SCIENCE
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Fray, Fesruary 21, 1913
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CONTENTS
The American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science:—
The Study of Man: Proressor T.
The Geological Society of America:—
Pleistocene Geology of New York State:
Proressok HERMAN LERoy ... 290
The Division of Educational Inquiry under
the Carnegie Foundation .........eeeeee: 299
The Milwaukee Meeting of the American
Chemical Society . 299
Scientific Notes and News ......eseeeeeees 300
University and Educational News ......... 302
Discussion and Correspondence :—
A Plan for the Encouragement of Medical
Research: Dr. R. G. Hoskins. Grana de
Brasile: W. H. Bascock. Concerning Gov-
ernment Application Blanks: PROFESSOR
JAMES S, STEVENS ......... 303
Scientific Books :—
Greil’s Richtlinien des Entwicklungs- und
Vererbungsproblems: J. P. McM. Wright
on the Origin and Antiquity of Man: Pro-
FESSOR GEORGE GRANT MAcCURDY ........ 304
Special Articles :—
New and Extinct Birds and Other Species
from the Pleistocene of Oregon: Dr. R.
The Entomological Society of America: Pro-
FESSOR ALEX. D, MACGILLIVRAY ........ . 307
Societies and Academies :—
The Botanical Society of Washington: Dr.
C. L. SHEar, The Torrey Botanical Club:
MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for
review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-
0n-Hudson, N.
THE STUDY OF MAN*
IN that most amusing and instructive
dialogue, entitled ‘‘ Thextetus,’’ the author
Plato makes Socrates enter into a discus-
sion with the youth by offering help as a
skillful midwife to deliver him of a true
and logical answer to the puzzling ques-
tion: What is knowledge? When the
youth replies,
According to my present notion, he who knows
perceives what he knows, and therefore I should
say that knowledge is perception,
Socrates proceeds—perhaps not altogether
fairly—to identify his doctrine with the
celebrated saying of Protagoras. This
saying is about all we know of the positive
teachings of him who was esteemed to be
the founder of the Sophists. The proposi-
tion as expressed in the same Dialogue
runs as follows:
Man is the measure of all things; of that which
is, how it is; of that which is not, how it is not.
Even in the time of Plato the Sophists
had translated this proposition into the
doctrine: For every person, that is true
and real which appears so to him. From
this doctrine it was no long step to the
conclusion, that there is possible for man
only a subjective and relative, not an ob-
jective and universal truth.
From the time of Protagoras to the
present, the view of the nature, authority,
and limits, of perception by the senses,
which his celebrated dictum embodies, has
been the chief source both of popular and
of scientific and philosophical scepticism ;
while the resulting doctrine of the rela-
tivity of all human knowledge, in its most
1 Address of the vice-president and chairman of
Section H—Anthropology and Psychology—Cleve-
land, 1913.
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276 SCIENCE
essential features, is widely dominant in
scientific circles at the present time. I
propose, therefore, to make it the point of
starting for the consideration of two prob-
lems: First, What have modern psychology
and anthropology to say about this theory
of sense-perception and its resulting or
allied theory of knowledge? and, second,
What results from the answer to the first
question as bearing upon a correct view of
the relations in which the work of psychol-
ogy and philosophy—the study of man—
stands to the work of the other positive
sciences ?
But before we even propose in more
definite form these two problems, let us
consider in a word our right to group psy-
chology and anthropology together under
the common term, ‘‘the study of man.’’
That the two sciences have indeed some
special relations as affiliated and mutually
dependent and helpful branches of study,
the very fact of this sectional meeting
should seem to affirm. Indeed, so intimate
are the relations between the two that there
are points—and more than one of such
points—where it is difficult to draw a line
between them. If, for example, we speak
of anthropology as inclusive of a wide
range of sciences—physiology, ethnology,
archeology, ethics, religion, ‘‘the rise of
arts and science, and the history of civil-
ization’’—of which psychology is only one,
we are met by the fact that psychology, too,
has spread itself over the same territory, as
affording feeding-ground for its insatiable
appetite. Thus we have come to speak of
physiological psychology, race psychology,
the psychology of ethics, art and religion
and of a so-called applied psychology,
which undertakes to instruct teachers how
to teach, doctors how to cure, lawyers how
to examine witnesses, and even over-
wrought and neuropathic women how to
(N.S. Von. XXXVII. No, 947
control their eccentric and pathological
tendencies.
Nor can we claim that psychology, as at
present studied, confines itself to the men.
tal or subjective side of man, while anthro.
pology deals rather with the objective and
with man’s place in nature. For anthro-
pology falls short of its highest mission
and most valuable opportunity, if it does
not itself make a study of the spiritual
evolution of the race. (I do not, of course,
employ the words ‘‘spiritual evolution”
with any cant or even definitely religious
significance.) Both psychology and an-
thropology fail of using the only method
of rendering themselves scientific, if they
do not proceed according to the lines
marked out by the conception of develop-
ment. But without further remark upon
this subject, we may perhaps agree upon
the conclusion that the one, psychology, is,
for scientific purposes, best defined as the
natural history of the individual mind, or
soul; and the other, anthropology, as the
natural history of the race.
Even this attempt to distinguish the two,
when reflected upon from the modern sci-
entific point of view, shows all the more
clearly how intimate is the relation be-
tween them. The dependence of anthro-
pology upon psychology, as one of the sci-
ences which it must take into the account,
is pretty generally conceded. But what
is not so universally acknowledged is
equally true. This is the dependence of
psychology upon anthropology. No indi-
vidual man can fulfil the obligation of the
ancient motto, ‘‘Know thyself,’’ without
something approaching a scientific knowl-
edge of the human species of which he is
a member; of the acquired or inherent in-
stinets, tendencies, inhibitions, naive 4s-
sumptions, emotional yearnings and stri-
vings, which make up the greater portion
of the influences controlling the so-called
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Fesrvary 21, 1913]
nature, and natural history of the self.
“Know thyself’? means know thyself as
a man, a member of the human race. And
the natural history of the individual mind
or soul, can not be described, much less
explained, without interpreting it all in
the light of what we have learned of the
natural history of the race.
These remarks may suffice as introduc-
tory to an answer—confessedly fragmen-
tary and full of assumptions which need
proofs from sources lying outside our
theme—to the two questions raised above.
The first of these, you will remember, was
this: What have modern psychology and
anthropology to say about the view which
identifies knowledge with sense-perception,
and about its allied theory of knowledge?
If by perception by the senses we under-
stand the mere fact that certain sensations
form groups and sequences in conscious-
ness, which have more or less of persistence
and regularity, the banter of the wise
Socrates as addressed to the youthful The-
etetus is not inappropriate in our own day:
“a say nothing against his doctrine, that what
appears to each one to be, really is to each one,
but I wonder that he did not begin his great work
on Truth with a declaration that a pig or a dog-
faced baboon or some other strange monster which
has sensation, is the measure of all things; then,
when we were reverencing him as a god, he might
have condescended to inform us that he was no
wiser than a tadpole and did not even aspire to be
& man—would not this have produced an over-
powering effect? For if truth is only sensation,
and one man’s discernment is as good as an-
other’s, and no man has any superior right to
determine whether the opinion of any other is true
or false, but each man, as we have several times
repeated, is to himself the sole judge, and every-
thing that he judges is true and right, why should
Protagoras himself be preferred to the place of
instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we
poor ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one
is the measure of his own wisdom?
Even if we say, I do not mean the sensa-
tions of a tadpole, or even of a dog-faced
SCIENCE 277
baboon, but the sensations of a man, we do
not establish in perception by the senses
alone a ground for science. The only way
we can know what the baboon actually sees,
or otherwise perceives through his senses,
is by the use of our powers of perception
as applied to the behavior of the baboon.
Our claim to superiority over the baboon,
even if we are descended from him in more
or less direct line, is based upon the con-
fidence that our perceptions, as forming a
ground for a scientific knowledge of things,
and perhaps for a theory of the universe,
are more trustworthy and comprehensive
than are his. The old-fashioned way of
putting this truth was not so bad after all:
Man may be an animal; indeed, he un-
doubtedly is an animal; but man is a
rational animal.
Psychology, with its recent more subtle
analyses, as made possible by the experi-
mental method, has made it perfectly clear
that sense-perception in the case of the
human individual is an exceedingly com-
plex development, involving all man’s nat-
ural and acquired capacities and forms of
functioning. Into every act of the senses
which gives us intimations, or assured
knowledge, of real existences and actual
happenings, there enter many instinctive
or acquired faiths, leaps to judgment or
more slowly formed inferences, emotional
factors expressive of doubt, or certainty, or
negation, habits favoring or prejudiced
against this or that conclusion, fleeting or
more fixed associated images of memory or
of fancy, and formal or regulating prin-
ciples, the so-called categories or “‘innate
ideas’? of the earlier philosophy. But
above all, if the process of sense-perception
terminates in conviction of the reality of
the object perceived, or the actuality of the
event observed, then this object, or those
things concerned in the event, are made
the centers of forces that justify us in
ae:
278 SCIENCE
giving them a place in a world outside of
our own conscious selves. In other words:
They are endowed with a will of their own,
a will that wills not as we will. That all
this is a species of the personifying of
things, I have myself no manner of doubt.
But the knowledge of things as gained
by the senses in the case of every indi-
vidual, can not separate itself from the
knowledge gained in the same way by the
race of which the individual is a member.
The motor reactions underlying the faiths
and assumptions, the accumulated contri-
butions of the faculties of memory and
imagination, as all these are incorporated
into the central nervous system, are mat-
ters of the development of the race. What
even the average school-boy sees and hears,
as well as thinks about and reads into his
experience with the senses, is not precisely
the same as that of the boy in ancient
Egypt or Greece, or even the boy among
the savage tribes of our own day. Are not
the sense-perceptions of the believer in
spiritualistic phenomena and in Christian
science different from those of the sceptic
and disbeliever, to-day, even when we place
them in as nearly as possible identical rela-
tions to the object to be perceived? Here,
then, is where anthropology becomes a val-
uable adjunct to any theory of sense-per-
ception.
As to the theory of the relativity of all
knowledge as stimulated by and embodied
in the maxim that man is the measure of
all things, its falsity or truthfulness de-
pends entirely upon what is meant by the
word ‘‘relativity.’”’ In the Theetetus
Plato makes Protagoras—we do not know
with what right—base his doctrine on the
philosophy of Heracleitus. Now, no other
philosopher of antiquity has been of late
so re-habilitated in reputation and so
clothed with honor as has the Ephesian
Heracleitus. He was the founder of nat-
(N.S. Vou. XXXVII. No, 947
ural philosophy among the Greeks, the
leader of the physicists of the fifth century
B.C.
So powerfully impressed was he with the cease.
less change of things, the transitoriness of all the
particular, that he sees in it the most universa}
law of the world, and can only regard the cosmos
as being involved in continual change, and trans.
posed into perpetually new shapes. All things are
in constant flux; nothing has permanence.
If by the relativity of knowledge, as es-
tablished by the psychological and anthro-
pological study of man, we mean that no
other knowledge is possible for human be-
ings than that which comes into relation
with human faculties for knowledge, there
ean be no objection to, or denial of, so
obvious a truth. All man’s knowledge of
mankind and of the rest of the world is
human knowledge and comes under the
limitations and conditions of all human
knowledge. Man’s fields of knowledge
have boundaries; and what he wins from
these must be by patient and skillful using
of the means of culture, his own senses and
intellect applied to the data of his own
experience.
If by the relativity of knowledge we
mean also to assert that all knowing is an
actual relating, an exercise of the function
of relating activity, and that all things
known are known as related to other things,
we are only stating undoubted psycholog-
ieal facts. These facts are of fundamental
importance in our interpretation of the
true meaning of the saying, ‘‘Man is the
measure of all things.’’ Still further, if
we mean that all advance in knowledge, 02
the part of the individual and of the race,
is related to the past stages and achieve-
ments of knowing faculty, then, too, we are
stating a truth on which psychology and
anthropology may cordially unite. But
when by the relativity of all knowledge it
is meant to imply a complete distrust of
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Fesruary 21, 1913]
man’s ability to discover and prove any-
thing about the reality of the world in
which he lives, or to apprehend with as-
surance of conviction what is now actually
taking place within or without, or what has
actually taken place in the past, we press
our scepticism and its resulting agnosticism
far beyond the limits warranted by a
proper understanding of the Protagorean
maxim. Man is indeed the measure of all
things, i. e., so far as things really exist
for him or actually happen in the real
world which environs his existence.
So, then, he who takes his attitude to-
ward his own science, or toward the prac-
tical life, from that study of man in which
psychology and anthropology may cheer-
fully coneur, will undoubtedly hold to a
certain theory of the relativity of all
knowledge. This theory will lead him to
say: There are a few things of which I
have perfectly certain and absolutely sure
knowledge. There are some more—per-
haps, many more—of which I am reason-
ably sure; and the surer, the more I grow
in knowledge. There are yet more of
which I am in doubt, and about which I
am holding my mind in suspense and open
to the conviction which follows upon trust-
worthy and sufficient evidence. But the
things I do not know are like a vast and
limitless sea—to borrow an_ illustration
from the philosophy of Kant—on the bosom
of which lies my little island of knowledge
and opinion. How far future explorers in
all branches of science may sail that bound-
less ocean, or what other islands they may
discover or treasures bring up from its
depths, I am not going dogmatically to
Pronounce. That would be to assume more,
‘n view of our present relations to the past
and the future of science, than any one is
Justified in assuming. Besides as a stu-
dent of man from the anthropological point
SCIENCE
279
of view, I am taught to be cautiously ag-
nostic in this regard.
But when any one says of himself, I
know absolutely nothing about myself, or
about things, or about the transactions be-
tween myself and things, or among things,
which I am confident have a corresponding
reality, he appears more modest with refer-
ence to his own powers than the doctrine
of the relativity of knowledge requires that
he should be. And when he goes on to
say, You, too, know nothing, and can know
nothing as to what is real and actual, he is
not altogether polite, not to say flattering,
toward a fellow aspirant for knowledge.
But when he proceeds with the declara-
tion: Neither I, nor you, nor anybody,
really knows anything, or ever can know
anything, about the real world and about
the events assumed actually to occur in
this world, his agnosticism has indeed
taken a suicidal turn. For, surely such
an agnostic knows that he does not know,
and yet somehow exists in a world about
which he and all others are in this state of
perpetual and incurable ignorance; and
this would seem to imply that I and others
without number, in the most important
respects like him, do also exist in an un-
knowable but undoubtedly actually exist-
ent world. It seems then that the com-
plete agnostic is the man who is very sure
that he can vindicate his agnosticism by
appeal to some actual, objective standard
of judgment which he and others possess
in common. That is to say, while arguing
from his doctrine that man is the measure
of all things to the conclusion that no
knowledge is possible, he involves the other
very important conclusion or assumption
that the world is full of actually existent
rational beings, besides and outside of
himself.
The importance of considerations like
those just announced is greatly increased
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280 SCIENCE
when we apply them to the relations in
which the study of man stands to that kind
of knowledge which is embodied in the so-
called positive sciences. The term science
is properly applied to any grouping of
knowledges to which has been given sys-
tematic form, and which has been based
upon evidence that admits of being re-
viewed, estimated and, if possible, sub-
mitted to some kind of testing by compari-
son with other similar experiences. Thus
science does not essentially differ from
what we call ordinary knowledge; and
when we extend the maxim which makes
man the measure of all things to the posi-
tive sciences, we do not reduce their proof,
their claims to acceptance as true pictures
of reality, to the testimony solely of imme-
diate sense-perception. No science consists
solely or chiefly of data that can be seen,
heard, handled, tasted or smelled. But all
science, like all knowledge, whether we
dignify it with the name of science, or not,
is either envisaged or implied in data of
concrete and individual experiences. And
it is man’s reasoning faculties which make
explicit what is thus implied. For the
method of all science is rationalistic, in the
broad meaning of the term. In this work
of rationalizing, the imagination, the faiths
of reason, and even the emotional attitudes
of the human mind toward truth and real-
ity, play an important part. In every
individual case, but more emphatically in
the case of the race in general, every par-
ticular science is a development, an ever
growing and never completed achievement
of the human mind. And to this develop-
ment, hypothesis, theory, deduction from
known or assumed principles, are all as
important and indispensable as is the cor-
rect and guarded use of the senses in per-
ception.
