steam on coal at
a very high temperature; and he was the first to discover the useful-
ness of the mixture of hydrogen and carbonic oxide called " water-gas."
There has been some discussion on this point, but a letter of Goethe's
dated December 5, 1819, proves that Dobereiner had studied the mix-
ture seven years before a process for the production of water-gas was
patented in England.

The poet and the chemist were faithful correspondents, and we
have sixty-five letters of Goethe to Dobereiner and five of those written
by the chemist in return, which prove that they were on very intimate
terms. The two would spend entire days together in the laboratory at
Jena, and other days together in Weimar, where Goethe maintained a
laboratory especially equipped for his friend's use. We have a poem of
Goethe's dedicated to the scientist on the occasion of the latter's birth-
day, and we find again and again that the chemist's patron tried to

GOETHE AND THE CHEMISTS 337

secure an increase in salary and better equipment for his faithful
friend and helper. It was due to Goethe's influence that Dobereiner
was nearly or quite the first chemistry professor in Germany who was
able to give practical as well as theoretical class instruction in his
subject.

Dobereiner made mistakes which are traceable to Goethe's influence.
The two were certain, for example, that electricity is the source of life,
and this belief led to some strange and quaint theories which smack a
little of the old days of alchemy. Both were inclined to undervalue
equipment, and to look upon the fields and the hills as an adequate
laboratory. But on the whole, Goethe gave as much and as usefully
as he took. Alexander von Humboldt had said that the immortal poet-
philosopher's views of natural phenomena had " elevated him, equipped
him as it were with new organs." And Dobereiner showed his grati-
tude not only in words, but in every tangible way that came within his
reach. He was always ready to give time and thought to assisting his
master wherever his talents made him useful, from the preparation of
a tooth powder to the deciphering of a Latin epigram of the old poet
Antonius dealing with a poison and an antidote — an epigram which
was absolutely dark to the scholars, but became light as day with the
help of the chemist.

Dobereiner was the youngest of the famous Weimar group, and
many years after the death of the great chief and center of that group,
the old Jena scientist found his greatest pleasure in telling the younger
generation of the golden age of German intellectual activity.

338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

THE DOMESTICATION OF AMERICAN GEAPES

By Peofessoe U. P. HEDRICK

AGEICULTUBAL EXPERIMENT STATION, GENEVA, N. Y.

THERE are about forty species of grapes in the world, more than
half of which are found in North America. Few other plants on
this continent grow wild under such varied conditions and over such
extended areas. Thus, wild grapes are found in the warmer parts of
New Brunswick; on the shores of the Great Lakes; everywhere in the
rich woodlands and thickets of the North and Middle Atlantic States;
on the limestone soils in the mountainous parts of Kentucky, Tennessee
and the Virginias; and they thrive in the sandy woods, sea plains and
reef-keys of the South Atlantic and Gulf States, where a single vine of
the Scuppernong often clambers over trees and shrubs for a hundred
feet or more. While not so common west of the Mississippi, yet some
kind of wild grape is found from North Dakota to Texas ; grapes grow
on the mountains and in the canyons of all the Rocky Mountain States ;
and several species thrive on the Mexican borders and in the far south-
west, where they furnished the early Spanish padres with grapes for
wine and suggested the planting of the first vineyards in America.

While it is possible that all of the native grapes have descended
from an original species, the types are now as diverse as the regions
they inhabit. The wild grapes of the forests have long slender trunks
and branches whereby their leaves are better exposed to the sunlight.
Two shrubby species do not attain a greater height than four or five
feet; these grow in sandy soils, or among the rocks well exposed to sun
and air. Another runs on the ground and bears foliage almost ever-
green. The stem of one species attains a diameter of nearly a foot,
bearing its foliage in a great canopy; from this giant form the species
vary to sorts with slender, graceful, almost delicate, climbing vines.
Wild grapes are quite as varied in climatic adaptations as in structure
of vine, and grow luxuriantly and bear fruit in almost every condition
of heat or cold, wet or dry, capable of supporting fruit-culture in
America. So many of the kinds have horticultural possibilities that it
seems certain that some of them can be domesticated in all of the agri-
cultural regions of the country, their natural plasticity indicating, even
if it were not known from experience, that all can be domesticated.

Leif the Lucky, the first European to visit America, if the Icelandic
records be true, christened the new land Wineland after its grapes.
Captain John Hawkins, who visited the Spanish settlements in Florida
in 1565, mentions the wild grapes among the resources of the New
World, with f le statement that the Spaniards " had made twenty hogs-

AMERICAN GRAPES 339

heads of wine in a single season." Amadas and Barlowe, sent out by
Baleigh in 1584, described the coasts of the Carolinas as, "so full of
grapes that in all the world like abundance can not be found." Captain
John Smith, writing in 1606, describes the grapes of Virginia and rec-
ommends the culture of the vine as an industry for the newly founded
colony. Few, indeed, are the explorers of the Atlantic seaboard who
do not mention grapes among the plants of the country. Yet none saw
intrinsic value in these wild vines. To the Europeans the grapes of
the Old World alone were worth cultivating and the vines growing
everywhere in America only suggested that the grape they had known
across the sea might be grown in the new home.

During colonial times and the first half century of the union, efforts
to grow European varieties of grapes in America were continuous.
Some of the experiments were on a large scale and in the hands of ex-
pert vine growers, yet all resulted in failure. Several large companies
undertook grape-growing and wine-making in the years following the
Eevolution ; the efforts of a few of these are worth noting.

Peter Legaux, a Frenchman, founded a company to grow grapes
at Spring Mill, near Philadelphia, in 1793. John James Dufour, a
Swiss, came to America in 1793 to engage in grape-growing and became
the head of the Kentucky Vineyard Society in the valley of the Ohio
in Kentucky and Indiana. The Harmonists, a religious-socialistic com-
munity, planted ten acres of grapes about 1805 near Pittsburgh, and
later made another plantation at New Harmony, Indiana. When the
Napoleonic wars were over, a number of Bonaparte's exiled officers
came to America and founded the Vine and Olive Colony on land
granted them by Congress on the Tombigbee Eiver in Alabama. Here
one hundred and fifty French settlers spent several years in vain
attempts to grow European grapes in America. In a rough and hardly
explored country, part of which was overflowed half the year, with all
the sickness inherent to such a location, unaccustomed to field work
and the hardships of a new country, the attempt to grow grapes, where
failure was predestined because of natural obstacles, became for these
French officers and their families a tragedy which ended in great suffer-
ing and the impoverishment of all and the death of many.

It is only on the Pacific coast and in favored valleys of the Eocky
Mountains that Vitis vinifera, the grape of the Old World, can be
grown. The great viticultural industry of California is founded upon
the successful culture of this species. The native grapes can be grown,
but they can not compete on the Pacific coast with the Old World grape
for any purpose. The success attained in the cultivation of this species
west of the continental divide makes all the more remarkable its com-
plete failure east of the divide.

For three centuries from the first recorded attempt to grow the
Old World grapes in America, the causes of the failures were a mystery.

340 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

As one of the first experimenters stated, "a sickness takes hold of the
vines and they die." The agent causing the sickness is the phylloxera,
a tiny plant louse, undiscovered until the last half of the nineteenth
century, which works on the leaves and roots of the European grapes,
but which does comparatively little harm to American species. Un-
doubtedly, the resistance of native grapes to the phylloxera is due to
natural selection in the contest that has been going on for untold ages
between host and parasite. Three other pests, black-rot, downy mildew
and powdery mildew, are destructive to European grapes in America.
The climate, too, in eastern North America alternates between hot and
cold, wet and dry, and the Old World grapes grow well only in equable
temperatures and conditions of humidity. The leaves of the Old World
grape are thin and soft and the roots fleshy ; the leaves of the American
species are thick and leathery and the roots hard and fibrous. These
differences in the structure of the species of Vitis explain their adapta-
tions to the two climates.

That American viticulture must depend upon the native species for
its varieties began to be recognized at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, when several large companies engaged in growing foreign
grapes failed, and a meritorious native grape made its appearance. The
vine of promise was a variety known as the Alexander. Thomas Jeffer-
son, ever alert for the agricultural welfare of the nation, writing in
1809 to John Adlum, one of the first experimenters with an American
species, voiced the sentiment of grape experimenters, in speaking of
the Alexander:

I think it will be well to push the culture of this grape without losing time
and efforts in the search of foreign vines, which it will take centuries to adapt
to our soil and climate.

The Alexander is an offshoot of the common fox grape, Vitis Idbrusca,
found in the woods on the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia and
occasionally in the Mississippi Valley. The history of the variety dates
back to just before the Revolutionary War, when, according to William
Bartram, the Quaker botanist, it was found growing in the vicinity of
Philadelphia, by John Alexander, gardener to Governor Penn of Penn-
sylvania. Curiously enough, it came into general cultivation through
the deception of a nurseryman. Peter Legaux, mentioned before, in
1801 sold the Kentucky Vineyard Society fifteen hundred grape cut-
tings, which he said had been taken from an European grape, introduced
from the Cape of Good Hope, therefore, called the " Cape " grape.
Legaux's grape turned out to be the old Alexander. In the new home
the spurious " Cape " grew wonderfully well and as the knowledge of
its fruit fulness in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana spread, demand for it
increased and with remarkable rapidity, considering the time, it came
into general cultivation in the parts of the United States then settled.

Of the several species of American grapes now under cultivation,

AMERICAN GRAPES 341

Vitis labrusca, first represented by the Alexander, has furnished more
cultivated varieties than all the other American species together, no
less than 500 of its varieties having been grown in the vineyards of
the country. There are several reasons why it is the most generally
cultivated species. It is native to the parts of the United States in
which agriculture soonest advanced to a state where fruits were desired.
In the wild, the Labrusca grapes are the most attractive, being largest
and handsomest in color — among all grapes it alone shows black, white
and red-fruited forms on wild vines. There is a northern and a south-
ern form of the species and its varieties are therefore widely adapted to
climates and to soils. The flavor of the fruits of this species, all things
considered, is rather better than that of any other of our wild grapes,
though the skins in most of its varieties have a peculiar aroma, some-
what pronounced in the well-known Concord, Niagara and Worden,
which is disagreeble to any who are accustomed to the pure flavors of
the European grapes. Unfortunately few varieties of this species are
adapted to wine-making, as the fruits lack both sugar and acid and
impart to wines an unpleasant aroma and taste. All varieties of Vitis
labrusca submit well to vineyard operations and are vigorous, hardy and
productive, though they are more subject to the dreaded phylloxera
than are most of the other cultivated native species.

Of the many grapes of the labrusca type, at least two deserve brief
mention.

The Catawba, the first American grape of commercial importance,
is the most interesting variety of its species. The origin of the variety
is not certainly known, but all evidence points to its having been found
about 1800 on the banks of the Catawba Eiver, North Carolina. It
was introduced into general cultivation by Major John Adlum, soldier
of the revolution, judge, surveyor, and author of the first American
book on grapes. Adlum maintained an experimental vineyard in the
District of Columbia, whence in 1823 he began the distribution of
the Catawba. At that time the center of American grape culture
was about Cincinnati, and an early shipment of Adlum's Catawbas went
to Nicholas Longworth, grandfather of the present bearer of that name,
and was by him distributed throughout the grape-growing centers of
the country. As one of the first to test new varieties of American
grapes, to grow them largely and to make wine commercially from them,
Nicholas Longworth is known as the "father of American grape
culture."

The Catawba is still one of the four leading varieties in the vine-
yards of eastern America. The characters whereby its high place is
maintained among grapes are : great elasticity of constitution, by reason
of which it is adapted to many environments; rich flavor, long-keeping
quality, and handsome appearance, qualities which make it a very good
dessert grape; high sugar content and a rich flavor of juice, so that

342 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

from this grape is made a very good sweet or dry wine, the latter
entering into a blend for nearly all of the champagne produced in east-
ern America. The vines, too, are vigorous, hardy and productive. The
characters of Catawba are readily transmissible and it has many pure-
bred or hybrid offspring which more or less resemble it.

The second commercial grape of importance in American viticulture
is the Concord, which came from the seed of a wild grape planted in
the fall of 1843 by Ephraim W. Bull, of Concord, Massachusetts. The
new variety was disseminated in the spring of 1854, and from the time
of its introduction the spread of the culture of this grape was phe-
nomenal. By 1860 it was the leading grape in America and so re-
mains. It furnishes, with the varieties that have sprung from it,
seventy-five per cent, of the grapes grown in eastern America. The
characters which distinguish it are : adaptability to various soils, fruit-
fulness, hardiness, resistance to diseases and insects, certainty of matur-
ity and attractive appearance. It is produced so cheaply that no other
grape can compete with it in the markets. It is, as Horace Greeley
well denominated it in awarding it the Greeley prize for the best Amer-
ican grape, " the grape for the millions."

Long before the northern fox grapes had attained prominence in the
vineyards of the north, the Scuppernong had been partially domesticated
in the south. It is a variety of Vitis rotundifolia, a species which runs
riot from the Potomac to the Gulf, thriving in many diverse soils, but
growing only in the southern climate and preferring the seacoast. The
Scuppernong has been cultivated somewhat for its fruit or as an orna-
mental from the earliest colonial times. It is certain that wine was
made from this species by the English settlers at Jamestown. Vines
of it are now to be found on arbors, in gardens, or half wild on fences
in nearly every farm in the South Atlantic States. That the rotundi-
folia grapes have not more generally been brought under cultivation is
due to the bountifulness of the wild vines, which has obviated the neces-
sity of domesticating them. The fruit of its varieties, to a palate unac-
customed to them, is not very acceptable, having a musky flavor and
odor and a sweet, juicy pulp, which is lacking in sprightliness. Many,
however, acquire a taste for these grapes and find them pleasant eating.
The wines from Vitis rotundifolia partake too much of the muskiness
of the fruit unless blended with those of other species. The great
defect of this grape is that the berries part from the pedicels as they
ripen and perfect bunches of grapes can not be had — in fact, the crop
is often harvested by shaking the vines so that the berries drop on sheets
beneath. Despite these defects a dozen or more varieties of rotundi-
folias are now under general cultivation in the cotton belt and interest
in their domestication is increasing.

The south has another grape which, while not so early brought under
domestication or now so generally grown, has greater horticultural pos-

AMERICAN GRAPES 343

sibilities than Vitis rotundifolia. This is Vitis aestivalis, the summer
grape, or, to distinguish it from the rotundifolias, the bunch grape of
southern forests. The cestivalis grapes are preeminent in wine-making
in eastern America. The wines from this species make the best red
wines, usually of the claret and Burgundy types, to be had from Amer-
ican vines. A defect of these grapes is that they contain an excess of
some of the necessary elements which make good wines ; as color, tannin,
acidity and bouquet, but these faults are easily remedied by blending.
There are now a score or more well-known varieties of Vitis cestivalis,
of which the best known is Norton, which probably originated with
Dr. D. 1ST. Norton, of Eichmond, Virginia, in the early part of the nine-
teenth century. The berries of the true aestivalis grapes are too small,
too destitute of pulp and too tart to make good dessert fruits. Domesti-
cation of this species has been greatly retarded by a peculiarity of the
species which hinders in its propagation. Grapes are best propagated
from cuttings, but this species is not easily reproduced from cuttings
and the difficulty of securing good young vines has been a serious
handicap in its culture.

There are two sub-species of Vitis aestivalis which promise much
for American viticulture. Vitis aestivalis bourquiniana, known only
under cultivation and of very doubtful botanical standing, furnishes
American viticulture several valuable varieties. Chief of these is the
Delaware, the introduction of which sixty years ago from the town of
Delaware, Ohio, raised the standard in quality of our grapes to that
of the Old World. No European grape has a richer or more delicate
flavor or a more pleasing aroma than the Delaware. While a northern
grape it can be grown in the south and thrives under so many different
climatic and soil conditions and under all is so fruitful that, next to
the Concord, it is the most popular American grape for garden, vine-
yard and wine-press. Without question, however, the Delaware contains
a trace of European blood.

