Chapter VI: Part 6

The eggs of the _Dinornis_ were very large, having a capacity of about a gallon and being equivalent to eighty hen's eggs. Still larger eggs than these, however, are known. In 1851 Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire exhibited, in the French Academy of Sciences, eggs of a bird coming from Madagascar that had a capacity of two gallons. Some specimens of these eggs may be seen in the galleries of the Paris Museum, and still larger eggs have been found. The museum in London has one with a capacity exceeding eleven quarts, or equivalent to two hundred and twenty hen's eggs, or more than seventy thousand humming birds' eggs. It was thought at first that the bird which laid these gigantic eggs was still living, for natives of Madagascar spoke of having seen a bird of colossal size that could throw down an ox and make a meal of it. Such, however, were not the ways of the bird called the _Epiornis_, which had no talons or wings, and fed on vegetable substances. The description by the celebrated traveler Marco Polo of a great flying bird of prey, called a roc, has no reference to the _Epiornis_. M. Grandidier has demonstrated that this bird no longer exists in Madagascar, and that if man ever knew it the stories with marvelous details which the savages hand down from generation to generation make no mention of it. We owe to M. Grandidier, M. Milne-Edwards, and Major Forsyth what is known of the history of this large wingless bird, which resembles the _Dinornis_ in several points. If its size was proportioned to that of its eggs it should have been twice as large as the _Dinornis_. It was not, however, but constituted a family represented by very diverse forms and of variable size, though never much exceeding eleven feet. The head was similar in appearance to that of the _Dinornis_, but the surface of the forehead was furrowed with wrinkles and cavities, indicating the presence of a crest of large feathers. A curious peculiarity was the opening of the Eustachian tube directly on the exterior. The cervical vertebræ are very numerous, while the sternum is much reduced. It is a flat bone, broad but very short, especially in the median part. The wing also has suffered a great regression, for it comprises only a thin, short rod, the humerus, and a small osseous mass representing all the other bones of the wing stuck together. The _Epiornis_ had no wings externally visible. The bones of the feet were, on the other hand, of considerable size, and indicate that the bird that possessed them was larger than the _Dinornis_.

The _Epiornis_, according to M. Milne-Edwards, frequented the borders of waters, keeping among the reeds along lakes and rivers, for its bones are found associated with those of turtles, crocodiles, and a small hippopotamus. It most probably nested in the low plains around lakes.

Just as the _Apteryx_ among birds, and the bison and the beaver among mammals, so the _Dinornis_ and the _Epiornis_ have been destroyed as man has extended his abode and his domination.

When we regard the fauna of Madagascar and of New Zealand we are struck by the great resemblance between them, from the points of view of their recent and ancient vertebrate fauna. These resemblances suggest the past existence of relations between these two lands now separated by a wide expanse of sea, and this agrees with geological observations.--_Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from La Nature._

SKETCH OF FREDERICK C. SELOUS.

The description of Selous, in Men and Women of the Time, as "explorer, naturalist, and sportsman," is suggestive of the manner in which his career has been developed and his fame has grown. Beginning his active life as a mere hunter of big game in the wilds of South Africa, and known at first only as a sportsman, he has become recognized as one of the leading, most intelligent, and most efficient explorers of his time, and is accepted as the most eminent authority respecting what relates to the large and important region of Mashonaland.

FREDERICK COURTENAY SELOUS was born in London, the son of a father of Huguenot extraction and of a mother who, descended from the Bruces of Clackmannan, could count Robert Bruce among her ancestors, and was also related to Bruce, the Abyssinian traveler. He was taught at Bruce Castle, Tottenham, and then went to school at Rugby, where he distinguished himself by his activity, which was displayed in his high spirits and love of violent mischief and by his personal courage to such an extent that his schoolfellows wittily nicknamed him "Zealous."

Leaving Rugby when sixteen or seventeen years old, he spent two years in Switzerland and Germany, studying at Neufchâtel and Wiesbaden. His hardy activity seems to have been as marked in Germany as at Rugby, for it is recorded of him that he attracted some notice in the papers by jumping into the Rhine in winter after a wild duck which he had shot. He was not dressed for a swim, and, his great coat and top boots becoming filled with water, he had much difficulty in getting to shore with his game. His determination to achieve a career in South Africa by hunting and collecting specimens was apparently reached while he was still a youth, and at nineteen years of age he sailed from England, to land at Algoa Bay in 1871. Hunting was his object, as is substantially confessed in the title of his first book, A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa. The book won instant recognition as a story of sport and a hunter's prowess, and was regarded in that light by the critics and the general public. The Royal Geographical Society, however, perceived other qualities in the story he had to tell, and gave him successively honorable mention, the Cuthbert Peake grant, and, in 1883, the Founder's Gold Medal, the highest honor it had to bestow.

