Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

The comments relative to the transition of Nova Zembla, Spitzbergen, Franz Josef Land, and possibly Alaska, from land to sea and sea to land, are of marked interest, indicating as they do that large areas of polar regions were exposed in the mesozoic period to repeated and very considerable oscillations of the sea level.

The more interesting of the Jurassic fossils, found at Cape Flora, are shown in the accompanying illustration. _Cadocera Nanseni_ (n. sp.), 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. _Cadoceras_, sp. ex. aff. _Cad. Nanseni_ (n. sp.), 4. _Cadoceras Tchefkini_, d’Orb, 7. _Cadoceras_, sp. indet., 8. _Quenstedoceras vertumnum_, Sintzow, 9. _Cadoceras Frearsi_, d’Orb, 10. _Macrocephalites_, 11. _Macrocephalites Koettlitzi_, n. sp., 12.

The collections of fossil plants, made by Nansen in Franz Josef Land through the courtesy of the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition, are of scientific value as indicating the fossil Jurassic flora of Franz Josef Land as compared with that of Spitzbergen. These collections fill in a not inconsiderable gap in the Arctic regions, and Nathorst’s investigations serve to confirm the opinions and statements made by Professor Heer, whose five volumes of Flora Fossilis Arctica constitute a monumental work. As is well known, research has established the fact that at one time Spitzbergen was covered with a luxuriant miocene vegetation--cypresses, birches, sequoiæ, oaks and planes. It moreover appears that this growth was coincident with the period when Spitzbergen, Greenland, Franz Josef Land and Nova Zembla experienced a continental climate.

As fossil collections accumulate, one appreciates more and more the masterly manner in which Heer summed up the results of polar exploration as regards Arctic vegetable paleontology. He was the first to present to the world a clear idea of the vegetation of the Cretaceous land, scarcely known to science until elucidated by him. It developed that in Heer’s time, among the fossil plants found in Spitzbergen alone were 7 ginkos, 8 pines, a short bamboo, 7 poplars, 3 maples and a fossil strawberry.

Dr. Nansen was fortunate in securing the co-operation of Prof. A. G. Nathorst in the examination of the fossil plants collected in Franz Josef Land, as he has devoted much time to the flora, present and past, of various portions of the Arctic regions, especially Spitzbergen and King Charles Land. Nathorst had the advantage of the notes of Newton, J. H. Steele and R. Curtis on the fossils of Franz Josef Land, published in the Quarterly Journal of Geological Science, London, vols. 53-54, 1897-1898.

Most unfortunately, the fossils were very fragmentary, the leaves in themselves small and often indistinguishable in color from the rock, so that their examination was made almost entirely under the magnifying lens. While the organic substance of the plants was sometimes still to be seen in a soft, brownish variety of rock, yet the harder yellowish varieties offered only impressions, or cavities, their organic substance having entirely disappeared. In cross fractures there were sometimes cavities which were complete transverse sections of coniferous leaves.

There were twenty-nine species, of which the entire number are coniferous except one fungus, one fern, two palms and one uncertain.

Nathorst says: “The plant-bearing strata of Franz Josef Land, which are yet known to us, all belong, with the exception of those from Cook’s Rock and Cape Stephen, the age of which is still uncertain, to the upper Jurassic, or the transition beds to the cretaceous, while as yet no tertiary strata have been discovered.”

In geological age, while the Franz Josef flora resembles most the previously known Jurassic floras of Siberia and Spitzbergen, yet Nathorst considers the geological age different, and naturally places it between the two, it being evidently younger than that of Siberia.

It is interesting to note that Doctor Koettlitz found in an isolated basalt nunatak (rock or hill protruding from a glacier) fossil plants similar to those found by himself and Nansen on the north side of Cape Flora. These nunatak plants, which Koettlitz believed to be _in situ_, are identified by Nathorst as Upper Jurassic, and came from an elevation variously estimated as from six hundred to seven hundred and fifty feet above the sea.

Nansen agrees with Koettlitz in believing that tree-trunks found by them, charred into charcoal or partly silicified, chiefly belonged to conifers growing on the soil over which basalt flows were discharged during the Upper Jurassic or Lower Cretaceous age, and that they have been charred by a flowing mass of lava that overwhelmed them.

These fossil plants tell the story of tremendous physical changes which have produced very important modifications in climatic conditions in the Arctic regions. The changes in the types of vegetable life are apparently as extensive in high as in low latitudes. The lower cretaceous flora is almost tropical, as is shown by the predominating forms of this vegetation. Carboniferous formations obtain extensively in the Arctic regions, as they occur in the Parry Archipelago, Spitzbergen and in Siberia. During the carboniferous age there was a great extent of land near the North Pole closely resembling that of the temperate latitude of the same period, as is shown by the small number of fossil plants that are peculiar to the Arctic regions. In the tertiary period miocene flora flourished in Spitzbergen, where even the lime, the juniper and poplars have been found near latitude 79 N. Then also throve sequoias, which closely resemble trees growing in the southern part of the United States. The miocene flora gives evidence of a very great contrast between the climatic conditions at that epoch between Europe and the Arctic regions.