Another offshoot of this sub-species is the Herbemont, which in the
south holds the same rank that the Concord has in the north. The
variety is grown only south of the Ohio, where it is esteemed by all
for a dessert grape and for its light red wine. It is one of the few
American varieties which finds favor in France, being cultivated in
southwest France as a wine grape. Its history goes back to a colony
of French Huguenots in Georgia before the Eevolutionary War. Very
similar to the Herbemont is the Lenoir, also with a history tracing back
to the French in the Carolinas or Georgia in the eighteenth century.

The other sub-species of Vitis aestivalis is Vitis aestivalis lincecumii,
the post-oak grape of Texas and of the southern part of the Mississippi
Valley. Eecently this wild grape has been brought under domestica-
tion and from it have been bred a number of most promising varieties
for hot and dry regions.

344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

As agriculture becomes more diversified in the south, when cotton
and tobacco no longer hold complete sway, the varieties of Vitis aestivalis
and its two sub-species will become important agricultural assets.

The north, too, has a wine grape from which wines of their types
nearly equalling those of the southern aestivalis are made. This is Vitis
riparia, the river grape, the most widely distributed of any of the native
species. It grows as far north as Quebec, south to the Gulf of Mexico,
and from the Atlantic to the Kocky Mountains. Fully a century ago
a wine-grape of this species was cultivated under the name Worthington,
but the attention of vineyardists was not turned to the riparias until
after the middle of the last century, when the qualities of its vines
attracted the attention of French viticulturists. Phylloxera had been
introduced from America into France and threatened the existence of
French vineyards. After trying all possible remedies for the scourge
it was discovered that it could be overcome by grafting the European
grapes on American vines resistant to the phylloxers. A trial of the
promising species of New World grapes showed that the vines of Vitis
riparia were best suited for the reconstruction of French vineyards,
being not only resistant to the phylloxera, but also vigorous and hardy.
It is interesting to note that a large proportion of the vines of Europe,
California and other grape-growing regions are grafted on the roots of
this or of other American species and the viticulture of the world is
thus largely dependent upon these grapes.

The French found that a number of the riparia grapes introduced
for their roots were valuable as direct producers for wines. The fruits
of Vitis riparia are too small and too sour for dessert, but they are free
from the disagreeable tastes and aromas of some of our native grapes
and therefore make very good wines. The best known of the varieties
of this species is the Clinton, which is generally thought to have origi-
nated in the yard of Dr. Noyes, of Hamilton College, Clinton, New
York, about 1820. It is, however, probably the Worthington, of which
the origin is unknown, renamed. There are possibly a hundred or
more grapes now under cultivation wholly or in part from Vitis riparia,
most of them hybrids with the American labrusca and the European
vinifera, with both of which it hybridizes freely.

A curious fact in the domestication of all these species is that they
did not come under cultivation until forms of them striking in value
had been found. Catawba, representing the labrusca grapes ; the Scup-
pernong, the rotundifolias ; Norton from Vitis aestivalis; the Delaware
and Herbemont from the Bourquiniana grapes ; and Clinton from Vitis
riparia, are, after a century scarcely excelled, though in each species
there are many new varieties. It is with grapes as with all fruits ; the
majority of the best varieties originate by chance and for the reason
that a prodigious number of natural seedlings, pure or cross-bred, arise,
and natural selection, while wasteful, is wonderfully effective.

AMERICAN GRAPES

345

That our best grapes have come from chance is not because of a
lack of human effoit to produce superior varieties. Of all fruits the
grape has received most attention in America from the generation of
plant-breeders just passing. Their product is represented by fifteen
hundred varieties, a medley of the more or less heterogeneous characters
of a dozen species. That these have not excelled is due more to a lack
of knowledge of plant-breeding than to a lack of effort. Now that
order and system, undreamed of a generation ago, have been disclosed
by the brilliant discoveries in plant-breeding of the last decade, future
effoits to improve grapes ought to be more fruitful than those of the past.

As early as 1822, Nuttall, a noted botanist, then at Harvard, recom-
mended " hybrids betwixt the European vine and those of the United
States which would better answer the variable climates of North
America." In 1830 William Eobert Prince, fourth proprietor of the
then famous Linnean botanic nursery at Flushing, Long Island, grew
ten thousand seedling grapes " from an admixture under every variety
of circumstance." This was probably the first attempt on a large scale
to improve the native grapes by hybridizing, though little seems to
have come of it. Later a Dr. Valk, also of Flushing, grew hybrids from
which he obtained the Ada, the first named hybrid, the introduction of
which started hybridizers to work in all parts of the country where
grapes were grown.

Soon after Valk's hybrid was sent out, E. S. Rogers, of Salem, Mas-
sachusetts, and J. H. Eicketts, of Newburgh, New York, began to give
viticulturists hybrids of the European vinifera and the American spe-
cies which were so promising that enthusiasm and speculation in grape-
growing ran riot. Never before nor since has grape-growing received
the attention in America given it during the decade succeeding the

VOL. LXXXII.— 24.

346

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Shoot of Vitis labrusca, the Northern Fox Grape, the most Widely
Cultivated of our Native Grape.

introduction of Rogers' hybrids. It was the golden era for nursery-
men. One of the grape propagators of that time tells of carrying,
during this boom, a thousand dollars' worth of plants on his back from
the nursery to the express office. It was the expectation of all that
we were to grow in America, in these hybrids, grapes but little inferior,
if at all, to those of Europe.

A statement of the difference between European and American grapes
shows why American viticulturists are so eager to grow either pure-
breds from the foreign grape or hybrids with it.

European grapes have a higher sugar and solid content than the
American species; they, therefore, make rather bettor wines, excepting
champagnes, and keep much longer after harvesting and can be made
into raisins. So, too, they have a greater variety of flavors, which are
more delicate, yet richer, with a pleasanter aroma, seldom so acid, and
are always lacking the disagreeable, rancid odor and taste, the "foxi-
ness," of many American varieties. There is, however, an unpleasant
astringency in some of the vinifera grapes and many varieties are with-
out character of flavor. American table grapes, on the other hand, are
more refreshing, the unfermented juice makes a pleasanter drink, all of
the grape juice of the markets being made from native grapes, and,

AMERICAN GRAPES

347

lacking sweetness and richness, they do hot cloy the appetite so quickly.
The bunches and berries of the vinifera grapes are larger, more attract-
ive, and are borne in greater quantities. The pulp, seeds and skins are
somewhat objectionable in all of the native species and scarcely so at
all in Vitis vinifera. The berries of the native grapes shell from the
stems so quickly that the bunches do not ship well. The vines of the
Old World grapes are more compact in habit and require less pruning
and training than do those of the native grapes, and, as a species, prob-
ably through long cultivation, they are adapted to more kinds of soil,
to greater differences in environment, and are more easily propagated
than the American species.

Because of these points of superiority in the Old World grape, since
Valk, Allen and Rogers showed the way, American grape-breeders have
sought to unite by hybridization the good characters of Vitis vinifera
with those of the American grapes. Nearly half of the fifteen hun-
dred grapes cultivated in eastern America have more or less vinifera
blood in them. Yet despite the efforts of breeders few of these hybrids
have commercial value. Whether because they are naturally better
fixed, or long cultivation has more firmly established them, the vine

Leaf and Fruit of a White Cultivated Labrusca.

348

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Shoot of Vitis rotun&ifolia, the Scupperxong or Southern Fox Grape.

characters of Vitis vinifera more often appear in varieties arising as
primary hybrids between the vinifera grapes and the native species, and
the weaknesses of the Europeans, which prevent their cultivation in
America, crop out. Hybrids in which the vinifera blood is more atten-
uated, as secondary or tertiary crosses, give better results.

Several secondary hybrids now rank among the best of the cultivated
grapes. Examples are the Brighton and the Diamond. The first is
a cross between Diana-Hamburg, a hybrid of a vinifera and a labrusca,
crossed, in its turn, with the Concord, a labrusca; the second is a cross
between Iona, also a hybrid of a vinifera, and a labrusca crossed with
the Concord. Both weie grown from seed planted by Jacob Moore, of
Brighton, New York, in 1870. The Brighton was the first secondary
hybrid to attract the attention of grape-breeders and its advent marked
an important step in breeding grapes.

The signal successes achieved by the hybridizers of the European
grape with the native species quickly led to similar amalgamations
among the American species. Jacob Eommel, of Morrison, Missouri,
beginning work about 1860, lwbridized the labrusca and riparia grapes

AMERICAN GRAPES

349

so successfully that a dozen or more of his varieties are still cultivated.
All are characterized by great vigor and productiveness, and, though
they lack the qualities which make good table grapes, they are among
the best for wine-making. Rommel has had many followers in hybrid-
izing the native species, chief of whom is Mr. T. V. Munson, Denison,
Texas, who has literally made every combination of grapes possible,
grown thousands of seedlings, and produced many valuable varieties.

The aim of hybridization in breeding plants is to combine the desir-
able and eliminate the undesirable characters of varieties or species in
a new race. A plant, however, is such a complex sum-total of charac-
ters that no one can pi edict with any certainty the result of mingling
the characters of two more or less distinct plants. Speculation thus
quickens the charm of hybridization. The progeny of crossed grapes
is always chaotic and must be passed through the sieve of selection, the
meshes of which have grown larger and larger with use until now out
of thousands of new forms a grape-breeder will retain few indeed.

Within the last decade, hybridizing has received a great impetus
through the publication of Mendel's experiments. In the past hybrid-
ization has been a maze in which breeders lost themselves. Mendel's
discovery in heredity assures a regularity of averages and gives a defi-
niteness and constancy of action hereto wholly unknown in hybridiza-
tion. It now appears that many of the characters of grapes follow

Shoot of Vitis aestivalis, the Southern Wine Grape.

35°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the law discovered by Mendel, and with this as a solid basis and the
brilliant methods of Mendel for example, the further domestication
of the species of this fruit ought to go forward in leaps and bounds.

Selection, continued through successive generations, so important
in the improvement of field and garden plants, can play but small part
in the domestication of the grape. The period between planting and
fiuiting is so long that progress would be slow indeed were this method

Shoot of Tit is riuifcra, the Euhopean Geape.

relied upon. Moreover, selection, as a method in breeding, is possible
only when plants are bred pure, and it is the experience of grape-
breeders that in pure breeding this fruit loses in vigor and productive-
ness and that the variations are exceedingly slight and unstable. Many
pure-bred grapes have been raised on the grounds of the New York
Agricultural Experiment Station under the eyes of the writer, of which
very, very few have surpassed the parent or have shown promise for
the practise of selection.

From present knowledge it does not appear probable that new char-
acters are produced in plants by hybridizing. New varieties so origi-

AMERICAN GRAPES . 35 >

nating are but recombinations of the characters in the parent — the com-
bination is new but not the characters. Thus one parent of a hybrid
grape may contribute color, size, flavor and practically all of the char-
acters of the fruit and the other parent vigor, hardiness, resistance to
disease and in general the characters of the vine. Or, of course, these
and the other items in the make-up of the grape may be intermingled
in any mathematically possible way. New characters probably appear
as variations, and of these plant-breeders now recognize two kinds.

Nothing is more certan than that all offspring differ from their
parents in many details — individual variation. Plant-breeders have
long believed that by selecting desirable variations we have an efficient
means of improving plants just as evolutionists have held and many
continue to hold that evolution goes forward by means of natural selec-
tion from these variations. But there is a new school, headed by the
Dutch botanist, De Vries, who believe that these variations do not pro-
duce anything new, but that they always oscillate around an average,
and if removed from this for a time, they show a tendency to return to
it. Whether the orthodox Darwinians or the De Vriesians are right
does not matter here. The point is that the fluctuating variations of
individuals, upon which Darwin chiefly founded his principle of natural
selection, cut but a small figuie in the breeding of grapes. It is not
certain that such, variations are heritable, nor whether they are capable
of cumulative increase generation after generation, and, besides, as we
have seen, selection must be consistent and persistent for too long a
while to make it effective with grapes.

Evolution and plant-breeding have taken a fresh start through the
recent amplification by De Yries of the theory that marked changes
take place in plants through mutations, or characters which arise in a
plant at once, with a single leap, and are stable from the time they
arise. If this theory hold for grapes, it may be that there is a possi-
bility of absolutely new characters arising in this fruit. It is well
known that bud-sports, which in most cases must be called mutations,
now and then arise in grapes. But these mutations have not as yet
played an important part in producing new varieties. Not more than
two or three of the fifteen hundred sorts now under cultivation are sus-
pected of having arisen in this way. Until the causes of these muta-
tions are known and they can be produced and controlled, but little can
be hoped for in the amelioration of grapes through mutations.

Hybridization, then, has been and continues to be the chief means
of domesticating grapes. " Fluctuations " and " mutations," produced
other than by hybridizing, are too vague as yet for the grape-breeder to
lay hands on. Even should the theory of De Vries be true, that noth-
ing new — in the strict sense of the word — comes except through muta-
tions, with more than a score of species of grapes, each with manifold
distinct characters, all capable of fluctuating variations, there are many

352 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

surprises in store for lovers of grapes in the new varieties that may be
produced by hybridizing.

Whatever method of improvement is followed very much depends
upon the immediate parentage. Some varieties, whether self-fertilized
or crossed, produce much higher averages of worthy offspring than
others. There is so much difference in varieties in this respect that to
discover parents so endowed is one of the first tasks of the grape-breeder.
Unfortunately, no way is known of discovering what the best progeni-
tors are except by records of performance. The reasons for this pre-
potency, seemingly well established in plants and animals alike, are not
well explained by present knowledge. Often varieties of high cultural
value are worthless in breeding because their characters seem not to be
transmitted to their progeny, and to the contrary a variety good for
but little in the vineyard may be most valuable from which to breed.

What are the results of a century's work in domesticating the wild
grapes of America?

There are approximately in eastern America at the present time
240,000 acres of grapes, the product of which is largely sold for dessert
purposes, but from it is manufactured yearly in the neighborhood of
10,000,000 gallons of wine, of which about 1,000,000 gallons are cham-
pagne. The making of grape juice, an industry possible only with
native grapes, has grown so rapidly that it is hard to estimate the out-
put, but certainly not less than 2,000,000 gallons were sold in the mar-
kets last year. It is doubtful if any other cultivated plants at any
time in the history of the world has attained such importance, in so
short a time from the wild state, as our native grapes.

Fifteen hundred varieties from twelve of the native species of grapes
are now under cultivation. Almost every possible combination between
these species has been made; they have been so mixed and jostled that
species can no longer be recognized in the majority of varieties and the
future breeder must work with characters rather than species. The
methods of the past in domesticating the native grapes have been
wholly empirical and extremely wasteful. Many have been called, but
few chosen. But with the new knowledge of breeding and with the
experience of the past, domestication ought to proceed with greater
certainty. It is not too much to say that in this immense country, with
its great differences in environment, we shall, some time, everywhere be
growing grapes and of kinds so diverse that they will meet all of the
purposes to which grapes are now put and the increasing demands for
better fruits made by more critical consumers.

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 353

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 1

By ALFRED C. REED, M.D.

ASSISTANT SURGEON, UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

THE wide-spread ignorance of the various means employed by the
federal government to promote the well-being of its citizens is
nowhere better exemplified than in the common ignorance of the func-
tions and important work of the Public Health Service. This ignorance
is the more lamentable inasmuch as the Public Health Service is the
sole national agency operating to combat and prevent epidemic diseases
among human beings, and to improve public sanitation and hygiene, in
the United States. The awakening national conscience in public health
affairs lends peculiar interest at this time to a consideration of the va-
ried arid important functions exercised by this service, and the fasci-
nating history of its achievements.

The Marine Hospital Service is one of the oldest and most pecul-
iarly American of all our institutions. Its beginning was in an act of
congress of July 16, 1798, which put a. tax of twenty cents a month on
every seaman of the United States, to be taken from his wages. The
occasion for this procedure had been well explained by Hon. William
Williamson in the House of Representatives away back in 1792.