Among the earliest testimonials paid by this society to the value, as yet not generally appreciated, of Selous's work was that given by Lord Aberdare, president, in his anniversary address, delivered in May, 1881, to the services rendered to geography in the regions west of Lake Nyassa by Mr. Selous, who had "hitherto been known as a mighty hunter of large game.... This gentleman, we learn, in 1878 penetrated for one hundred and fifty miles the unknown country north of the Zambezi, in the direction of Lake Bangweolo. He has since crossed in various directions the Matabele country south of the Zambezi, discovering two new rivers and defining the course of others which had previously been laid down from vague information." Selous's Notes on the Chobi, it appears, had already been published by the Geographical Society.

Mr. Selous has spent most of his time since he began his African wanderings in 1871, except for occasional visits to England, in traveling and hunting over that part of the African continent with which his name as an explorer is associated. In 1877 he and some companions penetrated into Matabeleland to hunt elephants. Relating the story of his wanderings in an address to the Royal Geographical Society in 1893, he described his experiences with fever and ague, the attacks of which began in Griqualand in 1872, but came on only when he halted anywhere a few days. North of the Zambezi he made several journeys among the Balongas, and spent a wretched rainy season, almost without equipment, on the Manica table-land, of the luxuriant vegetation of which, with sweet-smelling flowers after the rains, he gave a glowing description in his address. Interesting observations were made on some of the northern rivers. The curious phenomena of the steady rise of the waters of the Chobi and Machabi--an outlet of the Okavango--was observed from the first week in June till the last week in September, when the flood began to recede.

From 1882 the journeys acquired additional geographical importance, and Mr. Selous proceeded to rectify the maps of Mashonaland made by earlier travelers, taking constant compass bearings, sketching the courses of rivers, and fixing the positions of tributaries. The value of this work was made manifest in a magnificent large scale map of the country.

This map, which was published in 1895, was intended, first and chiefly, to illustrate the work done by Mr. Selous while in the service of the South African Company; and, secondly, to embody, as far as possible, the knowledge possessed of the entire region extending from Fort Salisbury to the northward as far as the Zambezi, and to the eastward as far as the lower Pungwe. Mr. Selous's manuscript originals, deposited in the map room of the Royal Geographical Society, comprise a compass survey, showing the routes during a year's employment in the service of the British South African Company, September 1, 1890, to September, 1891, on a scale of 1:255,000; a sketch map, showing the route of the Manika Mission from Fort Charter to Umtassa's and thence to the camp near Mount Wedza, and also the routes taken by Mr. Selous from the camp near Mount Wedza to Makoni's, Mangwendi's, Maranka's, and back to Makoni's, on a scale of 1:255,000; a sketch of routes from Umtali to Mapanda (Pungwe) and back, in 1891, on the same scale; a sketch of Mashonaland, showing tribal boundaries, on the same scale; a rough survey map of the countries ruled over by the Makorikori chiefs, for which a mineral concession had been granted to the Selous Exploration Syndicate, on a scale of 1:210,000; and about thirty sheets of manuscript maps and rounds of angles, utilized in the compilation of the first four maps of this list.

Although Mr. Selous did not determine latitudes or longitudes, his long-distance compass bearings enabled him to lay down a network of triangles connecting Fort Salisbury with Masikesi. These triangles included Fort Charter, Sengedza, and Mavanka's in the south, Mount Mtemwa in the north, and Mount Dombo in the east; and it turns out that the distance between Fort Salisbury and Masikesi, as resulting from this triangulation, differs to the extent of only about a mile from that obtained by careful astronomical observations made at the two terminal points. The greater part of Mr. Selous's compass bearings were taken during the rainy season, when the air was very clear and landmarks could be seen at great distances. Mr Selous's determinations of altitude were not so accurate, and those obtained with the aneroid were characterized by himself as "of little value."

During all of his twenty years' wanderings Mr. Selous represented in his address to the Royal Geographical Society, with the exception of a treacherous night attack made upon his camp by the Mashuku-Sumbwe, led by a few hostile Marotse, in 1888, he had never had any serious trouble with the natives. He had gone among many tribes who had never previously seen a white man, and was always in their power, as he seldom had more than from five to ten native servants, none of whom were ever armed. Mr. Selous's pioneer work began in 1889, when he conducted a gold-prospecting company through eastern Mashonaland. The journey took the party to the Portuguese settlements on the Zambezi, where those people were found to have a full appreciation of the richness of the gold region.

The British South Africa Company, or "Chartered Company," as it is sometimes called, was incorporated about the same time (October, 1889), with power to occupy and possess the large domains that constitute what is now called Rhodesia. The return of Mr. Selous to the Cape of Good Hope with the report of what he had observed had the effect of determining the company to speed its operations so as to anticipate the Portuguese. Mr. Selous entered the service of the company, and, although he was not yet an explorer in the scientific sense, the accurate memory of his early wanderings over the region enabled him to guide successfully the pioneer expedition that took possession of Mashonaland.