In the day when our maxim was first
enunciated, there was no positive science
(N.S. Vou. XXXVII. No, 947
of the physical, chemical or historical sort.
There was much acute observation of phe-
nomena, especially in the sphere of the
moral, political and social life of man.
The ancient Greek maxims for the regula.
tion of the conduct of life have rarely or
never been surpassed. The pragmatism of
that day was in important respects, both
more dignified and more satisfactory than
the pragmatism of the present day. The
Sophists were pragmatists of the most ae-
complished rank. But neither ancient nor
modern pragmatism can ever give us s¢i-
ence, or account for the existence, or the
estimate of the values of science, properly
so called. As a commentator on this very
Dialogue of Plato has said:
The want of the Greek mind in the fourth cen-
tury before Christ was not another theory of rest
or motion, of being or atoms, but rather a philos-
ophy which could free the mind from the power
of abstractions and alternatives, and show how far
rest and how far motion, how far the universal
principle of being, and the multitudinous principle
of atoms, entered into the composition of the
world; which could distinguish between the true
and false analogy, and allow the negative as well
as the positive, a place in human thought.
It is only in comparatively recent times,
however, that the different sciences of ex-
ternal nature and of man have devoted
themselves intelligently and deliberately to
the supply of that which was the want of
the ancient Greek world of observation and
of thought. The Greeks, for example, ob-
served that a vacuum was created by the
suction of a piston above the water in a
pump. But the dictum, ‘‘Nature abhors
a vacuum,’’ was regarded as a sufticient
explanation of the fact for more than two
thousand years, before it was observed 1
jest by Galileo, that nature did not abhor
a vacuum beyond ten meters. But Tori-
celli was the first really to explain the
phenomenon by bringing it under the lav
of gravitation. Aristotle had observed—
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FesruarY 21, 1913]
and how many in our scientific age have
observed for themselves?—that the sun-
light, when passed through a small square
hole, gives a round instead of a square
image; but he explained the fact simply by
saying that sunlight has a circular nature.
It was centuries before astronomy estab-
lished the true explanation in the fact that
the sun itself is a cireular body.
It was a combination of the principle
sounded like a trumpet-call by Newton—
‘Abandon substantial forms and occult
qualities and reduce natural phenomena to
natural laws’’—with the modification and
improvement of the Baconian method of
experimental induction which introduced
the new era in the positive sciences of ex-
ternal nature. By following these prin-
ciples man has made of himself a more
accurate and faithful measure of all
things; of that which is, how it is; and of
that which is not, how it is not. But he
still needs as much as ever the further
study of himself, as an individual and as
a race, in order so to supplement, modify,
adapt and otherwise improve the principle,
that all the various classes of that accepted
and certified knowledge which he calls by
the name of science, may benefit by this
study.
I come, therefore, at once to what is the
main purpose of this paper. It was an-
nounced in the second of the questions
proposed at the beginning. This question
concerns the more fundamental of those
relations in which the study of man stands
‘o all the other positive sciences. Gen-
*ralizing these relations, I will say that the
study of man as the measure of all things
‘S entitled to set forth and expound (1)
the method of science; (2) the limitations
of science; (3) the ideals of science. And
what it is entitled to do for science in gen-
‘ral, it may properly suggest as desirable
SCIENCE
281
and true for each one of the particular
sciences.
Intelligently comprehended and faith-
fully interpreted, the study of man, the
measurer, is the only way to find out how
his measuring-rod ought to be applied to
the different objects which come before
him in the different classes of his varied
experience. Every positive science, and
we might almost say every subdivision of
such science, has its special, most satisfae-
tory mode of procedure in the search for
truth. That this is of necessity so was
known to Aristotle as distinctly as it is
known to any modern man of science.
Indeed, the principle was never better
stated than it was by him in the first book
of the ‘‘Nichomachean Ethics.’’ There
the great Greek thinker holds that the mat-
ter of a science, 7. e., the facts or concep-
tions with which it deals, must determine
its method or form, according as they
admit of being stated with more or less
‘precision’? ("AxpiSea). But the Greek
word which I have imperfectly translated
by the English word ‘‘precision’’ means in
Aristotle’s use of it a combination of math-
ematical exactness, metaphysical subtlety,
minuteness of detail and definiteness of
assertion. And as applied to the form of
science, or study of one aspect of man,
namely, the ethical, which he is proposing
to consider, he distinctly states that mathe-
matical exactness is quite unsuited to
ethics; that we must not expect too much
subtlety, and that too much detail is to be
avoided. In this respect his view is more
liberal and more true to the nature, limita-
tions and ideals of human science than is
that of Sir Isaac Newton when he insists
that all ‘‘natural phenomena,’’ including
the biological, shall be reduced to ‘‘mathe-
matical laws.’’ For every step in the evo-
lution of science, as subjected to the con-
clusions derived from a study of man,
282 SCIENCE
shows that a knowledge of qualities and
relations of quality, many of which do not
admit of a reduction to mathematical laws,
is an indispensable part of all the sciences
which deal with natural phenomena.
Every particular science, and, if you
please, every form of experiment in each
one of them all, should be allowed to deter-
mine its own method in the details of its
observations, testing the alleged facts, and
obvious conclusions from the facts. There
is really no reason for assuming a sort of
holy mystery about scientific method in
general, or about any particular scientific
method. Method is any means of arriving
at the truth of reality. The greater truths
of science, as well as of religion, have
always been revealed to gifted—and for my
part I am willing to say, inspired—minds,
as flashes of intuition, fortunate guesses,
hypotheses which as yet awaited verifica-
tion but shone with that light which an-
nounces the clearer vision of the approach-
ing day. I have always had a sneaking
sympathy with that schoolboy who, when
he came home from school snivelling be-
cause he could not do the sums in mental
arithmetic set by his teacher, and his
mother reminded him that, of course, he
had been taught at home the correct answer
to them all, replied: ‘‘Yes, of course, I
know what the answer is, but I can’t get
the method.’’
While, then, we admit the right and
repose the obligation to any special form
of technique, as a matter for the particular
sciences to decide for themselves, we still
insist that the nature of the human mind
and of its development in the individual
and in the race is the source of all the
experience which determines the successes
and the failures in the use of every par-
ticular method in each of the particular
sciences.
Still more definite but brief statements
(N.S. Vou. XXXVIT. No, 947
with regard to the doctrine of methog
which the relativity of all knowledge makes
imperative would seem in place at this
point. If man is to take even his prelim.
inary measurement of things, of that which
is, how it is, and of that which is not, how
it is not, by sense-perception, he must use
trained senses with inexhaustible patience,
and with freedom from prejudice and pro-
fessional pride and ambition. Some years
ago the retiring president of the Associa-
tion of American Naturalists, in his ad-
dress at the annual banquet, related this
recent experience of his own. He had
written to a considerable number of the
leading biologists in the country, asking
that they should give him just the bare
facts as they had observed them, and with
no admixture of their own views in ex-
planation, upon a certain matter which he
was engaged in investigating. ‘‘Even so,”
said this scientific observer, ‘‘I could not
get the simple unsophisticated facts re-
ported.’’ How many biologists and physi-
ologists in the world at the present time,
whatever confidence they may have in the
ability and sincerity as an observer of Dr.
Bastian, are sure he is giving them just an
unprejudiced statement of the facts in
proof of his theory of spontaneous get-
eration ?
The psychological study of sense-per-
ception, as strengthened by the anthrop-
logical study of man’s progress in knowl
edge, shows with undoubted clearness, not
only that the details of every man’s senst-
perceptions are his very own and quite
unique, but also that the influence of habit,
expectation and interest, contributes largely
to what the senses are bound to perceive.
But the true doctrine of scientific method
which follows from the study of man as @
measurer of things by his senses, logically
followed, does -not land us in an absolute
distrust of the senses, in a gulf of scepti-
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cism and agnosticism with regard to all
human knowledge. The rather should this
study serve as a reminder, how uncertain
and slow is the laying of solid foundations
for the building of the temple of science;
but also, how solid those foundations, when
well laid, actually are; and how noble the
temple which man is erecting toward the
skies, on these same foundations.
Among a certain class of psychologists
and philosophers—I am ashamed to confess
it-there has been much deprecating and
even sneering, directed toward the stern
control of the logical faculties in the dis-
covery and proof of the nature of reality.
‘The will to believe,’’ or the leap of emo-
tion to conclusions affecting the nature of
reality, has been attractively offered, and
far too freely accepted, as a substitute in
science as well as in religion, for the use
of reason under the control of reason’s
lawful working. But the study of man
utters a loud warning against all this.
Even a truly scientific mind may express
itself and its findings in an alluring rhe-
torical style. But such a style can never
be safely trusted as evidence for, however
effective it may prove in exposition of, the
truths of either common life or science and
philosophy. Logie may be fervid, but it
must still remain logie, if it is to be offered
in proof of truth, On the one hand, it is
true that a purely logical or dialectical
construction of scientific theory, after the
Platonie or the Hegelian method, when it
cuts itself from the bonds which tie it down
to conerete facts of more or less nearly
universal experience, is not man’s way to
measure most faithfully the truth of things.
But, on the other hand, it is equally the fact
that only by the use of the intellect, the
logical or so-called dialectical faculty, can
the truth be explicated and interpreted as
it lies hidden in the facts. The history of
Scientific progress shows beyond all ques-
SCIENCE
283
tion, that it is not great collectors of facts,
but great thinkers reasoning concerning the
meaning of the facts, who have most con-
tributed to this progress.
An additional consideration of no small
importance which is made quite clear by
the natural history of the individual mind,
as well as by the natural history of the
race, is this: Knowledge is not only a mat-
ter of development, of progressive achieve-
ment, in the individual and in the race; it
is also a matter of degrees. Any body of
knowledge, no matter how strictly it may
be entitled to the term science, will neces-
sarily consist of propositions that are made
with quite different degrees of assurance.
This truth should always be frankly ac-
knowledged in the methodical procedure of
every science. Every positive science will,
of course, aim to have its different concep-
tions, so-called laws, and fundamental
principles hang well together. It will also
attempt to fortify itself by coming into
relations of mutual support with the other
most nearly allied sciences. It will, above
all, test its own conclusions by the amount
of agreement which its own best students
and trained experts have been able to
reach as exponents of the best intellects of
the race, in their prolonged and unpreju-
diced application to the problem of inter-
preting the experience of the race. But
every science will also remember that the
very method of science, as inexorably fixed
by the nature of man’s intellectual proc-
esses, makes it necessary to discriminate
different degrees of knowledge, with shift-
ing degrees of certainty and changing
claims to importance, as the knowledge of
the race advances in clearness and com-
prehension.
In this connection it is worth while
simply to call attention to the fact that the
mental attitudes of scepticism, criticism
and agnosticism are indispensable and val-
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284 SCIENCE
uable factors in all scientific method.
Every investigator who attempts to em-
ploy the proper method in measuring the
things of his special science, is bound to
be, always a critic, often a sceptic, oftener
still an agnostic. But every investigator
is also yet more imperatively bound to be
eritical, sceptical, agnostic, in right direc-
tions; and toward the different conven-
tional opinions, and accepted conceptions
and laws constituting the body of that
science, in accordance with the varying
degrees of evidence and proof.
One thing more on this point. The
study of man in any broad and sympa-
thetic way shows us unmistakably that an
essential element in all scientific method is
a certain indestructible confidence of rea-
son in its own ability, by repeated trials
and successive approaches, to reach the
truth of things. Man as the measurer of
all things is somewhat like those conceited
tailors to whom we are sometimes com-
pelled to resort in our efforts to get a per-
fectly fitting suit of clothes. He is always
trying on the coat and altering it, until he
has reached the limit of the cloth he has
sold us; and then we must be contented
with his assurance that it fits us perfectly,
while in our secret thought we are troubled
with the suspicion that it fits us only fairly
well. At any rate, for the present the
process of fitting can no further go. At
the annual meeting of the British Associa-
tion in 1904, there were two things, accord-
ing to the reports in the newspapers, on
which those in attendance were all agreed.
One of these was that they had never be-
fore had quite so fine a time socially; the
other was, that in none of the branches of
the association was there any one where all
the members were in agreement upon any
one thing.
Cast a glance over the history of science
in general, or over the history of any one -
[N. 8. Von. XXXVII. No, 947
of the particular sciences. Those who
scorn philosophy under the pseudonym
metaphysics are fond of making merry over
the persistent and universal lack of agree.
ment on any one point, of the philosophers
from the beginning of reflective thinking
until the present time. But the simple
fact of history is that the more funda.
mental tenets of philosophy as held by the
different schools have been far less subject
to change than have the important concep.
tions and so-called laws of the particular
sciences. What enormous changes have
taken place in all these sciences since the
improved methods of studying their data
have gained general acceptance and been
put into general practise! Each one of
these sciences is accustomed to boast: In
the last half century or less we have made
all things new. And with regard to the
future of science the words of Scripture
are scarcely too strong to describe its
apocalyptic vision :
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for
the first heaven and the first earth are passed
away.
All man’s voyage on the sea of knowl-
edge, for the discovery, mapping out and
exploiting of the new domains of science.
is strewn with the wrecks of voyagers in
the distant or near past. Never before
were sO many vagaries and _ visionary
schemes and unproved hypotheses demand-
ing attention and credence. But never be-
fore was the fleet of voyagers so numerous.
so competent, so sound, so sure of its fu-
ture, as at the present time. How ca!
such things be? How can the measure!
always be making such misfits, spoiling *
much cloth, and annoying so much his
patient, trustful customers, and yet
his own immeasurable self-conceit? There
are two reasons which establish the sui
cient answer to this question. One of thes
is the indestructible faith of human reas0”
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Fesruary 21, 1913] SCIENCE . 285
in itself. It hesitates, it stumbles and
makes mistakes and either confesses and
corrects or stubbornly adheres to them;
but it never despairs or is utterly con-
founded. The other reason is this: His-
tory shows that this confidence is more and
more, in fact, justifying itself. All prog-
ress in knowledge depends ultimately for
its justification on this self-confidence of
human reason; but all actual progress in
knowledge is a further justification, in fact,
of the confidence on which it depends.
Man has faith in himself to know; in exer-
cise of this faith, he actually attains higher
and higher degrees of knowledge. While,
then, constant eriticism, frequent scepti-
cism, much rather persistent agnosticism,
are attitudes of the human mind toward
reality, which should always characterize
the method of science; scornful criticism,
despairing scepticism, universal agnosti-
cism, are essentially antagonistic to the
true spirit and hopeful method of science.
And those who cherish such views of the
relativity of all knowledge are dissenters
from the one form of faith which underlies
all particular forms of faith, intellectual,
social, religious. An ever present and es-
sential feature of man’s rational being is
rational faith, or reason’s own confidence
in itself as the organon of truth.
While, then, each particular science has
its own special methods of procedure in
the diseovery and testing of its own con-
ceptions and laws, there is a certain uni-
versal method; or, the rather, there are
certain general considerations touching a
universal method, which all must observe.
Three rules of method, confirmed by the
Psychological and anthropological study of
man, provide for the patient, unprejudiced
use of perception, by way of self-conscious-
hess and through the sense, of the facts;
the consistent and controlled use of the
logical faculties in the interpretation and
explanation of these facts; and a justi-
fiable faith in reason as opposed to the
positions of a despairing agnosticism. It
is not the ancient Sophistical or the mod-
ern pragmatic interpretation of the Pro-
tagorean maxim, Man is measure of ail
things; of that which is, how it is; and of
that which is not, how it is not, that can
guide us into the safe and fruitful method
to be pursued by the positive sciences.