The cretaceous flora throws important light on the changes of climate in the Arctic regions, and, as has been pointed out, the tropical forms predominate in the vegetation of the Lower Cretaceous flora. Heer’s prediction that the plants found on the west coast of Spitzbergen would also be found on the East Greenland coast has been fully verified. Miocene plants have been found from Spitzbergen westward through Iceland and Greenland to Banks Land and in the Parry Archipelago, and it is interesting to note that more than one fourth of the Arctic plants are common to the miocene of Europe; in Greenland and on McKenzie the percentage is nearly one half.

In all probability, the paper which is of the highest popular interest is the account of the birds by Robert Collet and Dr. Nansen. The full notes regarding Arctic birds testify fully to the fact that the observers had in view the principal points of ornithological importance. These comprise not only a mere record of the presence or absence of certain species, but also additional observations regarding them in their Arctic habitat.

Certainly the reproach can not be brought against the expedition of the _Fram_, which has obtained in the case of many Arctic expeditions, that it has added nothing to ornithological Arctic data.

The account of the birds, prepared by Mr. Robert Collet, has been compiled from the various journals of the expeditionary force, supplemented by verbal comments of Nansen. The memoir contains such specific data as enable students to determine not only the general character of the avifauna as one moves northward in the Siberian ocean, but also the arrival and departure of the migrants and the presence of stragglers. Among the birds of special interest which were observed are the gray plover, the gray phalarope, the sabine gull and the cuneate or Ross’s gull.

One of the greatest authorities on Arctic birds, Prof. Alfred Newton, of the University of Cambridge, has well said that in consideration of the avifauna of any country its peculiarities can be determined only by dismissing accidental stragglers from the discussion. In elucidating the great question of geographical distribution, one must confine himself to either the birds that breed therein, or to those species which regularly frequent it for a considerable portion of the year.

Considering the enormous area covered by the _Fram_ expedition and its great diversity of physical conditions of sea and land, it was impossible to treat under a single heading the birds observed.

Mr. Collet has, therefore, been wise in dividing his notes into four sections, covering the Asiatic coast, the Siberian ocean, the sledge journey to Franz Josef Land, and the Arctic Ocean to the north of Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen. But for this division, confusion would have resulted from combining birds of regions so widely extended in longitude and latitude.

The notes show conclusively what might have been anticipated, that the avifauna of the Siberian Sea, and especially that portion of the Arctic Ocean to the north of Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen, is strictly limited.

Including the species observed during the entire voyage, there are only thirty-three recorded. Only twenty-one species pertain to the Arctic Ocean, whether as regular migrants or stragglers, after excluding the twelve species which were observed near the Asiatic coast. The presence on the shores of the Siberian Sea of some of these twelve, however, is of ornithological interest. There may be specially mentioned the gray goose (_Anser segetum_), long-tailed duck (_Harelda glacialis_), silver gull (_Larus argentatus_), snowy owl (_Nyctea scandiaca_), gray plover (_Squatarola helvetica_) and the red-necked phalarope (_Phalaropus hyperboreous_).

Confining ourselves to birds observed to the north of 81° 30, attention is called to the abundant avifauna of the western as compared with the eastern hemisphere. In Kennedy Channel, Grinnell Land, there have been recorded no less than thirty-two species against twenty-one noted by the _Fram_ in this voyage, including those seen in Franz Josef Land. This is not surprising, however, when it is considered that the drift of the _Fram_ was across a deep ocean of large extent, which is covered perpetually by an unbroken ice-pack, unrelieved by any view of land until the north coast of Spitzbergen was seen.

Omitting the birds observed in Franz Josef Land, the paucity of species frequenting the great western Arctic Ocean is even more apparent. The striking dissimilarity of the four regions traversed by the _Fram_ is plainly evident from the bird-life recorded. While there were observed nine species in the Siberian Sea, fifteen in the Franz Josef Archipelago, eighteen in the Arctic Ocean and twenty-three on the Asiatic coast, yet only five were common to all four regions, viz.: the dovekie, the glaucous gull, the ivory gull, the kittiwake and the snow-bird.

The Siberian Sea presented a most limited avifauna, as in addition to the five common species, there were recorded in the first summer in the ice only the little auk, the fulmar, the roseate gull and a small skua. The entire absence of land or shore birds that frequent Arctic islands, omitting a single straggling snow-bird, indicates clearly that the Siberian Sea extends far northward unbroken by any land area.

The eighteen species of birds that were found in the Arctic Ocean, far to the north, naturally demand special comment. The six following species are doubtless stragglers: the ringed plover (_Aegialitis hiaticula_), 82° 59′ N., the most northerly shore-bird of Spitzbergen, Nordenskiold having observed it on Seven islands, 80° 45′ N.; the eider duck (_Somateria mollissima_), 82° 55′ N., near Spitzbergen; the arctic tern (_Sterna macrura_), 84° 32′ N.; the puffin (_Fratercula arctica glacialis_), 83° 11′ N., near Spitzbergen; the black-backed gull (_Larus marinus_), 84° 35′ N. 75° E., and the Sabine gull (_Xema Sabini_), 83° N., near Spitzbergen.

Of other species, the roseate gull (_Rhodostethia rosea_), 84° 41′ N., disappeared as the _Fram_ drifted west from the longitude of Franz Josef Land, to be replaced as Spitzbergen was neared by a wader (_Crymophilus fulicarius_), 83° 01′ N.; forked-tailed skuas (_Stercorarius pomatorhinus_), 82° 57′ N., and Bruennich’s guillemot (_Uria lomvia_), 83° 11′ N. The glaucous gull (_Larus glaucus_), 84° 48′ N., and long-tailed skua (_Stercorarius longicaudus_), 84° 47′ N., although seen both summers, were quite infrequent. These data indicate absence of land at any near distance to the north, and disclose the interesting fact that only the six following species, including the snow-bird who is more probably a straggler, can be classed as regular summer migrants to the vast ice-fields which cover the Arctic Ocean to the north of Spitzbergen and Franz Josef Land.