One of the sensational incidents of this campaign was the refusal of Lobengula to allow the pioneer force to use the road that led through Buluwayo, his capital, the only existing wagon road from the British frontier to the Mashonaland plateau. A new road was cut, under the guidance and superintendence of Mr. Selous, through four hundred and sixty miles of wilderness, the whole work being accomplished in two months and a half.

Among the chiefs who submitted to the British occupation after the seizure of Gonvola was Moloko, ruler of the country north of Manica, who made a treaty with Mr. Selous. After two years spent in various operations for opening up the country and securing treaties with the native chiefs, Mr. Selous returned to England in December, 1892, and put the narrative of his adventures to press, but was called back in August, 1893, returning at very short notice, on account of the threatening attitude of the Matabele chief Lobengula and the consequent risk of interruption in the development of the country. The tribes had risen against the assumption of the company to claim as a territorial cession what they had regarded as simply a grant of mining and exploiting privileges. Mr. Selous engaged actively in the campaign, in which he is credited with having fought with great gallantry by the side of the colonists, and was wounded while protecting some negroes who had been surprised by the enemy.

Returning again to Mashonaland, he reached there in time to witness a second outbreak of the natives, vexed by the triple plague of locusts, rinderpest, and the stringent regulations of the Chartered Company's government with respect to cattle. His own cattle were stolen, and he headed a company of volunteers that went out to check the insurgents and protect the people who were still on their farms.

The fruits, in acquisition to geographical knowledge, of Mr. Selous's adventures and explorations are to be found, mingled with much about sporting and exciting incident, in his books: A Hunter's Wanderings in South Africa, already mentioned; Travel and Adventure in Southeast Africa (1893); Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia (1896); and in lectures to the Geographical Society and periodical contributions concerning Mashonaland.

These books abound in observations on natural history, often constituting real contributions of new facts or new demonstrations to the science, usually occurring incidentally in the narrative of adventure, but sometimes given in more formal shape. The author avows that his conclusions respecting animals are drawn from personal experience of the beasts, and are not influenced in any way by the stories of old hunters, Dutch or native. Among these notices are original observations on the giraffe and its habits, notes on buffaloes and their disposition, and remarks on variations in the types of South African lions. Of this animal, while some authors would make three species, the author believes there is only one. "As out of fifty male lion skins," he says, "scarcely two will be found exactly alike in the color and length of the mane, I think it would be as reasonable to suppose there are twenty species as three." So in Notes upon South African Rhinoceroses, a paper read before the Zoölogical Society of London in June, 1881, and reprinted in this volume, Mr. Selous gives his reasons for affirming that there are only two species of rhinoceros in South or in all Africa--the square-mouthed or white _Rhinoceros simus_ and the prehensile-lipped or black _Rhinoceros bicornis_--while the supposed _Rhinoceros keitloa_, or blue rhinoceros of the Boers, is merely a variety of the _bicornis_, the distinction between the two being based only on differences in the relative length of the horns. Another paper from the Proceedings of the Zoölogical Society, reprinted here, is Notes on the South Central African Antelopes, embodying again only the results of the author's own observations. In this paper twenty-two species are described by their scientific, native, Dutch, and English names, and their characteristics, habits, appearance, and distinctions are indicated.

In the preface to his Travel and Adventure in Southeast Africa Mr. Selous tells how he had determined, in 1881, upon visiting the ostrich farm of his friend Frank Mandy, to settle down in Africa for a quiet life. Then he went home and spent a few months in England. Visiting the Natural History Department of the British Museum, he was shown by Dr. Gunther and his associate how old and dilapidated some of the specimens were, and how many noble forms were not represented at all. He took note of what he ought to get should he visit the interior of Africa again. Next we find him in South Africa, not quiet on a farm as he had intended to be, but in the wilderness, where he spent six years (1882-'87) engaged principally in collecting specimens "of the magnificent fauna which once abounded throughout the land," but many forms of which were now becoming scarce and some were verging on extinction. He shot and preserved a great many fine specimens of the larger antelopes, some of which may be seen in the New Natural History Museum at South Kensington, while others are in the collection of the South African Museum at Cape Town. Besides the stories of specimen hunting and adventures with the lions that are always to be found where game is abundant, the volume contains much matter of more general interest, such as notes of personal experiences among the Boers; accounts of two expeditions sent against the Batauweni by Lobengula; the devastations committed by the Matabele in Mashonaland; valuable notes on the Bushmen or Masarwas; accounts of journeys beyond the Zambezi to the countries of the Machukulumbwi and Barotsi tribes; and a review of the past history and present condition of Mashonaland. We find here also a notice of the caves of Sinola, with a subterranean lake in the principal cave having water marked by a deep-blue color like that of the blue grotto of Capri, an account of which was published by Mr. Selous in the Proceedings of the Geographical Society of London for May, 1888. An account of Mr. Selous's Twenty Years in Zambezia was published in the Geographical Journal in 1893.