But, then, it is a comfort to know that even
those devotees of these sciences who confess
a faith in this interpretation, never take
their faith with any large amount of prac-
tical seriousness.
A second important way in which the
study of man is related to all the sciences
concerns the limitations of all science. We
are all familiar with the many mistaken
predictions as to the limitations of par-
ticular sciences which have been made in a
merely empirical way. In the ‘‘Memora-
bilia’’ Xenophon makes Socrates remark
upon the impiety of men in trying to de-
scribe how the gods made the world of
things; since all knowledge of this sort is
forever beyond the limits of human fac-
ulty. In the ‘‘Timzus,’’ however, Plato
makes Socrates indulge in the wildest spec-
ulations, in dreams exceeding those of the
poet and resembling those of the mad-
house, as to how this same world may have
been made. No sane student of science
now believes that the actual limitations of
science are of either sort—either that as-
serted in the ‘‘Memorabilia’’ or that no-
tably transcended in the ‘‘Timeus.’’ It is
the business of science—a matter of obliga-
tion rather than a mark of impiety—to
know how the natural universe was made
and is being made. But when the mind
assumes to dream its way into this kind of
knowledge, it grossly violates the laws
which inexorably fix for all time its im-
passable limitations. Within the fields of
science itself there are constantly occurring
286 SCIENCE
dogmatic statements as to what is intrinsic-
ally possible or forever impossible, for the
endeavors of human knowledge. Have we
not been told that the distances of the fixed
stars could never be measured; that the
achromatism of lenses could not be carried
beyond a certain point, which has already
been considerably surpassed; that steam-
ships could never cross the ocean and air-
ships never sail the air, in safety; that
synthetic chemistry in the laboratory could
never simulate the products of animal and
vegetable organisms; that the speed of the
nerve current could never be measured,
ete., ete.
But what does all this purely empirical
way of fixing the limitations of science
amount to in the respect of justifying our
attempts to regulate the hopeless waste of
man’s endeavors to know the forever un-
knowable? Even to-day we may be just
as ignorantly—with an ignorance even
made more exasperating by the fact that
it is so often the outgrowth of our conceit
of knowledge—denying the alleged facts
of telepathy as was Newton when he re-
fused to explain gravitation as actio dis-
tans. But whether this or that particular
prediction come true or not, this is not the
point. The point is this: that by the study
of man we are able to fix certain limita-
tions to all science which are inherent in
the very nature of man himself and in his
relations to that larger nature of which he
is a part. It is to the consideration of
this sort of limitations that we now devote
a moment’s attention.
That the senses, from the nature of the
psychophysical organism which they serve,
are limited in capacity, is a matter of
course. Their anatomical structure and
their forms of functioning, physiologically
considered, require that the range and ac-
euracy of their observation should be con-
fined within certain limits, both of space
(N.S. Vou. XXXVII. No, 947
and of time. In the eye, the size of the
rods and cones; in the ear, the physical
construction of the bony and muscular
parts of the cochlea; in the skin, the fre.
quency and arrangement of the tempera-
ture spots and the pressure spots—all these
special limitations of the organism are lim.
its to the measuring power of human sense.
perception. Let these physical limitations
be changed, either in the direction of im-
provement or of depreciation, and there
would still be similar limitations inherent
in the organic structure of the race, and
varying with different individual members
of the race. In all the various realms of
sense-perception, there will always be that
which lies beyond, and which ean only be
conjectured, or at best reasonably inferred,
but which can never become immediately
perceived by human senses. Surrounding
the expanding island of the visible world
will be the boundless sea of the invisible;
of that which can be touched and handled,
the many things that no skin is sensitive
enough to feel and that no hand can grasp.
These limitations of the senses set their
limitations to the pictorial imagination, or
imaging faculty, as distinguished from
what logicians have been accustomed to call
‘pure thought.’’ How things would look,
the like of which no eye has ever seen;
how things would sound, the like of which
no ear has ever heard, will remain ques-
tions to which the experience of measuring
all things with the senses can give 0
answer.
But there are other irremovable limite-
tions to human knowledge which are evel
more important, although more difficult to
make obvious. These are limitations i0-
herent in the very constitution of the intel-
lectual powers. The intelligence of mat
has its own way of working, its laws of
behavior, its inescapable modes of opera-
tion, to whatever subject it may be applied.
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Fesruary 21, 1913]
The attempt has indeed been made to ac-
count for forms, laws, innate ideas—call
them what you will—as the results of a
process of evolution. In my judgment,
such an attempt must always remain a
complete failure. The so-called primitive
man in the long gone-by ages reasoned in
substantially the same way as that in which
the German professor of physics or the
American financier or politician reasons
to-day. Nor does it appear that the savage
peoples of the present time have essentially
different minds from our own, or are in-
trinsically inferior in the acuteness, speed
and accuracy with which they reason.
Their limitations, as compared with ours,
consist chiefly, if not wholly, in the extent
of the accumulations of experience with a
wider world of things and of men, which
lie behind them in history and which con-
stitute their present environment. But we
as well as they, and no less truly than they,
when we measure things by minding them,
know them only according to the formal
limitations of our own minds. These lim-
itations concern the comprehensiveness, the
certainty, the range, both toward the large
and toward the small, the simple and the
complicated. The infinite and the infin-
itesimal may be symbolized and carried as
symbols through complex mathematical
calculations; but they ean never be en-
visaged by the senses or comprehended by
the intellect.
This sort of irremovable limitations sur-
round all the growth and all the achieve-
ments of the particular sciences, and might
be set forth at any length in the discussion
of the categories of science. But such a
discussion would be too technical for our
present purpose and would take us much
too far afield.
Some illustration of what is meant will
serve our present purpose. The history of
the growth of science for two thousand
SCIENCE
287
years shows many curious attempts to dis-
pense with the obligations put upon the
human intellect by the so-called categories,
or fundamental and irreducible forms of
conceiving of reality, that seem to flow
from the very nature of the intellect itself.
This effort among the students of physics
is particularly insistent and even violent
at the present time. But it is just as cer-
tainly doomed to failure now as it has ever
been. For example, we are treated to a
science of physics which would do away
with the realistic conceptions of substance
and cause, and would substitute for them
the more impressionistic and phenomenal
conceptions of motion and change. For do
we not, with our senses, which are the
measure of all things, of that which is, how
it is, and of that which is not, how it is not,
become actually aware of motions and of
changes? But who ever saw, heard, felt,
smelled or tasted, of a substance or a cause,
in the metaphysical meaning of these
words? Go to, then! Let us banish meta-
physies and confine our scientific measure-
ments to what the senses can actually per-
ceive. But the conception of motion with-
out this adjunct or underlying conception
of something real that actually moves, or
the conception of a change that is not
caused, or compelled by, or otherwise to be
attributed to, some actually existent agent,
is a ghostly and intolerable conception.
And the world in which relations of motion
are supposed to be the sole topic for scien-
tific investigation, is a ghostly and not a
real world. But we may always observe
by reading between the lines that the ‘‘sci-
entist,’’ because he is also a man, and is
under the limitations of human intellect,
has allowed to sneak in at the back door
the very conceptions which he has more or
less impolitely dismissed from the front.
He must have a ‘‘that-which’’ as substance
for his observed motions and as a point of
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288 SCIENCE
attachment for his observed changes. For
reality is not made up of modern scientific,
any more than of ancient philosophical,
abstractions. It is, the rather, a theater in
which real things are always actually doing
something to one another, and in which
each one is having something done to itself.
There is nothing which the student of phys-
ieal science more needs to learn from the
study of man than that he himself is of
necessity a metaphysician, and can only
choose between some wisely and well
thought-out metaphysical views, and a
naive, crude and misleading metaphysics
of his own uninstructed self.
But the final question respecting the
limitations of science as they are ex-
pounded by the study of man is this: Are
they limitations of ignorance or limitations
of knowledge? In other words, because
there are inherent and inescapable limita-
tions to the human intellect, are we to con-
clude that man as the measure of all things
ean really know nothing, just that it is and
how it is, or are we to conclude that his
knowledge, although never complete and
all-eomprehensive, is nevertheless knowl-
edge indeed? And by ‘‘knowledge in-
deed’’ we mean that the real world and its
actual happenings are in fact, progres-
sively being more largely and accurately
known by the combined achievements of
the race? The proof of this faith, if there
be proof, belongs to a department of phi-
losophy which we are accustomed to call
epistemology or theory of knowledge. In
this connection I am only expressing my
faith when I say that it is the same as the
faith of the race.
Finally, the study of man is entitled to
say what the true and worthy ideals of
science are. For the scientific mind, the
tenets of modern pragmatism with respect
to the nature and meaning of truth can
never be permanently satisfying. For
(N.S. XXXVII. No, 947
science, knowledge has more than a merely
practical value, and its tests are something
more, and different from the mere success
of its practical working. For science,
knowledge has an ideal value. We are
wont to express this by speaking of the
worth of science for science’s own sake.
But the better, because the truer way to
express this ideal is to say that knowledge
as knowledge, and science as science, has
value for man’s sake. And this is because
man’s mind craves for, feeds upon, finds
its satisfaction, uplift and refinement in,
the growth of knowledge. To the human
mind, or spirit, when it awakens to a real-
ization of its eall and its obligation to real-
ize its own higher forms of privilege, and
to improve its best opportunity, science
affords a satisfaction that has a value of its
own.
This is not to say that science has not
contributed, and is not bound and glad to
contribute, to the so-called practical and
utilitarian in the life of man. Chemistry
is not pursued with eagerness and satisfac-
tion, and almost religious awe before the
mystery of material existence, as a purely
mereantile affair. But modern chemistry
is transforming almost every branch of
modern industry to the great practical
benefit of mankind. Modern physics is not
cultivated as the servant of the U. S. Steel
Corporation, or the General Electric, or
the Mercantile Marine monopolies. But the
founders and promoters of these corpora-
tions owe every dollar of their legitimate
earnings or of their graft, and the public
owe all the material benefits which have
fallen to them from these corporations,
chiefly to modern physics.
The satisfaction of man’s rational aspi-
ration for knowledge is not, however, the
only ideal which the study of man recom-
mends for confidence and intelligent pur-
suit, to the other sciences. Every science,
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Fesruary 21, 1913)
no matter how seemingly remote from cur-
rent human interests, and from man’s daily
life, may reasonably cherish a spirit of
devotion to the social ideal. In educa-
tional circles there is just now great debate
over the comparative values of the studies
called abstract and those called practical,
as constituting a preparation for the duties
and responsibilities of ‘‘real’’ life. While
admitting the reasonableness of this dis-
tinction and the value of certain proposals
to alter the disposal of time and attention
to be allotted by the average man to the
two, we wish now to insist upon the
thought that no form of science need be
pursued, or ought to be pursued, without
regard to the relation in which its pursuit
stands to the social ideal. The pursuit of
knowledge for knowledge’s sake is itself a
moral benefit to the normal man. And you
can never bring about the social ideal, or
advance far toward it, without discipline
in the pursuit of knowledge. One of the
ideals which science prizes and promotes is
the ideal of a society, and finally of a race,
which is so disciplined in knowledge that
it may know how to be wise and upright in
conduct. For, although such discipline is
not the whole of what contributes to the
moral and religious uplift of the race, with-
out such discipline moral and _ religious
progress is impossible for the race.
Hovering over all like a vast but glorious
cloud that is being illumined, through the
rising mists, by the rising sun, is the ideal
to which the combined work of all the sci-
ences is being directed for its better dis-
covery and interpretation, the ideal of a
universal order which has at its core, and
through all its historical evolution, the
unity due to rational mind. This concep-
tion in its modern outlines has been won
by the toil of thousands of observers and
thinkers, and slowly expanded and guar-
anteed, as it were, by the experience of the
SCIENCE 289
race. It is confessedly incomplete; per-
haps it will always remain incomplete.
For reality itself is no closed and once-for-
all finished affair. But that the world is
a realization in time and space of some ©
such ideal as science has built up—an ideal
unity of order, beauty and meaning—this
is the growing conviction upon which the
particular sciences, from their different
points of view, and by their different
methods, have been converging.
I must ask your further indulgence while
I close this paper—already prolonged to an
excessive length—in a fashion somewhat
sermonesque, ?. é., with two practical and
hortatory applications.
This view of man as the measure of all
things calls upon those who engage in the
scientific study of man, whether from the
psychological or the anthropological point
of view, for comprehensiveness and catho-
licity. All the other sciences are becom-
ing more definitely tributary to the study
of man. His marvellously complex and
delicate organism traces its history through
indefinite ages of evolution to an unknown
and probably undiscoverable past. The
description of this organism requires the
eombined results of the physico-chemical
and biological sciences. What we call his
mental and social nature and development
enlists the efforts of the whole round of the
psychological and historical sciences. But
we are not ready for a complete and just
estimate of the capacity of man as the
measurer of all things until we have
studied him as a speaking animal, a being
with moral, artistic and religious ideals;
and with a certain limited though genuine
eapacity for a self-controlled development
in pursuit of these ideals. In a word, both
psychology and anthropology are under the
obligation to extend their studies, in the
interests of comprehensiveness and catho-
licity, so as the better to understand and
ox
290 SCIENCE
master the spiritual nature and the spirit-
ual development of the individual and of
the race.
And, finally, our view of man as the
measure of all things is an exhortation to
an increase of sympathy and of sympa-
thetic cooperation among all the different
sciences. Of the particular sciences and
their subordinate branches and subdivi-
sions, there is an ever-increasing number.
But their aim is one aim; and in the pur-
suit of this aim they should be as brethren
dwelling together in a spirit of friendly
criticism and also of friendly unity. The
aim of all human science is the better to
understand man by himself, and the greater
nature which environs him; and the better
to adjust himself to this greater nature, in
the pursuit of his economic, social, artistic
and religious ideals.
I venture to close with the words which
Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates as
he closes his conversation with Theetetus:
But if, Theetetus, you have or wish to have any
more embryo thoughts, they will be all the better
for the present investigation; and if you have
none, you will be soberer and humbler and gentler
to other men, not fancying that you know what
you do not know. These are the limits of my art;
I can no further go; nor do I know aught of the
things which great and famous men know or have
known in this or former ages. The office of a
midwife I, like my mother, have received from
God; she delivered women, and I deliver men;
but they must be young and noble and fair.
GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD
PLEISTOCENE GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK
STATE. II
LAKES
Glacial Lakes: Occurrence-——The term
‘*glacial’’ is used by the writer to inelude
only lakes which existed by virtue of a
glacier ice barrier. The lakes and lakelets
now existing and called ‘‘glacial’’ by some
authors should be discriminated mostly as
morainal or drift-barrier lakes.
(N.S. Vou. XXXVI. No, 947
The conditions necessary for a glacial
lake are a valley or depression sloping
toward and blocked by the ice front.
These conditions were fulfilled in New
York on so large a scale, in area and time,
that the state, it is confidently believed.
held the largest number and the most re.
markable succession, with varied outflow, of
glacial lakes of any district in the world.
The reason for this superiority is found in
the peculiar topography of the western part
of the state. In the great Ontario-Erie
basin we have a broad depression with its
lowest passes on the east and west, and
with a deeply trenched southern slope
where lie the parallel valleys of the Finger
lakes.
The only glacial lakes of which clear evi-
dence is preserved are those which lay
against the receding front of the latest ice
sheet. But it should be clearly understood
that every ice sheet which transgressed the
state blocked the waters both during its ad-
vance and its recession.