Wherever it is probable that sailors may be sick, there I would make pro-
vision for their support and comfort. Hospitals should he erected or lodgings
hired at every port of entry in the United States, for sick and infirm seamen,
where they may be properly attended during their indispositions. The money to
be collected at the several ports as hospital money should be expended in those
same ports alone, under care of such a person as may be designated for that
purpose.

The first hospital owned by the government was at Washington's
Point, Norfolk County, Virginia. This was purchased in 1800. Three
years later a Marine Hospital was completed at Boston. At about the
same time, the money collected by taxation of seamen was transformed
into a general fund for medical relief work among sailors. The same
legislation made provision for the establishment of the service in New
Orleans, which was not then a part of the United States.

After a time the seamen's tax was not sufficient to maintain the
constantly broadening work, which had to be correspondingly restricted
in its usefulness. No chronic or incurable diseases were treated, nor
was any patient kept longer than four months. Sailors in those days
fared poorly," and their life was a hard one indeed. Especially was this
true on the Mississippi River system, which was a great water-highway

1 The author is indebted to Surgeon George W. Stoner, Chief Medical Officer
at Ellis Island, for many facts concerning the earlier history of the Public
Health and Marine Hospital Service.

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UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 355

and the principal means of commerce and communication over a vast
territory. Often a flatboat starting from the upper river would lose
its entire crew of five or six men by disease before reaching New Or-
leans. During the severe cholera epidemic of 1832 and 1834 the lot of
the rivermen was especially severe.

It became necessary for congress to assist the service work by an-
nual appropriations. In 1837 the original Marine Hospital was built
in New Orleans and provision was made for purchasing sites for hos-
pitals in three inland zones. Along the Mississippi River stations were
located at Natchez, Miss. ; Napoleon, Ark., and St. Louis, Mo. On the
Ohio, the chosen points were Paducah, Louisville and Pittsburgh. The
center for the Lake Erie sailors, was at Cleveland. The first Marine
Hospital at Chicago dates from 1848 and was built on land adjacent to
old Fort Dearborn. The second hospital, the present one, was author-
ized in 1864 and opened for patients in 1873. It occupies a beautiful
location on the lake shore five miles north of the harbor.

The first service establishment on the Pacific Coast, at San Fran-
cisco in 1851, was on the contract basis. A hospital was erected three
years later, a commodious and well-built structure, doomed to serious
injury in the severe earthquake of 1868. The contract system with
other hospitals was then resumed and continued until the completion
of the present building in 1875. During the Civil .War many marine
hospitals in both the north and the south were converted into military
hospitals. Those at Boston and Norfolk were used in this capacity in
the war of 1812.

In 1870 congress reorganized the service and Dr. John M. Wood-
worth, of Illinois, was appointed supervising surgeon. Within the next
three years, the service began to attract considerable attention in for-
eign countries. London medical journals bestowed lavish praise on this
uniquely American institution. At this time service officers were re-
quested by the supervising surgeon to inform themselves fully as to
local health regulations and to assist, when requested, in their enforce-
ment.

Upon Dr. Woodwortlrs death in 1879 President Hayes appointed
Dr. John B. Hamilton to succeed him. The year before Dr. Wood-
worth's death marked the occurrence of a terrible epidemic of yellow
fever in the Mississippi Valley. With this freshly in mind, congress
added quarantine control to the growing functions of the Marine Hos-
pital Service, but failed to make any appropriation for its operation.
Then a year later, in 1879, a law was passed creating a National Board
of Health to exercise quarantine functions for four years. At the end
of that period, the law of 1878 was revived, and national quarantine
passed permanently into the hands of the Marine Hospital Service.
The entire development of the quarantine service took place under the
wise guidance of Dr. Hamilton.

356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Marine Hospital, Staten Island, N. Y.

In June, 1891, Dr. Hamilton resigned to be succeeded, by the ap-
pointment by President Harrison, of Dr. Walter Wyman, who had been
chief of the quarantine division in the administrative bureau. In 190?
the enlarging and changing functions exercised, necessitated a change
in name from the old Marine Hospital Service to the cumbersome but
expressive Public Health and Marine Hospital Service. In 1893 addi-
tional quarantine powers were added and additional responsibilities im-
posed, such as the medical inspection of immigrants. In 1875 the super-
vising surgeon became the supervising surgeon general, and was com-
missioned. By the legislation of 1889 commissions were conferred on
all the regular officers of the corps. The old seamen's tax was finally
abolished in 1884 and since then the service has been supported entirely
by Congressional appropriation.

Examinations are held annually at Washington for candidates for
admission to the corps. N"o more rigorous test is to be found for any
medical appointment than this, lasting from a week to ten days or
more. The examination covers the physical condition, literary and
academic preparation, and practical and theoretical training. It in-
cludes a practical laboratory and hospital bedside examination. After
four years assistant surgeons are eligible to be examined for promotion
to the next grade of passed assistant surgeon. After from fifteen to
twenty years' service, further examinations are held for promotion to
the grade of surgeon. There are now 135 commissioned officers. This
service offers one of the most attractive openings in the country for
young physicians.

The splendid institution known as the Hygienic Laboratory, now
recognized the world around for its excellent contributions to the
knowledge of scientific medicine and of public health and sanitation,

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 357

was founded just twenty-five years ago as a laboratory of pathology and
bacteriology in the old marine hospital at Stapleton, Staten Island. At
first all of the work was done by one officer in the intervals of his at-
tendance in the hospital wards. After four years the work was trans-
ferred to Washington, where it has been ever since, and until 1894 was
housed on one floor of the service office building. About this time the
advantages began to be realized of using this laboratory as a training
school for officers, supplemented with details abroad affording oppor-
tunity for visiting the great centers of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna
and other cities.

Among the earlier subjects taken under consideration were disin-
fecting methods as applied to quarantine and epidemic practise. Tbese
investigations resulted in the elaboration of a system of disinfecting
apparatus, together with disinfecting agents and a method for their
application, which now stands unrivaled. This laboratory was prob-
ably the first to recommend formaldehyde in place of the older disin-
fectants, steam, carbolic acid and sulphur dioxide. The first authorita-
tive publication on the use of diphtheria antitoxin was issued by the
Marine Hospital Service, and the first diphtheria antitoxin made in the
United States was produced in the Hygienic Laboratory. Both resulted
from personal instruction received by an officer from Behring and Eoux,
who had separately announced their discovery at a meeting of the Inter-
national Congress of Medicine at Budapesth.

In March, 1901, congress appropriated $35,000 for the necessary
buildings, and directed the cession of five acres of land from the old
naval observatory site by the secretary of the navy for the use of the
Hygienic Laboratory. After the legislation of July, 1902, which in-
creased the functions of the Marine Hospital Service and changed its
name to the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, the scope, or-

Chicago Marine Hospital.

35§

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ganization and personnel of the laboratory were greatly extended. An
advisory board was created, consisting of officers from the Army and
Navy Medical Corps, a scientist from the Bureau of Animal Industry of
the Department of Agriculture, and five men from civil life, who were to
be skilled in laboratory work bearing on public health problems. These
five at present are Victor C. Vaughan, dean of the School of Medicine
of the University of Michigan ; William Welch, professor of pathology
at Johns Hopkins University; Frank Wesbrook, professor of pathology
at the University of Minnesota ; Simon Flexner, of the Eockef eller
Institute ; and William T. Sedgwick, professor of biology at the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology.

Rear of Stapleton Marine Hospital, showing Tents for Tuberculosis Patients.

Three additions were made to the original divisions of pathology
and bacteriology. These were medical zoology, chemistry and pharma-
cology. Medical zoology embraces the study of parasitic diseases of
man. Under pharmacology, drugs are examined as to purity, potency
and action, and important work is done on the standardization of drugs.
By another act of July, 1902, provision was made for the licensing
of all establishments engaged in interstate traffic in viruses, serums,
toxins, antitoxins and analogous products. Samples of such products
are bought in the open market and tested for purity and strength. The
manufacturing establishments are inspected by medical officers, both
before and after the license is granted. Fines and suspensions or with-
drawal of license are the penalties for false labeling or faulty methods
of production.

The laboratory makes a practise of assisting health officers of states
and communities which have no reliable laboratory facilities, by analyz-
ing samples of water, as to impurities, infection and potability. In-

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 359

vestigation has likewise been made of the hygiene and sanitary ar-
rangements of railroad coaches and sleeping cars. The question of the
dissemination of malaria by mosquitoes has been another productive
field of research.

Closely connected with lines of work already outlined, is that of the
leprosy investigation station on Molokai, Hawaii. Here, with unlimited
material at their disposal, the director and his able assistants are ma-
king careful studies of the lepra bacillus, with the ultimate ambition
of producing some means for the prevention and cure of the disease.
A good example of the thorough and painstaking study of epidemic
disease which characterizes the service work, is the exhaustive research
made by Stiles of the distribution and results of hookworm infection
in the south and especially in the rural sandy districts of Georgia and
Florida. What Stiles did for the south, Ashford and King did for
Porto Eico, and the result has a large economic, social and sanitary
value in both places.

Eelief stations of the service are divided into four classes. The
first-class stations, numbering 23, consist of a marine hospital under
the command of a commissioned officer. Among these is included the
tuberculosis sanatorium at Fort Stanton, N". M. After the subjugation
of the Apache Indians, the old army post at Fort Stanton, which for
forty years had been a frontier protection for ranchmen, was no longer
necessary, and in 1896 it was abandoned. For three years the post was
deserted, except for the wild desert prowlers, and sagebrush and decay
replaced the busy military life which had known it so long. In 1899
the property was acquired by the Public Health and Marine Hospital
Service, and again the martial spirit took possession, and once more
the stars and stripes floated over the parade ground, fanned by the
health-bearing breeze of the New Mexican plateau. But the foe to be
conquered under the new regime was not the fierce red warrior whose
'merciless and invincible spirit had been supreme against the Spaniard
and the American for three hundred years. The new foe, more deadly
and terrible by far than the old, was the silent and merciless white
death, the relentless destroyer of thousands, the plague of tuberculosis.

In situation Fort Stanton is admirably adapted to its present pur-
pose. At an altitude of 6,200 feet, it has winter snows, and moderate
heat in the summer. The reservation includes about forty-five square
miles, and has resources which, when fully developed, will go far toward
making the institution self-supporting. Natural water power is avail-
able. Two thousand cattle can be pastured on the range, which now
supports almost that number of beef cattle, besides a large dairy herd.
Poultry raising will soon supply an abundance of turkeys, chickens and
eggs, and hog raising is another industry which promises much.

The daily number of patients averages about two hundred, under
the care of seven medical officers. Sixty attendants find employment

3 6 °

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Tuberculosis Camp

on the reservation. No unimportant function of the sanatorium is that
which finds its result in the influence of the education in hygiene and
tuberculosis prevention, upon those who leave after having been cured
or benefited by the treatment. These men spread their new-found
knowledge among their associates and so extend the actual good ac-
complished.

Patients come to Fort Stanton largely from sailor boarding houses and other
crowded districts of the large sea ports. Some are old incurable cases, but their
lives are prolonged and made more comfortable, and incidentally the Sanatorium
is in effect a quarantine station, not in restraining men from liberty, but in that
it keeps from the large centers of population a daily average of over two hun-
dren consumptives who in all probability would have continued as sources of
infection to innumerable others.

Over half the cases admitted have been returned to active life either
cured or near enough cured to resume their occupations.

Outside of Fort Stanton, the larger marine hospitals are located in
New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Buffalo and New
Orleans.

The second-class stations are under the command of commissioned
officers, but have no hospital accommodations of their own. Patients
are kept in private or other hospitals, under the exclusive professional
care of the medical officer, and the government pays for the hospital
facilities under a definite contract. Third-class stations are under the
charge of contract acting assistant surgeons, and patients are cared
for under government contract with local hospitals. All other relief
stations come under the fourth class. Certain of these have a contract
surgeon in charge, but have no hospital facilities available, and the

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 361

for Summer, Port Stanton.

functions of the others are exercised by the Collector of Customs at the
place.

Persons entitled to the benefit of medical relief from the Public Health
Service are those employed on board in the care, preservation or navigation of
any registered or licensed vessel of the United States, or in the service on board
of any so engaged.

Officers and crews of vessels in the service of the Mississippi River
Commission are included with those entitled to marine hospital relief.
This commission has to do with the engineering and inspection of the
Mississippi levees, and the removal of snags and obstructions to ship-
ping. Its concern is to maintain the navigability of the Mississippi
and its larger branches.

The Revenue Cutter Service., the Army Engineering Corps, to-
gether with keepers and surfmen of the Life-Saving Service, are all
beneficiaries, as well as the men of the Light House Service, including
light ships. A provision not generally known is that foreign seamen
ma} r utilize the Marine Hospital accommodations, if written security
is given for the payment of the small fees fixed by the department, by
the master of the vessel or the consul of the nation under whose flag
the vessel sails. In the year ending June 30, 1911, a total of 52,209
patients were treated at the various relief stations of the service, of
whom 15,442 received hospital care. At the Fort Stanton Sanatorium,
322 consumptive patients were under treatment.

A large number of physical examinations of seamen in the various
government services are necessary, as of candidates for entrance, for
promotion and for retirement. Such examinations are conducted by

VOL. LXXXII.— 25.

3 62

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Officers' Quarters. Fort Stanton. New Mexico.

Marine Hospital Service officers for the Keveime Cutter, Coast-Survey,
Life-Saving and Lighthouse Services. Instruction is given, when
properly applied for, in methods of resuscitation of persons apparently
drowned. Applicants for a pilot's license are examined as to their
hearing, color perception and visual acuity. The total of such physical
examinations for the last fiscal year was 4,610.

There are many foreign details filled by service officers besides their
varied and extensive activities at home. The American consulates have
medical officers attached in Yokohama, Habana, Guayaquil, Naples and
Hong Kong. Contract surgeons are kept at the principal ports of
China, Eussia, Japan, India, Italy, Mexico and tropical America.
Eight United States Revenue Cutters have a medical officer on board.
Through all these various and widely separated posts, information is
constantly being collected and collated as to health conditions all over
the world. This information is issued in the Public Health Bulletins
published weekly by the Bureau of the Public Health Service in Wash-
ington. Service officers are detailed to attend certain congresses and
conventions on scientific and medical lines, in this country and abroad,
and many exhibits are prepared for scientific and popular conventions,
of an educative nature and illustrative of the service work.

No more important feature of national health protection can be
named than the quarantine service. The history of quarantine meas-
ures takes us back to the time of the Milanese and Lombardians, late
in the fourteenth century. At that period the great and lucrative Ital-
ian commerce had been responsible for the introduction of the black
plague from the Levant into Europe and terrible fear was on all the
people. Persons coming in with the plague were taken into the midst
of large fields and left alone to recover or die as best they could. The
penalty for disobedience of the stringent rules was death and confisca-
tion of the victim's property. In 1475 Venice established a Sanitary

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

3 6 ;

Council of three nobles, who were directly charged with preventing the
entry of epidemic disease. The Council constructed lazarettoes on two
islands, and instituted a rigid inspection of incoming crews, and the
letters of health from the place of departure. The time of detention
was forty days (quarante diei), hence our term quarantine. Venice was
therefore the first to practise systematic quarantine. Similar arrange-
ments were adopted by other countries, and have developed into our
modern institution of quarantine. The first quarantine disregarded
humane and medical considerations, for the sake of commerce. The
latest quarantine disregards commerce but only if it stands in the way
of public health and real humanity.

Quarantine stations are maintained at forty-five points of entry into
the United States, besides eight stations each in Hawaii, Porto Kico
and the Philippines. The quarantine control of the Canal Zone is also
exercised by the Public Health Service. A fully equipped quarantine
station has adequate provision for boarding and inspecting vessels,
apparatus for mechanically cleansing them, and suitable equipment
for disinfection with steam, sulphur, formaldehyde and various solu-
tions. It must include a clinical laboratory, hospitals for contagious
and doubtful cases, a steam laundry, detention barracks for suspects,
bathing facilities, a crematory, sufficient supply of good water and a
proper system for the disposal of sewage.