Mr. Selous has done more than any other man to bring Mashonaland into notice, and is credited, together with Cecil Rhodes, with having contributed most to the creation of Rhodesia. The first comprehensive account of Mashonaland was given by him in the Fortnightly Review for May, 1889, when he described the country as a land of perennial streams in which thirst is an unknown quantity; with its high plateau, standing at an elevation of from four thousand to forty-six hundred feet and forming a very important watershed, endowed with a network of important streams, the springs supplying which, welling out from the highest parts of the downs, were capable of being applied to the irrigation of an enormous area, and having a salubrious climate, the continuous southwest wind giving cool breezes in summer and cold ones in winter. The high plateaus were further of much ethnological interest, in that they gave shelter to the very few remnants of the peaceful Mashonas who had escaped extermination at the hands of the Matabele.

Editor's Table.

_SCIENCE AND THE SCIENTIFIC MIND._

The address delivered by Prof. Michael Foster, as president this year of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, was not as long or elaborate as such addresses are wont to be, but it contained many thoughts of great value. After sketching the vast advances in scientific knowledge made within the present century, he observed, with great truth, that "the very story of the past which tells of the triumphs of science puts away all thoughts of vainglory." Why? In the first place, because no one can study the history of science without being made to feel how very near, in many cases, the men of the past came to anticipating some of the most famous discoveries and generalizations of later years. Translate the language of an earlier age into modern terms, and you often find that you have expressed the most advanced scientific doctrine of to-day. In the second place, if we find a certain lack of definiteness and truth to fact in the ideas of the past, how can we be at all sure how _our_ ideas will look when confronted with the fuller knowledge which doubtless our successors will possess? Lastly, "there is written clearly on each page of the history of science the lesson that no scientific truth is born anew, coming by itself and of itself. Each new truth is always the offspring of something which has gone before, becoming in turn the parent of something coming after." However great the work of a man of science may be, "it is not wholly his own; it is in part the outcome of the work of men who have gone before." In this respect Professor Foster sees a striking difference between the man of science and the poet. We always know whence the former came, but the latter is almost as devoid of visible ancestry as Melchizedek. When the man of science dies the results which he achieved remain, and his work is taken up where he left it off; whereas the poet, strictly speaking, has no continuators. The Homeridæ do not represent Homer, nor do Dryden and Congreve take the place of Shakespeare.

The story of natural knowledge or science, we are reminded, is a story of continued progress. "There is in it not so much as a hint of falling back--not even of standing still." The enemies of science sometimes seek to turn against it the fact that each age revises the conclusions of the preceding one. They ask, What dependence can be placed upon opinions or theories that are thus subject to change? The answer is that the science of each age is the nearest approximation which that age can make to the truth, and upon some points represents the truth with a great approach to finality of interpretation. The law of gravitation, for example, as formulated by Newton, lies at the foundation of the physics of to-day. The circulation of the blood was discovered once for all by Harvey. The true theory of the solar system was given once for all by Kepler. It is the glory of science that whatever of imperfection may lurk in a scientific theory is sure to be brought to light and corrected by subsequent observation and analysis.

The learned professor dwelt briefly but forcibly upon the qualities of the scientific mind. In the first place, the scientific mind must "vibrate in unison with that of which it is in search." It is in search of truth, and it must therefore vibrate in unison with truth. The follower of science must have a truthfulness beyond that of the ordinary man, who does not set a great price upon exactness in his observations or conclusions, and readily confounds things which, superficially similar, are fundamentally different. Nature resents even the most trifling inexactness, and the careless student will find that the further he carries his inquiries the further he goes astray. The scientific mind must also be alert. The indications and hints which Nature gives are sometimes very slight, and only one who is watchful in the extreme and attentive to the smallest things will catch them. Then the problems which Nature sets are often complicated, and call for a high degree of courage and perseverance. An inquiry which seemed easy at first will suddenly become overcast by what seems the most hopeless obscurity, and the scientific worker, unless he possesses the necessary moral as well as intellectual qualities, will fail in his quest. Considering the characteristics which the pursuit of science tends to develop in its votaries, and considering that scientific method is now and has been for many years past a wonderfully devised system for carrying on research, Professor Foster is surprised that the progress of science is not even more rapid than it is. He fears that perhaps Science does not get the best minds enrolled in her service, and rather hints that our institutions of education are responsible for turning aside many who might lend great aid in the advancement of real knowledge to less profitable pursuits. In words of almost precisely similar import to some that we used in these columns not very long ago, he observes that "that teaching is one-sided, and therefore misleading, which deals with the doings of man only and is silent about the works of Nature, in the sight of which he and his doings shrink almost to nothing." The whole address is stamped with the high thoughtfulness which so eminently distinguishes its author, and deserves to be carefully pondered by all who would understand the character and mission of science and the intellectual needs of the present age.

_THE LATE WILLIAM H. APPLETON._

As many of our readers will have learned through the daily press, Mr. William H. Appleton, long the head of the well-known publishing house of D. Appleton and Company, passed away at his home in Riverdale on the Hudson, October 19, 1899, having reached the advanced age of eighty-five years. As one of the founders of this magazine, who from the start was in close sympathy with its aims, kept up an active interest in its management, and was ever ready to aid its conductors with advice and encouragement, it is fitting that a few memorial words should be spoken of him in these columns.