The little auk (_Alle alle_), 84° 48′ N., was visible almost daily near the 83d parallel in great numbers during the summer season, wherever there were numerous water channels near the _Fram_. Of 40 birds killed at one time, only ten were females.

The dovekie (_Cepphus mandti_), 84° 32′ N., with the little auk, was the most numerous of all birds in very high latitudes, and nearly 150 were shot for the table. Out of 40 specimens only 14 were males. The dovekie came early, May 13, 1896.

The ivory gull (_Pagophila eburnea_) is also present the entire summer. It was the first visitor in 1895, when on May 14 it was seen in 84° 38′ N., and what is of special interest, was flying from the north-northeast.

The snow bunting (_Plectrophenax nivalis_), although a land-bird, was seen both summers at somewhat infrequent intervals, as far as 84° 45′ N. They fed on refuse near the ships, but were also seen near water-holes, and appeared to be feeding on crustaceans. Two of three specimens were males. The first specimen in 1895 visited the _Fram_ on May 22 in 84° 40′ N., and then flew towards the north. In 1896 it appeared on April 25, the first bird of the year, in 84° 17′ N.

The kittiwake (_Rissa tridactyla_) was much less numerous than the ivory gull. It was seen in 82° 54′ N. They fed, as a rule, on crustaceans, although in one bird were found parts of a _Gadus saida_ about 70 mm. in length. A _Gadus_ about 120 mm. in length was observed on July 16, 1895, in 84° 42′ N., the most northerly point at which any fish has been found.

The fulmar (_Fulmarus glacialis_) came early in 1895, on May 13, and in 1896 on May 22. This bold, voracious bird fed on crustaceans usually, and owing to its villainous smell was utilized principally as food for dogs. The last bird of 1895, a fulmar, was seen on September 14, when the _Fram_ was in 85° 05′ N., 79° E. This is the most northern latitude in which any bird has ever been observed.

The fulmars and ivory gulls were very bold and noisy, the latter being specially objectionable. Ivory gulls were seen at the winter hut in Franz Josef Land until October, when all water had long been frozen over, and appeared again as early as March 12, 1896.

The first roseate gulls were young birds observed August 3, 1894, in 81° 05′ N., 120° E., about 500 kilometres from the nearest land. A long and interesting description is given of these gulls in various stages. One of the beautiful plates, which is imperfectly reproduced, shows the plumage of a very young gull about a month old. Their food consists exclusively of small fish and crustaceans, of the latter the _Hymenodora glacialis_ predominating. Large numbers of these beautiful gulls were seen in 1895 to the northeast of Franz Josef Land, which points to their breeding in that locality. One was seen by Nansen on July 11, 1895, in 82° 08′ N., flying from the northeast.

The very full memoir on _Crustacea_ is by Dr. G. O. Sars, well known as one of the editorial committee of the scientific work of the Norwegian North Atlantic Expedition. As the greater number of marine vertebrate animals collected by the Norwegian North Polar Expedition belong to the _Crustacea_, this memoir covers the greater part of the marine collection.

The _Copepoda_ are predominant, especially those belonging to the _Calanoid_ group, having been taken at nearly every haul along the whole route of the _Fram_. The zoölogical equipment of the _Fram_ was based unfortunately on the supposition that the Siberian basin was shallow, so that the enormous oceanic depths which were found were only inadequately explored by an extemporized sounding apparatus.

While the results of the dredging operations indicate that there was very little animal life at the bottom of the ocean, on the other hand, it appears that the entire surface of the sea, which consisted usually of small temporary openings in the ice-pack, was covered with abundant life throughout the entire year even to the most northern latitudes.

Including surface and deep-sea specimens, there were taken on October 12, 1895, no less than eleven species in latitude 85° 13′ N., longitude 79° E. On June 28, 1895, in 84° 32′ N., 76° E., there were taken from the surface by tow net in a large water-channel fourteen species. This indicates abundant marine life in the sea immediately near the North Pole.

The pelagic animals, therefore, were not found at the sea surface alone, but were also drawn from considerable depths. Many specimens were obtained from strata at least 250 metres below the surface, and in a number of instances from depths ranging between 500 and 1,000 metres. It is to be added that the imperfect development of the visual organs of the peculiar amphipod, _Cyclocaris Guilelmi_, Chevreux, points to abyssal habits, as similar conditions do in the cases of other pelagic animals.

In general pelagic fauna in the Polar Sea resembles that of the northern Atlantic basin, the greater number of species being common to both. While several heretofore unknown forms collected by this expedition may be peculiar to the polar basin, yet it is not improbable that these forms also occur in the North Atlantic. This appears probable, since the western part of the _Fram’s_ route lies on the border of the two basins, where the fauna does not differ essentially from that in the eastern part.

While the pelagic fauna of the Polar Sea, even in the lowest depths, resembles that of the Atlantic basin, the great salinity of its water clearly indicates that it comes from the North Atlantic, and it is therefore more than probable that the migration of pelagic animals to the North Polar Sea is also from the west.