Vessels from domestic ports are also subject to quarantine, if
quarantinable disease prevails in the port of their departure, or
if there is sickness on board. No persons other than quarantine and
customs officers, and pilots, are permitted to board vessels subject to
quarantine, until they have been given free pratique. In case a vessel
carrying immigrants develops quarantinable disease in transit, after

Bed Shelter, Hospital Annex, Fort Stanton.

3 6 4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the full quarantine regulations have been satisfied, the health officers
of the several states to which the immigrants are bound are notified of
the circumstances that they may keep close supervision to detect any
later development of the disease.

Those vessels are placed in quarantine which have had quarantinable
disease on board in transit or which the inspecting officer considers to
be infected, also vessels arriving during the summer months from
tropical American ports, which are not known to be free from yellow
fever. Vessels in quarantine may have no direct communication with
any person or place outside, and no communication of any nature except

Immigration Station, Pelican Island, Galveston, Texas.

under the supervision of the officer in charge. The persons detained
from such a vessel are divided into small isolated groups, and inspected
twice daily by the physician. No intercourse is allowed between these
groups. No convalescents are discharged from quarantine until free
from infection, and whenever possible this is determined by bacteriolog-
ical examination.

The United States quarantine regulations provide for inspection of
but six diseases, yellow fever, typhus fever, bubonic plague, leprosy,
smallpox and cholera. A few facts relative to these will make plain
the nature of the special precautions necessary to exclude them.

Yellow fever is the great sanitary curse of the tropical Americas.
It is an acute non-contagious fever of unknown causation. Its extreme
fatality is shown by a death rate which varies from 1 to 95 per cent.
The causative agent, whatever it may be, is found in the patient's blood
and is transferred to others by one agency alone, a certain type of
mosquito, Stegomyia fasciata. The area where yellow fever is endemic
corresponds exactly with the geographical distribution of the Stegomyia.
It was due to the magnificent work of the Army Yellow Fever Commis-
sion in Cuba in 1898 that responsibility for the spread of the disease
was definitely laid to the role of this mosquito. Too much honor can
not be paid to those brave physicians who risked their lives to discover a

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 365

means of checking this yellow scourge and above all to Drs. Walter Reed
and Lazear, whose lives helped to pay the price for the knowledge which
finally vanquished yellow fever. Their associates on the board, Drs.
Carroll and Agramonte, as well as Dr. Finlay, of Havana, are no less
deserving of praise. The work of the Army board completed the excel-
lent pioneer work of Surgeon Henry E. Carter on the incubative period
of yellow fever. It follows that yellow fever can only be successfully
combated by destruction of the mosquitoes by means of which it spreads.
Quarantine measures against the disease are therefore concerned with
isolation of all cases and very careful exclusion of every possible contact
with mosquitoes by screening and elimination of all breeding places.

Cholera presents an entirely different picture from the standpoint
of quarantine. Here we have a disease proved to be caused by an
intestinal infection with a definite and characteristic microbe, the so-
called "comma" vibrio of Koch. The infection is limited absolutely
to the intestinal tract, consequently the entire danger of spread of the
disease is limited to the alvine discharges. The bacteria are taken into
the system chiefly through the ingestion of infected drinking water, the
contamination having arisen from sewage infection or other polluting
contact with infected intestinal discharges. Uncooked vegetables and
fruits are a secondary source of danger for like reasons. Preventive
measures must also be extended to exclude articles of diet such as fresh
fruits, for instance, which may tend to excite a tropical diarrhea and so
produce a point of lowered resistance where the cholera germs can take
effect. Quarantine measures, therefore, aim to isolate all frank cases
and suspects, and to detain all who have been exposed, in small groups
under close observation for at least five days,' covering the incubation
period of cholera. Water and food supply must be above suspicion of
carrying the germs, and strict cleanliness of person and quarters must
be strictly enforced. It is absolutely essential that intestinal discharges
from frank cases and suspects alike be thoroughly disinfected. Before
convalescent cases are released from detention the intestinal discharges
must be proved free from cholera germs by microscopical examination
and bacteriological culture.

Smallpox is more familiar than the diseases just described, as are
also the circumstances embodied in its quarantine control. Vaccination
or proof of immunity by having had the disease are required of all per-
sons exposed, which, of course, means all on board an infected vessel.

Typhus fever, the old time " ship " or " famine " fever, is very rare
now in the United States, probably because of improved ship hygiene
and sanitation, conditions always inimical to the disease. The last
epidemics in this country were in Philadelphia in 1883 and in New
York in 1891-92. Very rarely is a case seen at quarantine, but it is
controlled by isolation, and disinfection of articles and quarters exposed
to infection. Drs. Anderson and Goldberger, of the Hygienic Labora-

3 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Disinfecting Wharf., Tampa Quarantine Station, Florida.

tory, have recently proved the identity of typhus and " Brill's disease/'
a disease fairly often seen in large cities. They have also shown the role
of the body louse in transmitting typhus. The isolation period for sus-
pects is fourteen days.

No more terrible epidemic has ever threatened this country than
bubonic plague and against the entry of no disease are more rigid pre-
cautions taken. It exists constantly in oriental countries, especially in
China and India, and the great danger of introduction here always con-
fronts us. There are several forms of plague, of which the pneumonic
type is the most deadly. This was the prevailing type in the recent
epidemic in northern China. The bacillus of plague lives and multi-
plies in the blood of the victim. It also causes an epizootic in rats and
certain other rodents, and from these, as well as from human cases, the
bacilli are carried to human victims through the agency of fleas and
bedbugs. In addition pneumonic plague is highly infectious directly,
spreading from man to man by aerial convection. It is very easily seen
how important is the eradication of plague epizootic among rats, ground
squirrels and other rodents as is being done now in California. An
epizootic is a powder magazine waiting only for the match of proper
local conditions to explode in all directions in an epidemic of the
greatest virulence.

Quarantine measures against plague first of all aim to prevent in-
fected cargo, baggage or ballast from being shipped. To this end rat
guards are used, all suspicious articles going on the vessel are thor-
oughly disinfected and special efforts are made to destroy all rats on
board. Cases of plague reaching a domestic quarantine station are
isolated and the surroundings and belongings thoroughly disinfected.

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

367

A period of fifteen days must elapse after the last possible exposure
before release of suspects.

Leprosy is only mildly contagious, at least in this country, and is an
instance of a disease made quarantinable more because of its loathsome
nature and the abhorrence in which it is popularly held than because of
actual infective danger from it. The immigration law absolutely
excludes all alien lepers. Others must be removed from vessels at
quarantine, and the quarters disinfected.

No small feature of the activity of the Public Health Service is
its conduct of the medical examination of immigrants. No argument
is necessary to convince every thoughtful patriot of the vital importance
of this work. The immigration laws are explicit, and while the medical
examiners have no authority to pass judgment on the admissibility of
aliens, they have the basic function of supplying medical evidence
against mental and physical defectives, which evidence under the law
has a determining influence with the inspectors of the Immigration
Bureau of the Department of Commerce and Labor. The methods of
medical inspection of incoming aliens and laws concerned, have been
discussed and described by the author elsewhere, 2 and will not be taken
up here.

By far the largest port of entry for immigrants is through Ellis
Island, N. Y. During the year ending June 30, 1911, 749,642 aliens
were inspected there, as against a total of 303,007 for all other points
of entry combined. At Ellis Island are stationed 23 medical officers,

Quarters at Tampa, Fla.

2 "Medical Aspects of Immigration," The Popular Science Monthly,
April, 1912; "Going through Ellis Island," The Popular Science Monthly,
January, 1913.

3 68

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Detention Baeeacks, Maeivales Quaeantine, Philippine Islands.

and a larger force would be able to do even better work. The immi-
grant hospital on Ellis Island during the year mentioned cared for
5,141 aliens, in addition to 720 cases of acute contagious disease which
were transferred to the State Quarantine Hospital at the entrance to the
harbor pending completion of the present excellent contagious disease
hospital on Ellis Island. There is possibly no place in the United
States where a similar variety of interesting and unusual cases can be
seen as at the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital. Drawn from every
race, nation and climate, one can see there all the usual varieties of
disease and, in addition, peculiar tropical affections, unusual skin
lesions and obscure internal disorders of the most diverse description.
This hospital is excellently conducted and reflects credit on the profes-
sional skill of the officers in charge, as well as being a godsend to the
immigrants who constitute its sole source of patients.

Next to Ellis Island the larger immigration points are Boston, with
45,865 entries; Philadelphia, with 45,0'23; Baltimore, with 22,866;
and then San Francisco, Galveston, Seattle, Honolulu and Tampa.
Medical examination of incoming aliens is conducted at forty-five points
besides the preliminary advisory, inspections made by medical officers
detailed to consulates in foreign countries.

The annual report of the surgeon general for the last fiscal year
contains an account of many valuable and interesting lines of investiga-
tion conducted by service officers. One of the most notable achieve-
ments was the transmission of measles from man to monkeys, the first
time this has ever been accomplished. Contrary to the erroneous pop-

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

369

ular belief, measles is one of the most fatal of common diseases, largely
because of complications. Ability to produce it experimentally in
animals opens the way for the discovery of the causative agent, as well
as of a curative or prophylactic serum.

Assistance has been given to the Bureau of Chemistry of the Agri-
cultural Department by officers of the Hygienic Laboratory in the scien-
tific investigation of certain food products, and in giving testimony in
court in trials arising under the Pure Food and Drugs Act. About
one hundred proprietary medicines have been examined as to composi-
tion, strength and action.

Treatment for rabies was successfully administered to 128 persons,
and 777 treatments were sent out into 14 different states. Examina-
tions are made at the Hygienic Laboratory for tuberculosis in govern-
ment employees. At the request of state authorities, officers have been
detailed to determine the cause of the prevalence of typhoid fever in
several states. A sanitary survey has been made of towns bordering on
Lake Erie and the Niagara Elver and the work is being continued on
all of the Great Lakes to collect data relative to their contamination
with typhoid germs. The results will be applied directly to the pre-
vention of sewage pollution, and the conservation of a pure water
supply in those communities dependent for their supply on the Great
Lakes.

Much work has been done on the subject of pellagra and patients

Disinfecting Wharf and Bathhouse, Marivales Quarantine Station,

Philippine Islands.

37°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

with this disease have been admitted to the Marine Hospital at Sa-
vannah for special observation and study. Similarly patients have been
admitted to the Wilmington, N. C, Marine Hospital for the study of
hookworm infection. Two laboratory officers were detailed with the
mine rescue car of the Bureau of Mines to investigate hookworm disease
among miners in southern states and lung diseases among Colorado
miners, and also to report on the general sanitation and hygiene of
mines.

■

Service Quarters, Marivales Quarantine, Philippine Islands.

The San Francisco plague laboratory has continued its work of
examining rodents for the germs of bubonic plague. It has also made
studies on the penetrating power of various gases used in disinfecting
ships, on rat leprosy and on the role of fleas in transmitting the plague.
At the Leprosy Investigation Station in Hawaii, the bacillus of leprosy
has been successfully grown on artificial media. Monkeys have been
inoculated with leprosy from human beings, and thus the way has
been opened for the development of a curative or preventive serum.
Special studies have also been made by service officers on such subjects
as the sanitary disposal of night soil ; the growth of animal tissues out-
side the body; the role of oysters in the propagation of typhoid fever;
the longevity of the typhoid bacillus on vegetables ; and the influence of
poisonous gases on health.

During the summer of 1912, plague broke out in Porto Rico and
Passed Assistant R. H. Creel was detailed to direct the work of control

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 37*

and eradication. In all five officers were engaged in the duty and the
outbreak was limited to a small section. As at San Francisco, special
emphasis was placed on rat eradication and the rat-proofing of build-
ings and docks. A general clean-up and enforcement of sanitary meas-
ures have been instituted. What might have been a situation full of
deadly peril for this country was averted by the prompt and effective
work of the service.

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury for the fiscal year of
1911 presents an optimistic picture of the operations of the Public
Health Service and recommends certain features which should be
further encouraged. Attention is called to the necessity of enlarging

■■■m§m

**w.

f i»s.

Isolation Hospital, Cebu Quarantine, Philippine Islands.

the available fund for fighting epidemic disease. There should be
ample provision for emergency measures which may be necessitated at
any time by the sudden appearance of epidemic disease, before there is
time for Congress to pass special appropriation legislation. Special
appropriations are requested for the investigation of pellagra, a disease
of serious menace which is spreading widely in the United States, and
which threatens to become endemic at terrible cost in lives and money,
as it has already done in Italy. Another building is required for the
Hygienic Laboratory to provide more room for special researches, dis-
infection experiments and the housing of small laboratory animals.
The secretary invites particular attention to the " Personnel Bill ' ;

37 2

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

designed to make the pay of Public Health Service officers equal to
that of the Army and Navy Medical Corps. This hill was passed by
the Senate and reported favorably and unchanged to the House by the
Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Every argument
strongly favored its passage. As stated by Mr. Fletcher in the report of
the Senate Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine, when
the bill was before the Senate :

In the opinion of the Committee, there exists no such difference in the char-
acter of the duties performed and responsibilities assumed, the hazards to which
the officers are exposed, or the professional and scientific attainments required
in the several services, as to warrant the existing disparity in compensation.

The committee recommended the bill to the Senate, " believing that
the maintenance of the present efficiency of the Service, as well as
justice to its officers, demands the equalization of pay proposed by the
bill." This bill in an amended form, passed congress and was approved
by the President on August II, 1912. It provided for increased salaries,
and changed the name from the Public Health and Marine Hospital
Service to the more accurate and less cumbersome title, the Public
Health Service. The public health functions and duties of the Service
were extended. " The Public Health Service may study and investi-
gate the diseases of man and conditions influencing the propagation and
spread thereof including sanitation and sewage and the pollution either
direct or indirect of the navigable streams and lakes of the United
States and it may from time to time issue information in the form of
publications for the use of the public."

Quarters of Medical Officer, Cebu, Philippine Islands.

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 373

Office of the Public Health Service, Kobe, Japan.

On January 13, 1912, the Senate confirmed the President's appoint-
ment of Dr. Rupert Blue to succeed the late Dr. Wyman as surgeon-
general. Dr. Blue is a comparatively young man, but comes to this
responsible post well prepared and with prospects bright for an admin-
istration strongly conducive toward maintaining the present high
standard of the Public Health Service in personnel and efficiency, and
increasing its prestige and value to the nation.

Dr. Blue was born in South Carolina in 1868, graduated from the
University of Maryland in 1892, and was commissioned an assistant
surgeon in the Marine Hospital Service the following year, after serving
an interneship in a Marine Hospital. Four years later he passed the
examination for passed assistant surgeon. He attained the rank of
surgeon on May 1, 1909. His first eight years in the service were
spent in the usual round of routine duties at various points in the
United States. In 1903-04 Dr. Blue was detailed as executive officer
under Surgeon Joseph H. White, who was in charge of the operations
directed toward the eradication of bubonic plague in San Francisco.
The following year he assisted in the suppression of yellow fever in
New Orleans. At the Jamestown Exposition in 1907 Dr. Blue was
made director of sanitation and showed ability above the ordinary in
organization and in reconciling the various interests represented at the
exposition and making a conspicuous success of its sanitation. He

374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

went from Jamestown to San Francisco, where the plague had reap-
peared, where lie handled the situation admirably, allaying friction and
working in noteworthy harmony with the municipal and state officers.
Later he spent some time in Europe, studying emigration, preventive
medicine and quarantine management. In May, 1910, Dr. Blue was
detailed to represent the service at the International Congress on Medi-
cine and Hygiene at Buenos Ayres, and took advantage of the oppor-

Surgeon-General Rupert Blue.

tunities there offered to study possible routes by which yellow fever and
plague might be imported into the United States.