We do not know what portions of the
Valley-Heads moraine, which now consti-
tutes the divide and forms the south limits
of the basin, were left there by Prewiscon-
sin ice sheets, but we may be quite sure that
the lakes during the advance of even the
last glacier were somewhat different in di-
mensions and relations from those of the
ice recession, which are the subject of our
field study. We may also be sure that the
earliest ice invasion found the series of
parallel valleys with fairly mature and
graded forms, and open clear through to
their heads, and the larger ones heading in
Pennsylvania. Those earliest ice-im-
pounded lakes must have been longer and
deeper in the valleys than the lakes of later
episodes, when the valleys had become more
or less oceupied by glacial and lake de-
posits. The lacustrine conditions of the
episodes antedating the Laurentian ice re
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treat are as yet a matter of interesting
speculation. One further difference may be
noted between the ice-advance and the ice-
recession lakes. The primitive lakes of the
ice advance were the lowest in altitude and
the most northerly in location and with the
lowest outlets. As the ice advanced and
closed the outlets the waters were lifted to
higher levels and pushed southward. The
last lakes of the ice advance being in the
heads of the valleys were the smallest, the
highest, the most detached and most south-
erly. The lakes of ice-front recession had
precisely the opposite history.
Erosional Work.—The lake features that
are preserved for our study may be dis-
criminated as erosional and constructional.
The erosion phenomena are the wave-cut
cliffs. The glacial lakes were commonly too
ephemeral or too unsteady in their levels
to produce conspicuous erosion features.
However, the larger and longer-lived lakes,
as Newberry, Warren, Dana and specially
Iroquois, have left many cliffs.
Constructional Work.—Beach Ridges,
embankments of sand and gravel, the bars
and spits of wave and shore current con-
struction, are the complement of the ero-
sion work but are much more common and
are frequently very prominent features.
They have long been recognized by the
people as the work of mysterious waters at
high altitudes. For long stretches the
beach ridges have been utilized for ‘‘ridge
roads,’’ while the level stretches of wave-
base along the beaches have afforded
graded paths for railroads and canals.
The strongest ridges are those of Whittle-
sey and Warren in the Erie basin, and of
Iroquois in the Ontario basin.
Deltas: Of the several shore phenomena
deltas are the most useful in proving the
former presence and determining the alti-
tudes of the extinct lakes. The production
and size of the delta deposits are not wholly
SCIENCE
291
conditioned by the size of the receiving
water body, but by the volume of the
stream detritus relative to the distributing
work of the receiving waters. Hence deltas
may be built in small lakes, and these
hung-up mounds and terraces of gravel on
the valley sides serve well to mark the
shores of lakes that were too ephemeral or
too small to produce either cliffs or bars.
Naturally the deltas occur in the courses of
land streams, and a vertical succession of
bisected delta terraces commonly indicate
the falling levels of the lake. Fine ex-
amples of these gravel terraces are found
on the slopes of the Finger lakes valleys and
some of them are conspicuous features, like
the terraces by Coy glen, visible from the
Cornell University campus.
Delta Plains: Genetically related to
deltas are the plains of gravel, sand or
clay which may be extended in area and
indefinite in limits. Such plains usually
represent wave-base, perhaps twenty feet
or less beneath the water surface. When
partially eroded the remnants present ex-
tended horizontal lines, excellent examples
of which may be seen throughout the Mo-
hawk Valley and about the Irondequoit
Valley east of Rochester, clearly visible
from the trains on the New York Central
Railroad. Some of the larger valleys de-
elining toward Lake Erie exhibit broad
terraces at various levels. A fine display
may be seen from the Pennsylvania Rail-
road from East Aurora up to Machias.
Evidently such lake plains can occur only
north of the divide. Some plains similar
in appearance in the valleys south of the
divide fall into the categories of outwash
plains or of river flood plains.
Scores of examples of detrital plains
built in glacial waters by the land drain-
age might be cited. In the Erie basin the
great plain in the Cattaraugus Valley be-
low Gowanda and that built by Silver and
292 SCIENCE
Walnut creeks between Forestville and
Silver Creek villages may be mentioned.
A very fine illustration is found on the
Rochester sheet. The area between the
Genesee River and Irondequoit Bay and
between Lake Ontario and Iroquois beach
(‘‘Ridge Road’’) is the submerged delta
plain of the Genesee River in Lake Iro-
quois, now much dissected by present-day
streams. The flat stretches about Ironde-
quoit Bay bounded by the 400-feet contour
are remnants of the silt plain which in I[ro-
quois time filled the whole breadth of the
valley.
Sandplains built by the ice-border gla-
cial drainage are also numerous. ‘These
include, for example, the plains on the
west side of the Genesee Valley opposite
Avon; the eroded area north and north-
west of Geneva; the mesa-like plains in the
Onondaga Valley at South Onondaga and
northwest by Cedarvale; and the plain on
which stands the business part of Syracuse.
The very extensive and conspicuous sand
plains and terraces on both sides of the
Champlain and Hudson valleys, ineluding
the great delta plain between Schenectady
and Albany contributed by the Iromohawk
River, were built in sea-level waters that oc-
eupied this depression during the time of
the ice removal.
Clay Plains: Where the static waters
were wide and deep so as to permit full
assorting of the detritus, more or less clay
was spread over the bottom in the more
quiet water. The best example is found in
the Iroquois Lake basin. In the St. Law-
rence Valley east of Cape Vincent, Alex-
andria Bay and Ogdensburg are extensive
stretches of finely laminated and deep
clays, the glacial origin of which is indi-
eated by the abundance of lime econcre-
tions. The heavy clay deposits of the Hud-
son Valley belong in this class, but were
deposited in sea-level waters,
(N.S. Vou. XXXVII. No, 947
Morainal Lakes.—This class includes the
hundreds of lakes and lakelets (so-calleq
ponds) now in existence that are scattered
over the state and most numerous in the
Adirondacks. They owe their existence to
the blockade of valleys or drainage courses
by glacial drift. The term drift-barrier
lakes would be the more accurate name.
Great numbers of such lakes have already
been obliterated, mostly changed into
swamps by marl and peat accumulation or
by detrital filling; and all these lakes are
doomed to similar ultimate extinction
either by filling or draining.
The Finger lakes probably owe their
origin in part, at least in their upper lev-
els, to drift barriers.
Cataract Lakes.—The most singular and
interesting lakes in the state lie in the
courses of ancient ice-border rivers. These
occupy the plunge basins of extinct cata-
racts. Niagara to-day illustrates the
method in production of a basin or bowl by
the excavating work of a large cataract.
If Niagara River were to be diverted above
the fall so as to extinguish the cataract a
rock basin holding a lake would be left in
the amphitheater beneath what is now the
‘*Horseshoe’’ falls. South and east of
Syracuse the predecessors of Niagara
River plunged over cliffs of the Onondaga
limestone in their eastward flow and pro-
duced several plunge basins with lakes,
two of which outrival Niagara.
The Jamesville Lake, four miles south-
east of Syracuse, is a circle of emerald-
green water about one eighth mile in diam-
eter, and 60 feet deep, lying in a half-
circle amphitheater with perpendicular
rock walls 160 feet high. Two and one
half miles east of Jamesville Lake, across
the Butternut Valley, is Blue Lake, resting
in a eataract basin and rock amphitheater
equaling the Jamesville in dimensions but
not so symmetrical. White Lake, one half
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mile north of Blue Lake and Round and
Green lakes nine miles east of Syracuse,
have basins with low and sloping walls be-
eause the rocks are the soft Salina shales.
These lakes were formerly regarded as
mysterious and with their enclosing amphi-
theaters were the cause of much specula-
tion. Their nature was first announced by
G. K. Gilbert and the first geologic de-
scription in recognition of their true char-
acter was by Quereau.*®
These cataract lakes are very remarkable
features, and representing as they do an
ancient drainage of the Great Lakes area,
held at high levels by the glacier front,
they have a scientific and educational
value not yet appreciated.
Lakes of Complex Origin.—This title
is intended to include Lake Ontario and
the larger Finger lakes, as Cayuga and
Seneca, the genesis of which is not entirely
clear. The bottoms of these lakes are be-
low sea-level, and we do not know what
depth of drift lies yet deeper beneath the
water. At Watkins a well boring pene-
trated 1,200 feet without reaching rock,
which shows drift at a depth 600 feet lower
than the deepest part of the lake, and 750
feet beneath sea-level.
It seems probable that the valleys of the
Finger lakes are blocked on the north,
along the drumlin belt, by deep’ drift fill-
ings, which ean be determined only by
borings at close intervals. That these val-
leys were gouged out by ice erosion, even
by any number of continental ice sheets,
seems to the writer extremely improbable.
If they were so deepened, then the basin of
Lake Ontario was probably also scooped by
lee erosion. But if the Ontario basin is a
““Topography and History of Jamesville
Lake,’’ by E. C. Quereau, Geol. Soc, Am., Bull.,
Vol. 9, pp. 173-182, 1898. See also illustrated
article by Fairchild in the 20th Ann. Rep., N. Y.
State Geologist, 1900, pp. 126-129.
SCIENCE 293
depressed river valley, then the valleys of
the Finger lakes must be fairly graded to
the bottom of Ontario and be of similar
origin. If the Ontario and other basins
were excavated by river work and weather-
ing, then it must be admitted that there
have been great changes in the height and
attitude of the land in late geologic time.
But such changes are quite certain. It ap-
pears probable that the valley-cutting oc-
curred during a time of land elevation, and
that the Laurentian and the Finger lakes
basins are the complex product of land
warping, land depression, and of glacial
drift filling. Until the later Tertiary and
Pleistocene diastrophic movements of the
area including New York have been de-
termined and the drift-buried valleys
mapped by borings the deep lake basins
may remain the subject of speculation and
dispute.
GLACIAL LAKE SUCCESSION
The story of the succession of the glacial
waters that laved the receding front of the
Laurentian glacier is a dramatic episode in
the geologic history. Beginning in small
pondlings of water in the heads of the val-
leys along the north side of the morainic
divide, the lakes were enlarged as the ice
barrier receded, and were captured,
drained, blended or otherwise affected by
changes in outlets. The romantic story can
not be satisfactorily told in words alone,
but requires cartographic representation,
and a series of maps has been constructed
to show the better known and more striking
changes in the ice recession and the lake
succession.
The control of the glacial waters de-
pended on the altitude of the lowest passes
affording immediate outflow along with the
relation of these passes to some ultimate
escape. The waters of the Laurentian
basin outflow to-day by the St. Lawrence
294 SCIENCE
(246 feet). With that escape blocked the
lowest pass is at Rome (460 for the water
surface) to the Mohawk-Hudson, and
which for many thousands of years was the
point of escape of the waters while the ice
body lay over the St. Lawrence Valley.
The next higher pass is at Chicago, which
was occupied by the glacial outflow for a
very long time, but to reach this ultimate
escape the Ontario-Erie-Huron waters
were compelled to cross Michigan by the
valley of Grand River.
The lowest pass leading southward in
New York is at Horseheads, the head of the
Seneca Valley, leading to the Chemung-
Susquehanna with altitude of 900 feet.
These three outlets, Horseheads, Grand
Valley, Michigan and Rome were the chan-
nels of ultimate eseape for the waters of
western and central New York until the ice
was removed from over Covey Gulf, north
of the Adirondacks. In immediate control
of the waters of central New York, the
Seneeca-Cayuga depression and the Genesee
basin, there were two localities, the salient
or highland on the Batavia meridian and
the highland in the Syracuse district. The
earliest glacial waters in New York were
held in the Genesee Valley, and this con-
tinued for a long time as a distinct basin
with several successive outlets.
When we consider the glacial lakes and
drainage in chronologic order we find that
the earlier waters were confined in two
separate basins, the Genesee and the Sen-
eca-Cayuga. That for a brief time the
Horseheads outlet (Lake Newberry) prob-
ably occupied the Genesee Valley, and then
for a long time the control was alternately
west on the Batavia meridian or east in the
Syracuse district. Then, when the ice
front weakened on the Batavia salient the
westward control was across Michigan
(Lake Warren level). All the later flow,
subsequent to Lake Warren, was eastward
(N.S. Von. XXXVII. No. 947
to the Hudson until the northward flow
through Covey Gulf and the Champlain
Valley to the Hudson.
The most extended series of glacial lakes
was in the Genesee Valley. This long val-
ley, the surviving example of the Pre.
pleistocene northward drainage, heads in
Pennsylvania, at the terminal moraine,
with altitude on the cols over 2,200 feet,
and extends across the state to near Roch-
ester, where it blends into the Ontario low-
land at about 600 feet altitude. The fall
of 1,600 feet in a right-line distance of 80
miles gave opportunity for many sucees-
sively lower outlets and water planes as the
ice released passes on the east or west
borders of the basin. Probably the glacial
lake history of the Genesee Valley is more
complicated than is now known, but no less
than eighteen distinct outlets with corre-
lating lake levels have been recognized.
Then the drainage was directly into the
sea (Gilbert Gulf), and finally into Lake
Ontario. In this varied outflow the Gene-
see glacial waters were contributed to sev-
eral far-separated river systems. Named
in order of time these are: (1) Pine creek-
Susquehanna; (2) Alleghany-Ohio-Missis-
sippi; (3) Canisteo-Chemung-Susque-
hanna; (4) Erie basin (Lakes Whittlesey
or Warren)-Michigan basin (Lake Chi-
cago)-Mississippi; (5) Seneca Valley
(Lake Newberry)-Susquehanna; (6) Mo-
hawk-Hudson; (7) Champlain-Hudson;
(8) Ocean-level waters direct; (9) Lake
Ontario-St. Lawrence. Some of these
systems received the Genesee Valley over-
flow more than once, or by different im-
mediate outflow, making the twenty stages
in the drainage history as now understood.
It would seem unlikely that any other val-
ley in the world can approach the Genesee
in the complexity of its drainage history.
The series of seventeen maps depict the
waning Laurentian ice sheet with the gla-
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Fesrvary 21, 1913]
cial and marine waters that lay against its
receding border. The local lakes in the
side valleys of the Hudson depression and
about the Adirondack highland are not
indicated; and the ice border is more or less
generalized. The latter is located defi-
nitely along the lines of the ice-border
drainage.
SCIENCE 295
lowed up the Hudson Valley, finally reach-
ing the Champlain basin and eventually
uniting with the oceanic waters of the St.
Lawrence Gulf. The Hudson inlet thus be-
eame the Hudson-Champlain inlet and
finally the Hudson-Champlain strait, con-
necting New York Bay with the Champlain
Sea. When the ice front backed away
GLACIAL LAKES OF NEW YORK STATE
Drainage Provinces
Erie | Genesee | Seneca
Mohawk | Black St. Lawrence Hudson-
| 1. Three Primary | |
2. Pennsylvania |
Ive “3. Wellsville | | | |
| 4. Belfast-Fillmore ee | |
| 5. Portage-Nunda . ‘| ;
"6. Dansville Several Primary
|
Whittlesey 7. Mt. Morris-Genesee Newberry |
8. Newberry Herkimer
“9. Hall ‘Hall Schoharie |
10. Vanuxem \Vanuxem Amsterdam |
Wasvea ‘11. Avon ‘Montezuma —————|Forestport |
12. Second Vanuxem Second Vanuxem Port Leyden
13. Warren Warren | Mohawk |
Dana 14. Dana Dana | rever | | | inlet
15.) |__| | |
16. Dawson Troquois Tromohawk 2 |
17. Iroquois | Lroquois
7 18. Second Iroquois. Second Iroquois | Second
Erie | | Iroquois
19. Gilbert Gulf Gilbert Guif Mohawk Gilbert |Hudson-
(marine) (marine) | river | Champlain
20. Ontario Ontario St. Lawronce |
| | | river
The accompanying chart shows the time
relationship of the waters in the several
basins of the state. The vertical spacing is
only suggestive of the suecession of the
waters and their geographic relations, and
has little significance as to the duration of
the episodes,
MARINE WATERS
During the waning of the latest ice sheet
the Hudson-Champlain Valley and the St.