Indeed, Doctor Sars is of the opinion that the greater part of the pelagic life of the north-polar basin comes by the underlying easterly current from the North Atlantic. On the other hand, it is evident that the westerly-flowing surface current of the Siberian Sea is of vital importance as a means of supplying nourishment to the marine animals of the western Arctic Ocean. This food supply, microscopic algæ chiefly _Diatomeae_, while very abundant on the surface of the Siberian Sea, diminishes gradually towards the west. “Indeed,” says Sars, “without such a constant conveyance of nourishing matter, there could be no such rich animal life in the Polar Sea.”

A very remarkable fact was the presence of certain pelagic _Copepoda_, which hitherto had only been observed in southern waters, and a _Calanoid_ of the genus _Hemicalanus_ Claus, previously known only from the Mediterranean and tropical parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Two species of the genus _Oncoea_, which accord perfectly with species in the Bay of Naples, were found in great abundance north of the New Siberian Islands. Another copepod, of the genus _Lubbockia_ Claus, heretofore only known in the Mediterranean and tropical oceans, was found in the same locality, with which was a small perfectly hyaline copepod of the very remarkable genus _Mormonilla_, of which heretofore only two species have been recorded, both in the tropical Pacific and south of the equator.

Perhaps the most remarkable forms are those mentioned by Doctor Sars, when he says: “The very close and apparently genetic relationship between the two polar species of the amphipodous genus _Pseudalibrotos_ and those occurring in the Caspian Sea, is another remarkable instance which seems fully to corroborate the correctness of the assumption of geologists as to a direct connexion in olden times between this isolated basin and the North Polar Sea.”

Both species, taken near 85° N., are regarded as the primitive types from which the Caspian forms are descended. The more remarkable of the Arctic forms, _P. Nanseni_, is reproduced on page 430.

To conclude, this volume is a most valuable contribution to the scientific literature of the Arctic regions. It has but one marked objection, its publication in such beautiful form and high price as necessarily places this series beyond the means of many scientific students.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE.

_LEGISLATION AGAINST MEDICAL DISCOVERY._[P]

[P] An open letter from President Eliot of Harvard University
to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on the District of
Columbia.

DEAR SIR: I observe that a new bill on the subject of vivisection has been introduced into the Senate, Bill No. 34. This bill is a slight improvement on its predecessor, but it is still very objectionable. I beg leave to state very briefly the objection to all such legislation.

1. To interfere with or retard the progress of medical discovery is an inhuman thing. Within fifteen years medical research has made rapid progress, almost exclusively through the use of the lower animals, and what such research has done for the diagnosis and treatment of diphtheria it can probably do in time for tuberculosis, erysipelis, cerebro-spinal meningitis and cancer, to name only four horrible scourges of mankind which are known to be of germ origin.

2. The human race makes use of animals without the smallest compunctions as articles of food and as laborers. It kills them, confines them, gelds them and interferes in all manner of ways with their natural lives. The liberty we take with the animal creation in using utterly insignificant numbers of them for scientific researches is infinitesimal compared with the other liberties we take with animals, and it is that use of animals from which the human race has most to hope.

3. The few medical investigators can not, probably, be supervised or inspected or controlled by any of the ordinary processes of Government supervision. Neither can they properly be licensed, because there is no competent supervising or licensing body. The Government may properly license a plumber, because it can provide the proper examination boards for plumbers; it can properly license young men to practice medicine, because it can provide the proper examination boards for that profession, and these boards can testify to the fitness of candidates; but the Government cannot provide any board of officials competent to testify to the fitness of the medical investigator.

4. The advocates of anti-vivisection laws consider themselves more humane and merciful than the opponents of such laws. To my thinking these unthinking advocates are really cruel to their own race. How many cats or guinea pigs would you or I sacrifice to save the life of our child or to win a chance of saving the life of our child? The diphtheria-antitoxin has already saved the lives of many thousands of human beings, yet it is produced through a moderate amount of inconvenience and suffering inflicted on horses and through the sacrifice of a moderate number of guinea pigs. Who are the merciful people--the few physicians who superintend the making of the antitoxin and make sure of its quality, or the people who cry out against the infliction of any suffering on animals on behalf of mankind?

It is, of course, possible to legislate against an improper use of vivisection. For instance, it should not be allowed in secondary schools or before college classes for purposes of demonstration only; but any attempt to interfere with the necessary processes of medical investigation is, in my judgment, in the highest degree inexpedient, and is fundamentally inhuman.

Yours very truly,
C. W. ELIOT.

HON. JAMES MCMILLAN.

_THE HIGHER EDUCATION FOR COLORED YOUTH._

Prof. Shaler’s article in the June number of the POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY was in many ways sensible and timely, but it seems to the writer that in common with many other people he is misleading in his remarks about higher education for the negro. One would think from the great outcry against the higher education for young people of the colored race, that scarcely any other kind of education was being given them. On all sides we hear the familiar refrain: “The higher education for the negro has been a failure.” Now success is a relative term. If a mere handful of colored college graduates, in a few years, ought to have settled the race problem, and induced their white fellow-citizens to treat these graduates and all members of their race fairly, then it has been a failure. But if the higher education should simply give added power of mind, enlarge the mental grasp and capacity for usefulness, lift up, socially, morally, religiously and financially, not only its disciples, but also thousands who have been induced to look upward by the force of their example, then the higher education for colored youth has been a tremendous success. Is not the latter the fair test? Of course the higher education of the few has not eliminated crime. It has not done that for the white race. The writer is a colored man and a college graduate. He can not see that the higher education has any different effect on the colored youth from what it has on the white. If there be any difference it is this: It raises the colored youth from a lower social level, as a rule, and places him on a social plane, relatively, among his own people, higher than it does in the case of the white youth. The higher training, therefore, should be more valuable to the colored youth.