The last detail before he became surgeon-general was in Honolulu,
where he was sent to act in an advisory capacity to the Hawaiian board
of health and other branches of the territory government in carrying
out a sanitary program designed to decrease to the smallest possibility
danger of invasion by yellow fever or bubonic plague after the opening
of the Panama Canal, and to make their spread impossible, if intro-
duced. The appointment to the surgeon-generalship made necessary
the assumption of this work by Passed Assistant Surgeon McCoy, who
thus takes up the role of adviser to the Civic Sanitation Committee of

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 375

Hawaii. This committee is particular]}' concerned with perfecting
sanitary measures to prevent propagation of disease-bearing insects and
rodents, and its work is being carried on in conjunction with the terri-
torial board of health.

Dr. Blue has always been especially strong in the field of preventive
medicine and quarantine, rather than in the line of hospital service.
He is a man of engaging personality, an excellent executive, a skillful
organizer and judge of men, and above all, he has in full measure the
happy quality of making friends and reconciling opposing interests.

The Public Health Service stands to-day on its record and its as-
pirations, a monument to the men who have made it, a memorial to the
gallant officers whose lives have been laid down in devotion to their
duty and the principles of their corps, and the strong bulwark of the
American people against the deadly foieign foes of epidemic disease,
and the insidious domestic perils of poor sanitation, ignorance and prej-
udice.

Of more vital though prosaic importance to the nation than either
army or navy, it has been less generally known and its work less com-
pletely understood. But this is rapidly being changed as the great
wave of enlightenment and interest in public and national health
affairs sweeps over the country, and as the knowledge is slowly in-
creasing that prevention of disease is the primary and essential work
of the physician.

376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

THE INCREASING MORTALITY FROM DEGENERATIVE

MALADIES

By E. E. RITTENHOUSE

CONSERVATION COMMISSIONER, THE EQUITABLE LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY OF THE

I'N'ITED STATES

IT is quite generally believed by those who have studied American
morbidity and mortality tendencies that there has been a marked
increase in recent years in the death rate from chronic diseases of the
important and hardest worked organs of the body. They also believe
that this increase is reflected in the upward trend of the general mortal-
ity rate in middle life and old age. There are those, however, who as-
sert — obviously without investigation or analysis of the public statistics
bearing upon the subject — that neither of these increases has taken
place.

And there are still others, some of them prominent in the health
movement, who express the opinion — also apparently without reference
to the records — that the increase is natural and to be expected. Their
theory is that the increase, whatever it may be, is due to the saving of
lives in the younger ages, chiefly from communicable disease ; that these
lives passing into the older periods — many of them with weakened power
of resistance — have given us more old people to die than we formerly had.

Such an increase in the number living in the later ages would
merely lead to a correspondingly increased number of deaths, and not
to an increase in the death rate at these ages, which is the ratio between
the number dying and the number living.

The areas where the most dependable vital statistics are to be had,
show but a trifling increase in the group above age 40 in each 1,000 of
the population, while the death rate in the same group shows a very
marked increase.

While the mortality experts of a number of the more important
life insurance companies have recognized the increasing mortality in
the older ages, and in some instances increased the severity of medical
examinations, and in others increased premiums at those ages, only one
of the larger companies and one of the smaller ones have given especial
attention to the excessive life waste in these ages in their health con-
servation work.

Mortality Statistics

Much progress has been made in recent years in popularizing our
vital statistics, but still much valuable information which should be

THE INCREASING MORTALITY

377

placed before the public in concise and popular form lies buried in our
official records and in the files of our statisticians and scientists who
have analyzed them for their own or scientific use.

Owing to the incompleteness of mortality statistics, especially in
former years, it is frequently necessary in making comparisons to insert
personal estimates to fill gaps. The rates in such instances are, there-
fore, deduced partly from statistics and partly from personal judgment.

The statistics used in arriving at the comparisons given below were,
however, sufficiently complete to render unnecessary the interpolation
of estimates to fill omissions, with one unimportant exception. 1 The
rates deduced are the direct product of existing official reports, which
are accessible to any one desiring to look them up.

The purpose of submitting these ratios is not primarily to fix a
specific rate of increase, but to indicate the trend of mortality in
middle life and old age in the area named. Those interested in the
subject will judge the measure of the actual increase by the value they
may place upon the original data from which these rates are extracted.

Degenerative Diseases

That the ratio of deaths from the more important degenerative
affections has increased sharply in recent years is so generally known
that it is needless to present in this brief paper the indicated advance

Degenerative Diseases

Massachusetts 1880-1909? Increase in the Death Bate

(per 10,000 Population) by Age Periods

Ages

1880

1909

Increase

PerCent of Same

All

23.21

43.26

20 05

86.38
30 8

7.92

10.36

2.44

5- 9

2.91

3.95

1.04

35.7

10-14

2.85

4.72

1.87

65.6

15-19

3.10

5.43

2.33

75.2

20-29

4.95

8.09

3.14

63.4

30-39

10.13

18.79

8.66

85.5

40-49

19.70

37.84

18.14

92.1

50-59

39.01

91.30

52.29

134

60-69

102.05

212.93

110.88

108.7

70 and over

261.1

558.2

297.1

113

in the rate for each disease separately. They are, therefore, grouped
by age divisions. By this method the disturbing effect on the rates of

1 In the absence of the official figures of the age divisions of the population
for 1910, the ratios of distribution of 1900 were used. Inasmuch as the change
in the percentage of living at the different age periods is very slight in one
decade, the actual ratios for 1910 will make no appreciable change in the mor-
tality rates here given.

3 Massachusetts State Eegistration Reports.

VOL. LXXXII. — 26

378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

any changes in classification or improvement in diagnosis is largely
overcome. The most reliable records available for this purpose, giving
age divisions in 1880, are those of Massachusetts. While the death
rates in childhood and early adult life are relatively small, they too
show a significant increase.

Included in this group are apoplexy, paralysis and diseases of the
heart, circulatory system, kidneys and liver. 2

The most important of the other diseases of middle life and old age
that has increased is cancer. Comparing 1910 with 1880, the cancer
death rate has increased in Massachusetts 66 per cent.; since 1900 it
has increased 31 per cent. External cancer alone has increased in the
entire registration area 55 per cent, since 1900. 4

In 16 cities the mortality rate from organic heart, apoplexy and
kidney affections alone has increased in 30 years from 17.94 to 34.78,'
or 94 per cent.; during 10 years (1900-1910) it increased from 29.4
to 34.78, or 18 per cent. In New Jersey, 1880-1910, it increased from
16.5 to 34.3, or 108 per cent.

The curves vary in different states and cities, but the same general
trend is observed wherever statistics relating to these causes of death
are available.

General Death Eate — Older Age Groups

In 1880 the comparisons are confined to Massachusetts and New
Jersey, and to 16 registration cities, because in these areas we have the
most reliable statistics 5 of that time, from which these comparisons can
be carried through to 1910. Both of these were normal mortality
years, 6 and, it is believed, represent a fair average of the preceding five-
year periods.

That this upward tendency has continued is indicated by a com-
parison of ten registration states 8 1900-1910. Increases: ages 45-49,

2 The estimated deaths in 1910 from these diseases in the United States
(based upon the Beg. area) were 367,700.

"U. S. Mortality Statistics, 1900, Census Bulletin 109, 1910.

6 ' ' The state and municipal registration records were copied and are used in
the tabulations instead of the enumerators ' schedules. These state and municipal
registration records are based on a system of burial permits, and are therefore,
probably very nearly accurate. This fact should be borne in mind in comparing
the reported mortality of these with that of other localities." (U. S. Census
Beport, 1880.)

6 ' ' The census year 1879-80 was probably a fair average year as regards
mortality. No great epidemic occurred during this period, unless we may con-
sider a marked prevalence of diphtheria as such." (U. S. Census Beport, 18S0.)

8 Begistration states in 1900 were: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut,
Maine, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Bhode Island, Vermont, District
of Columbia and Indiana. Indiana is omitted in comparisons owing to lack of
uniformity in age distribution records.

THE INCREASING MORTALITY

Sixteen 7 Registration Cities. 1880-1910

Decrease and Increase in General Death Rate
(per 1,000 Population) by Age Periods

379

Ages

1>.R. 1880

D.R. 1910

Dec. and Inc.
in Rate

Per Cent,
of Same

All

22.09

21.4

13.6

18.3

29.3

80.3

16.36
11.36
12.29
22.07
37.54
89.30

— 5.73
—10.04

— 1.31
+ 3.77
+ 8.24
+ 9

—26

Under 35

—47

35-44

— 9.6

45-54

55-64

+20.6
+28.1
+11.2

65 and over and unknown

32
48.44

40.10

58.82

+ 8.10
+10.38

+25.31
+21.43

Above 55

Above QO 48.44 58.82 +10.38 +21.43

.61, or 4.5 per cent.; ages 50-54, 1.16, or 6.7 per cent.; ages 55-59
(decrease), .13, or .5 per cent.; ages 60-64 (increase), 1.48, or 4.6
per cent. ; ages 65-69, 3.23, or 6.75 per cent. ; ages 70-74, 3.45, or 4.9
per cent. ; age 75 and over, .82, or .6 per cent.

Massachusetts ani> New Jersey. 1880-1910

Decrease and Increase in General Death, Rate
(per 1,000 Population) by Age Periods

Ages

All

Under 30

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

65-69

70-74

75 and over.

Above 40.
Above 50.
Above 60.

D.R. 1880

D.R. 1910

Dec. and Inc.

Per Cent.

in Rate

of Same

17.63

15.80

— 1.83

—10.38

16.3

11.3

— 5.0

—30.6

9.12

6.99

— 2.13

—23.3

10.1

8.90

— 1.20

—11.8

10.20

10.95

+ .75

+ 7.35

12.20

13.79

+ 1.59

+ 13.0

13.70

18.35

+ 4.65

+33.9

20.49

24.28

+ 3.79

+18.5

25.69

34.85

+ 9.16

+35.6

40.5

53.16

+12.66

+31.2

55.4

75.96

+20.56

+37.1

123.68

143.66

+19.98

+16.1

25.10

30.42

+ 5.32

+21.20

35.24

44.07

+ 8.83

+25.06

53.81

67.73

+13.92

+25.87

To summarize, the public records under consideration indicate that :

1. The mortality rate from apoplexy, paralysis, diseases of the heart,
circulatory system, kidneys and liver has heavily increased in the
younger as well as in the older groups. The total deaths were 367,700
in 1910.

2. In Massachusetts the death rate from these causes has increased
86.4 per cent, in 30 years.

3. In 16 important cities the death rate from organic diseases of the

7 Sixteen cities: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, St. Louis,
Baltimore, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Cleveland, New Orleans, Pittsburgh,
Washington, Milwaukee, Louisville, Providence, Indianapolis.

380 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

heart, and from apoplexy, Bright's and nephritis has alone increased
94 per cent, in 30 years.

4. In Massachusetts the death rate from cancer has increased 66 per
cent, in 30 years, and 31 per cent, during the past 10 years.

5. In the entire registration area the death rate from external cancer
alone has increased 55 per cent, in 10 years, from 1900 to 1910.

6. The increase in mortality from diseases of middle life and old
age is reflected in the general death rate by an increase commencing in
Massachusetts and New Jersey in age group 40-44; in 16 cities group
45-54.

7. The death rate of the total population age 40 and over has in-
creased, 1910 over 1880 :

In Massachusetts and New Jersey, 30 years .... 5.3, or 21.2 per cent.

In sixteen cities, 30 years 8.1, or 25.3 per cent.

In ten states, 10 years (1900-10) 89, or 3 per cent.

The increase in the proportion of older lives in our population has been
very slight and could not account for the increase in the death rate.

To what extent are these adverse mortality tendencies reflected in
our total population ? In estimating the probable increase in the entire
country, many factors must be considered, the discussion of which
would consume many pages.

The rate of increase in Massachusetts and New Jersey (21 per
cent.) doubtless approximates that of all of the populous states of the
east. This rate would, however, be reduced if merged with the rate of
increase for the agricultural population of the western and north-
western states. On the other hand, this reduction would be largely,
if not totally, neutralized by the heavy urban and rural mortality in
the south.

It would seem an entirely reasonable conclusion that while the
average length of life has advanced, the extreme span of life has not
done so — in fact, the indications are that it has been shortened.

Our failure to adapt ourselves to the extraordinary changes and
strains of modern existence is commonly accepted as the cause for this
excessive mortality in the later age periods. Even though the statistics
indicated no increase, the urgent need for correcting our living habits
would still exist.

We may agree that in the long run the trend of humanity is ever
upward, and that this is but a temporary reaction, but can we afford to
rest wholly upon the hope that race deterioration will automatically
cease when our people have had time to adjust themselves to modern
conditions? "Wise men doubt it. This problem will not solve itself;
this adverse tendency will be checked only when our people are made
to see conditions as they actually exist, and are aroused to the need of
correcting them.

TEE LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY 381

THE LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY AS A DYNAMIC IN THE
MOVEMENT FOR PHYSICAL WELFARE

By EUGENE LYMAN FISK, M.D.

MEDICAL DIRECTOR, POSTAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, NEW YORK

THE average careless liver, although he may be perfectly willing to
swallow some "magic" elixir, exhibits uneasiness tinged with
suspicion when approached on the subject of prolonging his life by
means of adjusting him to his environment. He is more than likely to
regard the span of life as fixed by some immutable, if not divine, law,
and while comfortably optimistic about attaining the limit fixed by
such law, cherishes but little hope of "beating the game." In other
words, that convenient individual, the " man on the street," is sceptical
about materially prolonging his life without surrendering some of the
indulgences which he thinks make life worth living. It is this attitude
of mind which leads him frequently to characterize the health-reformer
as a "kill-joy," who is "against everything." Now it is unquestionably
true that the health-conservation activities that have lately arisen in a
few of the leading life-insurance companies have for their business ob-
ject a mere mathematical increment to the years of life. Indeed, the
only legal warrant for the expenditure of the policyholders' money in
this work is the probability of attaining such a result, and thereby low-
ering the cost of insurance. But it is far from the minds of those di-
recting this new force for human betterment, to advocate a mere nig-
gardly or parsimonious hoarding of existence, without regard to its qual-
ity, color or meaning. The real warfare is against needless misery, pre-
ventable disease, mental and physical inefficiency, and the pitiable
handicaps that not only shorten life, but take out of it the color and
the satisfaction that make it worth living. Using the term in no sin-
ister Nietzschean sense, the superman should not only live long, but live
well, deriving his joy in life from the normal hormones circulating in
his tissues, and not from the fleshpots or narcotic indulgences of our
friend the careless liver. The prolongation of life is the end that justi-
fies the financial expenditure, but the immediate work in hand is to
make life more livable.

Let it be understood, then, that the health-conservationist who is not
himself in need of mental hygiene is "against" many things, in favor
of many things, and out to kill only the kind of " joy " that kills.

The belief that the death-rate, especially among selected insured
lives, is a fixed quantity, is still held by many experienced insurance

382 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

men, notwithstanding much recent evidence to the contrary. The con-
stant use of actuarial tables, both in business practise and in the statutes
governing the maintenance of reserves by life-insurance companies,
tends to give a certain fixity -and authority to such tables which they
derive from no natural law.

The recent medico-actuarial investigation of the experience of 43
American companies, for example, shows a marked improvement since
the quinquennium 1885-1890, among the younger-age groups, and a
distinct deterioration among those over age 60.

Any assumption that either the death-rate or the span of life is a
fixed quantity necessarily involves the postulate that either the condi-
tions affecting the mortality are unchanging, or that each change is
neutralized and balanced by some other change, thus keeping the rate
in equilibrium.

As a matter of fact, the general death-rate throughout the civilized
world has been falling for several centuries, although there is no evi-
dence that the span of life has increased within recent years, the low-
ered death-rate resulting largely from the saving of lives in the younger
age-groups.

That these movements of mortality are not beyond the control of
man is shown by this lowering of the death-rate in the age-groups most
affected by the communicable diseases which have recently yielded to the
attacks of science. That science can likewise influence the mortality
from diseases resulting from faulty living-habits or the mere wear and
tear of existence, can not be questioned, and the alleged mysterious
fixity of the death-rate or of the span of life should not be held up as a
bugaboo to restrain such efforts.