The career of Mr. Appleton was a marked one in many respects. Entering the book business of his father, Mr. Daniel Appleton, at an unusually early age, he soon developed such an aptitude for affairs that at twenty-one he went abroad for the purpose of making the acquaintance of the leading foreign publishers and paving the way for closer relations with them in the importation and sale of their books in this country. Three years later, or at the age of twenty-four, his father made him a partner in the business, which had previously been extended so as to include the publication as well as the sale of books, and had now so increased in volume as to compel removal to more commodious quarters. Ten years of growth and uninterrupted prosperity followed, when Mr. Daniel Appleton, in 1848, retired from the now well-established firm, William H. Appleton, at the age of thirty-four, becoming its head, with his brothers John A. and Daniel Sidney as partners. In co-operation with these and other brothers who afterward entered the business, Mr. Appleton guided the operations of the firm for a period of nearly fifty years, successfully piloting it through several financial crises and carrying it to a foremost place among the publishing houses of America.

Besides the routine of an extensive publishing business, the history of the house during this time includes a number of large undertakings involving the expenditure of vast sums of money, and years of labor by many workers, and attended with risks that only the most far-seeing business sagacity could justify. We may presume that the several members of the firm shared a common faith in the success of these great enterprises, but it is fair to infer that as the head of the house William H. Appleton took a leading part in their origin and execution. One of these ventures was the publication of the American Cyclopædia, which in its present revised form represents an outlay of over a million dollars and some ten years of time. Another undertaking, and the one that we wish more particularly to speak of here, was the extension of the business in the line of popular scientific publications.

Scientific circles in this country have never realized the debt they owe to D. Appleton and Company, and especially to William H. Appleton, in this regard. It is no exaggeration to say that the advance of science in the United States was hastened by more than a quarter of a century by the enlightened and courageous policy which led the firm to add this class of books to their lists at the time they did. Everything apparently was against it--nothing in its favor. Our scientific literature consisted mainly of a few text-books having only a limited sale. Science itself was an affair of laboratories and bug collectors, the one to be shunned and the other commiserated. The few utterances of scientific men having a bearing on the great questions of the right interpretation of Nature, man's relations to his fellows and to the world at large, social betterment, etc., that here and there arrested public attention were received with contemptuous sneers or scouted as the rankest infidelity. Few who are not past middle life will find it possible now to realize that this was the general attitude toward science forty years ago, but we have only to refer the reader to the writings of the time for abundant confirmation of our statements.

It was such conditions as these that the firm was called upon to face when considering the question of entering this new field of publication. All ordinary business instincts were against it. Scarcely a publisher either here or abroad would even listen to the proposal to risk his capital in such an enterprise. Nevertheless, Mr. Appleton, lending an appreciative ear to the arguments of the former editor of this journal and displaying his usual foresight, finally decided in favor of the project, which afterward resulted in the introduction of the works of Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Bain, Romanes, and other distinguished writers to American readers. A further step in the same direction, taken later, was the publication of the International Scientific Series, now numbering some eighty volumes. The scheme as originated and shaped by Professor Youmans was heartily seconded by Mr. Appleton, as was also the plan of the Popular Science Monthly.

A distinctive feature of the arrangements for the issue of all these foreign books, and one which redounds in no small degree to the credit of the firm, was the voluntary agreement, in the absence of an international copyright law, to pay their authors the usual royalties, making no distinction between them and authors at home. Mr. Appleton had been a lifelong advocate of international copyright, founding his contention on the simple justice of recognizing the property rights of the author, no matter where he lived. Although to adopt such a course was to expose themselves to the possibility of heavy loss through the issue of reprints by irresponsible parties, a thing which actually happened in the case of a good many of the volumes, the principle was faithfully adhered to, thus anticipating by many years the central provision of our present law.

The storm of denunciation raised abroad by the appearance of the earlier installments of these writings might well have deterred the boldest from repeating the experiment of giving them currency in America. But in spite of solemn warnings that dire consequences would be visited on the publisher who ventured to issue them here, the books continued to appear, while the predicted evils never came to pass.

It must not be inferred from the foregoing, however, that Mr. Appleton was either unmindful or wanting in respect for the opposition which his course aroused. Much of this had its origin in the religious convictions of the community, not a little of the criticism, be it said, emanating directly from the Church or its leading representatives. But, being a strong churchman himself, actively furthering the work of the Church with his private means and personal co-operation, in full sympathy with its purposes, and rejoicing in its beneficent influence, he was the last one who would wantonly outrage the sacred beliefs of his fellow-men. Yet, gifted with a large-mindedness that is at least unusual in the walks of business, he was enabled to see that the onward march of natural knowledge which had so often before excited alarm among men of narrow views could have nothing in it that was inconsistent with a truly religious life; while, on the other hand, to promote its advance and diffusion was to contribute by so much to the highest human welfare.