In a recent address before a graduating class at Howard University, the Hon. W. T. Harris, Commissioner of Education, submitted statistics which showed that the proportionate number of secondary and higher students to the whole number of children attending school in the United States had increased from 2.22 per cent in 1879 to 5.01 per cent in 1897, nearly two and a half times; while the proportion of colored students in secondary schools and colleges had increased very little indeed, from 1 per cent to only 1.16 per cent. But the story is not yet half told. According to the report of the Commissioner of Education, 1897-98, Vol. 2, page 2,097, the total number of students taking the higher education in the United States, as a whole, was 144,477, being 1,980 to each million of the total population. The same report, page 2,480, gives the total number of colored students pursuing collegiate courses in these much discussed colored colleges as 2,492. This is only 310 to the million of colored population, whereas the whole of the United States, as shown above, had 1,980 to the million, nearly six and a half times as many in proportion to population. This does not look as if the entire colored population were rapidly stampeding to the higher education, or as if the labor supply in the Southern States were falling off from this cause.

This is an age of higher education for the masses. The increase in the number of students taking the secondary and higher education in the United States during the last ten years has been phenomenal--unprecedented. Is the person of color so much superior to the white that he does not need so much educational training? I think not. In view of the history and present condition of this race, there is an obvious necessity for a large number of educated and trained teachers, ministers, physicians, lawyers and pharmacists; and in view of the fact that this race has only one fifth of its quota pursuing studies above the elementary grades, what fair mind will not say that there is great need of more of the secondary and higher education for colored youth, instead of less of it?

According to the report above cited, 161 academies and colleges for colored youth in the United States reported. The total number enrolled was 42,328, of which 2,492 were reported in collegiate grades, 13,669 in secondary grades and 26,167 in elementary grades. Even in these colored colleges less than 6 per cent of the students are pursuing collegiate courses. Of these, perhaps not more than 2 per cent are pursuing a college course equal to that offered at Howard. Nearly two thirds of the total enrollment in these colored colleges are receiving elementary instruction in the three R’s. Classified by courses of study, 1,711--217 in a million--were taking the classical course; 1,200--150 in a million--the scientific; 4,449--555 to the million--the normal course in preparation for teaching; 1,285--160 in a million--professional courses; 9,724 the English course, and 244 the business course. In each of these courses the colored race has only about one fifth or one sixth of its quota. Is there anything in these figures to alarm the nation?

About one third of the total number of students in these 161 colored schools and colleges are taking industrial training. When we consider the great demand for educated colored ministers, teachers and physicians, and the quick reward for ability in these lines, on the one hand, and the exclusiveness of some trade-unions in shutting out colored workmen, on the other, the wonder is that one third of the total number of colored youth in these schools have chosen the industrial course. For it is by no means certain that they will be allowed to work at their trades after they have learned them.

The number of colored students who have had even a smattering of the higher education has been shown to be ridiculously small, and the total number of colored graduates with the college degree proper does not at the most liberal estimate exceed one thousand. Many of them are dead. Of the number now living, almost every one can be located in some useful and uplifting employment as ministers, teachers, physicians, lawyers, business men, or as wives presiding over happy, prosperous, cultured homes which white persons seldom enter except on business. Our critics seem to know nothing of these homes, which, as a rule, are owned by their occupants. For the most part these homes are scattered throughout the South, and are centers of culture and refinement that elevate the moral and social status of the entire community.

To deprive the youth of the colored race of the higher education is to deprive them of all the nobler incentives to study, to sacrifice, to struggle to get an education. Every thoughtful person knows that these incentives are necessary for the white race; they are equally necessary for the colored race. Neither the white youth nor the colored, in large numbers, will toil and struggle and apply himself to get an education, unless he sees that education brings power and a better living to its possessors.

The colored race, like every other part of our population, needs all kinds of education. It is a sheer fallacy and a grievous wrong to them to hold _all_ of them down to the rudiments of an education, with industrial training. All can not profit by the industrial training any more than all can profit by the higher training. There is no conflict between the advocates of industrial training and the higher education. Both are right. Both are good in their respective spheres. At any rate, it is not necessary to disparage the magnificent achievements of colored persons who have received the higher training to make an argument in favor of training _all_ of them in the manual trades, or to justify their elimination from politics.

ANDREW F. HILGER,
_Washington, D. C._

SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.