That the mortality in the average life-insurance company is far
higher than it need be, and could be lowered, even among good, aver-
age insured lives, by improved living-habits, is shown by the experience
of the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution.

This remarkable exhibit shows that in the institution mentioned,
two large bodies of lives, almost equal in numbers, and homogeneous
except for the use of alcohol, moved alongside of each other for forty-
four years, and that one group, the abstainers, at all times exhibited a
markedly superior vitality to the other group — the non-abstainers —
the total difference in favor of the abstainers during the period covered
being 27.4 per cent., although the mortality among the general, or non-
abstaining class was only 91 per cent, of that expected according to the
British O m Table, representing the experience in 63 British offices.
This is not an isolated experience, as recent British and American ex-
periences show an even greater difference in favor of the abstainer.

Now it is fair to assume that if, by educational methods, a company
could influence 10 per cent, of its policyholders to lead a careful hy-

THE LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY

383

gienic existence, the mortality in such a group would be lowered at least
to the degree exhibited by the abstainers in the British company above
referred to.

Inasmuch as the net premium for an abstainer at age 35, under an
average distribution of endowment and whole-life policies, would be
$3.03 per thousand of insurance in force less than for a non-abstainer,
we have here a figure representing the actual saving on such lives, the net
premium being comparable to the cost of manufacture in trade. Apply-
ing this factor to the old-line insurance in force in the United States —
about $18,000,000,000 — a saving would result, over and above the cost
of carrying on the work, of $5,000,000 annually. There would also be
an annual saving of approximately 10,000 lives. These are the mini-

1866-70 1871-5 1876-80 IG81-8S I806-9O 1891-95 1896-00 190105 I9061O

100^
90%
80%

60%

N
\
\

\

,-''

-"

\

v

\

\

\

\

V

-•««*

s

,'

*'
*'

1

N

N

«

N

1 - .

«

• - .

*

*

J

»

♦

50*

Fig. 1. Experience of the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident

Institution of London. Healthy males ; whole-life policies ; amounts ; 1866-1910.

Expected mortality, British O m table 100.00?

Ratio actual to expected mortality, non-abstainers 91.27?

Ratio actual to expected mortality, abstainers 66.25?

Mortality among abstainers 27.4 per cent, less than among non-abstainers.

mum figures that can be derived from any scientific ground of experi-
ence. They can be increased according to one's confidence in the abil-
ity of hygienists to guide the public into conservation methods of living.
No effort is here made to compute the enormous reflex benefits to the
public at large from these activities among insured lives.

Is the work worth while? If so, how can it be carried on to the
best advantage? The answer is found in a brief survey of the re-
sources of the life-insurance companies. 25,000,000 old-line policy-
holders pay annually, to about 250 companies, more than $600,000,000
in premiums; these companies hold $4,000,000,000 in assets to protect
$18,000,0000,000 of insurance in force; they employ 20,000 agents and
80,000 medical examiners, in addition to home-office employees, banks

384 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of deposit and collection, etc., and they pay out more than $400,000,000
annually in death-claims, endowments, etc., to policyholders, all of
which is evidence of the vast and intricate ramifications of the business
throughout the social structure. Every policyholder is in touch with at
least two other individuals, thereby affording the life-insurance com-
panies seventy-five million points of contact with the public, and con-
stantly open channels of communication through which educational
material may be transmitted.

We may summarize the reasons why life-insurance companies should
engage in health conservation work as follows :

1. The machinery is at hand.

2. It can be utilized without loss, and with probable gain to both
company and policyholder.

3. The very nature and extent of the life-insurance business im-
poses a public obligation to exercise this power for the welfare of the
people.

The medical and scientific staff of a life-insurance company is
trained in the consideration of disease-tendencies, rather than active
diseased conditions. The influence of living-habits and the significance
of physical disabilities and abnormalities, and especially of personal and
family history, upon large masses of insured lives, form the body of the
rapidly developing science of medical selection. By combining this in-
trinsic knowledge with the readily available extrinsic data relating to
personal hygiene, the medical officers of a life-insurance company are,
or should be, especially well equipped to guide their policyholders
toward safe and sane living-habits. Furthermore, experience shows that
the policyholder will listen to the advice of his life-insurance office on
such matters, because he discerns the practical business motive that
prompts it, however liberal an admixture there may be of normal,
genuine interest in human betterment.

The lines along which such work may be carried on are too numer-
ous to permit of minute description in this article. Briefly, they may
be summarized as follows: health-hints and instructions distributed
with premium-notices; periodical bulletins covering the fundamental
principles of healthful living; cooperation with boards of health and
other welfare-agencies, by furnishing statistical and other information
accumulated by the company's bureau of research ; the creation of pub-
lic sentiment where needed, for the enforcement of health-laws and
proper equipment and support of health-departments; persistent effort
in favor of legislation for the proper registration of vital statistics;
persistent publicity to the need for national, state and local warfare
against preventable disease, not only of the communicable class, but of
those conditions arising from wear and tear, maladjustment and faulty
living-habits. These are a few of the many activities that could readily
be carried on by well-equipped life-insurance companies.

THE LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY 385

The best way to learn this game is to play it. There is such a wealth
of opportunity that after the work is once commenced, organization and
development will soon follow.

Probably the most important and direct way to benefit the policy-
holder, and — by force of example — the public at large, is through a
system of free, annual, medical examinations, for the purpose of detect-
ing disease or disease-tendencies at the earliest possible moment. This
principle of periodic inspection or examination, which seems so radical
as applied to man, is accepted as commonplace when applied to the in-
stitutions or machines employed by him, such as banks, insurance com-
panies, steam-boilers, elevators, life-preservers, etc., none of which can
compare with the human organism in value, complexity or capacity for
going wrong. Why not examine the human machine every year? Is
there any important objection, except man's silly, subconscious feeling
that he is a thing apart from the rest of nature. The bacillus typhosus
has no such illusions regarding mams apartness, and, however difficult
it may be to apply the law of the conservation of energy to man's mental
processes, there is no doubt but that it applies to his body, and that the
violation of physical and physiological laws is followed by damage and
degeneration which are not always manifest until they are beyond the
power of science to repair. Many a life has been saved by the warn-
ing of incipient disease gained through a life-insurance examination.
Why should such benefits be casual instead of systematic ?

So much for theory. In a modest way, the company with which I
have the honor to be associated has for several years been trying out
these theories in the laboratory of practical business experience. Our
Health Bureau was established in 1909, and has covered the following
activities : periodical bulletins have been issued, dealing with such sub-
jects as the causation of degenerative affections of the heart, blood ves-
sels and kidneys; affections of the nose, throat and lungs, with preven-
tive measures ; hygiene of the eye ; dental and oral hygiene ; obesity and
its prevention ; drug addiction ; physiological effects of alcohol and to-
bacco ; causation and prevention of typhoid, yellow fever, malaria, pneu-
monia, etc. ; increase in the death-rate from cancer, and how to meet it
by general and surgical methods ; courage as a health-asset ; diet-hints ;
summer and winter hygiene, etc. Statistical pamphlets, addresses, etc.,
have been issued, showing the increase and decrease in mortality from
various diseases, and practical lessons have been drawn therefrom. Many
thousands of such monographs have been distributed to boards of health,
schools, colleges and other centers of social influence. The privilege of
free annual medical examination has been extended to policyholders
since 1909. Although less than 10 per cent, of the policyholders have
annually availed themselves of this privilege, the results more than
justify the company's action. Forty per cent, of the risks examined
were found impaired, as some misinterpreted the system as an emerg-

3 86

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ency relief plan for the sick, rather than a measure of disease pre-
vention. Nevertheless, of those found impaired, 44 per cent, were abso-
lutely unaware of their impairment, showing the positive need for such
a system. The following analysis of the impaired lives may prove of
interest :

Analysis op Eisks Found Impaired
Free Annual Health Bureau Examinations

Average age, 49 years, 9 months. Amount of insurance, $1,590,635.

Per

Ages

Ages

Ages

Ages

Ages

Ages 70

Cent.

29-30,

30-40,

40-50,

50-60,

60-70,

Over,

Total

Per

Per

Per

Per

Per

Per

Num-

Cent.

Cent.

Cent.

Cent.

Cent.

Cent.

ber Ex-

*

amined

Affections of heart, blood ves-

4.98

13.85

21.65

31.60

23.37

4.54

28

Per cent, at each age-period una-

65.21

57.81

63.00

60.27

56 48

57.14

4.76

35.71

33 33

14 29

11 90

25

6.82
1.66

22.72
33 33

38.63
25 00

22.72
31 66

9.09
8 33

27

36

2.22

17.77

42.22

22.22

13.33

2.22

2.7

Distribution of all impairments

by age-periods

4.59

17.91

25.11

29.09

19.60

3.37

39 5

The above should be interpreted as follows: Of the risks showing affections
of heart, blood-vessels, kidneys and diabetes, 4.9 per cent, were between 20 and
30, 13.8 per cent, between 30 and 40, etc. 63 per cent, of those between 40 and
50 affected with diseases of heart, blood-vessels, kidneys and with diabetes were
unaware of impairment. 4.5 per cent, of all impairments found occurred in the
age-group between 20 and 30, 17.9 per cent, between 30 and 40, etc. 96 per cent.
of those unaware of impairment exhibited affections of heart, blood-vessels,
kidneys and diabetes. 39.5 per cent, of those examined were found impaired.

Attention is called to the large percentage of degenerative affections found
at middle life, among those who supposed that they were in sound health.

The mortality experience, although derived from a comparatively
small group, has extended over a sufficient period to prove instructive,
and is set forth in the following charts :

/<S<£6 63

Expected loss— American Experience Table

2J.33/

Expected loss in average company

0/6. 000

Actual loss in group

J//33/

Mortality gain from conservation

Group I. No impairment found

THE LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY 3§7

0*57./ 97

Expected loss — American Experience Table

77J7~39&

Expected loss — Substandard Experie nce
0S7.OQQ

Actual loss in group

/^7.3 9^

Mortality gain from conservation

Group II. Impaired

Fig. 2. Analysis of Policyholders who Availed Themselves of the Privilege
of Free Annual Medical Examination, 1909-1912.

Among those found unimpaired, the mortality was only 29 per cent,
of the American Experience Table, showing a saving of about 21 points
of the mortality expected by the average company among lives exposed
for like periods. These risks, although unimpaired, were advised re-
garding living-habits, eating, drinking, smoking, etc., arid the saving
indicated is properly credited to this system.

The group reported impaired comprised some individuals who were
almost in articulo mortis, hence an expected mortality of 200 per cent,
of the American Experience Table might have been regarded as well
within the mark. However, the actual mortality in the group was only
99 per cent, of that table. That is, where we expected 200 to die, only
99 deaths actually occurred.

The net saving, over and above the cost of operation of our bureau,
was at the rate of about $20,000 per year. Now, the annual saving,
based upon the hypothesis derived from the British company's experi-
ence would, in our company, have been at the rate of about $12,000 per
year, showing that the theoretical estimates were conservative, and more
than justified by the actual test of experience. The full effect of the
educational propaganda could not, of course, be traced in the mortality
fluctuations even of a very large company, and I have only attempted to
show the results among those who were actually known to be in touch
with our health bureau.

Important health-conservation activities are as yet carried on by only
three leading companies out of the 250 now operating in this country.
The health bureau established in the Association of Life Insurance
Presidents, in 1910, is keeping alive the conservation-idea, but it is a
mere adumbration of what could and should be accomplished through
the enormous resources available. The pressure of public opinion is
needed to set in motion this vast machinery for lifting the burdens of
humanity.

388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

NATUEAL SELECTION

By Professor T. D. A. COCKERELL

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO

THE lowest forms of life show the greatest stability in their specific
characters. Any one who will examine a little pond water under
the microscope will see numerous minute Protozoa belonging to different
families, genera and species. Close study brings out the fact that
although we regard these as very low types, they are complicated little
animals, with remarkable characters. When we look at lists of these
creatures, based on collections from different parts of the world, we are
astonished to find that most of the species are the same, no matter how
remote the localities. When identifications were based merely on com-
parisons of descriptions and figures, we suspected that the alleged wide
distribution of some of these fresh-water Protozoa might be due to mis-
takes. In recent years, however, protozoologists have frequently trav-
eled, and Dr. Penard, the greatest authority on rhizopods, has been
able to determine by study on the spot the identity of Eocky Mountain
forms with those of Switzerland. Even more remarkable are the results
of Dr. Edmondson, who has visited Tahiti, high altitudes in the Eocky
Mountains, and various places in the western central states, with the
result of entirely confirming the opinion that most species of fresh-water
Protozoa are spread over the world, almost without regard to climate
or altitude. 1

These studies and reports, however, have been based on the species
as generally understood. These species are not entirely uniform, but
consist of groups of minor races, which also appear to have constant
characters and to be of general distribution. Dr. Penard told me that
he could greatly increase the list of " species " of rhizopods were he to
describe as distinct all the apparently constant forms which he had
learned to recognize, and which, so far as he knew, did not conjugate
one with the other. He did not describe and name them because their
separation required such critical comparisons and familiarity with the
subject that very few naturalists would be willing to consider them.
Professor Jennings, in his studies of Paramecium, has isolated a num-
ber of races or varieties which possess constant characters by which they
can be recognized, and which are believed to be common throughout
the country.

1 University of Colorado Studies, IX., pp. 65-74; Science, September 9, 19J0.

NATURAL SELECTION 389

Are these Protozoa, then, indifferent to their surroundings? By
no means. The experiments of Jennings show that uniformity of en-
vironment is not possible even in a watch glass, and that the animals
respond readily in many ways to the conditions under which they exist.
This fact has tended to obscure the genetic independence of different
races, the characters of which overlap, but "pure line" cultures have
made it possible to separate them. It has been shown that distinct
races may differ only in average characters, a large proportion of the
individuals, under ordinary conditions, being indistinguishable by in-
spection. Such a pair of races would only show absolute differences
if subjected to conditions ensuring for every individual the maximum
or the minimum growth and efficiency. Such conditions are practically
unattainable, and only " pure line " breeding and statistical study will
separate the races.

Consequently, in the Protozoa, we have three recognized grades :

1. The species of ordinary taxonomic writings.

2. The minor types recognizable by inspection when the investigator
is very expert.

3. The races or strains separable only by breeding combined with
statistical study.

Do the third originate frequently without evident cause? Do they
then turn into the second, and the second into the first ? Jennings did
not find it so, but his experiments necessarily occupied a limited time
and were concerned with an infinitesimal fraction of the unthinkable
myriads of Paramoscia in the world. We have, however, the results of
nature's large-scale experiment with Paramecium. The genus, not-
withstanding its universal distribution and the very diverse conditions
under which it must exist, is very poor in species. Either the imagined
process does not go on, or it fails before reaching the stage of species-
formation, as species are understood by the taxonomists.