Lawrence and Ontario basins were beneath
the level of the ocean. As the ice front re-
ceded northward the sea-level waters fol-
from the Covey Hill promontory the gla-
cial waters of the Ontario basin, the See-
ond Iroquois, fell to and became confluent
with the sea-level waters. The highest
plane of the sea-level waters in the Ontario
basin is relatively weak and has not been
fully determined, but an inferior level of
long persistence showing heavy bar con-
struction has been mapped and named
Gilbert Gulf. This stage, which includes
the series of strong bars at Covey Hill post-
office, is depicted in map number 16.
On the parallel of New York City it ap-
296 SCIENCE
pears that the land at the time of the ice
recession was at, or perhaps somewhat
above, sea-level. Northward the land was
increasingly below sea-level. The upraised
and tilted water plane which indicates the
amount of Pleistocene submergence or of
Postpleistocene uplift rises steadily from
zero or present sea-level in the district of
New York City to over 750 feet on the
Canadian boundary.
The supposed absence of marine fossils
in the Hudson Valley is doubtless due to
the freshening of the waters by the copious
glacial and land drainage. Until the epi-
sode of the Second Iroquois the flood of
glacial waters of the St. Lawrence basin
was poured into the Hudson inlet at
Schenectady. During the Second Iroquois
the glacial flood was merely shifted to the
north, and during all the long life of the
Hudson-Champlain inlet all the fresh
waters were forced south. However, ma-
rine fossils are abundant in the Cham-
plain Valley and are found at altitudes the
planes of which carry over the Fort Ed-
ward divide into the Hudson portion of
the great valley.
The detrital deposits formed in the ma-
rine waters are large in volume and area.
Up the Hudson as far as Catskill the ter-
races of clay and sand are very conspicuous
and afford the materials for brick manu-
facture on an immense scale. North of
Catskill, in the widening valley, the sum-
mit sandplains lie back from the river,
though lower terraces may yet be seen.
While much of the deeper deposits and
those in the middle of the valley or be-
neath the present waters are of glacial
origin, the heavy visible deposits are
chiefly the deltas of tributary land
streams, the greatest being that of the
Iromohawk at Schenectady-Albany.
From Troy to Glens Falls the borders of
the lower valley are buried in a deluge of
(N.S. Vou. XXXVII. No, 947
sand, sloping down in terraces toward the
axis of the valley. Saratoga lies in the
midst of a vast area of detrital marine ac.
cumulations. The slow lifting of the yal.
ley out of the waters gave the latter an ex.
cellent chance to produce level stretches
and conspicuous terraces, the latter being
more prominent as the steeper slopes ap-
proach the middle of the valley. The
Champlain portion of the great valley also
holds vast sandplains, especially on the
larger rivers, as the Ausable, Saranae and
Big Chazy.
EPEIROGENIC MOVEMENT. DIASTROPHISM .
The great changes in altitude of the sur.
face of the state, both before and since the
glacial occupation, has already been noted.
The relation of the land movement to the
burden of the ice cap should be briefly dis-
cussed. If the earth’s crust is sensitive to
long-continued pressures, then the thick-
ness and weight of the ice body becomes an
important matter.
Again our lack of knowledge of the dura-
tion and diastrophie effects of the Prewis-
consin ice caps limits our discussion to the
effects of the Laurentian ice body.
At its maximum the thickness of the ice
cap over the Adirondacks and the Cham-
plain. Valley was probably not less than
10,000 feet. This is equal in weight to
over 3,000 feet of rock. Southward the ice
decreased in thickness and weight to zero
in the region of New York Bay. The
amount of postglacial uplift increases
from zero in the district of New York Bay
to over 750 feet on the north boundary of
the state. The correspondence between the
thickness of the ice cap and the amount of
postglacial uplift of the land is very strik-
ing and significant. All about the Lauren-
tian basin the tilted shores of the extinct
glacial lakes afford us evidence of the dif-
ferential uplift of the glaciated territory.
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The average northward uplift or tilt of
the marine plane in the Hudson and Cham-
plain Valley appears to be about two and
one fourth feet per mile, but some higher
and as yet uncorrelated shore features in
the Champlain Valley suggest a deeper
submergence there and a larger rate of up-
lift. It seems quite certain that the in-
crease of the gradient northward that is ap-
parent west of the Adirondacks must also
occur on the east of that mountain mass.
The differential uplift between the Iro-
quois plane at Rome (460 feet) and at
Covey Gulf, on the Canadian boundary
(1,025? feet), is about 565 in a distance of
149 miles in a direction 33° east of north,
giving a slant of 3.8 feet per mile. The
grade from Richland to East Watertown
is toward 6 feet per mile.
In east and west direction there is small
deformation. The Iroquois plane at Ham-
ilton, Ont., is given as 363 feet. At Rome
it is 460 feet, which makes an eastward up-
lift of 100 feet in 225 miles, 0.4 foot per
mile.
The steadiness or uniformity of the tilted
marine plane in the Hudson and southern
part of the Champlain valleys is somewhat
surprising. It does not seem probable that
all land uplifting was deferred until the
ice was removed from a stretch of 200 miles
and that the rise and tilting was that of a
rigid mass. It would seem more likely that
as the weight of the ice sheet was slowly
removed it was followed by a progressive
wave of land uplift. However, the final
result of an epeirogenie wave-like uplift
might be a fairly uniform plane, simula-
ting that produced by tilting of a rigid
surface,
POSTGLACIAL EROSION
Land erosion since the ice sheet disap-
peared is exhibited in wave cutting by the
lakes and eanyon eutting by diverted
streams. In postglacial ravines New York
SCIENCE 297
state excels. We may recall Niagara, the
three ravines in the course of the Genesee,
the Ausable chasm, Watkins glen. But
there are great numbers of glens or steep-
walled rock gorges throughout the state
which are quite as interesting and instrue-
tive as these, even if smaller and unadver-
tised.
When applied to the effects of erosion in
New York the term ‘‘postglacial’’ needs
explanation, for much canyon cutting was
effected while the ice sheet still lingered on
territory of the state. For example, the
Portage ravine of the Genesee began cut-
ting while the ice front was not far away
on the north. The Mount Morris ravine,
the ‘‘High Banks,’’ was in the making
while the ice covered Rochester. And the
upper (south) section of the Rochester
canyon was largely cut while Lake Iroquois
waters prevented the excavation of the
lower part of the gorge. Certainly a large
part of the erosional work in central and
western New York and the Hudson Valley
occurred while the glacier still covered the
northern lowlands of the state, including
the Champlain Valley.
GLACIAL TIME
The first question commonly asked by the
non-geologist is, ‘‘how long ago?’’ We
have to admit ignorance of any precise
measure of geologic time. Geologists have
learned to think in millions of years, and
they are not greatly concerned with the
precise duration of so short a period as the
glacial or postglacial episode. However,
precise knowledge is desirable and a yard-
stick of geologic time must be sought. All
attempts to use the present rate of canyon
eutting or cataract recession as an index of
time have failed, and no data yet discovered
have much value.
The history of the ice-front recession
with its long succession of lakes and well-
298 SCIENCE
developed river channels compels the ex-
tension of our estimates of the length of
glacial time, and all studies on glacial geol-
ogy have the same result.
If we take 10,000 years as a moderate
estimate of the life of Lake Ontario, then
we must add an equal, and perhaps much
greater, time for the lifting of the basin
out of the marine waters. Then we must
allow at least another 10,000 years for the
duration of Lake Iroquois; and the 30,000
years carries us back only to the time when
the ice sheet was removed from the western
part of the state. This appears to be but a
minor portion of the time covered by the
waning of the glacier, judging from the
maps and the known history preceding the
initiation of Lake Iroquois,
If we assume 75,000 years as the time in
the waning of the ice sheet, then we seem
compelled to add an equal time for the in-
vasion of the ice, with some time in addi-
tion for the pause at the terminal moraine.
Most glacialists will probably agree that
150,000 years for the length of the latest or
Wisconsin ice epoch is a fair estimate.
And back of this we have the earlier and
much longer glacial and _ interglacial
epochs. The estimates of those best quali-
fied to judge of the length of Pleistocene
time are from 500,000 to 1,500,000 years.
WORK OF THE STATE SURVEY
The Pleistocene phenomena of the state
have been the subject of casual observation
and publication for over half a century,
and a bibliography would be too large to
present here. But the glacial and Pleisto-
cene is the youngest member of the geologic
branches of study, and only in recent years
has the New York State Museum financed
the glacial study as a distinct line of field-
work and publication. This assistance,
however, has been generous and effective,
as the numerous papers and handsome
[N. 8. Vou. XXXVII. No, 947
maps published since 1900, and especially
since 1905, will bear witness. The only
elaborate and expensive maps and text pub.
lished under other auspices than the State
Museum is the U. S. Geological Survey
Folio 169, already cited above. A deserip-
tion of the Moravia quadrangle by Carney
was published in 1909 by Denison Univer.
sity, with a sketch map in black and white.
The more important Pleistocene publica-
tions of the State Museum are Bulletins
48, 83, 84 by Woodworth; 154 by Stoller,
and 106, 111, 127, 145 (in part) and 160
by Fairchild. Earlier papers by the writer
are contained in the 20th Annual Report
of the State Geologist, 1902, 21st Report,
1903, and the 22d Report, 1904. Previous
papers by the writer on the Pleistocene
features of the state were published in the
Bulletin of this society, beginning in 1895,
and in other scientific journals.
For effective future work it is desirable
that some scheme or far-sighted plan
should bring all the glacial studies of the
state into harmonious cooperation for the
large result. And also that a cartographic
scheme should be adopted that will secure
maps as uniform in convention and color as
possible.
Two important subjects requiring syste-
matic study are the moraines and the drift-
buried valleys. The state should under-
take the mapping of the buried valleys.
It should employ a well-boring outfit to se-
cure data for accurate profiles of the hard-
rock surfaces beneath the drift north of the
Finger lakes, and wherever the Preglacial
valleys of scientific interest are obscured.
This would be a unique and popular work
for the State Museum. The expense of
such exploration would not be large, while
the scientific and educational value would
be great.
Another duty of the state is the preserva-
tion intact of the Jamesville and Blue lakes
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cataract features. These splendid evi-
dences of an ancient glacial drainage, ante-
dating Niagara and corresponding in fune-
tion, should be made state property and
preserved for the people. They are scenic
features of as much beauty and of much
more educational value than Watkins Glen
and some other state parks.
HerMAN L. FAIRCHILD
UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
THE DIVISION OF EDUCATIONAL INQUIRY
UNDER THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION
Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE has given $1,250,000
to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advance-
ment of Teaching. The gift was announced
on the eleventh, at a meeting of the executive
committee at its offices, 576 Fifth Avenue.
The gift is in the form of 4 per cent. bonds
and the income is to be set aside for special
investigation relative to the purposes of the
original foundation of pensioning college pro-
fessors,
The announcement of the executive com-
mittee states that the money is to be devoted
to the endowment of a Division of Educational
Enquiry and makes permanent provision for
studies hitherto conducted by the foundation
out of its general fund. It is the plan of the
trustees to proceed with the new endowment to
make other studies similar to those already
published concerning medical education and
in particular to study legal education in its
relation to the supply of lawyers and the cost
of legal process.
Mr. Carnegie’s letter to the trustees is as
follows:
CARNEGIE CORPORATION OF NEW YORK,
January 31, 1913.
To THE TRUSTEES OF THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHING.
Gentlemen :—Appreciating the valuable results
of the educational studies of the Foundation and
being of opinion that it is desirable that a fund
be established to secure such results and conduct
such investigations as may aid you in your work
and realizing that sufficient income may not now
be available for that purpose, I hereby offer to the
foundation the sum of one million and a quarter
SCIENCE 299
dollars four (4) per cent. bonds, to be held and
used by the foundation upon the following terms:
I. There shall be organized in the foundation am
agency for the study of education and educational
institutions, to be designated the Division of Edu-
cational Enquiry.
II. Any endowment or funds conveyed to the
foundation for the use of such division shall con-
stitute and be held as a special fund and the
income alone be used and shall be accounted for
separately from the general funds of the founda-
tion and shall be devoted to the purposes herein-
after named.
ITI. It shall be the function of the Division of
Educational Enquiry to conduct studies and to
make investigations concerning universities, col-
leges, professional schools, and systems of educa-
tion generally, to investigate problems of educa-
tion affecting the improvement of educational
methods, the advancement of teaching, or better-
ment of educational standards, and in general to
investigate and to report upon those educational
agencies which undertake to deal with the intel-
lectual, social and moral progress of mankind and
to publish such results as the trustees may consider
of value.
IV. The income of the Division of Educational
Enquiry shall be used in the expenses incident to
the performance of the work of the Division of
Educational Enquiry as hereinbefore set forth, as
may from time to time be undertaken and pub-
lished by the foundation, but no part of the income
of the fund or funds specifically given for the use
of this division shall be used in the payment of
pensions.
It is my purpose to aid the trustees of the
foundation to conduct their work upon broad lines
and to enable them to obtain such information as
will make the whole endowment of the Foundation
of the greatest possible service to mankind.
Yours truly,
(Signed) ANDREW CARNEGIE,
President.
THE MILWAUKEE MEETING OF THE
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
Tue forty-seventh annual meeting of the
American Chemical Society will be held in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 25 to 28, inclu-
sive. A meeting of the council will be held on
March 24, at the Hotel Pfister, which is the
hotel headquarters. The meetings will be held
at Marquette University, Grand Ave. and 11th
300.
St., where every facility is offered for the
meetings of the divisions in the center of Mil-
waukee’s business section.
Mr. C. H. Hall is chairman of the local com-
mittee and Mr. P. J. Weber, secretary. The
finance committee is under the chairmanship
of Mr. G. N. Prentiss. Reception, registration
and information committees are under the
chairmanship of Mr. E. V. Manuel. The com-
mittee on arrangement has Mr. H. W. Rohde
as its chairman, Mr. F. E. Layman is chairman
of the entertainment committee, and Mr. C. R.
McKee is chairman of the committee on enter-
tainment of ladies.
The entertainment committee is planning an
interesting program, which will be an un-
doubted success, and special attention is being
paid to preparations for the entertainment of
ladies at such times as they can not participate
in the regular program. Many manufacturing
plants will be visited, and although no definite
arrangements can be announced in the present
circular, it may be stated that Milwaukee con-
tains important works covering the tanning
industry, manufacture of iron and steel, by-
product coke and gas, manufacture of glue,
manufacture of automobiles and automobile
parts, automobile tires, packing industry,
manufacture of refrigerating machinery, gaso-
line engines, kerosene engines, and shops of
railroad companies, most of which will be open
to the members.
All the divisions will meet. It is probable
that the Biological Division will be duly
organized at this meeting. Members are espe-
cially asked to note the excursion to Madison,
Wisconsin, on Friday, March 28. The So-
ciety has a special invitation from President
Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin, and
it is hoped that all those who attend the meet-
ing will also go to Madison. The city is but
seventy miles from Milwaukee and is of special
interest, being the seat of the state capitol,
the University of Wisconsin, the United States
Forest Products Laboratory, and the location
of a large beet-sugar refining plant, which, if
present information is correct, will be in opera-
tion at the time of the convention.
All papers for the meeting must be in the
SCIENCE
(N.S. Vou. XXXVII. No, 947
secretary’s hands on or before March 7 or in
the hands of secretaries of divisions by March
5, in order to be on the program. By vote of
the council no papers can be presented at the
meeting that are not printed on the final pro-
gram.
The following are the addresses of the divi-
sional and sectional secretaries:
Industrial Division—M. C. Whitaker (pro tem.),
Columbia University, New York City.
Physical and Inorganic—R. C. Wells, U. S. Geo-
logical Survey, Washington, D. C.
Fertilizer—J. E. Breckenridge, Carteret, N. J.