_GEOLOGY._

In accordance with the general results of Mr. G. K. Gilbert’s investigation of recent earth movements in the Great Lakes region--that the whole district is being lifted on one side or depressed on the other, so that its plane is bodily canted toward the south-southwest, and that the rate of change is such that the two ends of a line one hundred miles long, running in a south-southwest direction, are relatively displaced four tenths of a foot in one hundred years--certain general consequences ensue. The waters of each lake are gradually rising on the southern and western shores, or falling on the northern and eastern shores, or both. This change is not directly obvious, because masked by temporary changes due to inequalities of rainfall and evaporation and various other causes, but it affects the mean height of the lake surface. In Lake Ontario the water is advancing on all shores, the rate at any place being proportional to its distance from the isobase through the outlet. At Hamilton and Port Dalhousie it amounts to six inches in a century. The water also advances on all shores of Lake Erie, most rapidly at Toledo and Sandusky, where the change is eight or nine inches a century. All about Lake Huron the water is falling, most rapidly at the north and northeast; at Mackinac the rate is six inches, and at the mouth of French River ten inches a century. On Lake Superior the isobase of the outlet cuts the shore at the international boundary; the water is advancing on the American shore, and sinking on the Canadian. At Duluth the advance is six inches, and at Huron Bay the recession is five inches a century. The shores of Lake Michigan are divided by the Port Huron isobase. North of Oconto and Manistee the water is falling; south of these places it is rising, the rate at Milwaukee being five or six inches a century, and at Chicago nine or ten inches. Eventually, unless a dam is erected to prevent it, Lake Michigan will again overflow to the Illinois River, its discharge occupying the channel carved by the outlet of a Pleistocene glacial lake. The summit in that channel is now about eight feet above the mean level of the lake, and the time before it will be overtopped may be computed. For the mean lake stage such discharge will begin in about one thousand years, and after fifteen hundred years there will be no interruption. In about two thousand years the Illinois River and the Niagara will carry equal portions of the surplus water of the Great Lakes. In twenty-five hundred years the discharge of the Niagara will be intermittent, failing at low stages of the lake, and in thirty-five hundred years there will be no Niagara. The basin of Lake Erie will then be tributary to Lake Huron, the current being reversed in the Detroit and St. Clair channels.

_GEOGRAPHY._

Relating to the Royal Geographical Society the story of his exploration of the Bolivian Andes, Sir Martin Conway spoke of his journey by way of the Arequipa Railroad, Peru, to Lake Titicaca. That remarkable sheet of water is fourteen times the size of the Lake of Geneva and twelve thousand feet above the sea, and might be regarded as the remnant of a far greater inland sea, now shrunk away. Driving from Chililaya, he reached the snowy mountain called the Cordillera Real--the backbone of Bolivia--which he had come especially to visit, and in the region of which he spent four months. To the east the mountains fell very rapidly to a low hill country and the fertile valleys that send their waters to the river Beni. On the other side lay a high plateau, at a uniform altitude of from twelve thousand to thirteen thousand feet, from which the tops of low rocky hills here and there emerged. This plateau had obviously been at one time submerged; evidence was plentiful that in ancient times the glaciers enveloped a large part of the slopes that led down to it from the main Cordilleras and reached down many miles farther than now. In the immense pile of _débris_ left by the glaciers deep valleys were afterward cut by the action of water, and into these valleys the glaciers of a second period of advance protruded their snouts, depositing moraines that could still be traced _in situ_ as much as four or five miles below the present limit of the ice. Contrary to the apparently general impression that the peaks of the Cordilleras were volcanic, the author had not been able to find any trace of volcanic action along the axis of the range. The Cordillera Real had been elevated by a great earth movement, and the heart of the range consisted of granites, schists and similar rocks. The whole range might be described as highly mineralized. Gold was found at several points, but the chief auriferous valleys were those on the east side of the range. Just below the snowy mass of Cacaaca on the west was a really enormous vein of tin; and antimony, cobalt and platinum have been found in different parts. The great copper deposits were not in this range, but farther west. The flora of the high regions of the Cordillera Real was apparently sparse, but is probably more abundant in the rainy season. Bird life was more prolific and birds were numerous, at suitable places, up to an altitude of seventeen thousand feet above the sea.

_ZOOLOGY._

The most recent elementary text-book in zoölogy is from the press of The Macmillan Co. Professor and Mrs. Charles B. Davenport are the joint authors. It is recognized now-a-days that what the general high school or elementary student in zoölogy needs is not professional training in that subject, but rather an opportunity to view the field so that he may have as wide an acquaintance as may be of the forms of animals and of their doings. This he needs that he may have an interest in the things of nature and that he may be a more intelligent member of society in the things pertaining to his welfare as affected by animals. The book is therefore an attempt to restore the old natural history in a newer garb. The text is divided into twenty-one chapters. The first of these deals with ‘The Grasshopper and its Allies,’ followed by others upon the butterfly, beetle, fly, spider, etc., similarly treated. Each chapter has one or two ‘keys’--that is, arrangements whereby the families of animals may be determined. The book is richly illustrated by means of half-tone and line reproduction; a number of photographs are from life, and one of these is a flash-light photograph of a slug and an earthworm crawling upon a pavement at night! Outlines for simple laboratory work and a list of books dealing with the classification and habits of American animals are to be found in an appendix. Many good things might be said of this contribution to zoölogical text-books. This ought to be said, that it will be a book which will be of value to any person who, while upon his holiday trip, wishes to learn about the animals he may come across.