In the ease of bacteria, and even trypanosomes, it is commonly alleged
that environment will change the type. This is constantly asserted by
the highest medical authorities, and in a certain pragmatic sense it is
of course true. It is found, however, that if the environmental factor
is carried too far, or continued too long, the process can not be re-
versed. It seems nearly certain that the observed phenomena are due
to nothing more than a selective process operating on a mixture of
races, isolating the one least able to endure. Thus, suppose in a given
case we have a culture consisting of one million pathogenic bacteria
and ten of an allied non-pathogenic race (presumably there will usually
be several grades or races, as with the Paramcecia) . Apply some treat-
ment favorable to the ten and destructive to the million, and presently
the ten are a million and the million reduced to ten or none. The

39o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

appearance is that of changing the type by environmental means, but
nothing more than selection has been at work. 2

From all this we are led to conclude that natural selection is con-
tinually operative on the lower types of life, the unicellular animals
and plants, everywhere affecting the proportions or existence of the
races and species. These creatures are not adapted to life under all
conditions; they are, on the contrary, sensitive to relatively slight
changes, many of them probably too slight for us to appreciate. The
history of a single culture in the laboratory indicates this. Why, then,
are the species so widely distributed, and, on the whole, so constant?
"Why are they not infinite in number ? Why are they not exterminated
in great numbers, instead of being of tremendous antiquity, as their
wide distribution and the paleontological records show? Where the
environment is highly specialized, as in the case of groups parasitic on
the higher vertebrata, there is considerable evidence that evolution has
to a certain extent kept pace with that of the hosts ; yet always tending
to lag behind, as Kellogg showed even in the case of the bird-lice,
which are of far higher organization than the types now under dis-
cussion. In the case of such animals as the fresh-water Protozoa, how-
ever, the selective processes have always acted piecemeal, rarely if ever
sufficiently widely to destroy a species which had once gained a good
footing. They have no doubt destroyed many incipient species, but
any tolerably successful type, once widespread, may defy the ordinary
processes of nature. In a wide country there is nothing which renders
every puddle uninhabitable, or every part of each pond and river, and
survival in a number of places permits the reappearance of the crea-
ture in millions when good conditions for reproduction occur. All that
is necessary for permanence is an inherent stability of type, which will
prevent automatic modification independent of conditions. This sta-
bility surely exists in an amazing degree, and may itself be regarded
as a product of selection acting through the ages; for automatic insta-
bility, manifested too much or too often, would lead to series of changes
eventually fatal to existence. A certain looseness of adjustment to
surroundings is advantageous, but even slight variations, piled one
upon the other, would before long throw the organism out of gear.

Perhaps we may picture the condition of affairs somewhat as follows :
There are, let us say, 500 common "situations" in the fresh waters
of the world, differing in the temperature and chemical content of the
water, in the presence or absence of particular enemies, in the quantity
and quality of available food, and I know not what else. These are

2 There is some evidence, the precise value of which can not at present be
determined, pointing to a selective destruction of certain germinal elements
under special conditions. This, if adequately confirmed, may equally explain
some of the results obtained with trypanosomes, and the often-quoted work of
Tower and MacDougal in inducing heritable variations.

NATURAL SELECTION 391

not constant for any one body of water for any length of time, owing
to seasonal and other changes. An organism adapted equally to any
one of the 500, if that were physically possible, could not be closely
adapted to any, and would be perhaps more or less inefficient under
all. An organism adapted exclusively to one or two of the 500 could
not in practise confine itself to them, and would be in danger of exter-
mination. There would accordingly arise an optimum condition of
adaptability, according to which any given organism would exist under
at least 300 of the 500 postulated conditions, would do well under 100,
and would flourish exceeedingly well under perhaps 10. Hence the
species would be very widespread, would often be common, and would
occasionally occur in excessive numbers; which is approximately what
we find.

All of this would require in the animals much stability of type. If
they varied freely and indiscriminately, the variations being inherited,
they would not only tend to lose their standards of efficiency, but the
selective processes might make playthings of them, changing them tem-
porarily to meet this or that condition, but rarely able to reverse
quickly enough as conditions altered.

The rhizopodous genus Difflugia contains a great number of species,
differing in the size and shape of the little shells they make. It is not
necessary to suppose that each species is specially adapted to some par-
ticular set of conditions, though some of them may be more or less so.
It is only necessary to suppose that the difflugian type reached in these
animals so many "positions of organic stability," which persisted and
survived simply for this reason. There is a "survival of the fittest"
in inorganic chemical compounds, following analogous lines.

There is the greatest contrast between these fresh-water protozoans
and some of the marine groups, particularly the Eadiolaria. Haeckel's
great Challenger report on the radiolarians only partially indicates the
enormous diversity of skeletal structure in these animals. They re-
mind us more of snow crystals than anything else and it is useful to
remember here that snow crystals, with all their wonderful diversity,
are simply H 2 0. It is impossible to believe that all this radiolarian
diversity can be adaptive in more than the most general way; we would
rather believe that it is possible because of the relative simplicity and
uniformity of the conditions of life, which permit infinite diversity in
the details of skeletal structure without injury. There is perhaps a
high degree of stability in the protoplasmic structure of the xadiolaria,
and the modifications in the skeletons or shells may not indicate much
fundamental diversity. To what extent the described species are per-
manent and constant is not known.

In multicellular animals, conditions are in many ways different;
yet even here we notice a remarkable limitation in the types of cellular

392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

structure produced. What multitudes of animals are made out of
essentially the same hinds of tissues ! How limited in number those
kinds are ! The plants show the same lack of cellular diversity. Evo-
lution has proceeded by means of new arrangements rather than new
materials. This cellular stability, well fitting the needs of organisms,
must have been fostered by selection. The nerve cell, the striated
muscle cell, are astonishingly modified from ameboid ancestors, but
the power that could do so much has left us only a few masterpieces.
Is this the result of orthogenesis? Did development proceed along
these lines, looking neither to the right nor to the left ; or did selection
oppose impassable barriers? Perhaps both, since orthogenetic trends
may themselves be favored by selection.

Passing from tissues to organs and characters, we seem to find
much greater, almost infinite, diversity. Eecent research has, however,
indicated the presence of determiners in the germ-plasm, factors which
may be combined in endless ways in inheritance, but are themselves
remarkably stable. It seems nearly certain that, so far from constantly
presenting heritable variations, they rarely do so. This conclusion is
based not merely on the Mendelian phenomena observed by experi-
menters, but also on the paleontological evidence. There are many
groups of species, such as the oysters and the oaks, which have existed
since Mesozoic times, producing innumerable species, but so far as we
can see, practically all by the shuffling of characters present within the
genus all along. Among the Unionidas, the fresh-water mussels, Ort-
mann has recently commented on the occurrence of practically identical
shell characters in different genera; while land snails afford a number
of similar instances. In insects, these phenomena are constantly ob-
served ; types of color and marking are nearly the same in Lepidoptera
of diverse structure; and in some of the Hymenoptera peculiar charac-
ters, such as spines on the cheeks, appear here and there as if at random.
In one genus of bees the sexes differ in the character of the tongue, one
having that organ pointed, the other having it obtuse ; differences hith-
erto considered to mark families.

We are, therefore, led to see a certain stability amidst all the insta-
bility of the multicellular animals; a stability of types of tissue on the
one hand, a stability of determiners on the other. Change in the stuff
of which living things are made is not a common phenomenon ; indeed,
we know little or nothing about it. The experiments of Tower and
MacDougal, in which heritable variations were apparently produced,
can be explained rather on the supposition that certain determiners
were destroyed than on the idea that they were altered.

Natural selection, it has often been said, creates nothing. It merely
makes use of the variations already present. In Darwin's time, it was
not appreciated that so many of the observable variations are due to the

NATURAL SELECTION 393

direct effects of the environment, and are not inherited. To-day, we
must throw these out and consider heritable variations only. Now we
find that these heritable variations mainly (at least) represent no more
than a shuffling of the stock-in-trade of the organism, and if any of
them involve absolutely new determiners, we do not know it. The
matter is complicated by the frequent appearance of new characters,
which experimental evidence shows to result from new combinations
of the old ones. Thus the pink-flowered and yellow-flowered stocks
(Matthiola) give white and red-cream flowers in the third (second
filial) generation, no matter if the two original strains had been bred
true and had remained constant from the beginning of time. Here
we seem to see something entirely new, but analysis shows that we have
no more than new combinations of certain of the grandparental
characters.

What will natural selection do with such materials ? It can do no
more than favor certain characters or combinations of characters and
eliminate others. It can not even eliminate the recessives. The result
will be the production of a number of distinct types, without necessarily
any forward evolution — anything more than a shuffling and sorting of
determiners. So far as we can see, this is exactly what has happened
in the case of the oak leaves and many mollusc shells.

The modern school of Mendelian experimenters, who have from neces-
sity confined themselves to determining the inheritance of relatively
simple characters, have come to think little of natural selection. They
have seen how various combinations can arise, greatly altering the
appearance of animals and plants, without selection having anything
to do in the matter. They have also seen how certain of these modified
types, or others like them, may multiply and spread, without being
obviously helped or hindered by selective agencies. Where the charac-
ters came from, they do not know; but neither do the selectionists.
Let it suffice that we have here an apparently mechanical arrangement,
which if left to itself will people the earth with diverse animals and
plants, a large proportion of which will get along well enough to sur-
vive. Possibly this description is unjust in its application to modern
experimenters generally, but it at least represents the attitude of some
of the more influential and at the same time marks the recognition of a
number of real and important facts. I think that while we shall gladly
incorporate the facts into our system, we shall in time come to wonder at
the limited view of nature implied by the attitude described. It is all
too simple and too easy, it does not take into account the real com-
plexities of life or of organization. It reminds us a little of the school
of zoogeographers who would bridge the oceans whenever it seems nec-
essary for some animal to cross, or to have crossed. The experimental
work itself is revealing this, as day by day new complications arise.

VOL. lxxxii. — 27.

394 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Darwin and Wallace have talked of the accumulation of small varia-
tions, of the effects of natural selection on the perpetual minute varia-
tions which all species exhibit. Antiselectionists answer that most of
these are non-heritable "fluctuating variations/' and as for the rest,
they are usually not small, nor is the variation " continuous." More-
over, selection soon gets to the end of its rope. So it seems when we
are looking at a single pair, or two or three pairs of Mendelian allelo-
morphs, all active independently of one another. This, however, is not
a true picture of living animals, which are bundles of uncounted " fac-
tors," acting together in various ways. Any single factor depends for
its appearance and form of manifestation on all the others, as Wilson
has urged. It is not a thing by itself; it is the result of a complex
equation. Sometimes we are getting along well enough with our ex-
periments, when suddenly things go wrong; not because of error in
our theory, but because some new factor, which we were not watching,
has come in and disturbed the results. Thus, in breeding red sun-
flowers, we predicted, and got, a dark red homozygous flower. We also
got, but did not predict, a homozygous red in which only the basal half
of each ray was of that color. The fact is that many of the wild sun-
flowers carry a factor for marking, which can be seen with difficulty
on close inspection, but in the red it comes out strongly. For reasons
of this sort we have not only the complications due to the multitude
of factors or determiners, but also those caused by their interactions.
Inasmuch as they may influence each other strongly or slightly, and
in all sorts of different ways, the net result is that in the more complex
types of life we have almost infinite possibilities of variation, quite
aside from any question of the alteration of the determiners themselves.
Add to this the complications due (it appears) to accidents in the
maturation process of the germ cells — such an "accident" probably
gave rise to the red sunflower — and we have in most cases as much
material for natural selection to operate upon as Darwin or Wallace
ever postulated. Enough, indeed, to account for all the wonderful
adaptations in the tropical fauna and flora, when we consider the time
available for their production.

It has recently been announced, as the result of the museum work
of Dr. K. Jordan, combined with the field and breeding observations
of Dr. G. D. H. Carpenter, 3 that an African butterfly of the genus
Pseudacroea occurs in a variety of forms, which imitate species of
Planema flying with it. The extraordinary thing is that one phase of
this Pseudacrcea is sexually dimorphic, imitating a dimorphic Planema,
while in the same forests it also occurs in two monomorphic forms,
resembling two other monomorphic species of Planema. Dr. Carpenter
succeeded in breeding one of the monomorphic Pseudacrceas from an

3 Entomologists' Becord, XXIV. (1912), p. 233.

NATURAL SELECTION 395

egg laid by the other. In a case like this, we have the result of a Men-
delian experiment performed by nature. The different phases are rep-
resented by interchangeable units, and interbreeding normally occurs.
Hence, an extreme case of polymorphism, in which all the alternative
forms which have been preserved are at present favored in the struggle
for existence. Of those which, in the ages past, have disappeared, we
have now no trace, but theoretically we should expect some non-mimetic
recessive combinations to occur as occasional aberrations. This, I be-
lieve, accords with the facts.

Those who examine remarkably adapted forms are always impressed
by their striking characters, and find it hard to believe that they have
arisen by gradual steps from the more ordinary types. They do not
appreciate the ages during which these forms have been evolving, and
the multitudes that have perished. Among insects, however, the num-
ber of surviving species is usually much greater than in any other
group of animals, so that it is possible in a certain sense to compare
a specialized type with its ancestors, or at least with contemporaneous
species having many of the marks of its ancestors. For this reason
insects are exceptionally valuable for the study of evolution; though
hardly equal to mammals, which have changed so rapidly within com-
paratively recent times, and have left us such admirable fossil remains.
It would be a useful contribution to the theory of evolution to take up
a number of the cases of mimetic or otherwise peculiar insects and
show how they are connected by many steps with the more ordinary
forms. This has, indeed, been done in part, but it has been difficult,
requiring immense and carefully worked out collections. In the Lepi-
doptera, where these studies are most interesting, the work is being
immensely facilitated by the publication of Dr. Seitz's magnificent vol-
umes on the Macrolepidoptera of the world, which place descriptions
and good colored figures of all the principal larger Lepidoptera at the
service of any one who can afford the very moderate price charged.

We may consider, for example, the " Aristolochia Papilios." These
splendid butterflies feed in the larva state on Aristolochia, rarely on
allied plants. They occur on both sides of the world, and are doubtless,
as a group, of great antiquity. They are strong-smelling and appar-
ently distasteful to most predatory animals; the other two groups of
Papilio, not thus protected, frequently produce species which closely
imitate them, so much so that " until quite recently models and mimics
have often been regarded as closely allied." The great Indo-Australian
series of Aristolochia Papilios shows the largest size and extraordinary
sexual dimorphism in the Orniihoptera series, usually treated as a dis-
tinct genus. The great diversity of the sexes, both in form and color,
is extremely impressive in view of what we now know about sex-inheri-
tance. The bright colors are most commonly orange, often green,

396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

while the male of P. urvilliana, a Solomon Islands species, is marked
with blue. The absence of red is noteworthy, 3 although it is not com-
plete, several of the species having a little red on the anterior edge of
the thorax or back of the head, or on the under side of the thorax.
In the allied tailed series (including such forms as P. hector and coon)
light red spots are frequently developed on the hind wings. The Amer-
ican (neotropical) Aristolochia Papilios, which are much smaller on
the average than the oriental, have the markings and form for the most
part much like the orange and black oriental group (P. darsius of
Ceylon, etc.), but where there is orange on the hind wings of the darsius
group, it is usually bright red in the neotropical series, though occa-
sionally orange, or orange shaded with red. Most of the American
species have well-defined patches on the anterior wings also, but these
are green, yellow, white or rarely blue, never red. American Papilios
of the lysithous group resemble the Aristolochia Papilios of the same
region in the most amazing way, and these mimetic butterflies are said
to usually imitate the sluggish flight of their models. When we have
figures of all these insects and their allies before us, we can see how
some of the most peculiar types are connected with quite ordinary ones
by intermediates, and how each group works on a certain series of avail-
able colors and patterns to reach its results.

3 P. hypolitus Cr. (male) is figured as having red on the abdomen. This is
probably a mistake, as the description says dark yellow.

COLLEGE CONDITIONS 397

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS CONCERNING COLLEGE

CONDITIONS

By Peofbssok JOHN J. STEVENSON

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

AN ever-increasing proportion of the community seems to be con-
vinced that every youth, male or female, on American soil, has
a natural right to collegiate and even to professional education at nom-
inal or no cost. That so many have been deprived of the opportunity
to acquire a college degree is one of the saddest of the world's many
tragedies; good men and women, having exhausted the joy of conscious
usefulness in the ordinary philanthropic operations, find new zest in
contriving methods whereby those excluded from college attendance
may secure the coveted parchment with a minimum of expense and in-
convenience. Their efforts to increase the roll of "American nobility"
find ready support on the part of college authorities, who are always
prompt to aid any good work which promises to increase the enrollment.
This popular conviction surprises no one who is familiar with the
history of American colleges. In the early days of this country, when
schools of any kind were few, clergymen were compelled to educate
their successors or to have none. Those devoted men extolled the honor
of their profession, they cultivated respect for knowledge, they awak-
ened ambition in young men as well as in their parents; and they
undertook the labor of instruction when candidates for the ministry
presented themselves — many times taking them to their homes and
sharing with them their scanty fare. No one imagined that any credit
was due for this self-denial and added labor. The work had been, so to
say, thrown in; it had cost the teacher nothing; he had parted with
nothing material and the teaching had produced nothing tangible; at
most, he had utilized only spare hours, which, in any event, belonged
to the people who paid him a small stipend. In fact, the parents of the
young men thought that the loss sustained by deprivation of their sons'
services entitled them to credit equally with the pastor; and they were
not far wrong, for the education was to fit the son not to gain a liveli-
hood, not to gain higher social position, but to enter a profession which
at that time meant little more than poverty and an opportunity for
service. When population became denser, pastors opened academies to
increase their incomes, but the shrewd people succeeded in turning this
to their advantage; the writer has seen a "call" offered more than a
century ago, in which the right to have an " academy " was noted as an

398 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

inducement. When these "Latin schools" grew into little colleges,
parents and students alike knew that requirements of duty were ful-
filled by payment of a small fee; the instructors were mostly clergymen
who eked out their incomes by serving neighboring churches. It is
said that of the first 110 colleges in this country, 100 were founded with
training for the ministry as the prime object. The importance of edu-
cation received full recognition, but teaching as such was not regarded
as a serious matter; it was merely an incidental part of a minister's
work. The belief prevailed that if a young man was willing to accept
an education some one ought to give it to him.