Agricultural and Food—G. F. Mason, care of
Heinz Company, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Organie—Wm. J. Hale, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Pharmaceutical—Frank R. Eldred, 3325 Ken-
wood Ave., Indianapolis, Ind.
Rubber—Dorris Whipple, care of The Safety
Insulated Wire and Cable Company, Bayonne, N. J.
Biological—I. K. Phelps, Bureau of Mines, 40th
and Butler Sts., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Chemical Education—J. F. Norris, Simmons Col-
lege, Boston, Mass.
SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS
Sm Davin Git has been elected the first
honorary member of the Astronomical and
Astrophysical Society of America.
Sm Tien, F.R.S., the British
chemist, has been elected a corresponding
member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences,
St. Petersburg.
Tue gold medal of the Royal Astronomical
Society has been awarded to M. Henri Alex-
andre Deslandres for his investigations of solar
phenomena and other spectroscopic work.
Tue Langley medals of the Smithsonian
Institution are to be conferred on M. Gustav
Eiffel, the French engineer, and Mr. Glenn H.
Curtiss, known for his development of the
hydro-aeroplane.
Mr. F. W. Hoper, of the Bureau of Ameri-
ean Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, has
been elected a corresponding member of the
Société des Américanistes de Paris.
Proressor Povutrox, F.R.S., Professor
Bourne, F.R.S., and Mr. E. S. Goodrich.
21, 1913]
F.RS., have been appointed to represent
Oxford University at the International Con-
gress of Zoology, to be held this year at
Monaco.
Proressor A. Kerru has been elected presi-
dent of the Royal Anthropological Institute of
Great Britain and Ireland.
Dr. E. B. Rosa, of the Bureau of Standards,
gave the address of the retiring president be-
fore the Philosophical Society of Washington
on February 15. His subject was “ The Func-
tion of Research and the Regulation of Na-
tional Monopolies.”
Proressok CHARLES LapwortH has expressed
the desire to vacate the chair of geology in
Birmingham University at the end of the cur-
rent session.
The Chemist and Druggist, London, reports
the appointment, by the Pharmaceutical
Chemistry Section of the Eighth International
Congress of Applied Chemistry, of an interna-
tional commission to continue the inquiry on
“Variation in the activity of certain toxic
drugs” and to report at St. Petersburg in 1915.
The commission named is as follows: Austria,
Professor Wilhelm Mitlacher; France, Pro-
fessor E. Bourquelot; Germany, Professor H.
Thoms; Great Britain, Francis Ransom,
F.C.S.; Netherlands, Professor L. van Itallie;
Switzerland, Professor A. Tscheich; United
States, Dr. Rodney H. True. Three secre-
taries for the commission were also appointed:
European Continent, George P. Forrester,
F.C.S.; Great Britain, Peter MacEnau,
F.C.S.; United States, Otto Raubenheimer.
Proressor H. Lovis Jackson, B.S. (Mass.
Tnst., 05), who has held the position as assist-
ant professor of chemistry in charge of foods
at the University of Kansas since 1907, has
accepted the position of state chemist of Idaho.
He will go at once to Boise, where the labora-
tory is located.
Franz Scunemwer, Jr., ’09, instructor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has
accepted the position of sanitary expert to the
department of surveys and exhibits, Russel
Sage Foundation. For the lecture work that
has been carried on by Mr. Schneider, W. C.
SCIENCE 301
Purdy, professor of biology at Geneva College,
has been called and will be named assistant in
biology.
THe Peruvian government has officially
designated Mr. Charles H. T. Townsend
director of entomological stations in addition
to his title of government entomologist, ex-
tending his contract to December 31, 1913.
A central station of agricultural entomology is
already established in temporary quarters at
Lima, for the general investigation of insect
plagues of agriculture in the central coast
region. It is intended to maintain the branch
station of agricultural entomology in the de-
partment of Piura, for continuing the inves-
tigation of cotton insects and their enemies.
A station of medical entomology has been
established at Chosica, where an investigation
of the blood-sucking arthropods of the verruga
zones has already been started to determine
what species may be the carrier of verruga
fever. Mr. E. W. Rust has been transferred
from Piura to Lima, and Mr. J. G. Cateriano
has been added to the force. Several gradu-
ates from the School of Agriculture will be
trained in agricultural entomology, and a
graduate or two from the School of Medicine
will be trained in medical entomology at
Chosica.
THe Museum of Zoology, University of
Michigan, will send a second expedition to
Whitefish Point, Chippewa County, Michigan,
in the summer of 1913, to continue the work
started in that region in 1912. The 1913 work,
like that of 1912, will be supported by Hon.
George Shiras, and the results will be pub-
lished under the same general title “ Results
of the Shiras Expeditions to the Whitefish
Point Region, Michigan.”
Proressor C. E. McCuiuna, of the University
of Pennsylvania, lectured before the Society of
the Sigma Xi of that university on February 7,
his subject being “ Sex Determination.”
Tue first lecture of the year before the Ohio
State University Chapter of Sigma Xi Society
was given by Dr. A. W. Gilbert, Cornell Uni-
versity, on the topic “ The Method and Scope
of Genetics.” The officers of the Ohio State
302
University Chapter of the Sigma Xi Society
this year are Dean David S. White of the
College of Veterinary Medicine, president; J.
S. Hine, associate professor of biology, vice-
president; F. C. Blake, professor of physics,
treasurer, and James R. Withrow, professor of
industrial chemistry, secretary.
Proressor A. M. Tozzer, of Harvard Uni-
versity, during the mid-year period, gave lec-
tures before the various societies of the Archeo-
logical Institute of America in the following
places: St. John, Halifax, Quebec, Montreal,
Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Buffalo, Roches-
ter, Auburn and Syracuse.
Own February 7, Professor Edward L. Thorn-
dike, of Teachers College, Columbia Univer-
sity, delivered in the afternoon a lecture on
“Social Instincts” before the department of
psychology of the John Hopkins University;
and, in the evening he addressed the Educa-
tional Society of Baltimore on “ Retardation
and Elimination in High School.”
Proressor J. S. Pray, chairman of the de-
partment of landscape gardening of Harvard
University, gave recently two lectures at the
University of Illinois on the subjects “ Func-
tional City Planning” and “ Gardens Old and
New.”
Monsieur J. M. F. pe Puuieny, ingenieur
en chef des ponts et chaussées, et directeur,
Mission Francaise d’Ingenieurs aux Etats-
Unis, New York City, on February 11, de-
livered an illustrated lecture on “ The Public
Service of Roads in France,” before the gradu-
ate students in highway engineering at Colum-
bia University.
On February 4 Professor G. H. Parker
lectured before the Vassar Brothers’ Institute,
Poughkeepsie, N. Y., on “ The Evolution of
the Nervous System.”
Tue Alumni Association of the Michigan
College of Mines has published its January
number of The M. C. M. Alumnus, which is
a memorial to Professor George A. Koenig,
head of the department of chemistry, who died
in Philadelphia on January 14. The number
contains a full-page engraving from a late
SCIENCE
[N.S. Von. XXXVII. No, 947
photograph, a biography and the addresses of
the memorial service.
Proressor Jutius Franz, director of the
astronomical observatory at Breslau, has died
at the age of sixty-five years.
Dr. G. pe Lava, the well-known Swedish
engineer and inventor, has died at the age of
sixty-seven years.
Tue Civil Service Commission invites at-
tention to the regular spring examinations for
scientific assistant, Department of Agricul-
ture, to be held April 9 and 10. The entrance
salaries are from $1,000 to $1,800. Examina-
tions will be given in the following subjects:
agronomy, dairying, entomology, farm eco-
nomics, farm equipment, forage crops, general
farm management, horticulture, library sci-
ence, nutrition and calorimetry, plant breed-
ing, plant pathology, pomology, seed testing,
soil bacteriology, soil chemistry, soil survey-
ing. An examination will be held on March
10 for senior highway engineer, to fill vacan-
cies as they may occur in this position in the
office of public roads, Department of Agricul-
ture, at salaries ranging from $2,000 to $2,400
a year.
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS
Tue sum of $75,000 has been subscribed and
given to Vassar College to endow a chair of
physical science.
In a recent issue of Science, mention was
made of the bequests of Levi N. Stewart, of
Minneapolis, to Dartmouth, Bowdoin and
Bates Colleges. In addition Mr. Stewart be-
queathed $75,000 to Colby College.
Mr. Dan R. Hanna, proprietor of the Cleve-
land Leader and News, has offered to the West-
ern Reserve University ten thousand dollars a
year for establishing a School of Journalism.
The school will be coordinated with the other
professional schools of the university, and will
be its ninth department. Adelbert College, the
college of arts and sciences for men, is the
oldest department. It was founded as Western
Fesruary 21, 1913]
Reserve College in 1826, and refounded as
Adelbert College of Western Reserve Univer-
sity in 1882. The School of Medicine was
founded in 1843, the School of Pharmacy in
1882 and the College for Women in 1888. In
1892, the School of Law, the Graduate School
and the Dental School were founded. The
Library School was founded in 1904.
Tue actual number of law schools in the
United States only increased from 102 to 118
in the decade from 1902 to 1912, according to
figures compiled at the U. S. Bureau of Educa-
tion, but the number of students studying
law in these schools increased from 13,912 to
20,760 in same period. There were 3,524
graduates of law schools in 1902 and 4,394 last
year. Law students, having a collegiate degree,
doubled in the ten years. Financially the law
schools show a remarkable advance. The en-
dowment funds increased from half a million
to nearly two million dollars; the grounds and
buildings tripled in value; and the total in-
come in 1912 was $1,368,000, as against $523,-
000 in 1902. The 387,000 volumes in the law-
school libraries of 1902 had grown to 936,000
in 1912.
Dr. Freperic Lyman WELLS, assistant in
pathological psychology at the McLean Hos-
pital, is conducting a course of lectures and
discussions on “ Pathological Psychology” at
Harvard University.
Dr. Frepertck G. Donnan, F.R.S., has been
appointed to the chair of general chemistry at
University College, London, recently vacated
by Sir William Ramsay, F.R.S.
Dr. J, Daxry, F.R.S., at present
assistant professor at London University, has
been appointed professor of biology at the
University of Western Australia, Perth. Dr.
Alexander D. Ross, of Scotland, has been ap-
pointed professor of mathematics and pope
in the same institution.
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE
A PLAN FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MEDICAL
RESEARCH
Jupeine by the number of bequests,
dowments directed toward that d,
d en-
the
SCIENCE
303
furthering of medical research is an attractive
field for philanthropic endeavor if not for
public investment. As one of the rank and
file who are working toward the advancement
of medical science I would suggest that no
method of encouraging such research has
heretofore been wholly successful. The foun-
dation of institutes for this purpose is effec-
tive in case of the favored few who happen to
be reached, but for most scientists (including
the clinical variety), who are engaged in
teaching in medical schools, who constitute
the great proportion of the working force,
such foundations are of little assistance.
The most effective plan would seem to be
that by which actual accomplishment is re-
warded without unduly favoring any one.
Such a result could be achieved by the simple
expedient of endowing the periodicals de-
voted to the publication of research so that
contributed articles could be paid for accord-
ing to their merit. Such an arrangement
would obviate the most discouraging feature
of working in many institutions, the feeling
that unusual effort is, from a selfish point of
view, not merely futile but even detrimental,
in that leisure for reading, recreation and
family life is sacrificed without compensating
gain.
The plan in operation would be simplicity
itself. Rewards would go automatically to
those who earned them. The chief difficulty
seemingly would be to secure editorial boards
fair minded enough to decide justly upon the
merits of each contribution, but that difficulty
would be by no means insurmountable. In
any case to assign a value to a given piece of
research would be much easier than to fore-
cast which of a dozen men would be accom-
plishing the most effective work ten years
later, a forecast which, as a matter of fact, has
to be made in each instance, before a desirable
research or teaching position can justly be as-
signed.
It is recognized that the best endeavor can
not be bought, and that the best rewards of a
scientific career are not pecuniary—“ but that
is another story!” Whatever merit there is
in financial encouragement would seem best
304
to be secured by some such as the foregoing
plan. R. G.
STARLING OHIO MEDICAL COLLEGE
GRANA DE BRASILE
To THe Epiror or Science: I should be glad
to learn what grain and what region were
meant by “grana de Brasile” in the 1193
commercial treaty between the “ Bononienses”
and “ Ferrarienses ” copied by Muratori into
Vol. 2 of his “ Antiquitates Italice,” p. 844.
He mentions (p. 488) the repetition of the
same item in a “ charta” of 1198.
Capmany’s Spanish work on the early ship-
ping arts, etc., of Barcelona copies in Vol. 2
several thirteenth century Catalan tariff lists,
three of which (the earliest 1221) for that and
other parts, respectively mention, among mis-
cellaneous commodities, “ Carrega de Brasill,”
“ faix de bresil” and “cargua de brazil.”
The usual impost seems to have been two
solidos. One of these lists mentions “ grana ”
unqualified. There seems nothing to indicate
what material was or was not meant, except
the slight negative value of that reference.
It is interesting to see the variations of
orthography in these lists, duplicating those
of the Brazil west of southern Ireland on the
fourteenth and fifteenth century maps, though
Fra Mauro adds berzil and the more southern
apparently imitative Brazils (Terciera and
others) exhibit further vagaries of spelling.
The first appearance of Brazil in geography
seems to be, so far as reported, south of west
of Limerick on the 1325 map of Dalorto.
Was it thence that the “grain” of 1193
and 1198 was supposed to have come? It ean
hardly be an error for dyes or dye woods,
though both grain and dye wood may have
been associated with the idea and name of
Brazil, as we still write both India-ink and
India-rubber. W. H. Bascock
CONCERNING GOVERNMENT APPLICATION BLANKS
To THE Eprror or Science: In former times
when one wished to institute a comparison be-
tween the various classes of liars, he was ac-
customed to say “he lies like a horse-thief,”
or “he lies like a tombstone.” Now, however,
SCIENCE
(N.S. Vou. XXXVII. No. 947
those of us who are connected with the teach-
ing profession are given to saying “ he lies like
a testimonial.”
It seems a little too bad that one’s natural
tendency towards mendacity should be ac-
celerated by no less a person than Uncle Sam.
Some time ago I was asked to fill out a blank
for an applicant for a teaching position in the
Philippine Islands, and among other questions
asked me were the following:
8. Is the applicant now, or has he ever been,
addicted to the use of intoxicating beverages,
morphine or opium?
14. Can you state positively that the applicant’s
character is unimpeachable, and his reputation for
sobriety and morality unquestionably good?
The printed directions state that all ques-
tions must be answered and that to say “I
don’t know” is unsatisfactory. Now I feel
confident that the young lady who did me the
honor to ask me for a testimonial has not been
addicted to the use of intoxicating beverages,
morphine, or opium; but I could not make this
statement as a positive fact about her or any
other acquaintance of mine. Again, I believe
the applicant’s character to be unimpeachable,
but I can not state positively that such is the
ease. This is a world of surprises and disap-
pointments. I am most optimistic, but not
sufficiently so to answer these questions in the
affirmative. May we not hope that our new
president-elect will take measures to relieve the
tender consciences of college professors from
the great strain that these government blanks
put upon them?
James S. STEVENS
UNIVERSITY OF MAINE
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS
Richtlinien des Entwicklungs- und Verer-
bungsproblems. By Atrrep Greil, Pro-
fessor of Anatomy, Innsbruck. Jena, Gus-
tav Fischer. 1912. 2 parts.
The crude evolutionism of Bonnet gave
place to the epigenesis of C. F. Woeff, and
this, too indefinite to give sufficient explana-
tion of the phenomena of cell differentiation,
adaptation and inheritance, in turn was sup
planted by a newer preformationism, at first
Fepruary 21, 1913]
also rather crude, but later becoming more
and more refined, until finally it has become
almost if not quite metaphysical. To Pro-
fessor Greil, however, preformationism in any
of its forms is a stone of stumbling and a
rock of offense, and in the two volumes now
before us he attempts to recall the feet of the
faithful to the paths of epigenesis, by what he
terms, with insistence, a formal or descriptive
analysis of the phenomena of development.