_ORNITHOLOGY._

Mr. Chapman is equally at home with camera or pen. In ‘Bird Studies with a Camera, with Introductory Chapters on the Outfit and Methods of the Bird Photographer,’ he gives us some of his many experiences from Central Park to the swamps of Florida and the bare rocks of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The first two chapters are devoted to a brief discussion of the outfit and methods of the bird photographer, and these any one thinking of taking up this branch of art will do well to read carefully. Mr. Chapman considers that a 4×5 plate is the size best adapted for general purposes, and notes that while a lens with short focus may serve for photographing nests and eggs, for the birds themselves a rapid lens with focus of fourteen to eighteen inches should be used. The rest of the book is for the general reader, and contains many facts of interest concerning the haunts, habits, and home life of a number of birds from the well-known sparrow to the unfamiliar pelican, the accounts of the Bird Rock and Pelican Island being the most interesting. Some of the illustrations are a little disappointing, and emphasize the difficulties of photographing wild birds, but there is ample compensation for these in the excellence of others, particularly those devoted to Percé, Bonaventure and Bird Rock. This is equally true of birds and scenery, the views of Percé Rock being the finest that have fallen under our notice. Mr. Chapman’s estimate of the feathered population of Great Bird Rock, which he puts at 4,000, is by far the smallest yet made, and probably has the soundest basis, and shows a sad diminution from the hosts of fifty years ago.

* * * * *

‘Bird Homes,’ by A. Radclyffe Dugmore, seems well adapted for its stated purpose of stimulating the love of birds, helping the ordinary unscientific person to get some closer glimpses of them, and aiding in the study of their wonderfully adapted nests and beautiful eggs. Furthermore, it will probably create a strong desire in the reader to become a photographer of birds and their nests. To further these aims we have a first part containing half-a-dozen chapters devoted among other things to birds’ nests and eggs, photographing nests and young birds and the approximate dates when birds begin to nest, this being adapted to the vicinity of New York.

Following this is the bulk of the volume, containing brief descriptions of the birds, their nests, nesting places and eggs, and here the author has confessedly borrowed from Bendire, Davie and other well-known authorities, although one might wish that Mr. Dugmore had introduced more of his own observations, since those given incidentally in the first part are very interesting; where he indulges in theory he is less successful. In place of the usual method of studying the nest from the bird, we have that of studying the bird from the nest, and for this purpose the nests are grouped in classes, a chapter being devoted to each class; thus we have nests open, on the ground in open fields, marshes and generally open country; open nests in trees; nests in bridges, buildings, walls, etc. By this plan any one finding a nest can, with a little care and observation, identify the bird that made it. The illustrations, largely of nests and eggs, are a noteworthy feature of the book, although the three-color process which succeeded so admirably in Dr. Holland’s _Butterfly Book_, is here as equally distinct a failure, the least bad of the colored plates being that showing the nest of the yellow-breasted chat, the worst that of the nest of the Baltimore oriole. Those in black and white, however, merit the highest praise, and this includes the smaller cuts introduced as decorative features in the first portion of the book. It would seem difficult in a half-tone to improve on the plate of young crested flycatchers for clearness of detail, while among others that deserve special mention for artistic effect is the wood thrush on nest, and the nests of the chestnut-sided, yellow, blue-winged and worm-eating warblers. The general ‘get-up’ of the book is excellent, and the printing of the plates separately permits the use of a deadfaced paper for the text, which is pleasant to the eye.

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.

We are able to publish in the present issue of the MONTHLY the address given by Mr. G. K. Gilbert as retiring president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The problem that he discusses is one of the most pressing for scientific workers, while at the same time it is of interest to everyone, and the address is at once an important contribution to the subject and an exposition that all can understand. The mathematical physicists find that as an abode fitted for life the earth can not be allowed a history indefinitely long--not longer perhaps than 20,000,000 years--while the geologists with equally strong arguments claim a much greater antiquity. The biologists are also concerned, owing to the time taken up by the processes of evolution, and their facts and interests range them with the geologists rather than with the physicists. The man not versed in science would also prefer to assign a long history to the earth, for while he may be ready to let the ‘dead past bury its dead,’ he looks forward even to the distant future, and the shorter the past history of the earth the less the time it will continue to be habitable. We have thus a question in the solution of which all the sciences are concerned, and one possessing a dramatic interest that appeals to everyone. The unity of science is well illustrated by such a problem. It was the subject of the address of the retiring president of the Association, a geologist; it might be taken as the subject for the address of the newly elected president, a biologist and student of the processes of evolution; and it is one to which the president of the meeting, a mathematical physicist, has given special attention.