The wisdom of Mr. Appleton's course has been fully justified by the event. As we look over the last half of the century, which has been so fruitful in discovery and has witnessed the development of so many agencies for the amelioration of human ills and so manifold an increase in man's power for right living, we can see at the various stages of this evolution how large a part the broadening of thought fostered by these authors and the new aims and methods in inquiry suggested by them have contributed to the advance. It could not, in short, have been made so rapidly or effectively without the stimulus they gave. For what has been done in this line in this country we think--when we reflect that it was he who had the courage to bring the works of those thinkers here, and who made them accessible to students and the reading public, who constituted the agency through which the new thoughts and aims were spread--a very important part in the achievement may fairly be ascribed to Mr. William H. Appleton.

Scientific Literature.

Owing to the increasing demands upon our space, authors and publishers are notified that hereafter the department of Scientific Literature, with the exception of Publications Received, will be discontinued.

SPECIAL BOOKS.

The busy pen of Mr. _John Fiske_ has produced another book marked by the qualities which the public has learned to associate with all his work--lucidity of expression, felicity of illustration, a large command of the conventional elements of literary composition, and a philosophy which, while very free and lightsome in its steps and paces, always has the luck to fetch up within easy hailing distance of a moderate orthodoxy. Mr. Fiske undertakes to conduct us on an excursion _Through Nature to God_,[27] somewhat as Cook, of international fame, might undertake to see us safe from New York to the Holy Land. Of the two, we think Cook makes the surer thing of it; yet no one can deny that Mr. Fiske has done his best to trace the itinerary and encourage his excursionists to believe that they will "get there."

[Footnote 27: Through Nature to God. By John Fiske. Boston and New
York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]

We may as well candidly confess that we have not much faith in the method followed in the work before us. The intention is to show that an analysis of Nature and of Nature's ways yields God; in other words, that we have only to carry out the processes of thought which an examination of the external world and of human history sets in motion in order to find God at the end of the argument. Thus, by searching, contrary to what Scripture has generally been held to imply, we find out both that God is and to some extent what he is. We prefer the older view. The world's greatest Teacher said simply, "God is a spirit." He did not say that this was a conclusion to which many lines of argument led. He did not hint at any kind of argument, but assumed the affirmation of God by the human consciousness. We venture to say that if Mr. Fiske's method were successful and we could argue ourselves into a belief in God, the result would be disastrous; for the God of argument, or even of analogy, is not the God of the human soul or conscience. We should have one conclusion more of science, but we should lose that for which no conclusion of science could make amends--our sense of the infinite and the possibility of faith.

Mr. Fiske discusses, in the early chapters of his book, The Mystery of Evil. He takes the familiar ground that evil is the necessary correlative, and in a manner the necessary condition, of good. We are placed in a universe that abounds in evil in order that by conquering it we may raise ourselves to a moral level otherwise impossible. On one page the author goes so far as to say that God, and not the devil, "is the creator of evil," but elsewhere he relaxes his boldness and speaks of evil being "permitted." One feels like asking, If good and evil are equally made by God, then which is which? When we speak of electricity as positive and negative we do not ascribe any superiority to one over the other. Nor do we say that centrifugal is a more commendable form of force than centripetal, or _vice versa_. "For strong and resolute men and women," we are told, "an Eden would be but a fool's paradise." This is not complimentary to our first parents in their primitive condition of innocence, and it puts the curse pronounced upon them in a somewhat equivocal light. There is also quite a rehabilitation of the "serpent," who, it seems, knew quite well what he was talking about and gave excellent advice. We wonder whether Mr. Fiske is really of opinion that it helps us to solve any of the practical problems of life to be told that without evil there could not be good. Men have known for centuries that it is good to fight evil, though what evil is essentially they have often been in doubt. Upon the latter point Mr. Fiske does not in the least attempt to enlighten us; and yet it should be rather a more hopeful enterprise to attempt to show us what is specifically evil and ought therefore to be resisted, than to vindicate evil in general as the indispensable condition of good, and something, therefore, which God was justified in making.

The second division of the book deals with The Cosmic Roots of Love and Self-Sacrifice. We can not see that these roots are traced further back than the mother's affection for her offspring. Mother's love is doubtless an old story in the world by now, and perhaps as good a story as earth has to tell; but it seems to us that the "cosmic" character of it is not very apparent. We may believe that it was destined to come in the fullness of time, but this can be said equally of all that exists. "I think it can be shown," says Mr. Fiske, "that the principles of morality have their roots in the deepest foundations of the universe; that the cosmic process is ethical in the profoundest sense; that, in that far-off morning of the world when the stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy, the beauty of self-sacrifice and disinterested love formed the chief burden of the mighty theme." All we can say in regard to this is that Mr. Fiske has _not_ shown it. He has shown just what we all knew before--that love exists in the world, that it antagonizes selfishness, and that human beings are endowed with a moral and religious sense--but he has not made it plain that the meaning of the universe is to be found in these (as we regard them) higher developments. He has himself acknowledged that, on a broad view of the world-wide struggle for life, there are no moral elements to be seen.