He starts, however, with a basic proposition,
“the true and fundamental principle of ra-
tional comparative embryology,” which he ex-
presses in the words of Haeckel, “ Aus Gleich-
artigem Ungleichartiges.” He is thus an
epigenesist of the epigenesists and his method
of analysis is to proceed from this assumed
truth to reconstruction of the embryological
history. The first part of the treatise is prac-
tically a reprint of a paper recently published
in the Zoologische Jahrbiicher’* and is a de-
scription of the phenomena of development as
seen by a thorough-going epigenesist, who is
also a firm believer in the biogenetic law.
In the second part special problems, such as
adaptation and variability, inheritance and
sex-determination, are similarly surveyed and
in a somewhat extended appendix the various
theories of Roux, R. Hertwig, Rabl, Mehnert,
Kassawitz, Fick and Godlewski are reviewed
and criticized, with the same richness of dia-
lectie that pervades the entire work.
For the author wields the pen of a ready
writer, which unfortunately frequently leads
him into unnecessary repetitions and verbosi-
ties, which extend over seven hundred pages
what might have been clearly and forcibly
presented in perhaps half the space, to the
greater comfort and satisfaction of the reader.
But even with due allowance for redundancies,
the ground covered is so extensive as to pre-
clude the possibility of a review or even a bare
enumeration of the various questions dis-
cussed, and it must suffice to repeat that the
main thesis of the work is the all-sufficiency
"A. Greil, ‘‘Ueber allgemeine Richtlinien des
Entwicklungs- und Vererbungsprobleme,’’ Zool.
Jahrb. Ba. XXXI., Abt. fiir allgem. Zool. und
Physiol. der Tiere, 1912.
SCIENCE 305
of epigenesis. That is the one and only power,
and formal analysis is its prophet. Professor
Greil presents a strong case, but it must be
confessed that he does not and, indeed, in the
present state of our knowledge, he can not yet
remove the difficulty that has forced so many
thinking zoologists into preformationism,
namely, an explanation of how differentiation
is possible by epigenesis. One may glibly
talk of cellular interaction, of effects produced
by quantity and quality of the food and by the
outside environment, and of the determina-
tion resulting for the chemical constitution
of the ovum, but until we have concrete evi-
dence of how these or other factors act in the
production of differentiation epigenesis will
continue to be no explanation. And, after
all, if the last named of the above factors be
admitted, is it not merely carrying preforma-
tionism back to its ultimate limits and making
it identical with epigenesis?
J. P. MoM.
Origin and Antiquity of Man. By G.
FrepericK Wricut, D.D., LL.D., F.G.S.A.
Oberlin, Ohio, Bibliotheca Sacra Company.
1912. Pp. xx+ 547. Illustrated.
As an introduction Professor Wright dis-
cusses the origin and antiquity of the earth.
He inclines toward a very moderate estimate
of the length of geologic time and hence of
the human period, which began when man
became a tool-user. To him the ancient
civilizations of Babylonia, Egypt, Crete and
Central Asia were of a high order. These
rare blossoms in the springtime of history
were each nurtured by exceptional geniuses
instead of being the product of a gradual
unfolding.
The diversity of languages is invoked as an
aid in the measurement of man’s antiquity.
In view of the rapidity with which children
when isolated invent a language of their own,
the author believes the evidence of an ex-
tremely great antiquity of the human race
drawn from the diversity of language at the
dawn of history to be far from conclusive.
In the chapter on the “ Origin of the Races
of Europe” (p. 105), the author states that
806
the stone implements of the Scandinavian
shell heaps “have usually been polished and
sharpened by rubbing; this justifying their
assignment to the ‘smooth stone age.’” The
fact is, artifacts of polished stone characterize
a later stage and not the early shell-heap
phase of the neolithic. Neither do the
“chipped flint daggers of exquisite form ” and
the perforated diorite axes (pp. 125-126) come
from the “kitchen middens,” but from the
stone cist burials of a later epoch. The state-
ments that the Cro-Magnon race is of neo-
lithie age (p. 115) and that it did not appear
until after the mammoth had become extinct
(p. 116) would not be admitted by the best
authorities. Cro-Magnon is paleolithic and
the mammoth lived on until the close of the
Magdalenian, as attested by the mural art of
the caverns, especially at Font-de-Gaume; and
hence was a contemporary of the Cro-Magnon
race. In the same paragraph by inference
one is led to suppose that the engraved figure
of a reindeer from Thayngen is the work of
a neolithic craftsman; when on the contrary
it is paleolithic.
As might be expected of Professor Wright,
much space is devoted to man and the Glacial
period, not only in the old world, but also in
the new. His estimates of the length of time
that has elapsed since the beginning of the
Glacial period are moderate. He believes that
the Glacial period was practically a unit,
there being four phases instead of four dis-
tinct epochs, thus differing from some of the
most noted living glacialists. The cause of
the Glacial period is assigned to land eleva-
tion and its disappearance to a subsidence,
factors which probably played a réle in the
great climatic drama, but which might have
been correlated with other factors such as the
changing condition of the sun itself and in
the atmosphere.
But little space is given to cultural and
somatic evolution, in which field many impor-
tant results have recently been achieved. The
Magdalenian polychrome frescoes on the cav-
ern ceiling at Altamira are referred to as of
Aurignacian age, an error into which Sollas
(“ Ancient Hunters”) also fell.
SCIENCE
Vou. XXXVII. No. 947
The author’s point of view might possibly
be best reflected in a few quotations: “Our
earliest knowledge of man is of a being fully
formed and in possession of all the faculties
of his kind” (p. 389). “On the important
question of man’s first arrival on this planet
we may for the present possess our minds in
peace, not a trace of unquestionable evidence
of his existence having been found in strata
admittedly older than the Pleistocene” (pp.
341-2). “The simple arithmetical calcula-
tions made above show that when once started,
the dispersion over the world, the diversifica-
tion of the races, the differentiation of lan-
guages, and the development of ancient civil-
ization may easily have come about in the
course of four or five thousand years, if not
in half that time, and that the extension of
prehistoric time for eight thousand years
affords superabundant opportunity for the
growth and development of all the peculiari-
ties and institutions of man as first made
known to us at the dawn of history” (p. 493).
“The antiquity of man therefore so far as
the question depends upon his connection with
the Glacial epoch, is not proved to be, even
when we allow a generous margin, greater
than twelve or fifteen thousand years” (p.
494).
The chapter preceding the “Summary and
Conclusion ” treats of “The Biblical Scheme.”
The work has the welcome merit of an en-
gaging style, possessing to a degree the charm
of the author’s personality. Another attract-
ive feature is the “Appendix” of copious
notes and references.
Georce Grant MacCurpy
YALE UNIVERSITY
SPECIAL ARTICLES
NEW AND EXTINCT BIRDS AND OTHER SPECIES
FROM THE PLEISTOCENE OF OREGON
Many years ago I published in the Journal
of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia
an account of the fauna of the Oregon desert
region during Pleistocene time. This account
was based upon a large collection of fossils
sent me for the purpose by the late Professor
E. D. Cope, who, with his assistants and 4
Fesruary 21, 1913]
few other naturalists, had brought this val-
uable material together. By far the greater
part of this consisted of the fossil bones of
birds, the mammals and fish having been
described by Professor Cope in The American
Naturalist and elsewhere.
The results of my share of the work have
long since passed into the literature of the
subject; and, as these are fully set forth in
my academy memoir, they need not be espe-
cially reviewed in this place. It may only be
noted that I announced, for the first time, the
discovery of a long list of birds, based on the
fossils referred to, the majority of which co-
incided with species and genera of existing
forms, while a somewhat formidable array
were extinct and new to science.
At the time my examination was made, the
skeletons of existing birds at my command
were entirely inadequate for the purposes of
making reliable diagnoses and _ references.
During the past twenty years, however, such
material has been vastly increased in our mu-
seums, especially in the U. S. National Mu-
seum, and for the use of this in the present
connection I am much indebted.
Several years ago, what may be collectively
designated as the Cope collection from the
aforesaid region was purchased by the Amer-
ican Museum of Natural History in New
York City for its paleontological department ;
and only a few months ago Dr. W. D. Mat-
thew, the curator of that department, shipped
me to Washington the entire collection for
the purpose of a complete revision. This task
is now practically completed, and the object
of the present article is simply to publish an
advance abstract as an announcement of the
additional birds of the region in question, the
fossil remains of which I have found to exist
in the aforesaid collection, and a small collec-
tion from the same localities (Silver and Fos-
sil lakes), which belongs to the U. S. National
Museum. The new species will be fully de-
scribed in the forthcoming contribution on
the subject, accompanying which will be found
upwards of 600 figures illustrating the entire
avifauna of the Pleistocene of Oregon, in so
far as their fossil remains are concerned.
SCIENCE
307
The list is as follows, each species in it, with
one exception, being announced for the first
time:
. Colymbus parvus (extinct).
. Podilymbus magnus (extinct).
. Centrocercus urophasianus.
. Mergus americanus?
. Mergus serrator.
. Mergus sp.?
Marila americana?
. Marila valisineria.
9. Marila marila.
10. Marila affinis?
11. Marila collaris?
12. Charitonetta albeola.
13. Histrionicus histrionicus.
14, Polysticta stelleri.
15. Erismatura jamaicensis.
16. Branta c. hutchinsi?
17. Branta c. minima?
18 Branta bernicla.
19. Olor columbianus.
20. Olor buccinator.
21. Olor matthewi (extinct).
22. Ardea herodias.
23. Botaurus lentiginosus.
24, Aquila chrysaétos.
25. Haliwetus leucocephalus.
Erismatura jamaicensis has been previously
announced by Mr. L. H. Miller in the Bulletin
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Cali-
fornia. The three new extinct birds found,
and the descriptions of them, will appear when
the memoir is published.
R. W. SHUFELDT
November 18, 1912
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL
SOCIETY OF AMERICA
THE seventh annual meeting of the Entomolog-
ical Society of America was held at Cleveland,
Ohio, December 31 and January 1, in the audi-
torium of the Normal School. The meetings were
all well attended and enthusiastic. The following
papers were presented:
C. Berren, Lake Forest University: An Inter-
esting Feature in the Venation of Helicopsyche,
the Molannide and the Leptoceride.
In the trichopterous genus Helicopsyche radius
of the fore wing is found in primitive condition,
i. e., R, is simple and the sector is dichotomously
branched. The homology is but slightly obscured
308
by the fact that the cross vein r—m is in direct
line with the distal part of R,, making the latter
appear to arise from M. It is suggested that the
same interpretation should be made in the case of
the Molannide and the Leptoceride. In these
families R, has more definitely assumed relations
with M, with which vein its distal part may be
wholly fused. This interpretation is based not
only on comparison with Helicopsyche, but also
upon the fact that it leaves the ‘‘corneous point’’
within cell R,, where it occurs in all other families
if it oceurs at all. The venation of the hind wings
of these forms is similarly interpreted.
Lucy W. SmirH, Mt. Holyoke College: Mating
and Egg-laying Habits of Perla immarginata.
In introduction the paper gives a general de-
scription of the method of keeping adult stoneflies
under observation in captivity, and of handling
their eggs. This is followed by a detailed account
of the genital armature, copulation and egg-laying
habits of a single species, Perla immarginata.
ALVAH PETERSON, University of Illinois: Head
and Mouth Parts of Cephalothrips yucce.
A preliminary report on the asymmetry of the
mouth-parts of Thysanoptera. A detailed deserip-
tion of the anatomy of the mouth-parts and head
eapsule of Cephalothrips yucca, a species belong-
ing to the suborder Tubulifera, was given. Nu-
merous details and parts heretofore undescribed
as to mandibles, hypopharynx, epipharynx, arms
of tentorium, ete., were shown. Similar observa-
tions were made on Anthothrips verbasci in order
to verify results found in Cephalothrips yucce.
Comparing the work done by H. Garman on
Limothrips cerealium, a species of Terebrantia,
with the work done by Muir and Kershaw on a
species of Tubulifera, a difference in interpreta-
tion exists as to whether the asymmetrical parts
are mandibles or maxille. Muir and Kershaw
interpret the asymmetrical parts as maxille.
Observations made by the writer on two species
of Tubulifera verifies their position in general.
The writer expects to continue his observations on
species of the suborder of Terebrantia to deter-
mine if possible whether the interpretation of H.
Garman is correct or not.
J. E. WopsEDALEK, University of Wisconsin: Life
History and Habits of Trogoderma tarsale, a
Museum Pest. Read by title.
LEONARD HASEMAN, University of Missouri: Life
Cycle and Development of the Tarnished Plant
Bug, Lygus pratensis Linn. Presented by the
secretary.
SCIENCE
[N.S. VoL. XXXVII. No, 947
Owing to the very serious injury to peach and
pear in the early spring which seemed to be due
to the work of the tarnished plant-bug, the writer
has undertaken a careful study of the life cycle,
habits and development of this insect. The work
has been carried through the late summer and fal]
months and will be continued throughout the fol-
lowing spring and summer.
In this work it has been found that the tar-
nished plant-bug breeds largely upon various
flowering weeds, such as wild asters, daisies and
mare’s tail (Erigeron canadensis). The tarnished
plant-bug deposits its eggs in the blossoms of the
host plant and not in the tissue of the leaves or
stems. These eggs hatch in from five to seven
days and the insect passes through five distinct
nymphal stages in its development in the place of
four, as other writers have maintained. The insect
remains in each nymphal stage for about the same
length of time and completes its growth in from
thirty to thirty-five days.
Victork E. SHELFORD, Uniwersity of Chicago: The
Ontogomy of Elytral Pigmentation in Cicindela.
The pigment develops in the form of a faint
pattern, somewhat variable, but with certain
lighter areas occurring in the same general posi-
tion in several species. These lighter areas lie
between the trachee and in certain transverse
bands; their position corresponds to those of cer-
tain white markings of Ethiopian and Oriental
species.
N. L. University of Illinois: The
Tracheation of the Pupal Wings of some Sa-
turnians.
A method of preparing permanent mounts of
lepidopterous pupal wings was described. The
pupal wings were removed in the customary man-
ner and the specimens secured, floated upon clean
water to straighten the wings and remove any dirt
which might adhere to them. Then they were
placed on a clean, untreated glass slide, smoothed
and allowed to dry, without further treatment.
The result was a transparent mount showing all
the tracheoles as well as the trachew. Some of
these mounts were used as lantern slides, giving
clear images on the screen.
It was shown that a greater amount of varia-
tion was found in the pupal wings than in the
adult wings. The homologies between the trachee
and veins, of the specimens shown, was indicated.
L. B. Watton, Kenyon College: Studies on the
Mouth-parts of Rhyparobia maderie@ (Blattide)
Fesruary 21, 1913)
with a consideration of the Homologies existing
between the Appendages of the Hexapoda.
The question as to the homologies existing
among the paired appendages of the Hexapoda
has received attention from various investigators,
and in particular from Hansen, Heymons, Borner,
Verhoeff and Escherig, none of whom, however,
have progressed far toward a satisfactory solu-
tion of the problem. In general it has been ac-
cepted that the stipes and mentum corresponded
to the thoracic and abdominal coxe while the
maxillary and labial palpi were equivalent to the
trochanter, femur, ete., of the functional leg.
Studies on Rhyparobia madere, the ‘‘ giant cock-
roach’’ from Panama, particularly of 10 mm. and
12 mm. embryos, as well as other investigations
in connection with the appendages of the Thysan-
ura, make it evident that the typical appendage
(mouth parts, thoracic, abdominal, caudal) of the
Hexapoda consists of seven definite areas best
represented by the maxille with the galea, lacina,
ectostipe,’ endostipe, ectocardo, endocardo and
palpus. Furthermore, the palpus should be homol-
ogized with the stylus of the thoracic and abdom-
inal coxe and not with the functional leg, inas-
much as both palpus and stylus are appendages
of homodynamous areas (ectostipe, ectomentum,
meron) while the leg is an appendage of the area
(endocoxa) corresponding to the endostipes.