Until 75 years ago, college teaching in the greater part of this coun-
try was controlled by clergymen, members of an ill-paid profession.
Even now a large proportion of our college and university presidents
are ministers, and there are many in prominent places who maintain
that higher education should be under clerical supervision. The tradi-
tion continues that teaching like preaching is, or should be, altruistic
work and the salaries are graded accordingly. Some time ago the presi-
dent of a great university blamed this lack of appreciation on the ma-
terialistic tendencies of our time, casting all on that convenient beast
of burden, commercialism. But this is without reason. Failure to
appreciate the work of college professors is merely a survival of the
hard materialism of early days, when pioneers struggled against a
harsh climate and gained their farms by felling the forest. Genuine
appreciation of intellectual work comes only in an age like this ; it comes
with advancing civilization, when men have been freed from bitter con-
test with nature, with the physical comfort found only in commercial
communities, such as Athens, Babylon or Thebes, in the olden times, or
the great commercial centers of modern times. Our business men rec-
ognize the power of pure intellect; they pay its possessors almost fab-
ulous salaries; they endow colleges and universities in the hope that
intellectual training will enable the coming generation to begin where
they have left off and to accomplish greater things. The blame for
wretched salaries and constantly increasing overwork can not be laid at
their door. The scale was fixed originally by clergymen, the one class
against which the vague charge of commercialism can not be laid. If
the happy day should ever come when lay members of college boards
awake to the sense of their responsibilities and gain personal knowledge
of the kind and amount of work done by college professors, the com-
plaint respecting small salaries will be at an end.

Conditions have undergone great change since the days of the
"Latin schools." When population was sparse, when little money was
in circulation, though the people lived in comfort, the modest college,
with few teachers, small fees and narrow curriculum, was necessary if
the professions were to be recruited. But those conditions have passed

COLLEGE CONDITIONS 399

away finally; commercial intercourse is complete and the small farmer
handles more money than did his wealthy predecessor of a century ago.
College is sought no longer only by those destined for the " three learned
professions " ; young men of all aims, and a multitude with no aims, are
enrolled in the classes ; it has become the thing to own a diploma. The
faculty no longer consists of five or six men, each supposed to be fa-
miliar with everything in the curriculum but, in all reputable colleges,
it is composed of teachers who have spent years in special preparation
for the chairs which they occupy — a college professorship is no longer
regarded as a haven of rest for men who have failed in some other walk
of life; the curriculum has been broadened in all directions and the
cost per student has been increased by several hundred per cent.

In spite of the changed conditions, colleges, and to a great extent
professional schools, are still regarded as closely allied to charitable
institutions. The presidents of starveling academies with a college
annex go about the country pleading the cause of their poor self-deny-
ing professors; colleges are exempt from all ordinary taxation; they
maintain costly fields for semi-professional athletic contests to which
admission fees are charged; they are permitted to reserve large parks
around their buildings, even though the reservation be to secure an
unearned increment. This conception that colleges are charitable insti-
tutions does comparatively little injury to the community, but it does
far-reaching injury to the staff of instructors in that the salaries are
adjusted on the altruistic basis. It is felt that the work is so lofty in
aim and so important to the human race that no consideration of pe-
cuniary reward should be permitted to corrupt the worker. Not long
ago a western association of college teachers resolved that, in their
opinion, the minimum salary for a professor should be at least $1,400.
The president of one of the colleges asserted that such a minimum would
be absurd; that, if the rule were enforced, a very great proportion of
the colleges west from the Mississippi would be driven out of existence.
If that should be the result, devout lovers of true education ought to
establish at once a chain of prayer meetings to bring about the enforce-
ment of that minimum.

But it is very difficult to believe that young men or young women
have an inherent right to receive higher education at another's expense.
If one can earn such education, it is his right ; if another choose to earn
it for him, no one may criticize either giver or receiver. All recognize
the parent's duty to give to his child every advantage within his means,
even at the cost of great self-denial, for he brought that child into the
world without its consent. But the responsibility of others ceases at an
early stage in education, far below the requirements for college en-
trance ; it extends no farther than the community's protection demands.
A wise community will go beyond the limit of its absolute responsibility

4oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

and will afford opportunity to acquire enough knowledge to let the
youth rise above mere muscular labor; but even this is still far below
the demand, for college or professional education is in no sense essen-
tial to the attainment of wealth, of political or social distinction or
even of great usefulness. There is no more of real charity in endowing
a college than in endowing a great hospital, open to rich and poor alike,
at nominal or no cost, on the basis of first come, first served.

For colleges are conducted on that principle, as are some dispensaries
which make no investigation respecting needs of applicants, and the
" charity " appeals for aid in proportion to the amount of business done.
No properly equipped college can subsist on the fees as now arranged;
each simply doles out alms to rich and poor alike, presenting them in
many cases to men who would scorn a gift in money. Too often, a col-
lege in appealing for more endowment is asking wealthy men and
women to aid it in giving the college course to the children of other
wealthy men and women at a fraction of the cost. The condition is
worse in the case of professional schools, in which the fees should al-
ways cover the cost; the more so, since there is no pressing need for
more lawyers, physicians or even clergymen. In this, there is no
criticism of those who endow professorships or free scholarships, pro-
vided always that they do so wisely. Scholarships should never be given,
they should be earned in competitive examination. A professorship
should be endowed so generously as to make the salary attractive to
ambitious men who have been accustomed to comfortable surroundings ;
if the income be so small as to be attractive only to those who have
served an apprenticeship in poverty, the gift is injurious. Teaching is
not the only function of a college; the professors should be investiga-
tors also ; the man who does not make original studies becomes a dealer
in second-hand knowledge, a mere lesson hearer; whatever his salary
may be, it is enough. Up to thirty years ago, a stream of contributions
to knowledge flowed from the colleges; a great part of the country's
advance, intellectual as well as physical, is directly traceable to that
stream. But, during later years, the importance of increased enroll-
ment and the necessity for accommodating the increasing number of
students without increasing the expenditure or the fees have over-
shadowed all else; the efficiency system of the factory is applied, the
hours of teaching have increased in many cases to beyond those required
in the public schools ; so that college men of the present generation have
neither time nor energy to do such work as was done by their prede-
cessors. Any unrestricted endowment gift which may be utilized to
provide an additional number of low-priced instructors so as to accom-
modate an increased number of students at cheap rates is destructive.

And here one touches the real disease affecting American colleges.
There has been a gradual lowering of the actual, not professed, stand-

COLLEGE CONDITIONS 401

ing during the last twenty-five years. Constantly increasing enroll-
ment is, for most college presidents and most college trustees, the only
proof of success. Canvassing for pupils is as much part of the college
plan in some portions of the country as drumming for customers is in
a wholesale business house. Of course, no such vulgar conduct is coun-
tenanced by the older institutions, which never send their presidents or
special agents on such errands. They utilize students as wandering
minstrels, who appear as the blank college or university glee club ; they
have trained bands of student gladiators to contend in intercollegiate
contests and they do not discourage the custom of impressing a great
part of the student body as " rooters " for the team. Even the great
universities do not think it undignified to advertise the attractions
which they offer in college or professional schools. In small colleges,
the president often announces his annual or semi-annual canvassing
tour as systematically and unblushingly as did the commission salesman
of 40 years ago. In larger colleges, the annual tour of the president,
during which he makes the round of alumni clubs, is a fixed part of
the program. He is not scouring for students, but in his addresses he
dwells lovingly on athletic successes, on the pecuniary gains during the
year, on the remarkably democratic life of the students; he extols the
great advantages offered by his college and urges the alumni to prove
their loyalty by spreading the facts broadcast and by giving some
money to make matters "more so."

The ingenuity of the canvasser and the exigencies of his concern
lead some perilously near to something more than mere inaccuracy of
statement. The latest achievement is calculation of the proportion of
college men recorded, in "Who's Who." The statistics are correct, but
the deductions are imperfect. No note is made of the fact that the
plan of the American "Who's Who" leads the editor to select chiefly
men whose occupation presupposes college or university work. A search
for truth would have led not to " Who's Who " but to biographical cata-
logues of college alumni. That study might have led to discovery of
conditions on which the canvasser would have been more than unwill-
ing to enlarge. Certainly, he would have come to wonder why it is
that "Who's Who" is so small a volume, as there are so many thou-
sands in this country who own college diplomas.

The presentation is uncandid, for it is intended to convince young
men and women that some magic force insuring success resides in the
college course — which is not the fact. The college professor is no al-
chemist to change dross into fine metal ; a gymnasium can not give legs
to the man born without them; no more can the college professor give
mental power to the one who has it not. Men are born as unequal men-
tally as physically and not all can gain material advantage from college
work, though there are few who can not obtain a diploma somewhere.

402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The elements of success are innate, their combination is complex ; with-
out them a man can not succeed, with or without a college course. A
college professor accustomed to study his students can make reasonable
forecast of their future by end of the sophomore year, if he know their
home surroundings. Mere success in college studies means nothing of
itself for the future; one valedictorian disappears at once after gradua-
tion while another quickly becomes a power for good or for evil. A
fellow with low grades throughout startles professors, whose work he
detested, by becoming a great man.

Not every young man should be urged to go to college; entrance
may be the first step on the road to hopeless failure. The fact that a
man is willing to go to college, even the fact that he is willing to endure
hardship to secure an " education," is no reason of itself why he should
have the opportunity at another's expense. He may be very earnest,
but he may lack capacity, or he may have grown up amid surroundings
which have dwarfed or stiffened him so that he can not receive much
benefit. Such men or women should not waste their time in col-
lege. The writer makes this assertion feelingly, for a long proces-
sion of such failures passes before him, as he reviews his forty years of
college teaching. Earnestness is no evidence of capacity; willingness to
endure very serious inconvenience may be evidence only of willingness
to follow lines of least resistance. Four years of self-denial at college
may be far preferable to four years of hard work on the farm or in the
shop. One may remark, parenthetically, that a vast amount of sympa-
thy is wasted on men who work their way through college as though
they were a superior type of the race. No man deserves any special
credit for undergoing hardships in order to secure what he believes will
yield great returns. The gold-hunters of the Klondyke did that and
asked neither praise nor sympathy. The men who struggled to make
their way through college and who proved in after life that they made
that struggle with clear purpose for the future, ask no consideration
and challenge the world to accept them for what they are worth. But
our land is full of lawyers working as petty clerks, of physicians with-
out practise, of clergymen whom no one wishes. They are embittered
against the unappreciative world, which ignores the struggles they
made to secure an " education " and insists on taking them at its own
valuation. Had it not been for cheap tuition, college canvassers and
boards of aid, a very large proportion of these men would not have gone
to college and might have led a comfortable existence in some occupation
for which they were fitted.

In all frankness, one must concede that the college of to-day does
not fit a man for anything — it does not even train him to do clear think-
ing for himself. In early days, the curriculum was utilitarian in the
severest sense of the term. Latin and Greek were learned as languages

COLLEGE CONDITIONS 403

because they were to be used. Those languages were, so to say, the
vernacular in divinity schools. The writer's grandfather was accus-
tomed to assign a lesson of twenty or thirty pages for discussion on the
next day, and the students were expected to discuss the theology, not the
Latin construction. One can not repeat too often or too emphatically
that Latin and Greek were the all-important elements of the curriculum
because they were to be utilized, just as arithmetic has its place in
primary instruction. The incessant chatter, which one hears now, about
the intellectual strength gained by study of the classics would have ex-
cited derision on all sides in those days. When Latin and Greek lost
their utility, American colleges should have seized the opportunity to re-
model the curriculum throughout; but the opportunity was neglected
and the curriculum became a series of compromises between the old and
the new, developing at length into aimless election or narrowing groups,
the one encouraging shiftlessness, the other tending to weaken the
reasoning power. College officials were roused to indignation several
years ago by criticisms offered by two prominent business men ; the out-
bursts in some instances were so violent that one might suppose that
these philistines had invaded a holy of holies. But one must be judicial.
Much of what those critics said is inaccurate, having been accepted on
information and belief; but that which they stated as of their own
knowledge was true and is true — and too many of the statements were
made as of their own knowledge. Every college professor, whose ob-
servations extend beyond the walls of his classroom, knows that the
criticisms contain only too much that is true. The aimlessness of broad
election and the narrowness of groups are destructive.

The able president of one of the best American colleges is reported
to have said :

A college is an institution where young men and young women study great
subjects under broad teachers in a liberty which is not license, and a leisure
which is not idleness — with unselfish participation in a common life, and an
intense devotion to minor groups within the larger body, and special interests
inside the general aim; conscious that they are watched by friendly eyes, too
kind to take unfair advantage of their weakness, yet too keen to be deceived.

The concluding phrase, "yet too keen to be deceived," must have
been penned by one who has forgotten his student days. It will be read
with delight by college graduates and will give new sense of security to
undergraduates. This example of admirable English and inspired
imagination has been of much service to canvassers for so-called col-
leges and has received more than favorable comment in several ad-
dresses. It has been the theme of many a commencement oration and
has given zest to many a baccalaureate sermon. But, as presented by its
author, it is defective. If he had said the " ideal college," no exception
could be taken to the statement; it would be absolutelv correct. But

4 o4 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the reader, acquainted with actual conditions, finds himself comment-
ing involuntarily on some of the expressions. If one read records on
sporting pages of the great dailies, he will soon discover that the great
subjects are athletics and that the broad teachers are professional
coaches, who receive larger remuneration than that of the professors.
If he read addresses of college presidents at alumni gatherings and con-
sult the columns of college papers he will find little reason for change
of opinion. Nor is he likely to find anything different if he look in
other directions, though he may gain enlightenment respecting the
minor groups or special interests.

A leading metropolitan daily published once a week two pages of
news calculated to bind alumni to their colleges — all reference to ath-
letics being avoided. The communications, many of which carried ear-
marks of official sanction, were examined during several months.
Barely 9 per cent, of the space dealt with the curriculum, increased
facilities for study, with the work of professors; aside from the inci-
dental references to such matters, the space was devoted to information
respecting glee clubs, society politics, college theatricals, glorification of
the democratic spirit among the students, the peculiar advantage of the
college over its rivals, with not infrequently a more than casual refer-
ence to athletics. In comparatively few instances is anything recorded
which would lead a wholly uninformed reader to suspect that college is
a place for study — and most of those references are not from colleges
but from technical schools. If one consider the important place which
these interests occupy in the mind of so-called students, and if he add
to them football, baseball, lacrosse, hockey, wrestling, boating, swim-
ming, gymnastics, as well as daily, weekly or monthly publications, he
will feel convinced that for a great part of the students none too much
time remains to be expended or, as some college boys would say, wasted
on study. He will be confirmed in his conviction when he observes that
intercollegiate contests are not interrupted by such matters as reviews
or approaching examinations. The college course need be little more
than leaning against college walls for four years — a simple luxury.
The opportunity to acquire knowledge and intellectual training is
offered, but student