Religion, as we hold, is its own justification. There is more of religion in one verse of the Psalms than in all the Theodicies that ever were written. "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God." Here is the whole essence of the matter--the affirmation of the human heart that there is something or some one beyond and above the mesh of circumstance and fact in which our lives are involved; something or some one who authenticates all that is good, and everlastingly condemns what is evil; something or some one to which or to whom the soul gravitates as to nothing else in the universe. When this affirmation is strong, religious life is strong; when it is weak, religious life is weak; should it cease entirely, then religion is dead. The book Mr. Fiske has given us is interesting from first to last--all his books are interesting--but it does not increase our knowledge, nor does it add to our knowledge faith.

GENERAL NOTICES.

The author of _Extemporaneous Oratory for Professional and Amateur Speakers_[28] is himself one of the most effective orators, especially in debate, of the time. He has embodied in this book the results of ripened thought and successful experience gained in a field in which he is a master, for the instruction and help of those who would follow what he regards as the greatest of all arts, including the elements of all--music in the intonations of the voice, and painting and sculpture in the life, attitudes, and expression of the speaker. It is an art, too, which has wielded a more general and important influence than any other, which is almost universal in its appeals, and which any one may at any time find useful, when it will be of great advantage to him to possess the ability "to speak distinctly to the purpose, gracefully, with genuine fire." Extemporaneous oratory concerns the delivery, in form and language suggested by the occasion, "of ideas previously conceived and adopted with more or less fullness and precision, together with such thoughts and feelings as may arise and obtain utterance." It has many advantages over other methods of oratory, all tending to give the speaker greater power over his audience, and particularly in the fact that the extemporizer is at all times ready to expound, defend, illustrate, and enforce his opinions. The extemporaneous speaker must have a full and fluent command of language, and a full store of facts which he may at any time have to bring to bear upon the subject of his address and in the vindication of his opinions. The first place of importance is given to facts of natural science, which are of increasing utility. "To the educated and uneducated alike, natural science is now the most interesting of themes." Next come the facts of history and biography, those of the special branches bearing on the speaker's theme and purpose, and the great general conceptions included in the thoughts of the learned; and he must have settled opinions. At the basis of Dr. Buckley's treatment of this art and of his advice to those who would perfect themselves in it is the principle that extemporization is evolution after involution. This advice, in which the various phases of the subject are commented upon under a great variety of aspects, concerns the general preparation for the address, the acquisition of effective command of language, the exercise and training of the voice, the intellectual and physical elements that enter into oratory, its accessories, and the factor of the audience--all plainly and practically presented, with a facility of style that makes the reading of the book a pleasure.

[Footnote 28: Extemporaneous Oratory for Professional and Amateur
Speakers. By James M. Buckley. New York: Eaton & Mains. Pp. 480.
Price, $1.50.]

Readers of the Popular Science Monthly have already had an opportunity of perusing some of the narrative and observations which Professor _Heilprin_ has embodied in his _Alaska and the Klondike_.[29] In it he has attempted to portray that remarkable region in its true aspects. Professor Heilprin is well able to do so, for he is a keen observer and looks with a scientific eye, and his literary style is free and graphic. He made a summer journey to the region last year (1898), between the end of July and the middle of October, with the object of being "able to determine between fact and fancy, and to obtain a personal knowledge of the region and its varied conditions." What he saw and heard is here presented. While by no means pretending to that degree of accuracy and of proper insight which can only come with more protracted and intimate knowledge, the author believes that he has given a careful and unprejudiced account. Persons whose ideas of the regions about Dawson are associated with visions of arctic severity and sterility may be a little surprised at reading of one's looking from the heights about the town northwestward "over a most lovely stretch of river, with hillsides closely besetting it, and with a vegetation of most striking brilliancy and vigor," and of the eye turned southward, losing, in consequence of the different configuration of the ground, "all but the beautiful verdant slopes which still mark out the valley"; of the beholder being able for hours at a time to sit watching the beauty of the landscape; and of the difficulty of recommending to one endowed with a proper appreciation for the works of quiet Nature "a more enjoyable exercise than to take in a bit of this wonderful land of the North, and with it a mellow sunshine that is not to be found elsewhere." These pretty landscape pictures of the arctic summer are followed by accounts of society at the Klondike as the author found it, of the trail, steamboat travel, and the routes to the region; a description of the placers, their occurrence, and the methods of mining; observations on the physical history and geology of the gold fields; and a summary of the laws regulating mining. In the summary of his geological discussion the author expresses the opinion that it seems probable that "the Klondike gold region is merely a fractional part of a discontinuously continuous auriferous tract that extends in a westerly course into the heart of Alaska, and southward into British Columbia."