* * * * *

Dr. Robert Simpson Woodward, who presided over the New York meeting of the Association, is professor of mechanics and mathematical physics and dean of the Faculty of Pure Science in Columbia University. He was born at Rochester, Oakland County, Michigan, July 21, 1849, and spent his early life on a farm with the exception of about two years of experience in mercantile and manufacturing pursuits. He was prepared for college at the Rochester Academy, entered the University of Michigan in 1868, and was graduated in 1872 with the degree of C. E. Twenty years later the same institution conferred upon him the degree of Ph. D. While yet an undergraduate he entered the U. S. Lake Survey, and immediately after graduation he was appointed assistant engineer in that service. He was employed in the astronomical and geodetic work of the Lake Survey until its completion in 1882. He then accepted the position of assistant astronomer to the U. S. Transit of Venus Commission and accompanied the expedition of Prof. Asaph Hall, U. S. N., to San Antonio, Tex., to observe the transit of December, 1882. He remained with the Transit of Venus Commission until 1884, when he resigned in order to take the position of astronomer in the U. S. Geological Survey. After four years of service in this bureau he resigned to accept the position of assistant in the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. This he held until 1893, when he retired from the public service and accepted the call of Columbia University to the chair of mechanics. In 1895, and again in 1900, he was elected to the deanship of the graduate faculty of pure science in that institution. Professor Woodward has published many papers on subjects in astronomy, geodesy, mathematics and mechanics. He edited, and contributed several chapters to the final report of the U. S. Lake Survey, a volume of about one thousand quarto pages devoted chiefly to a discussion of the geodetic work of the Survey done during the forty years of its existence. He is the author of several of the Bulletins of the U. S. Geological Survey, and of a memoir on the Iced Bar and Long Tape Base Apparatus of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. These forms of apparatus, devised and perfected by him, involve many novel features and secure a much higher precision at a much smaller cost than apparatus previously used. He prepared for the Smithsonian Institution a volume entitled ‘Geographical Tables,’ being a manual for astronomers, geographers, engineers and cartographers, published in 1894. Several of his most important mathematical papers relate to geophysics, especially those bearing on the secular cooling and cubical contraction of the earth, on the form and position of the sea surface, and on the profoundly difficult problem presented by the recently discovered phenomenon of the variation of terrestrial latitudes. Although most of his publications are necessarily of a highly technical character, his semi-popular addresses and reviews have been widely read and appreciated. Professor Woodward was an associate editor of the ‘Annals of Mathematics’ from 1889 to 1899 and has been an associate editor of ‘Science’ since 1894. He has taken an active part in the work of the scientific societies with which he is connected, and in addition to the official positions he holds in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he has been honored by election to the presidency of the American Mathematical Society and to the presidency of the New York Academy of Sciences. Professor Woodward represents the highest type of the man of science. Eminent for his original contributions to science, a teacher of great intellectual and moral influence, an administrator with unfailing tact and unerring judgment, he confers an honor on the Association which has elected him to its highest office.

* * * * *

President Low welcomed the American Association to New York and to Columbia University in an address which recounted the increased recognition given to science by the city since the Association met there thirteen years ago and the great progress of science itself. He concluded with the following words: “I am especially glad to welcome you because you are an Association for the _Advancement_ of Science. That, after all, is what ought to make you feel at home in the atmosphere of this university; for a university that does not assist the advancement of science has hardly a right to call itself by that great name. I heard Phillips Brooks say, in a sermon that I heard him preach in Boston when this Association met there twenty years ago, that you can get no idea of eternity, by adding century to century or by piling æon upon æon; but that, if you will remember how little you knew when you sat at your mother’s knee to learn the alphabet, and how with every acquisition of knowledge which has marked the intervening years you have come to feel, not how much more you know, but how much more there is to be known, all can get some idea of how long eternity can be, because all can understand that there never can be time enough to enable any one to learn all that there is to know. There is so much to be known, that even the great advances of the last generation do not make us feel that everything is discovered, but they appeal to new aspirations and awaken renewed energy in order to make fresh discoveries in a region that teems with so much that is worthy of knowledge. I congratulate you upon your success, and I bid you welcome to Columbia.”

* * * * *

In the course of his reply, the president of the Association, Professor Woodward, said: “But surprising and gratifying as have been the achievements of science in our day, their most important indication to us is that there is indefinite room for improvement and advancement. While we have witnessed the establishment of the two widest generalizations of science, the doctrine of energy and the doctrine of evolution, we have also witnessed the accumulation of an appalling aggregate of unrelated facts. The proper interpretation of these must lead to simplification and unification, and thence on to additional generalizations. An almost inevitable result of the rapid developments of the past three decades especially is that much that goes by the name of science is quite unscientific. The elementary teaching and the popular exposition of science have fallen, unluckily, into the keeping largely of those who can not rise above the level of a purely literary view of phenomena. Many of the bare facts of science are so far stranger than fiction that the general public has become somewhat over-credulous, and untrained minds fall an easy prey to the tricks of the magazine romancer or to the schemes of the perpetual motion promoter. Along with the growth of real science there has gone on also a growth of pseudo-science. It is so much easier to accept sensational than to interpret sound scientific literature, so much easier to acquire the form than it is to possess the substance of thought that the deluded enthusiast and the designing charlatan are not infrequently mistaken by the expectant public for true men of science. There is, therefore, plenty of work before us; and while our principal business is the direct advancement of science, an important, though less agreeable duty, at times, is the elimination of error and the exposure of fraud.”

* * * * *

The meeting of the Association in New York was of more than usual importance. Not only did the nine sections of the Association hold their daily sessions, but there were also fifteen special scientific societies meeting simultaneously at Columbia University. Men of science came together from all parts of the country to present the results of the year’s research, to gain profit and pleasure from association with other workers, and to return to their homes with increased knowledge and renewed interest. It is obviously impossible to give here an account of the hundreds of scientific papers presented, or even to report upon the general proceedings of the Association. Two of the more important actions may, however, be mentioned. It was decided to send ‘Science,’ our weekly journal of general science, to all members of the Association without charge, and a section devoted to physiology and experimental medicine was established. It was thought that the receipt of a journal such as ‘Science’ would increase the membership of the Association and lead to a greater interest in its work, as even those who are unable to attend the meetings will hereafter have a definite return for membership. The Association will be greatly strengthened by giving recognition to the great group of sciences--physiology, experimental psychology, anatomy, embryology, histology, morphology, pathology, bacteriology and their applications--which have developed with such remarkable activity within the past few years.

* * * * *