The facts noted suggest the origin of the bira-
mose appendage of the Hexapoda directly from
the parapodium of the Polycheta, the notopodium
and neuropodium arising in connection with the
dorsal and ventral bundles of sete and corre-
sponding to the outer (ectal) and inner (endal)
groups of sclerites as outlined above. It would
thus appear that the Arthropoda are a polyphyletic
group, and that the relationship between the ap-
pendages of the Hexapoda and Crustacea is a
more remote one than generally accepted in con-
nection with the studies of Hansen and Borner.
The historical development of the problem as
well as the presentation of the facts which would
Seem to establish the views here advanced, will
appear in the completed paper, of which this is a
partial summary.
JAMES ZETEK, Sanitary Commission Canal Zone:
“The prefixes ‘‘ecto’’ and ‘‘endo’’ have been
utilized in an attempt to establish a better nom-
enclature, while minor changes have been made in
the terminology of older parts, e. g., ‘‘ectostipes’’
‘S a more cumbersome term than ‘‘ectostipe.’’
SCIENCE
309
Determining the Flight of Mosquitoes. Read by
title.
A. RiILEy, Cornell University: Some
Sources of Laboratory Material for Work on
the Relation of Insects to Disease.
The demand for at least elementary courses on
the relation of insects to disease brings up the
question as to available laboratory material.
There is comparatively little difficulty in obtaining
the parasitic mites, ticks, lice, house-flies, mosqui--
toes and fleas in their various stages, but it is
usually assumed that most of the pathogenic Pro-
tozoa are tropical species and that nothing can be
substituted for them in laboratory work. As a
matter of fact, a number of insect-borne Protozoa
and worms occur in this country and, together
with other blood parasites whose life-history is less
better known, are available for laboratory work.
The species discussed were Trypanosoma lewisi, a
widely distributed parasite of brown rats; Trypan-
osoma rotatorium from the frog; the related
Crithidia from the ‘‘sheep tick’’; Herpetomonas
from the house-fly; Monocystis from the seminal
vesicles of the earthworm as introductory to the
study of the Hemosporidia; Lankesterella ran-
arum, Hemogregarina sp.; Proteosoma, Halter-
idium, Babesia hilaria in the blood of the crow
and English sparrow, and Dipylidium caninum,
the double-spored tapeworm of dogs, cats and
man.
Y. H. Tsou and S. B. Tracker, University of
Illinois: The Homology of the Body Sete of
Lepidopterous Larve.
This paper consisted (1) of a statement of the
difficulties involved in homologizing the body sete
of these larve, (2) of a consideration of the
serial homology of the sete of the different seg-
ments and (3) of the specific homology in the
larger groups. Greek letters were employed to
designate the sete in order to obviate the con-
fusion which has arisen from the use of numbers
in different ways by different authors. The pro-
thorax of Hepialus was shown to represent the
primitive arrangement of sete and was used as a
type for determining the homology of the sete on
the different segments. The authors had studied
many species and gave figures of four: Hepialus
lectus and H. humuli of the Jugate, Pseudano-
phora arcanella of the Tineide and Mamestra
picta of the Noctuide. Each of these was com-
pared with the type, segment for segment. This
is the first time the sete of the prothorax have
been homologized with those of the other segments.
310
ANNA H. Morcan, Mt. Holyoke College: Eggs
and Egg-laying of May-flies.
This study of May-fly eggs was made to deter-
mine the relative fecundity of different species.
This led to the study of a series of elaborate
sculpturings found upon the chorion. In several
species the chorion bears long thread-like exten-
sions which terminate in viscid spheres or disks.
These seem to help buoy up the eggs. Threads
two and three inches long were found. In nature
these threads are probably entangled in sticks and
vegetation and this prevents the eggs from being
covered by silt. In the ovaries of half-grown
nymphs these structures are well defined and are
of aid in connecting up the life histories where
rearing is impossible.
HERBERT OSBORN, Ohio State University: Notes
on Cicadide with Especial Reference to the Ohio
Species.
Cicadas constitute a conspicuous element in
insect fauna and their relation to varied forest
conditions is discussed especially for the species
occurring in Ohio. The origin and function of
the tympanal organs present problems for study
and the suggestion is made that this structure is
primarily a secondary sexual character functioning
in sexual excitation and only incidentally a sound-
producing organ.
FrRaNK E, Lutz, American Museum of Natural
History: On the Biology of Drosophila ampelo-
phila.
This insect is remarkably useful in laboratory
work, since it can be kept going throughout the
year on bananas as food and its short life-cycle
(about ten days to two weeks) enables one to get
a large number of generations. Sexual difference
characterizes the insect. Not only do the sexes
differ in adult color and structure, but they differ
in the duration of the immature stages, in their
reactions to light and the age at death.
E. P. FEut, State Entomologist, New York: Ob-
servations on the Biology of a Blow-fly and a
Flesh-fly.
A study of Phormia regina Meign. and Sarco-
phaga georgina Wied. was undertaken primarily
for the purpose of obtaining data which could be
used as a basis for estimating the period a human
body had laid exposed to the elements in mid-
summer. Our knowledge of these two species is
summarized and original data are given on the
habits and duration of the various stages under
known climatic conditions. The egg of Phormia
and the three larval stages and puparium of both
SCIENCE
(N.S. Vou. XXXVIT. No, 947
species are described and a bibliography of each
appended.
M. PatcoH and WILLIAM C, Woops, Maine
Agricultural Experiment Station: A Study in
Antennal Variation. Read by title.
ALEX. D. MACGILLIVRAy, University of [Illinois:
Propharynz and Hypopharynez.
The pharynx after entering the occipital fora-
men makes a distinct bend toward the mouth. In
the region of the clypeus it divides transversely,
one half passes to the clypeo-labral side, the other
half to the labial side of the mouth, while folds
extend along each lateral margin and unite with
the mandibles and maxille. The name of pro-
pharynx is proposed for the portion lying adja-
cent to the clypeo-labral part of the mouth and
hypopharynx is used for the portion lining the
labial portion. The propharynx consists of three
parts: frontal lobe, epipharynx and fulcrum. The
frontal lobe is usually wanting in sucking insects,
the epipharynx is modified into a tongue or
piercing organ and the fulcrum into a cuticular
supporting plate. In the muscids the epipharynx
and fulerum are located outside of the mouth, the
proximal end of the fulcrum is attached to the
distal margin of the labrum. The hypopharynx
also consists of three parts: lingua, superlingua
and pharangial sclerites.
T. L. WAsHBURN, State Entomologist, Minnesota:
A Few Experiments in Photographing Living
Insects.
THomMas J. HEADLEE, New Jersey Agricultural
Experiment Station: Some Facts Regarding the
Influence of Temperature and Moisture Changes
on the Rate of Insect Metabolism.
While connected with the Kansas State Experi-
ment Station at Manhattan, the writer found by
subjection of different groups of the southern
grain louse (Toxoptera graminum Rodani) to vari-
ous constant temperatures under constant atmos-
pheric moisture conditions and other groups to
various constant percentages of relative humidity
under constant temperature conditions: (1) that
the rate of increase in metabolism for each 10° F.
increase in temperature, starting at 50° F., de-
creases as the optimum temperature is approached,
and that while the metabolism of degeneration
becomes more rapid after the optimum is passed
the rate of growth is retarded; (2) that a varia-
tion of from 60 to 62 per cent. in atmospheric
moisture does not affect the rate of metabolism
when the creatures have an abundant supply of
succulent food.
Fepruary 21, 1913]
Similar tests of the effect of temperature on
the rate of metabolism in Lysiphlebus tritici
Ashm. and of the effect of temperature and mois-
ture on the rate of metabolism of the chinch bug
(Blissus leucopterus Say) infected and uninfected
by the chinch-bug fungus (Sporotrichum globu-
liferum Speg.) gave similar results.
J. T. Assort, Washington University: The Strigil
in Corixide and its Probable Function. Read
by title.
Epona MosHer, University of Illinois: The Anat-
omy of some Lepidopterous Pupe. (Presented
by Mr. Alvah Peterson.)
Figures of pupe of three species were shown;
also figures of the pupe with the cases dissected
away so as to show the parts underneath. Consid-
erable difficulty has been encountered in homol-
ogizing the pupal structures from the external
appearance, particularly in the case of the fixed
parts of the head and the appendages of the head
and thorax. The leg cases were shown to be a
frequent source of error. Instead of showing
externally only the cases for the tibie and tarsi,
as Seudder claims is the case in the butterflies,
certain forms show the femur cases and either the
whole or part of the coxal cases in certain pairs
of legs. What Packard calls the paraclypeal
pieces, were shown in these forms to contain func-
tionless mandibles which had their distal margins
toothed in the ease of Lymantria.
This detailed anatomical study is to be made
the basis for a phylogenetic and taxonomic ar-
rangement of the Lepidoptera based on an exam-
ination of the characters of the pupe.
CHARLES K, Bratn, Ohio State University: Some
Anatomical Studies of Stomoxys calcitrans Lin.
(Introduced by Professor Herbert Osborn.)
The external mouth-parts and digestive system
of both sexes of this species are identical in struc-
ture, and both sexes suck blood. The external
mouth-parts consist of maxillary palpi and pro-
boseis; the latter consisting of labrum, hypo-
pharynx and the labium.
The digestive system consists of proboscis,
pharynx, @sophagus, proventriculus, intestine, rec-
tum and the appendages, viz., salivary glands,
sucking stomach and Malpighian tubes. The two
Malpighian tubules of the left Malpighian tube
have much thickened ends, which lie dorsally.
Those of the right side have no such thickened
ends, The male reproductive organs consist of a
pair of spherical testes which appear orange-
colored in dissections, owing to their pigmented
SCIENCE
311
saes, their ducts leading into the common vesicula
seminalis, the ejaculatory duct and the penis.
The female reproductive organs consist of the
ovaries, oviducts, uterus and ovipesitor, with the
appendages, the uterine glands and the receptacula
seminis.
S. W. Bitsrne, Ohio State University: Observa-
tions on the Food of Spiders. (Introduced by
Professor Herbert Osborn).
Spiders are known to feed upon insects, but
exact records of kind and quantity of food for
particular species are very meager. Extended
observations and records were made during the
summer and fall of 1912 and data from some of
these are presented. As an example of the records
given, grasshoppers constituted 39 per cent. of the
food of Miranda aurantia, 59 per cent. of the food
of Agalena nevia and 22 per cent. of the food of
Aranea trifolium during the period under ob-
servation.
HERBERT OsBoRN, Ohio State University: Observa-
tions on Insects of a Lake Beach.
The insect fauna of the Cedar Point Beach of
Lake Erie is discussed with reference to its deriva-
tion and adaptation for the conditions presented.
The insect drift, the migrant and the resident
members of the association are separated and
records of species in each group given.
C. H. TyLer-TOWNSEND, Government Entomolo-
gist of Peru: The Species-Status and the Spe-
cies-Concept. Read by title.
C. H. TyLer-TowNseND, Government Entomolo-
gist, Peru: A New Application of Taxonomic
Principles. Read by title.
The annual public address of the society was
given on Wednesday evening, January 1 in the
auditorium of the Normal School by:
Dr. P. CALvertT, University of Pennsyl-
vania: An Entomologist in Costa Rica.
There was briefly recounted certain physical and
meteorological features of that country which
render it very favorable for the study of the influ-
ence of these factors on the distribution and
habits of plants and animals. A few localities,
selected from those in which the speaker had
worked during the year from May, 1909, to May,
1910, were deseribed and their fruitfulness illus-
trated by some of the discoveries made of the
habits and life histories of the Odonata (dragon-
flies) obtained therein.
The following officers were elected for the en-
suing year:
312
President—C. J. 8. Bethune.
First Vice-president—Philip P. Calvert.
Second Vice-president—W. M. Marshall.
Secretary-Treasurer—Alex. D. MacGillivray.
Additional Members of the Executive Committee
—Herbert Osborn, C. P. Gillette, V. L. Kellogg,
J. G. Needham, C. T. Brues and Nathan Banks.
Member of Committee on Nomenclature for
three years—E. P. Felt.
ALEX. D. MACGILLIVRAY,
Secretary
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES
THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
THE eighty-fifth regular meeting of the Botan-
ical Society of Washington was held at the Cosmos
Club, Tuesday evening, January 7, 1913.
The following scientific program was presented:
Dr. Davip GrirFitHs: Performances in Species of
Opuntia. (Illustrated with lantern slides.)
This paper will be published in the near future
as a bulletin of the Bureau of Plant Industry.
Mr. J. B. Norton: Some Interesting Facts Con-
cerning the Genus Asparagus. (Illustrated with
lantern slides.)
This paper gave a review of the interesting
features connected with the work of breeding a
rust-resistant variety of asparagus. Asparagus
officinalis has never been found to be completely
immune to the attacks of its rust, Puccinia as-
paragi. Plants nearly immune to the destructive
summer stages show no resistance to the ecidial
stage of the fungus. Resistance seems to be due
to morphological causes. Related species are at-
tacked by the rust, but the members of other
sections of the genus seem immune. The genus
Asparagus and its relatives are entirely limited
to the old world, the majority being African. A
study is being made of the relationships of this
group and many new characters based en the
manner of growth, roots, stems, leaf scales, cla-
dodes, ete., have been found. The arrangement
of the stomata on.the cladodes is very character-
istic in the various groups. The old genus As-
paragus contains several very distinct groups of
species entitled to generic rank.
Only one hybrid form of known parentage has
been secured, a cross between A. officinalis and
A. davuricus. Many other combinations have
failed to produce seed. Asparagus grows rapidly
—some species average nine inches per day. The
seed germination takes from 12 days with offici-
nalis to 60 or more days with some African spe-
SCIENCE
(N.S. Vou. XXXVII. No, 947
cies. Several new ornamental forms were de-
scribed.
C. L.
Corresponding Secretary
THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB
THE meeting of November 12, 1912, was held
at the American Museum of Natural History,
President Burgess presided.
The announced scientific program consisted of
an illustrated lecture by Dr. J. J. Levison on
‘*Tree Problems of our City.’’
THE meeting of November 27, 1912, was held
in the laboratory of the New York Botanical
Garden. Vice-president Barnhart presided.
The first paper was by Dr. W. A. Maurrill, on
‘*The Polypores of the Adirondacks.’’ This paper
has been published in full in the Journal of the
New York Botanical Garden, 13: 174-178, No-
vember, 1912.
The second number was given by Dr. A. B.
Stout. The subject of his discussion was ‘‘The
Distribution of Tissues in the Root Tip of Carez
aquatilis.’’ Several photomicrographs of sections
of root tips were exhibited, and drawings were
made to illustrate particular features in the ar-
rangement of the tissues.
THE meeting of December 10, 1912, was held
at the American Museum of Natural History.
President Burgess presided.
On the motion of Dr. Southwick the treasurer
was authorized to draw an order for the sum of
twenty dollars in favor of Dr. William Mansfield
to cover the dues as the representative of the club
to the council of the New York Academy of
Sciences.
The paper of the evening was on ‘‘Diatoms,’’
by Dr. Marshall A. Howe. It was a semi-popular
account of the principal structural and morpho-
logical features of diatoms, their distribution and
habitat, their geological interest and importance,
the various economic uses of diatomaceous earths,
ete. The talk was illustrated by about seventy-
five lantern slides from the collection of the late
Charles F. Cox. Many of the photographs shown
were made under high powers of magnification
and they brought out with much distinctness the
secondary markings and other minute structural
details of the walls of various types of diatoms.
B. O.
Secretary