[Footnote 29: Alaska and the Klondike. A Journey to the New
Eldorado. With Hints to the Traveler and Observations on the
Physical History and Geology of the Gold Regions, the Conditions
and Methods of working the Klondike Placers, and the Laws
governing and regulating Mining in the Northwest Territory of
Canada. By Angelo Heilprin. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp.
315. Price, $1.75.]

_Mr. Bullen's Idylls of the Sea_[30] comprises three groups of essays, each group being marked by distinct characteristics. The sketches in the first group, the designation of which gives the name to the book, answer approximately well to Mr. Strachey's estimation of the whole as "some of the most vivid things ever written about the sea," such as only a man who really knows the sea in all its humors, and "has heard all those multitudinous voices that echo along the waste spaces of the deep," could write. There is something weird about them, and they have the air of mystery and superstitious awe with which, according to tradition, the sailor regards the imperfectly understood features of the sea. They are short stories of curious or striking incidents of sea life. The essays of the second group are real natural-history sketches--accounts of some oceanic birds, the kraken, sharks, the devilfish, etc., by a man who is well and scientifically acquainted with them. The third group includes longer sketches of sea-farers' life, rather more actual ones than those of the first group, and papers having a critical bearing on the present conditions of British seamanship.

[Footnote 30: Idylls of the Sea. By Frank T. Bullen. With an
Introduction by J. St. Loe Strachey. New York: D. Appleton and
Company. Price, $1.25.]

The constant advance in the knowledge of dietetics makes it desirable that its results should be put in an accessible form, and this is particularly the case in regard to food for those in ill health, to whom it may be the means of restoring the normal condition. In her book on _Diet in Illness and Convalescence_[31] the author has endeavored to present the substance of Diet for the Sick, now out of print, together with recent thought on the subject, especially in the treatment of typhoid and malarial fevers, which we owe in such variety to the present war. An outline is given for suitable food in the more common forms of disease, suggestions for serving meals tastefully to an invalid, and numerous recipes for beverages, soups, dishes of meats, vegetables, and desserts. Some of these are taken from English and French treatises; others are contributions of American cooks, and include many novel and excellent ideas. From the preparation of koumiss and May wine to the manipulation of Dixie biscuit there is no want of explicitness, and one is tempted to covet the state of convalescence in which he could fare upon such attractive compounds as rose, violet, or amethyst jelly. A word of caution is inserted now and then. We are told "a fritter of any kind should never be mentioned in an invalid's book." Macaroni croquettes and soufflé of shad roe are, however, admissible. The beginning of the volume is devoted by the author to a brief consideration of the constituents of food and processes of digestion, with directions for the use of the pancreatic ferments. There are unfortunately many disputed points concerning a fit dietary in illness; not only idiosyncrasies of constitution but incomplete knowledge of physiological chemistry still render the problem difficult. New foods are constantly introduced which subsequent experiment proves to be harmful. The last dictum, we believe, in regard to saccharin is that it is not wholly innocuous, so that it might be as well for the diabetic patient to learn to do without sweets in the beginning, while as for the digestive ferments, they are at the least hazardous concoctions. We can not be too wary of artificial substitutes and laboratory products which claim the virtues of organic material or living protoplasm.

[Footnote 31: Diet in Illness and Convalescence. By Alice
Worthington Winthrop. New York: Harper & Brothers. Pp. 286.]

The reason for the being of _John Munro's The Story of the British Race_[32] is briefly indicated in the preface as to be found in the fact that the current ideas on the subject are derived from the views of historians representing the doctrines of an earlier and less critical generation, while the fact is overlooked that the new science of anthropology, using careful observations and exact methods, has put the real nature of the British people in a light in which it was never seen so clearly before. The result is that the old ideas on the subject have been greatly modified. Mr. Munro believes that his little book is the first attempt to bring these important results and views of modern anthropologists before the general public in familiar language, whereby the oversights of historians and teachers may be redeemed. An important error to be controverted, in the author's view, lies in the fine-drawn distinctions and sharply defined demarcations that have been made between Celts and Saxons. It is inferred from anthropology that the population of the British Isles is a mixture of all the races of western Europe, in which the Teutonic and Mediterranean elements--"the aborigines of Europe"--predominate, while "the intrusive Celtic race from Asia," still represented by the Bretons, passed into the British Isles in comparatively small numbers. Scotland is perhaps more Teutonic and less Mediterranean than England, Wales, or Ireland. Wales is the least Teutonic and the most Mediterranean, if not Celtic, of the three. England has more of the Dutch and Low Country elements than of the Scandinavian, with apparently not far short of an equal share of the Mediterranean and Teutonic elements. Ireland is perhaps as Teutonic as England, though the better fusion of the elements may disguise the fact. The author thinks that the first chapters of English history will have to be written over again by the light of anthropology.

[Footnote 32: The Story of the British Race. (Library of Useful
Stories.) By John Munro. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp.
228. Price, 40 cents.]